The Note
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situations tonight on deadline thursday.

What's that like as a mom not knowing where your daughter is?

It's hell. You don't see the nightmares I see every night. Where do I go from here? How do I exist in the world without my daughter?

Then IT was found that he was leaving.

Are you thinking that Megan ran away? Yes.

that was the number one option .

that wasn't like magical, just up and disappear.

SHE was hiding things. He was more secretive.

The love triangle, this is where .

things kind of blow up. Yeah, very intense high school drama.

Text messages that I read IT really was some sort of control game.

is certainly seems something horrible had happened, but we just need someone to .

tell us the truth. The I and I asked me if I would be comfortable wearing a war like what happened that night. Why is her blood in your car? And the color is strained .

out of my face. This is scary, very scary. It's like looking in the eyes of evil.

a phone in the bedroom, a note left behind. Can a mother's intuition helps solve this mystery? I'm less to hold, and this is deadline.

Here's andrey a ending with the note.

I was a Young mom, and I was sixteen when he was born. And while I wouldn't recommend that for everybody, I did enjoy the fact that we had a closest nothing part of IT was because of that.

There's nothing quite like the relationship between mother and daughter, beautiful but also complicated.

I'm a firm believer you should be apparent at your child's friend, but just having that closest was very important.

A close up that would be threatened by secrets and by a teenage love bordering on obsession. As they say, love is blind. It's hard to make someone see something else when they're really into somebody exactly. The tiny city of fairfield, illinois is where single mother Kathie hudco ft. Chose to raise her daughter Megan.

IT was just amazing that we got along. SHE liked the things I like.

I liked the things he liked. Megan was tight with her mom, and he also had lots of close friends. Hold an August was one of them.

SHE was ugly and warm, I mean, very energetic, yet a lot of energy. Anytime you're with Megan was constant laughter, like he was just always crack in job.

joking or singing, says girlfriend jm loss .

SHE loved to sing and play her ek lady.

SHE was amazing, and he had a musical talent that he did not kit from her mother.

Megan's love of music, let her to high school glee club. And that made her to another love, a love that had a name, Brown mr. barger.

He was hot, like he was an attractive guy. He was funny. He was smarter than a majority of people in the room at all times. And he had like, cut blond hair. IT was one of things you could understand why someone .

would fall for. Brody at seventeen years old. Brody was two years old than Megan kyle. Alice was his best friend.

He was extremely musically talented. He did math him.

He sounds like an all american kid.

Yeah, I can.

Just one problem. Megan's mom thought that our fifty year old daughter was too Young to date. And I had this .

rule like we're not going to have a boyfriend. You can be friends. We're not gonna this boyfriend thing going on and to you're sixteen, that was my preference. Don't need a boyfriend.

We don't need to put a label on IT. We all know I have teenage daughters. It's not easy telling teenage daughters what to do or what not to do exactly.

And then IT was july third, twenty fourteen, a friday night. Kathy joe was helping a friend settled into a new place. Megan came along to help.

SHE was act and silly. SHE was stood on her hands for her legs on all and in .

against the wall and the stuff around nine. Meghan said he had a stomach cake. So Cathy joe took her homed arrest and went back to the friend's house. SHE returned home a couple of hours later.

I think I walk in the door. The first thing I did was a life computer at the time, because I was playing Candy crush, I decided I was hungry. So I came into the kitchen and I was just going to heat up some roman noodles.

And this is about what time .

this would have been, probably about eleven thirty five. That's going, yeah, so yeah, definitely. And I watch standing at the stove and watching the pot waiting for the oil.

And I just got this, this heavy feeling of fear all of a sudden. So I went up to check my Megan. I looked in a room and I couldn't see her.

So immediately turn the light on. SHE was first ously. If I was, that was what he told me. He was going to bed and SHE was in her bed. And I looked all over the upstairs, and I immediately start to come downstairs to check the rest of the house.

Megan didn't answer her phone or texts. Cathy je called her mother in a panic, and they decided to report Megan missing right away.

I arrived the share of department, and just that I needed to talk to officer. My daughter was missing and I was in tears, upset. I explained to him, you know, my daughter is missing and I I need to find my daughter.

The officer told her not to worry. Teenagers often disappear, then turn up. Cathy join her mother had at home and started making calls.

Her mom had called me, I think I was like a one o'clock in the morning. And he told me that Megan was missing and wanted to know he was with me and SHE wasn't.

Cathy. Jo decided to search her daughter's room looking for clues, anything.

When I pulled back her blankets, I saw this, the cell phone, her phone, her phone. This phone had no phone case. IT was just outside down. And IT looks different because I used to sing, use to sing purple or pink or something flashy. And I picked IT up, pushed the button, and I said, olah, hello, as if I was a .

brand new phone. Yeah, that's like factory IT settings Megane s iphone had been wiped clean. Your heart must just think in that moment.

yeah. I told my mom don't know what to do and he said, to tell you what we to go pray.

They went into the TV room, down the hall, got on their knees. Then IT was cathedrals mother who saw at first.

And my mom melt down on the seat, and he had enemy. And in this mom, and when I opened up the, there was a note.

a mysterious note and a dramatic story that would come to define the search for missing Megan.

It's a very intense high school drama.

This is a high school love triangle. le.

In the early morning hours of july forth, Cathy joe was beyond worried, looking for her daughter meg nickles. Then there IT was the note, but did the note say, is that while I love you.

but i'm never going to be happy, here you will come looking for me. Because why spend a lifetime looking for someone who doesn't want to be found?

It's like a just such a punch in the stomach of blow.

This is scary.

very scary. Cathy joe rushed back to talk to the police. Keith call glazer was the chief of the small department back in twenty fourteen and still is today. What is protocol when you're dealing with a teenager and there's a note in a room saying she's .

left missing in the state date base in case in other office runs the crossing. And we begin .

our search. Police began talking to .

Megan's friends and family. I they .

heard about her bubble personality, her love of music, church and of course, the big thing in her Young life. Brody, mr. Burger, did he talk to you about IT? yes. What kinds of things would you tell you?

Well, anything, I mean, that was brody, twenty four, seven, anything that he had done or said that was pretty much reported to me.

Mom's rule about no boyfriends until sixteen was testing the close mother daughter relationship. Holden remembers the night when broady turned from a friend to Megan's boyfriend. IT was at the school's homecoming down, and brody was there with his girlfriend. At the time, kendra Megan state was a boy from church camp. The teenage drama was in overdrive.

The hfc H S. Homecoming dances, in notorious for being .

incredibly shy.

dir dances exactly so IT wasn't just like, oh brodium mean or dancing together, know. And kindergarten IT is that brodium Megane are dancing like, you know, grinding on one another on the dance flow kind of thing. And that's when I think you like this isn't good.

Megan brody ditched their dates and stayed on the dance floor together. His girlfriend kendra was crying in the bleachers, and Megan's friend from church just left alone.

It's a very intense high school drama.

This is a high school love triangle.

Yeah, exactly. IT was a high school love triangle.

And someone's gonna .

get hurt exactly that.

Someone seemed to be kendra. In the days after the dance, magnan brody were inseparable.

IT seemed to go from zero to one hundred very quickly.

Then just a few months later, brody was back with kendra, but he kept Megan in the picture too. And what the whole school could see, Megan apparently couldn't. Did rodi kind of want his cake and eat two?

Yeah, I would say even beyond that, as he thought he could, he had convinced two girls in such a small classroom that both of them were his girlfriend and his favorite, and they never once thought to fact check with the other one or even talk. I do remember .

telling her, know, I don't approve. How did he respond?

Is SHE obviously listen .

to what I had to say, but I wasn't going to stop her from what he wanted to do.

not even close, even though Megan thought they were still a couple. That spring, brody took canada to prom. Kathy joe, who by now was aware that Megan and brody had been more than friends, could see how confused and hardworking and her daughter was. Brod's mom had recently passed away. And Kathy joe, he thought he was using that to justify jumping back and fourth between the two .

girls and she's like, I didn't want to tell you this because I know you'll be mad, but he's taking kinda prom because that's what his mom would have wanted him to do and that's when I said, are you freaking kidding me? He's still telling you these lies and you're believing them and that is when I said, IT, okay, put my foot down. We are done with rody.

Kathy je told Megan to stop any contact with rody. No texting, no hanging out, nothing. A short time after he laid down the law, there was a knock at the door. IT was broody.

He said, look, you are way to controlling. You're concerning me and I think you need beo d medication. That's what body .

was telling me that's overstepping for A I said.

excuse me, he, because yeah, you you can't you can't be controlling her decisions I said, he is fifteen years old as her mother. I can tell her that he can't date you. That's my right and my responsibility as her mother and he said, do you know that he tells me every fight you ever have and I said, well, was rolling in your business and you need to leave my house and he goes, i'm not going anywhere because I don't I don't want you tearing into her and I said, you did to get out of my house right now. And he finally did, but he did IT very slowly, like he wanted to make sure that I knew that he was in control.

Once Kathy jo put her foot down about brodie, friends saw change in Megan.

You just knew SHE was not herself when you have this ably outgoing gal become, you know, a shell of herself self SHE .

was hiding things more. He was more secretive. I guess SHE was angry too. I would .

say cafe joe saw too Megan dropped out of glee club and band. I am just cried .

because it's like she's not my child anymore. He would tell me anything. I trusted her with everything SHE trusted me. We had an amazing connection.

All that drama had happened to school was ending for the summer. Now IT was july fourth weekend, and Megan was missing, considered to run away. What's that like as a mom not knowing where your daughter is?

It's hell. I can't describe IT as anything else. It's, it's hell. That night.

the police couldn't get a hold of rody, so they reached out to his father, who was an illini state police trooper and had once been been partners with chief call laser.

We left a message with the father to have him call us. When he saw broad, he said he wood and we were on that focal.

But Cathy joe wasn't about to sit around waiting. SHE would go looking for answers herself, and pretty soon there was a new clue. What did this image of Megan mean?

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When fifteen year old meg nickles disappeared overnight, her mother wanted to talk to her on again, off again boyfriend, broadly murban. After a sleep last night, SHE and Megan's grandmother drove over to his house. And there he was right outside.

We pulled into his driveway and he was washing his car. IT was like, seven thirty in the morning. And when he looked over and realized who we were, he ruled his eyes at us, walked over and shut the water off.

And then he walked up to the drivers side where my mom was, what did he say? My mom said, wars, my granddaughter. He goes, I don't know. And SHE goes, well, I think you do. And he said, all I know is shouldn't even live with Kathy anymore.

He want to go live with her dad, her dad. He been in Megan's life or her moms since Megan was a baby. He lived hundreds of miles away in oklahoman, but about a year earlier, when Megan was thirteen, they had reconnected.

SHE told me later, he had d kind of apologize for not being there in her life. And he said, listen, i'm doing fine now i'm a Christian. I've been saved. I'm gonna forgive you.

So was IT possible that the teenager so angry at her mother over road, had decided living with her dad was a Better option? Did you buy that? Did you think maybe she's only just met him? IT was a lead the police needed .

to check out.

And had he seen her, did he know anything and he heard from her?

No.

a dead end. But police quickly had a new lead cafe. Je reported that two hundred dollars was missing from the families. Two bank accounts police pulled the video from the bank's cameras.

We see her enter the bank and talk to a teller. Then we see her go to the drive of A, T, M, and withdraw money, and then we check a second bank, which is a couple of blocks from the first one, and we see her ride her bicycle le alone two. And from that bank .

you have a note saying she's leaving, you have her phone is left behind and wiped clean, and you have her visiting two different banks. Are you thinking that Megan ran away?

Yes, that was the number one option.

Police believe they were looking for a girl who did not want to be found. And like Megan's mom, they had a hunch that her teenage crush rooty may know something that could help. Brody was an academically and musically gifted teen.

He had never been in trouble with the law. He just graduated from high school and was getting ready to start college in the fall. Once he's dead, the state trooper told him police wanted to talk.

Brody went down to the station. What did brody say his relationship was with Megan? Not sexual, not anything like that, just.

just a friendship level.

Brody said he wasn't surprised that Megan was gone. He admitted that he knew that he want to run away.

and he said, been talking about IT.

Brody told police that the night Megan went missing, he was at his girlfriend kendra house. He said that her mom was blowing up his phone by calling his phone, he decided to look for for a Megan. He said he drove around for hours looking, then stopped back at kendra house before going home at around five in the morning. Is he CoOperative and what does he say to the officer?

I just because I didn't know where he was rody left.

But investigators continued digging. Since Megan's phone was wiped clean. They searched her computer and found text messages from her last iphone.

Back up turned out Megan brody texted a lot, something like one hundred and fifty times a day when they poured over there seven thousand messages. IT was clear. Brody had not been totally honest with police about their relationship.

Text messages revealed something different where they had been active sexually.

The tax also showed that not only did brody know about Megan's planned to run away, he had also talked about going with her possibility.

then running a way together like they are making a plan.

Police asked brodie to come back for another chat. How do you handle brody now and the situation now that you realized that he wasn't being totally .

a different keep consistently trying get more information and then he provides a little more, little more, a little more.

He now admitted to the chief that, yes, he had talked to Megan about running away together, but he had no intention of going through with IT. In fact, just the opposite.

Instead of running away, he said he's always comply. Excuse not to know. I can do yet. I don't have my credit card yet. He would try to prolong her staying here.

He was trying to get her to stay in fairfield. Pretty story seemed to confirm that Megan was, in fact, or run away out there somewhere, trying not to be found.

This time I was, I was treating as awaiting.

Megan didn't turn up the next day or the next. What's rooty saying now about Megan disappearances, as he talk about IT? Is he concerned .

when he talks about IT? It's mostly in the context of, like how he's being treated. Fairfield.

Megan's friends worked shy about the fact that they thought brody knew more than he was saying.

He felt like he was being harassed. Or this is, he told me.

authorities have labeled her a run away.

Kathy joe talked to reporters. Megan's case was featured in date lines online series missing in america, and SHE tried to reach Megan directly on social media.

Megan, this video has been put together to let you know that is okay to come home as time we're on.

Cathy jo tried to stay hopeful, but IT wasn't easy. SHE thought about how upset Megan had been in the weeks before SHE disappeared and her mind went to a dark place.

SHE was very depressed that SHE didn't have route in her life.

so I cross her mind that I did cross. Maybe SHE took her own life cross my mind. Where was Megan? A discovery close to home was about to answer that question. What exactly did you see?

Weeks turned to months, and Cathy joe still had no news about her daughter SHE sauce solis, in her faith.

We had Price cycles in my house every night for a very long time.

People in fairfield tried to help however they could.

We had tremendous community support. You saw Megan's face everywhere.

The town came together, this outflowing of support to try to get Megan home.

But Megan was still missing. After a year than another, her friends got ready to graduate from high school, still with no answers. You knew Megan Better than almost anyone, was SHE bold enough to just disappear like that with very little money.

No phone for her to have left without anyone was the most worrying part. I think he was bold enough.

Did you think that something bad had happened to her?

Not at first, but eventually? Yes.

I didn't really have confidence that he could have successfully run away and started a new life at the age of fifteen, right? Like that ideas is so absurd.

Me, Megan, eighteen th birthday, came and went and with IT dimed, Kathy joes, hope i've ever seeing her daughter again.

I stayed hopeful for a very long time. But once he was officially in adult and he still had contacted nobody, I knew he wasn't .

coming home by then, local and state investigators had asked for from the FBI. They asked us.

is there any way possible that we could start to take a more active role?

Special agent ray hard started to work the case. And then a year later, something big happened. IT was a fridge, but Sunny winter day, when carl on went out to look for a firewood on this farm near fairfield. What did you see?

Well, I seen a some shine and learn the sun. IT was bright. I was coming over and I just stop to walked over.

I realized that .

was a sine.

Say that what goes through your mind when you make a discovery like that?

Well, I just knew they were looking .

at for mag. So gan popped into your .

head and .

saw Cathy joe, who wanted answers for so long now, shutters at the side of agent ray hard and his partner at her door and they said.

hi Kathy and of course, I drop my water. I'm fumbling all over myself and I just looked, I said, you're here to ruin my day. He said up. The remains, what we're found IT IT.

was Megan.

How did you learn the news that Megan's remains had .

been found? Yeah, my mom had called me and told me, I mean, this was a hard day.

Megan's manner of death was yet to be determined that since her body had been found buried, IT was ruled a homicide agent. Heart was going through the files with fresh eyes looking for leads.

My initial thought at that point was this, this can be really difficult to move any investigation forward as an FBI investigator without looking into broken more barger.

While the local police are treated brody like a witness, the illinois state police also worked the case, and FBI agent heart saw that those investigators had leaned much harder on brody than the hometown officers. More than a year after Megan disappeared, state agent arched his car. They found a Brown or stain that looks suspicious ous. But test came back negative .

for blood.

and the state investigators brought brody in for questioning twice.

So the first thing we had do is go back and listen to those interview. You see if there's a little nuggets that .

we can utilize. Would you say you and make in ever, ever sexually active with each other only be honest. And yes, okay, well, is this is we already started with no, just ding with yes.

In one of those interviews, brody added a new detail. He admitted that twenty four hours before Megan went missing, he'd snuck under her bedroom while her mom was sleeping.

You help back and then man standing is you spent the night, okay? And was this like you guys is final farewell, goodbye you need. As an impression.

Brody, again, explain how the next night, when Megan disappeared, he went out looking for her, a story investigators found perplexing.

Tell me how you leave your current girlfriend, love your life to go look for. I mean, tell me how you. Do that possible for for why are you responsible for I what's more.

brodie said that while he was out searching, he didn't have a cell phone. He left IT at his girlfriend's house. And if that sounded suspicious, ous while brodie had an answer for that too, when pressed, he admitted he wasn't really looking for Megan. He now claimed that driving around for hours .

was actually all part of a plan I was to drive around.

This was a new and bizarre story. Brodie said he was intentionally trying to get police to look at a playing decoy, giving Megan a chance to slip away. He know that he was going to be picked up by someone in a car.

My an unknown male or female.

Brody never asked for a lawyer, and in his next police interview, investigators pressed hard and broadly pushed back tears.

Where she's that? I don't know. There's no way that is true. You just going to didn't anything, you know, what did he go? He told you where I thought he went in, and where was that downside to age .

and heart? IT was a lot of smoke, and what he needed was fire. Then something else in the file about his attention, a tiny detail that would turn out to be huge. You were about to make a major discovery in this case.

yes.

And he was also going to get some help from an unlikely ally. And they asked .

me if I would be comfortable wearing a wire.

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believe my.

In the ears following Megan's disappearance, baddy murban ger moved out of state and was studying geology at the university of southern inDiana. He shared an apartment with his best friend, kyle. Where are you happy to have your best friends?

He was good. remain.

Kyle remained fiercely loyal to his friend despite the rumors that persisted back home.

I mean, I would really like, passionate, defend him and say, there was no way that was him. Why were you so sure? Because my best friend, berty, was like a brother to me.

Neither kyle nor brody had any angle that Megan's murder investigation was picking up steam. And a special agent, ray heart, read through a mountain of documents. One detail stood out to him.

one, the investor estate, please. I actually wrote a very good report detAiling that mister marber get really fidgety and was very nervous when he saw the state police starting to look into the trunk of his car.

Remember Cathy joe saw brody washing his car when he went looking for that first morning. And later, investigators found a stain in the trunk that looked suspicious but tested negative for blood.

I thought maybe there was a potential that we could do a more sorrow. Forensic search of that vehicle.

Brody had totally as dodges in an accident a year earlier, but the agent caught lucky break. Direct car was fixed up and had a new owner.

I was cautiously optimistic that we would find something and they did.

Turns out the original test was a false negative IT was human blood in the trunk and one's agents remove the lining lumano revealed even more of IT. What happened when you compared the the DNA samples of the blood?

And Megan, the labor for indicated that was indeed megacles DNA.

This is your connection now, your solid connection to brody. Yes, man, IT was big. But instead of arresting brody, they wanted to confront him with the new evidence. See if he would crack. How surprised was he that he's in college now and the FBI shows up on campus.

He was extremely uncomfortable.

very after a phone call with his dad, is declined to talk and told the agents to contact a lawyer for the family. Then agent heart had an idea of someone else to talk to the best friend and roommate, kyle, on a picnic table outside of brodium kaws apartment complex.

The FBI laid all out, had DNA this kind of like, very hard, at least for my prospect, hard to kind of argue with evidence. And the only thing I was thinking, like the whole time they are talking.

was o and they had a big ask. They wanted kid to help them bring broadly down.

They asked me to CoOperate further what they were doing. And I said, no, that's still my best friend.

A week later, a change of heart gave agent heart an opening.

I receive an email from chao says, I been thinking about what you told me. I don't think there's any doubt that he did this. Will you come talk to me again?

Are you starting to think my best friend could be a killer?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, they asked me if I would be comfortable wearing a wire and going in and talking with him about about make an in the whole situation.

That's a you're asking a lot.

absolutely.

Kyle packed up as things and moved out. A month later, he went back to the apartment complex to talk to brody, how are you feeling as you walk through the door knowing that you are wearing a wire?

Uh, definitely pretty nervous. Um yeah, he was not a it's not an easier situation .

by any means.

Well, I moved. Kyle got right .

to IT asking about the night Megan disappeared.

But if average is like ask you like what happened that night like. Did you see Megan?

Can you have had IT? Ah, yeah, okay. Oh, I saw I dromy I. I have a pretty solid way of handling situation of heard, but he left before I could talk on mom O. And there a chance .

that religious coached kyle on what to say. And now he confronted brody with what he'd learned from the F, B, I.

Your your .

old car and .

in the trunk of your car, they've taken a lot of different signs ples. And it's there's a blood in the back, your car, and it's it's magan blood. Why is her blood in your car?

但 从 一开始， 我 觉得 在 这个。

You know how a blood got there? Why do you leave your phone at kendra?

Hi, honey. Ly, don't know.

Brody then seem to anticipate his friends next question.

对。

Did not kill me. kill.

I didn't give .

up any new information, but agents weren't giving up. They asked kyle to meet with his friend again. This time, brody seemed more than a little wary.

He says to me, are you wearing a wire like right into my year?

Oh my gosh.

yeah. So I do think he was maybe suspicious.

yeah. He saying that, what did you say to him? no. Do you think he bought IT?

No, think he at that point, he he knew what was going on.

Still, when the agents listened, they thought they heard something revealing.

One of his statements, I truly believe, is his version of a confession.

He starts to theorized, and brody says, well, maybe someone with anger issues, here's something they don't like and get mad and strangles her.

Which could fit, which fits. Because forensic experts believed strangulation or suffer cation was how Megan died, a detail only the killer would know. Investigators took all the evidence they had gathered the blood, the changing stories, the secret recordings, and presented IT to a grand jury in october of twenty, twenty six years after Megan disappeared, police arrested baddy murban a as he walked into work. Was that in in a lot of bad, bad moments? Was that A A good one?

It's hard to describe. It's just like the cab just keeps getting ripped open.

I remember saying, what what are you talking about? You know.

it's surreal is out of the boot because there had been this idea that the case was dead, the case was dead, the case was dead. That was what the public thought of IT was.

But the arrest was only the first step. Prosecutors knew there were still unanswered questions, and a defended who had an explanation for everything I couldn't .

believe he was saying.

More than six years had passed since teenagers or meg nickles vanished on july forth weekend, and in october twenty twenty two, her high school boyfriend bought murban a went on trial for her murder. You chose not to sit through the.

I don't want to, you don't see the nightmares I see every night. The last thing I need is the details of everything he did to my little girl.

Prosecutors Michael fallah erie and micro yell Clark spent months pouring over those details.

We knew his activity, and his suspicious behavior around the time that Megan disappeared was extremely strong circumstantial evidence.

The case they presented to the jury included the story of meghan and browdie's high school romance told by what else their text messages.

It's almost like birdie was playing a game with mean he would distance himself. And as soon as Megan stopped texting him, he would just texted her and just try to get her to interested in him. IT really was some sort of control game with him.

Those text messages exposed another dynamic at play, brody driving a wedge between Megan and her mother, Cathy jaw.

Some of the text messages that I read where he was talking about Cathy, two Megan, were just some of the worst things i've ever read. Megan mom was keeping him from gaining control over Megan. And so I think his hatred of Cathy, also life, was incorporated into his motive.

Prosecutors then turned to what brody said he was doing the night Megan disappeared.

He has no explanation for where he was at night. Then, of course, has changing stories.

I was going to drive around. Why didn't see that you?

And then they presented their own theory of what took place on the night Megan disappeared. They believe there was a fight over the plans .

to run away. He had gone to the a SHE was packed. He was ready to go. So when rody ends up backing out, you can see how he would overreact, be upset and be emotional. But why kill her though?

I think he goes .

back to his control. IT had come to a point where he completed, had lost control and reacted aggressively.

And they played for the jury that tape brody talking to his best friend, theorizing that Megan was strangled by someone in a fit of rage.

Think that somebody would like anger is you found out about something strong?

Prosecutors argued that somebody was broken. His former friend kyle was called to testify about the secret recordings.

I kind of felt like I was there to confront him. I felt betrayed by the situation that he had lied me like everyone, for so long.

Then what prosecutors said was solid proof. Megan, blood and road's car, this was really a corner stone of your case.

Definitely our biggest piece of evidence that we are.

are able to present. When I came time to present a defense, rody himself took the stand to explain the state's key blood evidence.

He testified to an incident where he had sex with Megan in his car.

Brodie testified that Megan had her period during that sexual encounter, and he said A T shirt with her blood on IT ended up in the trunk of his car. Prosecutors were skeptical to say the least.

I couldn't believe what .

he was saying during cross examination. The prosecution pressed brody to explain why, if true, he had kept that sexual encounter of secret for more than six years.

He said he was embarrassed about what had happened.

After a two week trial, the jurors weight all the evidence and were back with their verdict in two hours. And the verdict was, what was that like for you when you heard that guilty verdict? Being red IT .

was definitely a relief, but in a lot of ways, I didn't feel as good as I thought. I would feel you really didn't make anything Better. I guess .

Kathy joe, who had avoided the trial, spoke directly to brody at his sentencing.

The last thing I said to him, and I made him look at me, I called him, I called his name, and I like brody. And he finally looked up at me. I said, I do not wish you well, and I hope I never had to see your face again.

brody. mr. Barker was sentenced to fifty years in prison for the first degree murder of megna. Les, his defensive attorney, has filed an appeal. But the sentencing only closed one chapter, or for Cathy je.

where do I go from here? How do I exist in the world without my daughter? I need to figure out, you know, what god's plan is for me, because I know he has one. I maybe running from IT.

but he has one.

When the trial was finally over, the family had a celebration of life honoring Megan.

IT was difficult for me, but at the same time, that was the only thing at all this time that was focused about Megan, about her life, and was positive.

You know, I would want people to remember Megan for her personality, the warmth you felt when you were with her, the smile that you would give this, all of joy that you can feel around her.

that mr. Brought you comfort, knowing how much Megan was loved. Yes.

I did. And SHE touched a lot of people, and not only in her life, but her story has touched a lot of people since then.

That's all for this edition of date line. We'll see you again friday at nine, eight central night. Of course, i'll see you each week night for nbc nightly notes.

I'm less to hold for all of us at nbc news. good. Good night.

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