The Clearing
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not available in all states and situations. It's post pounding footage. It's a train.

You can't stop IT. You're being very routed, you know, otto, stop this, someone with the finger of my face when you killed your wife.

These women had located body.

The woods is very thick and almost impossible. I have pushing these wines, mr. Emily.

there's some sort of cord wrapped around her neck.

The question is simple, is this homicide or suicide? IT didn't look like a suicide.

This is a murder case. They did this thing .

to try to red.

She's.

they searched the house, the attack, the car. They find nothing.

Why have the cops fixed on him with an easy.

fixed in an obvious one? The first suspect is always the Sparks, right? We don't know her journey. We don't know those last minutes.

Did you do that? man? Did you kill your wife?

What is like.

I want to hear .

you say that winning feeling for .

me to say that i'm lester hot and this is deadline.

Here's Dennis Murphy with the clearing. SHE absolutely love the words that's something everyone gonna ree on deep in the forest Emily nursed her soul in the joyce quiet. It's where SHE found peace and even food for her table. Did SHE also go there to escape? People here in western willow hio still wonder about that.

There is a big mystery. I would just love to know the details. What happened? What really happened that night?

Take a look. What do you see for most of us is just a snorer of bushes and brambles. Emily noble saw that and something else, maybe a salad and a soup for dinner and arable tea. SHE was obsessed with fragment, the art of discovering food in nature. SHE shared her passion with friends like so less grown.

SHE had a book that was like four inches, maybe even thicker. And I had every single plant in IT, and he could identify what they were.

SHE would like to go out and around .

her cool Emily for in Crystal William bartons at dix dan, a music venue in nearby one of Emily's favorite hangouts.

SHE was way in the live music, and he is still love to come here. I've cut a rug with her on the dance for, or many times, I would say Emily was very much a free spirit SHE just was this little ferry SHE just had so much light and energy in her.

People were drawn to her neo hippy, tiny dancer spirit friends like windy carny hatch.

Just really cute, really adorable, darkly hair and bright eyes and beautiful teeth, great smile. And when he walked, there is a little like a little rhythm to a stop.

IT may have seen that Emily was dancing through life, but IT hadn't been easy sheet revived a lot of crushing sadness over the years. And in twenty twenty, as the pandemic took hold, life got particularly hard like so many of us. Emily and her husband, mp, were in locked down.

But on sunday, may twenty forth, Emily and mat wanted to get out and celebrate. IT was Emily's fifty second birthday. IT was also memorial day weekend. So they dip their toes back into the local knights life scene with a trip to some bar.

IT was right after the bars we opened from covey, and they were the only people I had for the time that they were there. They were there for about forty five minutes.

Jessica beverage was tending bar that night. He had time to observe her only customers.

We talked a little bit about like covered things like I had wear back for int. And they told me that since I was a birthday, they were going to continue to kind of bar up a little bit.

Emily mad, got home around seven night, turned into morning, into afternoon at two forty seven pm. On may twenty five, Emily's friends, or less grown, got a call from .

Emily's phone. So I picked up and I said, hi, Emily and IT was mad and he said, is Emily over there? And I said, no. And he said that they were supposed to go to a party in the afternoon, and he hadn't seen her, and he hadn't returned from a walk in the morning, and he was assuming IT was a book. And I said, what is this Normal and he said, no, it's not Normal and is he called the police .

so let's jumped in a car that got back on the phone.

My wife has been missing all the purchase there, whether I be the a car here or their charges, follow here with .

his body cam rolling officer rob howlers of the west below hio police department arrived at Emily in at home. There was a momentary confusion after that came to the door because the left was just arriving too.

Matt did a double take. He's like, all there he .

is you he's looking to do thinking.

i'm Emily.

OK now, after the .

hello in .

a matter of .

minutes, officer hollis got most of the story was going on. He heard how matt and Emily had gone out the night before, how they came home around seven and went to bed. Early math said he woke up after midnight.

To go to the bathroom, and I don't go back to.

He told the officer he was noodling around on his phone til the we hours, not falling to sleep again until around six and not out of bed until after ten a as when he says he first noticed Emily was gone, he didn't go out to look for her, but said he waited, waited for .

hours waiting. I test twice and say, back, back me he used .

the phone finder APP and learned her phone was still in the condo. He thought maybe he went to the woods nearby .

SHE courages SHE goes for walks and SHE picks wild edibles, that kind of very hobby. SHE goes around here, there. Is a real short walk the most. A lot of the time I was like, we just about going.

The officer's quick check of the condo revealed nothing in this array. No surprises. Emily had turned out, was a housekeeper. extraordinary. Ir, that garage was a maculate.

The house was a mauled. Yeah, Emily was very neat.

She's roman particular and he just, this is on character. He would never go somewhere, not tell you where SHE so I see that the bed was made. Did you do that or SHE did that? Um I just noticed that you're right. I didn't make the bed SHE did that that was made one I I don't .

so he was .

i'm getting with the officer took off .

a few minutes to speak with colleagues outside, then returned with some news.

Your neighbor saw her in a garage about between nine and A M this morning, says he was just stand in integrating when he was leaving, he saw he was just and in air, he said hello, he said, hello. So we know. Somewhere around? okay.

Let's seem really sure maybe the case of a missing Emily novel would be one big false alarm should come wasn't through that door any minute 文胸？

The town of west ville, ohio, was waking up to a brand new day, and Emily, no, was still missing. Her husband, math hadn't seen her for more than twenty four hours. And now westin L P, D. Detective Steve grub was reading the responding officer to report about the visit with Emily's husband.

met more on my own, proactively pulled up that report and read the narrative to IT and something about IT .

just didn't see you IT that's the .

word that in or got feeling IT just felt like something was off IT turns out .

the neighbor's account of seeing, I believe, that memorial day morning had gotten fuzzy now he wasn't so sure when he had seen her last detective grub figured this missing woman story needed a deeper dive. He asked we assigned to the case and then headed to the condo with some other officers.

The song before, no at all, like our next .

step as a blood, how to see if you attract some place? By noon, a bloodhound was tracking, Emily, said the dog LED investigators to a gravel drive between two houses just a few blocks away. They knocked on the doors. No one answered. Detectives have met more to take them to the nearby woods where Emily like .

to walk that actually showed detect pg. N. I. That the area that they would go on forage.

gbs. And two other detectives returned to this, bottled little later, looked around, didn't see anything interesting. As police got to know math. They also learned more about Emily. Tell me about Emily noble, who is he turning out to be?

He seemed to be a hard work and woman work for the state of ohio.

SHE worked at the ohio department of medicine. E SHE and mad had been married for two years. Matt had worked the tables in a last vacuous casino before he left that job and moved to ohio. That did not work.

As I correct, he did not work. His mother had passed away and left him a sizable sum of money, so he didn't really need to work .

the routine he cooked. He took care of the house. They hung out, drank a bit, sometimes a lot.

And when the coffee locked down to cold, Emily started working from home. But life was rarely easy for mat and Emily. He died a lot of death in her life.

Yes, he.

he had a husband.

He had a previous marriage. And ultimately, mark committed suicide by gun. Yes.

when he remembers how much Emily loved her first husband, how awful that was when he died in two thousand and eleven.

after mark passed away, there was, there was a couple years that were pretty dark. He would get just sad. You know.

Emily's parents died a few years later in southern accidental deaths, those whom nores say Emily turned to nature to heal herself. Chris parton, a lifelong friend, said Emily put aside her own sadness by looking out for the people SHE laugh.

think IT about them, instead of think about what was going on with her. I think a lot of the time gave reception to cost trade on and what who wasn't that IT was herself.

SHE kept the photo collection of the edible plant. SHE grew and collected a visual progress report of heard devotion to forging SHE often forced in this woodland park. We took a lot of pictures with our phones, and IT was just a place you can sit and just let nature be around you.

SHE is a very good photographer. SHE really like sunrise and sunset. SHE left fog and water. Nature, obviously.

he took a lot of office, so many surfaces. Four years after her first husson died, SHE met, met. And now he was part of the picture. Math took this one showing him and Emily and his son joy. This was their family unit, because when matt moved in with Emily, his teenage sund to police noticed that joe was a painful subject for mat more. The morning he reported Emily missing, he mentioned joy right away.

I ve got film where yard when my son died, six.

That was a terrible story. By the time met and Emily got married, joe was suffering full blown schizophrenia. Emily and mat, we're doing their best with them.

But nearly a year into the marriage, joy died by suicide. Just seventeen years old, he was found hanging in a nature preserve in western le. This was the second child, mat lost the first sun was only a tother when he died of a sudden illness.

I can't even imagine matt's friend arturo Rogerses tell me about losing joy and what that meant for him. A IT was a livia IT was, there was nothing left of the person who he was for a while. I was also devastated by joly's death, and now he was missing talented, complicated, beloved family.

Police are searching for a woman who has been missing sons. Memorial day calls .

poured into the police depine. Emily seemed to be everywhere he was at the grocery store.

She's at a homeless shelter. She's leeming under a bridge. She's sleeping in a door way.

The western pd chased down those tips, but nothing LED to Emily. They headed to the bar or matt and Emily we're seen in the night of her birthday.

When I talked to the detective, he told me that he had gone missing and asked me if what how they were behaving, that that night, everything like that, they had the kind of venture that was like, they're very lovely dov, one minute, and then they would be more so, like, there is tension the next minute.

There wasn't much more detail, but police did have one solid clue from those blood house. Remember, they track Emily scent to that driveway a few hundred yards away. Was that telling police something?

Did SHE voluntarily get into a car and that drive went take off? Or SHE dragged there and kidnapped?

All good questions. Maybe police, we're looking at a stranger abduction, or maybe the disappearance of Emily novel had nothing to do with any stranger guys.

I did not hurt my life. I did not hurt my life. I loved you.

The west vil pd was working the case of the missing Emily novel, tracking down tips following leads that driveway where bloodhounds lost Emily cent. Detectives went back to the two houses there and interviewed a homewood .

that people that resided there had no interaction with. Emily had not seen or heard anything, and they were ultimately cleared altogether.

Did and feel like .

we were trying to catch a ghost at that point, because we didn't know what we were dealing with. No is SHE suicide. Dal was SHE kidnapped. Did he ran away with the boyfriend or viable threads?

Critically at that point, absolutely. Another viable threat, of course, was mad investigators key in on the fact that he didn't even go out looking for Emily before he reported her missing.

didn't leave the house, didn't do any sort of searching on his own, just kind of hung out at the house.

Police started having troubling things from her friends about her marriage to mp, what is he doing there in the .

day and when drinking.

really Emily .

would get so mad um if he was drinking during the day, he said, you need a way till .

I get home Emily's friend, when they detected unhappiness and one of those photos from the night before Emily disappeared.

she's looking at the camera kind of steede when he looks like he's crying and I just think that pictures were a thousand words .

others called the detectives were speculation about darker than .

they felt that he was almost controlling. They felt that when mat was in the picture, Emily was not her Normal self anymore. There was never anything specific that emlie said that matt has done this to me, but I just seemed to be a lot of speculation from the friends that something isn't right with mat.

Two days after mat reported Emily missing, the husband agreed to sit down with detectives at the police department.

This is a .

voluntary interview.

okay? Obviously, we need to do the best we can to get the full story. Anything you say.

detective grub's redmouth rights began pRobing about events before and after Emily's disappearance and broke the news that john kramer, the neighbor, said he'd seen Emily the morning SHE disappeared. Now couldn't be sure of the timing.

Joon, that's.

Kind of and he would foot by nine and. Say can say. So that makes you look bad for me.

They turn n to match relationship. He handed over Emily's phone and he'd been going through IT. They asked map to raise his marriage.

So scale one to ten relationship with her, ten being less every day. Honeymoon like a honeymoon and one being.

A sign way, but we were on since six months. That was in eight, six months, absolutely.

and eight out of ten. But then detective shared a text they found from Emily to a friend.

This was a month ago. okay. And this is this is heavy and picked to fight with me yesterday and said some awful things. I'm not wearing my wedding ring that doesn't sound like somebody who's in a happy relationship. My I have my wife text that to somebody a month ago.

I get i'm not going to say that that those things, of course, there was a role coast relationship, but IT wasn't like anything. That was anything you would think that someone would hurt someone over, not as heavy as you think IT is. He would be like that at times because of her anger issues. IT always song back.

What about some of the things they're heard from Emily's friends, that maybe there was more going on than a burnout romance? One even suggested math at her family.

There was at the time, within the last year, where he had bruises on her. And this .

friend .

of poland, I IT, where the friend was concerned that you were being physically abusive towards me.

Never happened. never. I don't know what you're .

going this again and again. Matt insisted he would not harm Emily.

Guys, I did not hurt me. I did not hurt. I love you.

He took off his shirt when they asked and showed them he had no scratches, no bruises. And at the detective suggestion, he agreed to take a voice stress analysis test. A type of lie detector detention in this tiny rule was about to explode.

Kilter, I didn't, sir, I didn't. I didn't you kilter.

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After an hour a half, in a cramped interview room, the detectors prepared to give that a kind of light detector test called a voice stress analysis test.

I want you as.

Relaxes fun detective groups told that .

a computer would .

measure the stress in his voice when he answered questions. Somewhere of them, some not.

Do you know where?

no.

Is this the month of may?

yes.

Did you kill Emily?

no.

Voice stress analysis test are considered unreliable by many experts. Still, the police told math, the results of his test indicated deception.

know. I think I fail this test. And the .

detectives kept returning to the .

question at hand.

how would you be guessing? But I think .

SHE he .

heard of parting that he hurts SHE would save IT SHE was gonna a to him yourself.

Emily had been surrounded by suicides, so mad was guessing that's what might have happened.

You would do IT where you, where you would be easily found.

They kept pressing him from me until the puck boiled .

over I .

kilter and was an accident. We need .

to get .

resolved .

that she's that.

At that point, Emily was still a missing person, gone only two days, was a two thousand, and hidden with the big stuff.

I don't think so.

You didn't have evidence that he was even dead, not to mention murdered.

That's correct. But we also don't know what we're dealing with. And if Emily is alive and needs help, time is of the essence, and we are trying to recover her as quick as we can.

But there be no more. Talking to matt more, he refused to communicate directly with the police after that interview. Instead, he called his friend arturo.

When he spoke to me, he told me he went in an interview, and by the end of the interview, they had accused him of murder. Waiting his teeth. The way he made IT sound was very much of a panic, of a fear of, i'm looking for help from these people.

They are accusing me of murder now I don't know what to do. I need help. Help did come pouring in, but not format.

On the island creek area today, as may twenty twenty ended in june began, the country was still in the grip of the first wave of covered with millions in lock da. But in west view, scores of people took part in a socialist distance stacked vy that might do some good searches. Organized by the facebook group, finding m. Noble, started by her friend Wendy.

A lot of us became really obsessed with whole thing.

I had a lot of time on my hands so I would go to searches and do whatever I could to try to get Emily home, because he would do that for anyone. We will continue this until we get some kind closure.

Lisa gordias, one of Emily's acquaintances from high school, signed up to search early on.

They had a public search that met at the the high school where we had graduated from. And I showed up and and went on that search.

IT was exhAusting work, but lisa did IT again and again, even organizing her own searches. Her sister Sherry, running joiner IT.

was just this thing that kind of grabs a hold of you and you can't let go.

It's sort of like what you did in the summer twenty, twenty.

yes. And we'd have probably five, six, seven people on most searches with us.

But you know who was not out there on those public searches, matt? The cops thought that was odd, so less often not searching yourself as met directly. Where was he?

And he said, I know those people hate me.

He wasn't entirely wrong at that point was. No surprise, social media had picked up the story, and many posts were negative about mad, even cruel comments like this. Can we all just agree the husband is guilty as f and hope the police act and this and his seventeen year old son hang himself?

Almost a year ago, my daughter was close friends with him and said map was an off of father. Cameron kisselle, john's good friend, had stayed in touch with mat after joy's death. He says mat was far from an awful father, and they tried everything to help his son. And in the months after Emily disappeared, Kevin says mat was searching in his own way.

Every monday, I would get off of work and we would go out searching for Emily, hanging fliers, passing out these business cards. He had made brainstorm where he could have been, what could have happened.

That's brother traveled to western ville to help out. So did our turo. We held out hope all the way through. This was some kind of mental break, perhaps that he needed some time away, and she's going to turn up. The drumbeat of negative comments in town continued.

There was even a rumor going around which police heard that our turo and math brother had come to westerveld not to help find me, but to help math cover up some nofa ious. This is episode two hundred and forty six of the vanished after his police interview that was getting legal advice to stop talking. But he did speak to the vanished, a true crime podcast about missing people. Even then, he didn't say much.

I feel horrible because I can't help. I can't help my wife. It's the thing I wants him. They told me to shut up, and I can't I can't shut up because there and just trying to find .

her if you've been trying to help his case. IT didn't work. A podcast producer spoke to detective groups. After SHE interviewed map, SHE told the detective SHE believed mat killed his wife. The dark cloud that had settled on mat would not budge, and Emily whereabout ts were still unknown, but that was about to change.

IT was a long, hot summer of fruitless searching. Detective blobs capture progress report that read like a little ny of dead ends.

Eleven twenty A M. Searched the area underneath the bridge on players just west of cleve, an evident. I traveled to the udf to follow up on a previous tip line call. I check confluence park for noble .

as the summer wage. The tips did to the big searches weren't so frequent, but sisters lisa and Sherry were still out there searching every week.

We grew up with the family of puzzle savers and so once that puzzle was there, IT became very difficult to stop .

over that summer. The sitter picked up another team, a suspected so was happy to search anywhere and motivated for a particular reason twenty .

two twenty three years ago this year or neither or mind in party missing um and to the state he hasn't been found. Result never result.

This time he hoped IT would be different. On a late summer day they came across something that looked like evidence. IT was a ceremony. Christmas ornament was IT connected to Emily. They sent pictures to Emily's family, but when no one recognized IT.

the family and friends of missing westerveld woman Emily noble continue their search for answers.

In september, local media covered another big community search for Emily, another exercise in frustration. But with fall coming, lisa, so and Sherry, we leave. Time was running out.

I was afraid when the leave started to fall that that evidence would be covered up. So I felt this urgency. You, we have to go now. We have to go now. We can't wait.

So one day in mid september, they decided to go back to where they'd spotted that ornament maybe IT meant .

something and we had talked to detective groups the week before that and um he said to a specifically don't be afraid to go some place we've already gone.

They showed me around the spot. They were intent on researching. The first thing we did was look for the ornament. After all this time, they thought I might still be there.

Lisa, you found IT remarkably IT was, here's the little ceremony Angel .

that we found found was .

right here on the ground.

But on that day, back in midd, september twenty twenty, they wanted to push past this pot.

I was getting close to dark. Yeah, september, it's getting chillier. My feet were soaking wet. We were tired. And I said to do when we were here before, there's an area that was down over that way that we haven't done yet. And before I got dark, I just needed to go that way.

They split up, Sherry peeled off to check one area, sue headed to the cream, and lisa headed to a spotted notice. Before IT looked all but impossible, even with a bustling foreign in highway just yards away right over there, this particularly section of woods was thick with branches and vice. Clearly no one thought to wait in. But on that early evening, september sixteen, twenty, twenty, this and gordian did. So you're walking .

and pushing until I come to this clearing and stopped and turned and jumped because there was, but I thought was a little girl sitting on her knees facing away from me, and I said, hi there, because I just just started that there was another person here with me .

and then I started to thinking.

yeah, that something wrong like this isn't what I think IT is.

The small figure was closed upright, with long, dark hair, and terribly still in one of those split second moments that seemed to take forever the truth, dawn, unless a IT had to be Emily noble, the little that remained of her.

Anyway, I made my way back to behind that log to have a sense of protection. Protection by first feeling was really fear.

SHE called out to sue and Sherry.

I could tell by the pitch of her voice that I was getting higher and higher. And that alarmed me. And I I knew something. I knew something was wrong.

And IT took me a minute to figure out what I was looking at, and I realized that my brain was telling me I was a small skeletal thing, but I still completely wrapped my eyes around IT. So I pushed through just a little bit further. That's when I could put IT together that I was seeing a smaller skeletal remains.

Tests would later confirm what the searchers knew to be. This was Emily noble.

SHE wasn't going to let us sleep without her.

You thought that was a spiritual dynamic here.

I think they're .

had to be yeah.

one that to be found.

Number one was your emergency.

Hi, we are searching for Emily. We are in. There is a person here. I don't know what dead body is. Dead body.

对， the sun was setting when the police fold up body camps, rolling shock all across the county. All this time, the enforcement hasn't found at the dog's seven film. You guys searching on a wednesday have found missing on the novel.

And we were there quite a long time. Yeah give our statements need .

information coming OK where we can soon .

that looking for .

a body OK.

Oh, got is this.

The image of Emily remains is blurred in this police video. With more officers arriving, the police took stock of the office scene. Detective crus .

arrived about an hour later.

At that point, are you starting to worry about blow back? My goodness, she's been here for almost four months and we missed her.

Absolutely it's IT IT was the bus back is is a good work for but IT was almost IT was embarrassing because .

now he knew what lisa, Sherry, sue and everyone else new after that long summer of searches, bigger, small, from downtown columbus to rural areas miles away. Emily never got very far those houses. That's right where he lived and that's where matt Moore was that very night when he got the news next, he tells us his story.

My sister called me and she's like, they found a body by your house, and I just like, what? what? where?

Yeah, look, lock this words time. After Emily nobels remains were discovered in a tiny clearing in the woods, westervelt police officers and emergency responders worked into the night processing the scene.

Emily skeletal remains were found in a nearing position. USB cords suspended from a branch was looped around her neckbones, and a water bottles containing alcohol was lying nearby. Emily IT seemed had hand herself. Can you imagine her finding her way out of that clearing in the woods and that of dense brush.

doing what he was? A brave person, brave, extremely brave. IT was just, he had enough.

met more. I wanted to share his side of the story to tell us up the grief and guilt, terrible sadness he says he felt when Emily's body was discovered, another apparent suicide, Emily's first husband, mattson. And then Emily yourself.

i'd never spent more in love with the person minds our life. And I feel awful that I didn't spend more time thinking about how he felt that he would do something like this. But SHE wasn't sick like joie IT was Emily. From the moment .

Emily disappeared, matt was well aware that he was the subject of intense, that he was seen as a killer. He wanted to tell us he's not the bad guy he was made out to be. And he wanted to talk about the good times with starting with their love story, Emily, and that worked together for the Better part of five years.

They met online. IT was two thousand fifteen. He called her, but he says he picked him. Tell me first impressions.

but you, he is not online named .

you ick click small but .

tea kind of who's that and we we met and we just read immediately he picked me, you know how girls they pick you? I got pick. So I became memory's boyfriend.

Two years into the relationship, matt moved back to lost vegas, the romance apparently over that says he was focused on joy, struggling with these signs of serious mental illness.

He went from being an amazing guitar player, did not be other play anymore, and then he would often get Better again. It's, it's a weird. It's just, it's horrible.

Hear ring voices I going to think.

sure by then he was in the hospital when you had someone is sick like that, I needed help and he just there SHE was one night, Emily SHE is on the fly and text me, hey, what's going on? I'm just like, hey, I need help. You want to get married he's like, really just a simple .

as that was like magic.

IT literally was like magic. He knew that offer .

was sort of you could joy do.

right? Yes, he knew I was. I need to help with that's .

when met and joy packed up the car and drove east to Emily's tidy little condo in ohio. As matt tells IT, the three of them made IT work.

He taught us so much. This is why I want things done here. And we did IT IT sounds like cheese.

Charles in charge, here he is. He ran the show. Every aspect though.

Emily has rules, and they will be followed.

They will. And IT was a good, they were good rules. We needed there structure that was .

folding laundry.

loading the dishwasher. That was one of his jobs, everything.

Then, after the driver event, joe hanging himself mad and amy struggles, both grieving. Matt drink heavily. Emily saw a therapist fighting anxiety and depression.

I knew he had a serious problems, but I was just, I didn't have the band with in my head to deal with her. SHE was suicidal. SHE made IT a parent. SHE said he would say, IT.

i'm going to come myself if .

you leave me that was conversations, spoken times. I would just wasn't pay attention .

to everything.

everything yeah and just like, you know what just getting me you never .

said I am absolutely.

I was never gonna anywhere. I was so in love with her. And I was just, I couldn't made IT without her. Now I needed her.

Did you also love to that different things, needing and loving to that?

SHE was perfect.

That's how mad says he saw the relationship. But what about Emily? Remember that text? Police confronted in with the one, Emily said a friend saying he wasn't wearing her wedding ring. In fact, when her body was found, her wedding ring was nearby. As that recalled, IT was just part of the back and forth of life with Emily y.

and we would go from this extreme. I'm taking my wedding rings off in the next day would be right back to everything was fine.

fine and even fun, like the day mt. Flew a drone inside the condo's ous two weeks before, and ali disappeared. That's Emily laughing in the background. And then he was gone. And the police refused to believe that he wasn't .

involved and and was an accident.

They did this thing to try to rattle me, but there is nothing rattles because I didn't do .

anything he says at first, he didn't want to help police find his wife.

I took a light sector test.

Why do you need to? Why do you agree to a light teco?

Why would you be afraid of, I think, anything I did know.

While the police in much of the town had branded him a killer, he says he was clinging to hope that Emily had decided to take off on her own. He even gave ten thousand dollars to crime stoppers so they could offer a reward for information .

the dogs took them to. This guy is driveway and lost her, said the little like SHE had gotten in a car. I'm hopeful that what happened where you little .

hesitant to go over to the parking, a lot of the church and join all the searches.

the police, yeah, you join police and surgeons have the bank is murder.

Was this the case that law enforcement had left the station and could not be slow down?

Yeah, it's like a train comes on other what you were feeling. Yeah, like and you can't. It's on a train. Trade is a train.

You can't stop IT you like? You're being railroad ded you like, how do I stop this? What the founder, maybe that would .

stop IT Emily found, and IT looked like he died by suicide, not murder. Those cruel accusations from the police and the court of public opinion were all behind. right? I remember you're watching deadline. There's more to come for map rate around the corner.

The question what had happened to Emily noble had been answered at least as far as much more and his friends were concerned.

I remember the day they found her body. That's that's when things like you definitely changed because now we knew what happened. He was lying on the couch with his hands over his eyes, hands over, said, because he he couldn't believe that he didn't want to believe IT .

what details of the the discovery stuck with you, that he had hunter herself, that IT was somewhere he was familiar with that USB chord, the nearing position met more, says the awful truth was clear to him. Anyway.

SHE to put the thing around her neck and SHE just leaned into IT. It's a partially suspended hanging.

Looking back on her last day before their birthday night out, he wonders if he missed the science. They had taken a drive up to the country.

We collect the spring water on the way back, half way through, we stopped its gorgeous sunshiny this beautiful day SHE was a little quiet.

And then using that word, quiet. What was different things?

I would say things because i'm clown to try to make her love and SHE didn't love at all. She's just like with that.

I know. And now maybe mad thought that discovery in the woods would put an end to all the questions, but police were not ready to declare this case closed. Just seeing her finding remains. I didn't explain what had happened to did they tell its .

story at that point? no. And IT still didn't seem right IT. It's that inner gut feeling that that you have IT IT seems like there was more to the story than .

what in the s and hundred self.

That's one theory, absolutely. And you know, other theories that this was staged to look like a suicide.

The question quickly took shape. Was IT suicide de or homicide?

The only way that we're gonna able to get a Better feel for that is through Emily's body itself.

She's been out the elements all summer.

That's great.

Her remains were mostly bones by then. O there's no going back. But if you had wounded two days in, that would have been a different story.

absolutely. You could have had visible bruising. You could have head Marks around the neck, any defensive loons, you know, any other evidence that that could have been there was just gone due to the passage of time.

Emily's friends, the ones we spoke to, didn't need an autopsy to confirm what they already believed. Despite what matt had said about Emily, they were convinced he would never, ever end her own life. It's just not in a nature to me. I just don't have all the things that she's been through. I can't think of anything that would bring her to do that.

Or anybody good driver of the edge like that now?

And remember, healey's last night was her birthday. Friends say SHE wouldn't harm herself on that day of all days.

her sister's birthday, a day after hers. So they always talked on the twenty fifth because they were the same page for a day. And he promised her sister SHE would not kill herself. So I know SHE couldn't kill herself.

Despite her past troubles, many friends say he loved her life too .

much to end IT. SHE was always follow life and love and bubble and just so much fun detective groups .

was listening to Emily's loved ones, and their concerns were mirroring his own. He knew Emily had been ripped up by joy's death, but his take away, Emily was dealing with IT.

Matt was not SHE had been a singing, a councillor. And the most striking thing with that is that SHE was concerned about math mental health after joe s. Suicide and SHE was trying to figure out that the best way possible to to help .

Matthew this so he told the, he said, i'm worried by my my god here yes. Delivery county assistance prosecutor mark sleepers was looking hard at the Emily noble case and noticing even little details. Remember how the bed was made? The morning Emily was reported missing.

So I see that the bed was that seemed .

to be a clue for investigators. They suspected Emily never actually got to about that night because he was already dead.

Find IT ultimately very ridiculous to think that Emily woke up that morning after having a nice EV. Now the decide to make her bed before he wanted often in the woods to hang herself.

On the other hand, SHE is neat, nick. There's a house that you could literally eat off the floor. I I I don't think that's totally inconsistent.

I find IT, in light of all the other evidence, to be an absurd version of events.

So if not suicide, just because IT couldn't be IT had to be homicide. That notion started percuss ating through social media and took cold. And all of a sudden, the facebook page that read finding and noble change to justice for Emily noble, matt, law enforcement was bearing down on him. His friends did to the police.

started following him around everywhere you'd see him on a security cameras that would just pull up and wait right outside of his house at weird hours in the morning. In the night, he became very paranoid of going anywhere because he, I mean, he was afraid something was gonna en to mad.

More had every reason to back on your head. I've take down in sleepy westerveld.

The west reveal police department in a suburban village with tidy houses and manicured lawn, takes pride in its community relations and crime prevention. Steve groups have been a full time detective about two and a half years when he asked for the Emily noble case. This was his first time leading a homicide investigation. Police had to already search matt and Emily's neighbor d, their cars, their home, all just a short distance from the wounds where he was found. Was any reason to believe that he had been killed somewhere and then .

brought to that place? Now we did run up the condo, obviously, had been the real search to at that point.

with no trace of a crime anywhere else. Detective gobs Operated on the theory that Emily was killed in the woods and that matt was clearly the killer. Even so, less to match. Consider a friend had come around to the police point of view.

Did you believe that that points to less? That he was in fact murdered, had not committed to aside, and that matter had something to do with that? Maybe the a personal guilty?

Yes, I have a friend who is a former homicide detective, and he went through the fact that usually when a person disappears, the killer is the spouse or someone very close to them.

Put together your theory in one place of what happened to them safe in the time they return from their evening of birthday celebration in the drinks.

I would suspect that Emily mines, and because sometimes sheet us were human and IT probably just kind .

of backfired. You think prety quickly, we need to go to try.

We've to figure that you've done is always a spect the body there.

but does IT bleed into official investigations. I want.

I don't think so. I mean, I think that long enforcement knows that that's a person that they have to look at and neither clear or figure out that y've got a real suspect there and um but I don't think that had any impact in in this pretty .

euer case for now, public opinion had to wait in the way the mechanics of strangulation were about to take center stage. I think it's a story going to be told by bones. This is going to be an export and experts do well.

Yeah, I think that's fair. Once the remains were found, they ultimately ended up with her state.

Emily's remains were so dried out and decomposed, the coroner decided they needed a special kind of examination, so he called on some experts at the ohio state university to analyze Emily's bones. They issued this report, which concluded that Emily suffered fractures in our neck, enter face, some old, some from around the time of death is called Perry mortial trauma.

a fracture along the naseer bones um and the second is the parameter m fracture of in the neck no .

surprise perhaps that the bones in their network, acer, but a new nasal fractures that was interesting, could IT have been an node ski accident or car accident or something?

And I just heal itself? No, according to the doctors, IT happened around the time for death.

So something she's been beaten about the face, that's correct. Prosecutors said the report to an emergency physician with special training inference sic medicine. His name is bill smoke.

He produced his own report with an illustration concluding that Emily noble was murdered. This, he said, was a stage suicide. After doctor's .

smoke report came back, I think IT confirmed what I, what I believe that we had a homicide, and that was worth procured.

is smoke. The most important development .

in your case, he's very important for sure.

The west vill police also knew this. Matt's first wife had accused him of domestic violence two decades earlier in lost vegas, SHE told police he choked her.

That was wrong as my hand, but a long time ago, IT was what I was. They came, arrested me, they let me go. I went home, charges no there. And there was not any problem after that, that we had, we had joy. There wasn't any violence after that.

But that old story looked bad twenty years later. Now, armed with those forensic reports, the west of police and prosecutors figured they had what they needed.

I think that there were no other suspects in this university that could have committed this crime on that time. I.

on june seventeen to two thousand and twenty one law enforcement descended on, met more like seal teen six. The police video looked like an action movie take down on a suburban street. Your left hand and unlock the door, put your his back on your head.

They are ready for me. perfect.

It's post pounding footage.

It's porn for the blue line crowd. IT got over half of many views, just that alone on youtube.

I mean, here, these guys of body armor .

tactic weapons guys could just call me with all this, you know, literally just called me.

And then you were charged with .

first create two counts of murder and one count flying assault.

With that, that more was issued a jail jump suit and waited for trial. More than one year later, his fate would hang on. The opinion of forensic experts, one in particular, was prepared to tell the jury that Emily's bones proved he was murdered.

This death is a homicidal death based upon the nature of the fractures. Nym is neck. Your word is for ma hide.

Can you use IT in a sentence? As you're sitting in your basement, you hit your wave, but then your mom walks in, breaks out and starts listing the toxic chemicals you could be inhaling into your body, like former hide, which SHE singles out because it's the same chemical used to preserve your uncle reos funny smelling taxi meat. Fox for model de vpc can expose you to toxic chemicals like formal hide.

No need to spell IT out any more than that. Want to you buy the real cost. And fa.

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Hey, i'm yh hei, and i'm the host of the optimistic project. This is the podcast that asks what gives you hope. Each week I sit down with change makers you may or may not know from comedy, music, academia and more to uncover what inspires them to create a Better tomorrow.

Join us as we find out ways that we can cultivate optimism in our own lives. You can find the optimism project wherever you get your podcast. Don't forget to follow the show so you will never miss an episode.

On aug seventeenth, twenty twenty two, the courthouse and deliver county, ohio, was a buzz as TV cameras began covering the trial of Matthew ore.

This is a staged suicide. Y.

I watched as much of trials I could stay and to when I wasn't there.

That's just a sad story. I was really sad to see, see IT unfold.

IT had been more than two years since Emily nobels disappearance, and the case against her husband, according to the prosecution, was clear. Emily's bones showed he was murdered and met more. This behavior gave away.

I was this batch to an address on the report of a missing person.

Sergeant Robert holes, the responding officer with the body can testify in the first day he, he told the jury about his conversation with that more how math actually described the spot .

where Emily would eventually be found, where SHE likes to go with. So literally, SHE gets her. Did you go there today looking for her? no.

I if your wife is missing and you think you know where he is.

why I just go walk that path. Emily's loved ones testified, of course, I was called to the stand. Tell me about that moment.

You're here. He's there. You looking in the eye. What's going on?

Do you see him?

In the courtroom today, I had to look around. He was all shaving and his hair short and .

dress nicely.

Yes.

IT was .

a wild mountain.

No, IT wasn't.

I love SHE was Emily's best friend. absolutely. I broke my heart when I finally came to realize that he thought I did something to her.

So let's told the jury that Emily seemed just fine a couple of days before he disappeared, certainly not depressed.

And what was Emily's dominate while you guys are together?

He was very happy while we were together.

Another friend, suzann cabinet, testified that if Emily had a problem, IT was met. SHE said he drink to excess and seemed possessive of amy. What's more, the last time he saw Emily, there were bruises on her arms.

You ask him about.

I did.

And could you describe for the jury or emotional state based on what you asked her about the .

roses very.

Our conversation became very heated.

The prosecution continued to build its backdrop story of a marriage in trouble. They use text between Emily and math to bolster their theory. This is one of the exchanges detective Stephen gbs read to the jury, starting with a text from Emily.

it's difficult to impossible to talk with you when you have voda brain.

And what was the defense response to that?

Matthew r says, that is an excuse. You are afraid to be confronted with things you don't agree with. Your intellect is shallow.

Prosecutors showed the interrogation, not the part where police accused matter murder, but this part where really on, seemed to bring suspicion upon himself.

I want to get this gone because I didn't do IT, and I want you to find whatever i'll have I that happen. Detective.

as you begin a discussion with mr. Moore, anything stand out you about your inaction 的？

Yes, he stated he didn't do IT and .

you accuse him of doing anything in particular.

That time, no r.

The jury heard that man stopped talking directly to police and didn't participate in the public searches. And remember the public speculation that match friend and brother helped him in some mysterious, possibly in the ferial way. The prosecutor didn't get specific, but he did tell the jury that matter, wrote each man, I check for five thousand dollars.

This is a another copy of a check that was filled out and signed by Matthew more.

And who was I check written .

to arturo Robert.

I'm day five of the trial. The prosecution got down to the all important science. The state's expert, AManda agnete, director of the skeletal biology research lab at the ohio o city university, issued the report that jump started the case against md more SHE concluded there were four fractures in Emily's net bones.

the hio ID bone um which is a very high in the neck um sort of underneath your job uh as well as the um Lorenzo Carter logis um that h surrender your voice box essentially SHE also testified see those red areas that Emily's .

naseer bones were fractured around the time of death there was some pary modern .

trauma um in the or on the naseer bones and around the nasal appetite or where the nose is on the face so we all the next with and .

then came the prosecution star witness, doctor smoke, who serves as medical director for the training institute on strangulation prevention. He told the jury Emily suffered what he called an acute fractures to her face the family novel the same significant blunt force trauma who are face if there is enough force to create a fractured. You've been a small fridge that says there is significant blunt force trauma to the nose.

And you see that, yes, his point, Emily was punched in the face when he died. That, certainly not consistent, was suicide. But the overriding question was, did Emily kill herself with that USB CD doctor smoke? And answer was no way.

He used that illustration from his report, along with a model to demonstrate the location of those fractured bones. They are too far. A party said to have been broken by once in court.

So you've got a significant distance between these four and two on either side. And the time of the structure here and here, smog testified, someone's hands broke those bones in Emily's neck, not a legatine. Then he added some details that didn't appear in his original report.

Now, in your training and experience, have you ever seen the same fracture pattern to a woman weigh less than one hundred and ten pounds?

No man never seen a personally. And it's not a medical literature. Nowhere in the history of forensic medicine are their fractures, like Emily had the internet associated with the incomplete hanging.

For somebody is her weight never been reported. Where is this database? Where do you go to? You go to the forensic medical literature. Do trust that database I do is the only databases that we have.

Ultimately, we sit here today. I still believe the strong this piece of evidence is doctor smoke saying that those quilp fractures res could not have been caused by that legatine.

This was making sense of friends like .

windy SHE didn't wait enough to break her own hio ID bones by hanging from a little bush on her nees.

So at this point you may be wondering, experts, okay, but where's the good stuff that all juries want to hear? The DNA? The blood of the crime scene analysis? Maybe a witness or a surveilLance camera shot? No, they had none of them. And if you're going to to trial with a physical evidence like case as this was, you certainly don't want to be opposed by this lawyer. SHE has a first some success record in loss caused cases up mixed diamond gy for the defense .

to text you for you.

That more defensive or and he got straight to the point into opening statement.

the evidence will show that the state's theory is based on speculation. And in princess dianna.

I said prosecutors didn't have any evidence that met more.

killed his wife and simply members of the jury. Their theory doesn't make sense.

Even so, matt more became the only suspect within days of Emily's disapearance. Why have the cops fixed on him? What's happened?

Well, because it's an easy fix. You know, it's an easy fix and an obvious one. And I think that you can just focus on on one person, right? You need to exhaust all possible average and suspects, and they just didn't do that.

You man marry you. So when I came time to a cross examine lead investigator Steve brus, the defense attorney, zero in on basic thing, he said the police failed to do.

And the shirt that is pictured here was found in the hamper.

Guess man, in other words, the very shirt mp was wearing on his last night .

with Emily that sure was .

that submitted for tasted.

I don't think I was. No.

investigators never found anything to connect matter to the crime, no blood, no tissue, no fibers. And remember, the dogs that tracked Emily said here, did the investigators drop the ball when I came to following up?

Just want to make sure the jurors know that you never conducted any surveilLance a with respective that house that's located where the bloodhounds tracked on two different occasions. That's correct.

That's correct.

I didn't see in your police report either that you ever requested any cc ages or criminal histories on anyone that lived in that house or in and around that area. Did you a great thing on that?

That's great.

And what about those text messages that Emily mah sent one another? Prosecutors presented them as proof of a failed marriage, evidence of a motor for murder. On cross the defensive, you're duggin.

Let me be very clear. Messages from matt Moore phone do not include the following words. Let's go through this.

I hate you. correct? That's correct. I want you dead.

correct? correct? That is never in there. I am going to kill you. correct?

correct.

I am going to divorce you. Not in that, correct? No, in fact, one message you did read was where he said, if you, if you want to divorce me, let me know. Isn't that correct?

That's great. As for the very first lead, police had the across the street neighborhood saw Emily on memorial day morning.

your neighbor, or saw her in the garage about between nine and ten this morning.

police said. The neighbor john crammer later changed a storm. But when defensive turny masi sent her own investigator to talk to him, the investigator reported that cramer just wasn't one hundred percent.

and he saw em that morning. John cramer, for the record, did not retract his testimony or his statement to police. What he said is he can't be positive. He's not positive now that he saw her on the morning of the twenty feet. That's what he .

said when he .

wasn't going after testimony, when he was picking away of the prosecutors action sitting, they put up evidence without explanation.

What about those checks? What about those checks?

Like those five thousand dollars checks, matt wrote to his brother and his friend arturo.

It's like that expression that we all know when you just throw things up and you see what i'll stick and the rumor medal had .

had to hear the guy from bag is coming in hating and a betting, right? Maybe help to him clean up in both things around you good fellow coming out there and money transacting over a missing person. Something weird must have happened. But if I was that guy, what I accept that at check in the end, our toro says matt was just helping him with his expenses during a tough time. One by one, the defense attorney went after the prosecutors witnesses when he crossed Emily's friend so cavin, who testify the seam bruises on emelyan ARM and as he made the point, the two women were .

no longer cloy of twenty nineteen is the last time you see Emily in person that right? Yes, you're aware that he went missing and made twenty five of two thousand twenty correct?

As is a turney chipped away at the state's case that started to feel that maybe, just maybe, this would all be behind him soon as you watched your work, the case.

I work the room.

What were you in the things .

I can't be specific about IT, but there was things that he would figure out on the fly. They would do what they were doing and SHE would get up there be like, well that there's things that um I need to tell her so that he can get up and argue that point that they just make and he would get up there and you have to say, and how would you know that?

That said, the defense faced a huge chAllenge, taking on the renown expert who insisted that Emily noble died by manual strangulation after a punch in the face. But what if that wasn't what really happened?

I did not see any scuttled evidence that he was punched in the face.

Emily noble had a lot of friends, and almost everyone we spoke to was rooting for the state.

I was hopeful there would be a conviction.

I thought killer.

I thought he was guilty, and I thought there was enough evidence to convict.

They heard the forensic evidence that Emily was punched in the face and struggled by someone's hand, presumably met more you can't .

punch yourself in the face and .

then they watched as dianna, he attempted to take apart of prosecutions for reno c evidence bit by bit.

You're only as good as the information you get in court.

He suggested that the first scientists to handle Emily's delicate remains may have damaged them.

Well, the bones were soaked in bleach, and we know that bleach weakens and Whitens bones. We also know that the bones were moved everywhere they are, moved to the mod, to a cooler, to the slab, to a cooler, to what is you if you get the bones that haven't been properly handled and preserved and or more brittle than they should be, right, you're getting garbage.

This is an expression, dian man, as he likes garbage, garbage out, meaning when you put bad data in the pipeline, you get bad results. So when he got a crack at the prosecution, start with the starter smog.

You ever heard the experience? Garbage, garbage.

Yes, man, he suggested all his diamond conclusions were based on, and certainly not first, and information.

You were not at the scene to see how the legatine was around internet, correct?

That is correct.

There is no one that saw that, right? What the pictures, we don't have any and you were not there.

That is correct.

That was not there. You also were not there and do not know if over the course of four months the ligature began in one place and ended up in the other as the corpse went from a ninety pound woman to being eighteen pounds of skeleton. You do not know that either because you were not there.

That is correct. Once the defense was through with the prosecution witnesses, SHE got started on her own. There were only two, and this was the one of count.

I'm doctor, had their garden. And where do you work? I am a fool. Pressor of an at demand university doctor.

heather garvin, is also aboard certified forensic anthropologist, someone who analyze a skeleton to remains to help solve criminal cases. SHE examined hundreds of photos of Emily nobs remains and came to at least one surprising, case altering conclusion. Emily wasn't punched in the face when he died. He saw old fractures s from a broken nose that had healed years before, but found no evidence of pary modern time of death fractures in her face.

no evidence of pary modern fractures to the cranial facial or region. I did not see any schedule evidence that he was punched in the face. If you could take out the blow to the face, right? There was just one more thing to take out of the theories.

And remember how doctor smart demonstrated that a USB core, the ligature, could not break those bones in Emily's neck. Well, the defendants argued he's getting his anoma all wrong, starting with the drawing he used in his report.

So he was in response to this drawn that you included these images in your report. Yes, because I held there is misleading.

misleading, SHE says, because the bones that were broken in Emily's neck look far apart in this picture. And in doctor smokes model, doctor govern pointed out that's not what the human neck ork like. SHE showed us a three d print out a model of the throat structure that's very close to real live scale. These bones are close together and connected with a membrane, doctor garvin says. Given the right circumstances, those bones could break with a USB core.

If the legate is going around the neck and puts pressure right here on either side, you're going to get bending of the bone and a fracture, the highway ID bone here, and a fracture of the thyroid cartilage there.

Doctor garber says no one can save for sure. How Emily's neckbones were fractured, no matter what doctor smokes, is about the medical literature.

I'm trained at looking at skill to material and determining what kind of mechanism would cause those fractured pattern. In Emily nobels case, the two fractures on either side appeared to occur from some source of compression. But you're going to get that same compression. Whether there's a liquor there or manual strangulation, you can't differentiate between them. Nothing further.

Watching in cork, matt Moore says he was still wondering when the proverbial other shoe would drop.

I didn't know their head to bend something. I'm arrested for murder. There must be evidence something. There must be something that that's there.

If he was waiting for a moment of truth IT happened sort of at the prosecutions closing argument only then the assistant prosecutor, mark sleeper, offered the state theory of when and where met more killed Emily noble.

m. Noble, comes home, goes on a walk. Well, defendants, our long phone call and playing around on this phone every gets off that there's a forty minute gap of time where there's no activity on this phone between eight forty two P M and nine twenty three P M.

Forty minute defending knows the place where Emily goes to forge those very good finder. What is in journalist to matter? That's an opportunity that time for him to go leave the house and they go confront her in the woods. And when when the physical evident shows you was struck in the face, causing fractures your nose, and he was manually struggled causing for fractures to your neck, the .

prosecution offered no new physical evidence as IT laid out its theory of a murder in the woods.

I heard, no, no, you heard for the first time that the state and Emily was killed in the wood. If the state doesn't know until the end of their case and closing where they believe, you know, this alleged murder happened, I mean, if that isn't reasonable doubt, what is our justice system has to?

Was IT coming out of the blue late?

No, I think I think the point taken. Let me just explain IT this way. So is IT possible that homicide or murder would have occurred inside the condo? yes. Is a possible the murder IT occurred in the words yes, we don't have any evidence that said definitively which one of those two places? If I had a bet, I would Better to happen in the words, I think that makes the most sense, given the other evidence i'm .

going to say this, twenty four years, over one hundred fifty jury trials, i've never had a harder closing argument than this because honestly, and most i've got evidence to attack, this case is totally specula man.

As he said, police and prosecutors were laser focused on anything that made met more look guilty, and they ignored behavior that suggested he was innocent. Not only the detail police were Emily like to forage, they also brought them right to the edge of the woods where her remains were later found. If he had killed her, why would he have directed police to the evidence?

He takes them to the exact everything and says, this is where shepherds. And then even the state of ohio, on their closing argument just now had to concede that you know what he says you might want to go in. Oh, that's a bad fact, right? And you know why he wouldn't want to go in is IT because he doesn't want to find her.

Actually, I agree with that. You know why does he want to find her? Because ten months earlier, his son was hanging from a tree in the words. I wouldn't want to go in wooded area either.

Once the closing argument ended, that more fate was in the hands of the jury met more guilty homicide, know.

He's said in jail for fourteen months, thinking about how he got to this point the case against him. And that question everyone was asking, they say you punched in the face and then put your hands on her throw to manually choke the life ever, and then stronger up in this.

and then dry her in the woods, sixty feet in the dark, and found a branch. And did. I was weird.

did you do that? man? Did you kill your wife?

What do you think I .

wants to hear you say that?

why? Why don't feeling for me to say that?

Well.

did you do this? No, I mean, no, there would be evidence of now when you think so.

The case is all made up.

It's that made up. Um please do what they do. They are like any other business. They look for crime, and that was an opportunity for them to spend money. The only way I can put IT in the easy way, I mean, you'd have to talk to them. But as far as me killing him now, I love her.

Why would I do that? After seven days of testimony, the jury faced the same question.

guilty or not? Oh my god. I was so eager to hear what the other jurors were thinking .

because we spoke with three jars from left, right, kony, Carol and jen. They told us that more than half the jury came to deliberations thinking math was innocent. The rest thought he might have killed Emily.

I thought SHE was .

a homicide .

victim to me. I did look staged.

met more guilty of homicide or no, absolutely not care. How met more? Did he kill his wife or not?

If he did, he is a mastermind. And I just don't think I think he's an average jail.

But on this they agreed the prosecution case problems .

IT was all little pieces and trying to to nit them together into particular view and I just felt IT was just too um in coherent they had particular problems .

with the prosecution star witness IT was .

a stretch for him. He was more concerned with giving his resume than trying to we talking .

about smoking.

And then to help with the case, I felt like he was stretching quite a bit to make some of these assumptions.

Jurors deliberated for a short time on day one, then return the next day. You come back that next morning and and you do how what I cause drobot. You go around the table where you surprised at the result.

I think I was a little bit surprised.

They had a verdict as they fall back into court, met more, took one look at them and feared the worst.

I not looking at you. I was too quick as just like they need time to think this through, they didn't spend a lot of time i'm doing that. So I ready to go. I was, I was done .

verdict on count one we the jury ving dulan panel thorn find the defendant Matthew l. Moore not guilty of murdered as a all sault after more than a year in jail met more was a free map.

I didn't want to cry in public.

You did. You were hold on your head, your hands weeping yeah .

and but I caught myself and I gathered myself up and I just, okay, great. It's good out here.

I was just very, very happy for that. And so for me also was just such a joyous moment .

at the other table. A bitter defeat .

is very difficult.

He were certainly killed. His wife still am.

Frankly. As for .

Emily's friends. So less didn't see IT coming. Dumfounded dumb founded.

Like, how did this happen when .

the kind of dead?

I just had a feeling of dread that I wouldn't end .

in a conviction. Maybe Crystal spoke for .

many based on the evidence presented. I wasn't surprised that he wasn't found guilty, even though in my, in my heart I think he's guilty and it's not just because i'm malicious or anything, but I A hundred percent don't believe SHE would ever take her own life ever.

With the vertit render, the judge addressed that directly, mr. Moore. I think from day one, everyone's wanted justice for your own family, but I think the jury is also said, justice family is not in justice for you. Despite the jury's verdict, Emily's death certificate IT still reads homicide. Do you think there's a chance that family novel was murdered?

I do. I do. Not by mad.

not by your guy. No.

but I it's. And I think this goes back to all things are possible. And the only thing that that isn't possible and wasn't shown be on a reasonable debt is that matter.

IT matt knows he lived with some level of whispers and suspicions for the rest of his life. The people who are out there think you're got away with murder.

And some of .

those include the old friends. I A. what? what?

Well, I mean, they've known me for so long, it's just hard for me to believe i'm not a violent person. I don't get upset. I'm like really late back. But if they think what they think is because of what the media and police, what they're capable of theyve manipulated you.

Freedom gave mat a chance to live his life again, but also the spaces says to grave for Emily.

I didn't have any time to think about her because I had all police pressure and community pressure, and I was just a weird thing. And when he said are not guilty and I just like the also Emily just I could deal with, I could okay, now it's time for family.

You know, his old life is going. He's broke trying to scrape together a new life and he's angry mostly at the police. He's written and ever called Emily a stage suicide in ohio.

I needed to write my story for me more than any, because I want to people who know what happened.

He's back in the lost vegas area now, far from western ohio, where most of Emily's friends still live and still think about.

I miss her laugh .

and .

her smile. SHE was just fun to be around.

Everybody was her friend, and all of her friends were her best friend after being here.

mr. Laugh sure to her head back in. Just yeah SHE left behind images for her loved ones upon her exquisite skies, her collections of edible plants, the wood SHE loved, and her own face gazing back into the camera. What was he thinking in the days and weeks before her death, years after he went into the woods? It's the biggest mystery of all.

That's all for this addition of date line. I'll see you again thursday at ten, nine central. And of course, i'll see you next week night for nbc nightly news. I'm less to hold for all of us at nbc news. Good night.

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