Transcript of The House

I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, a dead body in a yard, terror in the night, the end of a family, the start of a mystery.

My dad was my best friend.

He just liked to make people smile.

He would always boast about how he was an FBI agent. He was so proud. My brother and his friend came running down to the neighbor's house.

Just call 911.

Okay, I'm calling. What is going on?

His body had appeared to be concealed.

A robber is not going to take the time to cover your body. It's personal.

There may be some tenants that had bad blood.

I'm getting gambled all the time.

Someone that he put behind bars might have had it out for him.

Several doors were padlocked.

It seemed like it was forever, but it was maybe a 10-second silence in the courtroom.

He was an FBI agent.

Dealt with many criminals.

He could take care of himself.

At least he thought so.

Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The House.

A young man walks toward his house in the middle of the evening. He's wearing a GoPro camera. To do that. Now, if it sounds strange for someone to start recording a video of their own actions, well, stay tuned. This is actually one of the less weird things you'll hear about. What happened next was nothing short of terrifying.

Call 911!

What's going on? What he found that night would spark an investigation and a mystery that would only deepen over time. It's all linked to the drama that began just hours earlier when a daughter couldn't find her father. Scott Horn wasn't the kind of dad to disappear. You see, Scott had spent 23 years as an FBI special agent. Even in retirement, he still scheduled his life like clockwork.

If he did something, he normally did that same thing every single day at the same time. He never slept in either. He was up every morning at 7:30.

Scott's daughter, Kelly, was living on her own by age 18. Even so, she remembers her dad starting each morning with the same phone call.

Your dad called to wake you up every day?

Yeah, he would call and say, "Are you up?" And then 5 minutes later, he would call and say, "Are you up?" Oh, so he's not just the alarm clock.

He's also the snooze alarm.

Yeah.

Except on that morning, March 16, 2017, Kelly's phone was silent.

So I texted him, and he didn't respond. And I called him, and the phone went straight to voicemail. And I texted him, and I said, "I hope you're okay." This is unlike him. Totally.

He would respond to you?

Yeah.

Kelly reached out to her dad's next-door neighbors, Marty and Cindy.

Kelly called and asked me if I'd seen Scott all day, and I said no, I hadn't.

And she said, uh, call a wellness check. So I called the Laurel police. They came out.

His name's Scott, right? Yeah. Nice house.

Officers from the Laurel, Maryland Police Department met Kelly at the house. To do what's called a welfare check, when police go to an address essentially to make sure something bad hasn't happened.

We walked through the house.

We're police. Law Police Department.

They moved from room to room.

So my dad normally would take the dogs out to make sure they went potty outside, and there was pee all over the floor.

Which meant the dogs had been left inside for a long time.

Right.

Because now it isn't just the morning he's been missing. Obviously, nobody has seen him since like the day before.

Right.

They went into the basement. Another officer searched upstairs. Officer Matt Zimmerman was there.

Nothing appeared to be in disarray. Nothing appeared to be— have a struggle.

I'm going to take my dog.

She grabbed some belongings and stated that she was going to continue to try and locate her father.

Do you want to report him missing or— I guess so.

Later eventually arrived, and Kelly still hadn't heard from her dad.

By this time, you have to be really scared.

I was.

I was.

Kelly had been talking with her older brother Riley. He hadn't seen their dad since the night before and was worried too. So that evening, Riley went over to the house with a friend. That's when Riley hit record on his GoPro. And headed up the lawn of his family's large suburban home. As they walked, Riley and his friend heard banging and clattering on the left side of the house. And when they went to the area where the sounds had come from, they could make out a tarp in the darkness. They lifted it up. What they saw sent Riley running to a neighbor's house where his sister Kelly was waiting.

Just call 911.

Okay, I'm calling.

No, no, wait.

I need a police officer.

EMS.

What do you mean? Kelly ran to the house.

I just— I didn't understand what was happening.

They saw a body. They didn't know who it was.

I honestly don't remember. I was so like— my adrenaline kicked in and I ran up to the house and I stopped right before the door and I just fell to my knees and I was crying and screaming.

So. Went out to the porch and saw her prostrate in the snow, you know, just screaming. It was 10 minutes or so before I could understand what she was saying.

Which was what?

That her dad was dead.

For the second time, Officer Zimmerman was first on the scene.

My father is under a bunch of—

What is that?

It's a GoPro on our— So we start moving down the driveway.

I tell him to show me. Where he found the body.

Ah, right here.

I can't look. He's got me.

Scott Horn was dead. Now the mechanics of a murder investigation began.

You got crime scene tape?

Where's the body? A couple more units here. Going to have a potential crime scene.

When we return, a body in the side yard. Police in the front and someone in the house apparently unaware of it all.

Hello?

Police department. Can you come down here, ma'am?

What is going on?

Well, we're just conducting an investigation right now, ma'am.

And whoever murdered Scott Horn didn't just kill him. This was overkill.

So someone shoots him from behind, and then after he's on the ground, begins beating him.

That's correct.

Police were swarming the house on this quiet residential road. Scott Horn had been found by his son. He'd been murdered in his own backyard.

Can you, uh, contact Kessie?

Detective Kessie Henderson. Came to lead the investigation. He didn't need a medical examiner to tell him Scott Horne had been the victim of a brutal murder. And it wasn't just a beating. Another investigator noticed a bullet lodged in a shed.

Scott was shot in the neck.

Would the neck wound have killed him by itself?

No, the neck wound would have disabled him.

So someone shoots him from behind, and then after he's on the ground, begins beating him.

That's correct.

Could you tell what he was beaten with?

He was beaten with firewood.

You didn't find the specific piece of firewood he was beaten with?

No, unable to find that.

Unable to find it, maybe because next to the body was a wood-burning stove. It connected to a boiler that heated the whole house. Scott had installed the system. He was quite proud of it. Suddenly, it seemed Scott's own accomplishment might have helped his killer destroy the murder weapon.

Possible that someone just threw it in the boiler after they were done using it?

That's correct.

Detective Anderson had a sense of how Scott died. To get to the who, the detective needed more about his victim's life. And right there at the crime scene, family and friends were eager to talk.

I go right up to the officers, and I identify who I am, and I let them know that he's one of ours. They know he's a retired FBI agent.

Monique Winkes had been one of Scott's supervisors at the Bureau.

It has to be weird being both an FBI agent and a friend of the victim in that situation.

It is.

It's a tough place to be. You want to do so much more.

You're more friend than special agent in that moment.

Yes. I'm there for the family. I'm there for him.

Not surprising. That was the way Scott had been there for the Bureau. He'd carried FBI credentials for more than 2 decades after serving in the Air Force.

He just liked to laugh and make people smile.

So in suspect interviews, he was the perfect good cop?

He was. He would say, listen, just be honest with us, work with us, and I'll talk to the prosecutors, I'll talk to my boss, we'll see what we can do for you.

And then you would come in and put them in a chokehold, right?

Exactly. Tell us the truth.

On drug cases, bank robberies, and kidnappings, Scott Horn's good cop persona came in handy. After a while, family considerations made him ask for a lower-octane assignment: background checks for people seeking government jobs.

That squad handled polygraphs, presidential appointments. New recruits came through that squad.

Now, that's not exactly the sexiest of FBI details.

It's not. It's not something that everyone shoots for. But it really had consistent hours.

It's a dad schedule.

It's a dad schedule, exactly.

Scott's wife, Ann, worked long shifts as a nurse. Their daughter, Kelly, says dad liked being Mr.

Mom.

He made sure that we ate a well-balanced meal every night, and he made sure we went to bed on time, and all of our homework got done, and that our clothes were clean. My dad was my best friend. He took me everywhere with him and taught me so much.

Scott loved his family, including the four-legged members.

Mama bear, there was Papa bear, and then there was Kenai bear.

And running a close second to family, Scott's passion for this four-bedroom house. It had more than just his fingerprints on it.

Our house is, is so wonderful. I, I know it sounds really conceited, but it is. It's something to be proud of.

And a lot of the nice things about it he had personally worked on.

Oh yeah, lots of projects. Solar panels, wood burning stove, you know, the pool had solar panels that heated it.

All he's doing.

Yeah, there were just so many projects that he was excited and, and did in the house.

Now that house Scott had loved so much had become a crime scene. Outside, officers stood watch, but inside—

Hello, Royal Police Department.

Can you come down here, ma'am?

Yeah.

Someone was walking down the stairs.

Who else lives here? Anyone else? My husband. Your husband?

It was Ann Allen, Scott's wife and Kelly and Riley's mom. Ann appeared to have no idea what what was transpiring just outside her front door. What is going on?

Well, we're just conducting an investigation right now, ma'am. For what?

It would be up to a detective to tell Anne what was going on.

There's a man deceased over in the yard, OK?

There's a deceased man in my yard? I haven't— I haven't— Who is it?

Coming up. Did Scott have money problems?

I know he gambles all the time.

Or other problems?

We did receive leads that there may be some tenants had bad blood.

When Dateline continues.

I tried to get a second evidence takeoff for us.

As he began his investigation, Detective Kezi Henderson thought it best to keep some details of Scott Horn's murder to himself.

Ma'am, Detective Henderson.

So as he talked with Scott's wife, Ann, in the couple's kitchen, Henderson was careful not to share everything he knew.

Where is Scott at? The last night Scott was early, early this morning.

There's a man that she spoke in the yard.

Okay. There's a deceased man in my yard. I haven't— I haven't—

Ann seemed to have no idea what was going on. And if you're wondering why Ann hadn't been out searching for her husband earlier, the answer is that after 2 decades of marriage, Ann and Scott were living separate lives under the same roof while negotiating a divorce.

He doesn't talk to me. I mean, he won't tell me anything. I hardly ever see him. He's gone most of the day, every day. I don't know what else to tell you.

Right away, Ann helped police with this detail— where Scott had likely been the night before his body was found.

I know he gambles all the time.

He'd been at a casino.

We established a timeline for him. And we wanted to look at maybe someone followed him.

Security footage from the Maryland Live Casino showed Scott spending some of his final hours playing cards. After midnight, he cashed out and headed to his car.

How do you know he wasn't followed coming back from the casino?

The video footage of him walking around inside the casino, he's by himself. There was no one tagging along behind him when he went into his car. There's no one following him in the parking garage.

The night of his murder, Scott Horn won less than $100. Kelly says that was typical. Her dad was hardly a high roller.

I wouldn't call it gambling. If anything, my— when my dad went to play, he would go and strategize what table was the best table to sit at because of winning.

Detective Henderson still had to determine if this was a random crime of opportunity, a robbery gone wrong. Investigators at the scene had noted Scott's cell phone and wallet were missing.

We checked into the activity on his bank cards. There were no activity. In my experience, when a robber takes property from a victim, you know, they end up at a gas station and they're trying to use the cards as quickly as possible.

Yes.

Didn't happen.

No, not in this case.

And anyway, the crime scene was telling the investigators this wasn't random.

There was a lot of emotion involved in the way Scott was assaulted because whoever murdered him shot him.

He falls to the ground. They could have shot him again, but instead they choose to beat him to death.

That's correct.

Which sounds like anger.

Hey, Dennis.

As an FBI agent for 23 years, Scott Horne had come into contact with plenty of bad guys, many of whom might have carried a grudge about Scott putting his hands or his cuffs on them. So they looked at Scott's cases and found a whole lot of nothing.

There had never been any threats in his past that I'm aware of. There'd never been anything like that, that I'm going to get you or curse you you.

And even though that does happen, it does, but that didn't seem to apply with him.

That is correct, it did not apply with him.

So what about Scott's second career? After fixing up his own house, Scott had bought several properties in the neighborhood. He was now a landlord with more than a dozen tenants.

We did receive leads that there may be, um, some tenants had bad blood.

Detective Henderson found out Scott had recently evicted some from one of his rental properties.

Any possibility those people could have been angry enough at Scott to want him dead?

We received that information. We followed up on that as a lead.

A lead that, like others, didn't go anywhere. As they ticked through the possibilities, investigators were thinking the heart of this mystery was closer to home. That included considering Scott's son Riley. Detectives knew the person who discovers the body is sometimes the murderer.

I want you— listen to me. I want you out front on the porch. Have a seat. Have a seat.

We brought Raleigh back to the station. He voluntarily came. He also voluntarily gave us a detailed description of what he found and how he found it.

And where he'd been.

And where he'd been.

But Detective Anderson quickly determined Riley had been at work all day.

As far as you know, he had no history of being at odds with his dad?

He actually loved his dad, and his dad was one of the stronger figures in his life as a mentor also.

Like Kelly, Riley said his dad had been his best friend. So then who were Scott's enemies? That big house looked beautiful from the outside. Inside was another story.

Coming up, life behind closed doors.

You sort of keep the details of this from other people?

Yeah, it's embarrassing. It got to the point where there were locks on everyone's doors.

The celebration of Scott Horne's life drew quite a crowd.

Nobody could make Scott laugh more than Scott could make Scott laugh.

There were jokes and tears, and there was an air of awkwardness too. Scott's estranged wife was in the front row. Just about everyone who was close to Scott knew there'd been trouble inside that marriage and that home.

And I even said, I said, Scott, you should leave the house.

Debbie Wrightson Tessier was an FBI colleague and one of Scott's best friends. She says the clashes with Anne started years earlier, mostly over the kids.

What I saw, sometimes she would be really sweet and nice to the kids, and then she could just turn on a dime and be mean to them.

You saw that?

I saw— yeah, I saw that on occasion.

And he'd tell you about it other times?

Yeah.

It turned out Scott's friends were getting only glimpses of what happened at home. Daughter Kelly says growing up, her mother was volatile, sometimes violent.

You sort of keep the details of this from other people?

Yeah.

You know, you don't want everybody to know that you're living in this atmosphere?

Yeah, it's embarrassing.

Kelly says one time she got in trouble for breaking a rule and having a Facebook account. And then for borrowing a pair of her mom's heels. For that, she says, Ann made her sleep in a hallway for months. Her dad, she said, pushed back.

We were in the hallway where I had been sleeping, and an argument arose, and my dad said that, you know, that I deserved to have my bedroom back. And my mom got so angry.

Out of nowhere, Kelly says Ann pulled a handgun from underneath her bathrobe and pointed it at Scott.

She said, uh, you know, we, we made an agreement You said, "I'm taking care of the kids, and if you get in my way, there's gonna be a problem." Like, his whole demeanor changed. It was more like, "Okay, you know, we're just gonna take a step back." And you leave the house with him?

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

What'd he say?

He just said, "If you ever see her gun again, call 911." You never saw that gun again?

No.

Kelly says that happened about 5 years before the murder. And she says the fighting escalated in the years that followed.

It was bad. It got to the point where there were locks on everyone's doors, on the outside and on the inside.

Both spouses padlocked their bedroom doors to keep the other out. Scott and Ann became two sides of the same coin, bound together but unable to face one another. It was a toxic atmosphere. That seemed beyond repair. Riley began recording his interactions with his own mother. That's why he was wearing a GoPro the night he went looking for his missing dad. By that point, the family home was already quite familiar to the Laurel PD.

How many times police come to that house?

We—

they knew us regularly. They were there a lot.

You lost count?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We didn't lose count. Between 2012 and the start of 2017, Laurel Police responded to that home at least 15 times. Sometimes it was Ann calling.

Sometimes it was Scott calling. Sometimes it was the kids.

Sometimes they went down and filed paperwork on their own. We found 30 cases ranging from domestic violence to second-degree assault to numerous protective orders. All of it representing more contact with law enforcement and the criminal justice system than most of us have in a lifetime. None of those cases resulted in criminal convictions for anyone. Kelly says her mom told her to move out of the house at 18. Scott, however, stayed. This was, after all, his house. That said, Debbie believes Scott may have underestimated his wife's resolve and that Ann's engine was running on spite.

She said, he loves this house. She said, I hate this house, and if he thinks that he's going to live here and keep this house, he has another thing coming. She said, because I will take this house from him and I will take everything everything he has, and I can do it.

Detective Kezi Henderson heard all of this and thought back to the first night he spoke with Ann. Was she really as clueless as she seemed?

Is a deceased man in my yard?

She seemed calm.

Maybe too calm, thought Detective Henderson, and definitely too eager to offer up alternative theories.

I know he gambles all the time, and he's got a lot of people that are angry with him right now.

Scott has enemies. Scott has gambling problems.

Did you find any evidence that Scott had any enemies other than his wife?

No.

They did find evidence that Ann was likely home all day. She said as much to police.

No police.

That would mean she was there that afternoon when Kelly and the officers went to check on Scott. How could Ann not hear them? Investigators now believed Scott was already dead at the time of the welfare check. As for those sounds Riley said he heard by the side of the house when when he went over there that night. He later told police there was more to that. He'd seen someone out there.

Did you actually see who it was, or— I did not. It was just all shadow. Okay, you saw figures? Yes.

He said he believed that shadow was his mom. Police asked Ann about it that night.

Have you been outside? I was outside to put wood on the fire, but that was it. And you didn't see Stan up there? No.

Investigators thought Ann was hiding something. Were they all just dead wrong?

Coming up, another side of Ann.

Ann was very kind-hearted, very compassionate.

And wood chips in a washing machine.

It suggested a cleanup.

It suggested cleanup.

When Dateline continues.

As investigators dug into the circumstances surrounding Scott Horn's death, his estranged wife Anne was quickly emerging as a prime suspect. Police spoke with neighbors like Cindy and Marty.

You thought it was Ann from the get-go?

I did, yes. They say Ann seemed aggressive and never missed a chance to spread what they say were lies about Scott.

This is Ann Allen. I, um, just wanted to give you a quick call. It was nice.

Here's a voicemail Ann left them months before Scott was killed.

He's brutal. And he, because he ran the streets until he— I married him at age 37. He was nothing but a man whore.

Another neighbor shared with police this video of an interaction she had with Ann on the street.

I left because I was not going to be beaten up by him.

At the time, Ann was claiming her family was abusive to her.

You know, I have a really hard time believing that that happened.

I know, because you're stupid and you don't know how deceptive an FBI agent can be.

And as neighbors shared these stories, one name kept popping up: Jason Byrd.

Jason Byrd is a person who was previously employed by Scott Horn.

He was one of Scott's contractors, and prosecutor Melissa Hauptmeyer heard enough to make her think Jason should be investigated.

What was the gossip in that neighborhood? I mean, your people went out and talked with a bunch of neighbors.

That Ann was out to get Scott, that they had a very contentious divorce, that she was having an affair with Jason and wanted to, I guess, I don't know, ride into the sunset with Jason.

Anne denies they were anything more than friends. Still, police wondered if Anne's friend had helped her after the murder, maybe disposing of the gun and Scott's wallet and cell phone. It turns out Jason's truck was spotted at the house, and neighbor Cindy took this photo of what police thought was Jason leaving the house that afternoon. That led to a police theory. Ann had asked Jason to get rid of Scott's things.

He doesn't seem to be carrying anything in his hands, but he— I guess he could have had Scott's property in his pockets.

Yes, he could have had, uh, Scott's property in his pockets. He could have had the handgun in his pockets.

Weeks went by and there were no arrests. Kelly thought it was just a matter of time.

I never had any doubt that she did it.

You were, you were still sure it was her?

Yes.

Could Kelly be right that her mom killed her dad? Impossible, says Ann's friend Rita Lipinski. She and Ann went to high school together, and Rita says Ann's life is marked by her goodness to others.

Ann was very kind-hearted, very compassionate.

She says Ann used that kind heart and compassion over her 30-year career as a nurse, part of it at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

She would tell me how sometimes she would actually hum and/or softly sing to her patients, whether they were soldiers or Infants.

Ann's background is not what you typically associate with someone who's a murderer.

Correct.

Ann's divorce attorney, Lauren Calecas, says the picture police were getting was clouded by a tumultuous marriage and a bitter divorce. And she says, don't blame Ann for that.

Why was that house such a toxic place?

And why didn't anyone want to leave?

So I think a lot of the issues that developed between Ann and Scott actually arose from their daughter Kelly, um, and Anne had a difference of opinion from Scott as to how to deal with Kelly.

Despite Anne's long hours at work, Lauren paints her as an involved parent, Scott as overly permissive, and Kelly as an out-of-control teen.

There were many allegations that Anne made against Kelly, that Kelly was physically violent with Anne.

Kelli denies all of that and says her mom lied. So was Ann mean, erratic, or violent? Her attorney Lauren says not at all. She was just a mom trying to compensate for her husband's lax parenting.

Ann grew up in a very strict Catholic family, and she had her idea of how to deal with Kelli.

She says Scott had turned the kids against their mom. Kelli's story about the gun? Anne's lawyer says it never happened, and police found no proof Anne had ever bought a gun. And as for what neighbors and friends thought and heard, Lauren says Anne was just trying to defend her reputation and get a fair settlement.

Anne knew that Scott was going around telling these individuals their personal business, painting a terrible picture of who Anne was as a wife and a mother.

Lauren says she hoped the police suspicion of Anne would subside. It did not. Once again, body cams were rolling on June 30th, 2017.

Police, open the door. Good morning. Hi, we can't find you back there in the restroom.

At a hotel 2.5 miles from her former home, Ann Allen was arrested for Scott's murder. Jason Byrd was later arrested as well.

It was like a weight off of our shoulders, you know. It's— something's finally gonna be done.

After Ann's arrest, the crime lab gave police some welcome news. Some wood chips found in the family washing machine had Scott's DNA on them.

It linked the house and the person in the house, which was Ann Allen, to the murder.

And it suggested a cleanup.

And it suggested a cleanup.

Even with this new evidence, prosecutors were worried. The case against Ann Allen was threatening to fall apart before it even got started.

Coming up—

From the moment Detective Henderson arrived on that scene, Ann was the one and only suspect.

Did detectives rush to judgment, and did the jury hear enough to make a judgment?

We were really limited to what the jury could hear about what really went on in that house.

Charged with her husband's murder, Ann Allen pleaded not guilty and waited in jail for her trial to begin. Her friend Rita was stunned.

It was like, you got to be kidding. Uh, there's no way that Ann would do something so heinous. There is no way.

Ann's defense attorney, Andrew Jezik.

So she's in jail and she just couldn't conceive that anybody could think that this lifelong nurse would harm anyone.

Jezik says he looked at the state's case and saw no real evidence. He says common sense told him there was no way Ann could have pulled off such a brutal beating since she walked with a cane or a crutch. The scene itself is so important, and the manner of the killing— his forehead was demolished by whatever was hitting him, was presumably a piece of wood, and it just didn't have that strength.

I'm guessing the state responded to that by saying that people who were furious enough at other people can do superhuman things.

They can say that, right? But then again, there needs to be evidence of it. Not long after Ann was arrested, the state's case seemed to fray. After first arresting Jason Byrd, prosecutors decided not to move forward and dropped all charges.

When we got to the point when we were going to present the evidence to the grand jury to make a decision, there wasn't enough.

Search warrants were executed for Jason's home, for his truck.

Correct.

And nothing— none of Scott's stuff was there, right?

Prosecutors forged ahead, hoping a jury would see what they saw: a woman who appeared sweet and harmless but was actually filled with murderous rage. But prosecutors were also hampered by what they could say in court.

Maryland law doesn't allow all prior bad acts to come in, and so because of that, we were really limited to what the jury could hear about what really went on in that house.

Do they get a real perspective? They get a real picture of what life was like there?

I don't think they did.

The jury didn't get to hear just how toxic that marriage was, didn't get to see the entirety of those police files on the family.

Because you're stupid.

Stupid and didn't get to hear any of those neighbors' recordings of Anne. Still, prosecutors said Anne was the only person who hated Scott enough to kill him.

It's personal.

You think Anne killed Scott not as a result of some argument that sort of flew off the handle. You think that when she woke up that day, that was the plan?

I think she waited for him to get home that day. I think she knew he was going to go put a log or a few logs on. I think she waited and she went out there and attacked him.

Have you been outside?

I was outside to put wood on the fire, but that was it.

And they said Ann's story about going outside to throw logs on the fire was beyond suspicious.

No, literally, in order to open that shed, would have had to step over Scott Horn's body, and she saw nothing. Saw nothing.

On top of her hatred for Scott, the state said there was another motive.

His life insurance.

How much?

So, $500,000.

The prosecutors knew that defense attorneys would say Anne was physically too frail to beat Scott to death, so they were ready. A security camera at neighbor Cindy's house showed that sometimes Anne used crutches And other times she did not.

The crutch and the cane would come and go, it seemed, at will.

I mean, neighbors saw her both before and after walking around. She was fine. I mean, was she a person in her 60s? Absolutely. But she's not incapable of committing this crime.

The jury heard about the wood chips in the washer, except Ann's DNA wasn't on them. Just Scott's. In fact, prosecutors couldn't prove that Ann's DNA was on Scott's body at all.

Juries like DNA.

Juries like DNA.

You didn't have it.

I didn't have it.

You go with ibuprofen or Advil every night?

Wine.

The defense thought prosecutors had every reason to worry because they said there was zero proof Ann killed Scott. They argued the whole investigation was a classic case of tunnel vision.

I think 100%, from the moment Detective Henderson arrived on that scene, Ann was the one and only suspect. And you can see it when you watch his first interaction with her in the kitchen.

Listen, listen, if you know anything about that, then you need to be honest.

He was interacting with her like he knew that he found the person that did this, and that was it.

The defense argued there was nothing suspicious about Ann not seeing Scott's body in the yard. The video proved how dark it was, and even police didn't find it when they went there for the welfare check that afternoon. The defense pushed back at the state's theory that Ann was motivated by money. Turns out she wasn't the beneficiary on that life insurance policy. Scott had taken her name off it. And a deep dive into the family finances showed this.

Scott had $220,000-plus in credit card debt spread amongst 21 different credit cards.

And she's on the hook for that?

Absolutely.

The defense rested, and jurors went to deliberate. After one day, they told the judge they were deadlocked. She sent them back, and on day two there was a verdict.

When the verdict was read, Ann just starts like wailing, just wailing. And she kept on just saying, "Thank you, God. Thank you, God.

Thank you, God." I had a lot of people who were praying for Ann. And when I heard the verdict, it was like, "Yes, the prayers were answered." Ann Allen was found not guilty, and she was set free.

I think she got away with murder.

Everybody got up and it was over. On to the next case.

Scott's friends at the FBI were devastated.

I wish there was more justice for him. He worked as an investigator solving crimes, and his crime will never, I don't think, ever be solved.

Laurel police say the case isn't closed, but they're not actively investigating unless new leads come in. Ann cannot be tried again. And after the verdict, she moved to another state. As for Riley and Kelly, they told us they're moving forward and trying to live each day the way their dad would have.

You know, Riley and I determine how we do things by, how would Dad do it? So, you know, just doing it the Skyhorn way.

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.