Deadly Swap

Tonight on Dateline.

Heather was the greatest mom. To know. Heather was to adore her. The thought of anyone wanting to walk up and do that to her was, it was surreal.

It happened really fast. I heard the woman yell, no.

It's a busy shopping center Sunday afternoon.

Broad daylight, witnesses.

I heard that gunshot. I saw her drop. Just shot. the victim, walked away. Her child was sitting in the car seat not more than five feet away.

Witnesses described a man wearing a wig and a crooked mustache.

It was a brazen crime.

It was.

Twelve people knew Heather was going to be in that parking lot. So if we can narrow our focus, they were getting divorced. Their relationship was really rocky.

I think the biggest bone of contention was custody.

He's lied to you. He's lied. From the get-go.

That's correct.

We showed him the video. We asked him if he knew who that was. Cut.

He clearly recognized someone. It's such a strange, twisted plot.

She leaned into him, was staring right in his ass, and I was like, that's evil.

After a young mom is murdered, detectives pursue the likely suspects before zeroing in on a most unlikely one. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

It's actually part of an entire strip where there's a Marshall, CJ Maxx and a bunch of other stores, so there was a lot of people around.

She only planned a quick stop. She had plans for dinner.

Every other Sunday, she would always stop by. She would get the stuffed chicken marsala.

But this time was different. Someone was waiting and watching.

Standing there watching what's transpiring between these two vehicles that are together in the parking lot.

Moments later, a single gunshot. It happened so fast.

Snellville, please.

Snellville, this is county. Someone says they're at the Target on 124..

Someone just got shot.

A string of calls came into the Snellville Police Department.

It's a Cadillac Escalade. You can't miss it. She's laying at the back of the car, motionless.

Oh, my God. She's trying to breathe. She's trying to breathe.

The victim was gravely wounded. Witnesses could see the shooter walking away and phoned in his movements.

Snell is walking towards Target at this time. He is going down while waiting.

Chief of Police, Roy Whitehead, was off that day.

They called me on every major crime that occurred, and I got a call at home that it happened, so I immediately went to the scene.

A patrol officer arrived first and assessed the situation.

How much does he know at that point?

Only that someone was shot and that the perpetrator had walked away towards the Target store.

Is his job to secure the scene until detectives arrive, or what's his deal?

Well, his first job is to check on that victim.

But it was too late. There was nothing the officer could do. The woman was dead. Nearby shoppers immediately told the officer the victim wasn't alone and pointed to a toddler in the car.

The child was still sitting in the back seat. The officer immediately took the child out of the car and put him in his patrol car.

From your first officers to the guys that were dispatched later, what was the picture that was coming together, Chief?

We knew that the person had approached the vehicle and shot her in the forehead. Then the perpetrator walked away, putting the gun away, as that person walked out.

Walked right out of the busy parking lot and disappeared.

And you had no idea who that person was?

We had no idea who that was. At that point, we didn't even know who the victim was, but we were later able to find out because her license was in her purse.

Her name was Heather Stroob, and she was only 25.

And then you got the phone call.

He said, Buddy, Heather's dead.

Just like that, huh?

Just no thought, just like totally blank, because I would have never thought he would have said those words to me. And then Mary said, What did he say? What did he say? And I looked at her and I said,

Meanwhile, you're driving?

Well, yeah, not for very long, though. I pulled over in the next underpass.

I mean, none of this makes sense just to get that message like that.

No, it didn't.

And your wife imagined saying, What, what, what? What are you telling me?

She couldn't talk. She couldn't talk. She was devastated.

I was too.

Didn't know she'd been shot? Didn't know where, how?

No. I mean, eventually we got around to that in the conversation. But he just said, She's dead. And they had to go get Carson.

Carson was Heather's 19-month-old son, who was found in the back of the SUV. Officers transported him to the hospital to make sure he was okay.

Some of the worst hours of your life.

I'll tell you what, the rest of that drive, it was quiet, except for tears.

Back in Georgia, one of Heather's best friends also got a call. Jennifer Bagby was at work when she heard the news and immediately fell to her knees crying. She'd just spoken to Heather hours before and couldn't make sense of it.

You know, after I got my wits about me, I tried to get in the car to drive home, and I couldn't. I couldn't put the car in reverse. I couldn't move. I just cried.

Once Jennifer made it home, the shooting was already on the local news, and she spotted Heather's vehicle behind police tape.

It was part of a crime scene. You can see the blood spots on the pavement, and it was surreal.

It's like, oh, my God.

Like, how did this happen?

At the crime scene, detectives were wondering the same thing.

This is right here where it occurred.

A killer was at large, and every available officer came in to work. the case. Detective Dean Boone and Detective Trey Downs took the lead.

So we went straight to the scene just to kind of see what was going on, and they had a crime scene set up.

Officers canvassed the area for the suspect but found nothing, and there were no signs of a struggle at the scene, which told investigators a few things.

It wasn't a kidnapping. It wasn't a gang initiation. There was no evidence to support any of that.

But we also knew, though, that she wasn't robbed, because nothing was taken. Her wallet was there.

So it wasn't a botched robbery going on.

So it wasn't a botched robbery.

Police also found no sign of the murder weapon.

There was no physical evidence. There was no casing.

So what does that tell you?

Well, it indicated that most likely it was a revolver, because nobody said anything about picking up a casing or anything like that. So it's not spraying out shells? No.

Any blood or something like in the category of DNA evidence that might be useful later?

No. The only blood on the scene belonged to Heather.

To solve Heather Stroob's murder, detectives would have to dig into her life. What exactly was going on?

She was broken. She took her vows very seriously.

They'd also have to find anyone who saw what happened in that parking lot.

Right. as I passed her and him, my window looked down and she said, Help.

Who was him?

Oh, my God.

The answer would take them to the most unlikely suspect.

This shooter, for whatever reason, has elected to kill the victim right here in this busy section of town.

Absolutely.

The whole world's walking by.

I mean, it's pretty brazen that you're willing to walk up in daylight in an area that's so densely populated and perpetrate this crime.

Do you have a lot of incident of violent crime?

No, we really don't.

Did Snellville have murders?

This was the 10th one in the history of the city, so we'd only worked a couple, even in my whole tenure there.

Detectives were working the case from every possible angle, but had no leads.

We have crime scene processing to seeing the vehicle where the actual shooting occurred.

A handful of witnesses told officers that the shooter was a white male who left on foot toward the back of the shopping center. They called in a K-9 unit to try and pick up the shooter's scent.

When the K-9 came to where Heather's vehicle was parked and took off, it was clearly running a track. The track ran down towards the store, around the corner of the store to the back.

So the dog's going behind the store, is he?

It goes to the rear of the store. There's a parking area back there that backs up to an extended stay hotel. The dog went straight to that area, to about where the parking spaces were right there, and then lost interest. So at that point, we were sure that the person had gotten into the vehicle and driven away.

They're going to meet their vehicle and they're going to get out of Dodge, huh?

Right. And, of course, that's when we started the canvas of the hotel and other places, trying to get as much information as we could get.

But no one in that area saw a suspicious white male, either on foot or driving away. What did it all mean? Was Heather the victim of a random shooting or a well-planned execution?

I would describe her personality in one word, and that's bright, because she always brought light into an area or into a relationship that she came into.

Heather grew up in the greater Atlanta area, a doting sister to two younger brothers.

She was daddy's little girl, huh?

I'd have to say so.

You were only one of three.

She was a special person, and you knew it from early on. We adopted a child from Guatemala, a hunter, and when we brought him home,

She was a good student and pretty social in high school.

Did she have young boyfriends?

When she was 16, 17,, she started having boyfriends. A guy she had met at church, and they were okay for a while, and then they weren't, and then she met Stephen. They became pretty tight, pretty quick.

Heather was 17,. Stephen Strube Jr. a year older. They went from high school sweethearts to engaged in just two years, and by 20, Heather was married.

How'd you feel? Did it sound good to you?

It did because we knew that Stephen treated her well.

The happy couple settled down nearby and focused on their careers. Heather was a floral designer and loved taking photographs of her arrangements. She worked at her parents' flower shop, while Stephen worked in construction.

Heather was our main designer, and Mary was the manager and secondary designer.

She must have been good at it.

She was. She loved it.

Three years later, baby Carson arrived. Close friend Jennifer says Heather couldn't have been happier.

She was the greatest mom, the greatest mom. I remember watching her parent him with such kindness and just speaking to him like a little man instead of, you know, a mischievous toddler.

She had a boy and you had some girls, huh?

She had the boy, I had the girls, and that's how we affectionately referred to them.

I get the idea that Carson and Heather were almost part of your family.

They were my family. She was my best friend. But the real truth was that she was my sister.

And Jennifer loved seeing her sister thrive. By that point, Heather had opened a flower shop of her own. Stephen built a playpen for Carson, so Heather could keep an eye on him while she worked.

Stephen really wanted to make sure Carson was taken care of, like Heather was taken care of, and occasionally Joanna would be there helping out.

Stephen's mom, Joanna, had always been supportive. She'd largely raised him as a single parent.

She was often there to help with deliveries and, you know, she was very much in the picture and trying to help Stephen and Heather be successful in that career.

From the outside, everything seemed to be going well. But in private, there were problems.

So, buddy, we got trouble in the marriage, huh? Words, confrontations?

Yes, there was that, and this was after Carson had been born also. So there's that.

So a young couple with a young baby.

Mm-hmm, exactly.

A new business and baby. Buddy believes it all became a huge strain on the marriage, but says Heather never shared her marital woes with him. For that, she leaned on close girlfriends like Jennifer.

There were absolutely times that I stood and held her while she cried, when it just became overwhelming and too much and too heavy. She was broken. She took her vows very seriously.

She was an observant Christian girl, huh?

Very much. Very much.

Heather and Stephen tried marriage counseling at their church, but not for long. What happened?

It's not the route that he chose. It's not what he wanted.

The couple separated, and over the next year, Heather built a new and happier life. Then, in a flash, it was all taken away. But why, and by whom? Snellville police were about to question a group of eyewitnesses who they hoped would bring them closer to finding out.

He was tall, white, brown hair, red shirt. It looked to me like they were doing like a baby swap.

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Of course, we didn't know who did it. We didn't know who else might be involved in the plot.

But they weren't under arrest, whoever they were.

No. They were out there. Yeah.

Lieutenant, you're at the police department, and you have rounded up six people you believe to be witnesses to this event.

Correct.

They almost have different vantage points of where they are during the shooting.

They did. They were in different vehicles, different spots of the parking lot.

What were you hoping to learn with this group of witnesses?

Lots of things. As much as we could. Where did the suspect come from? Where did the suspect leave? And then anything that I might not even be thinking about.

Officers learned from Heather's family that she was at the parking lot to meet with her estranged husband for a custody swap of their 19-month-old son. Now, investigators needed to know everything that occurred. after she arrived. All six witnesses had something valuable to offer, but three accounts were particularly helpful, starting with this 29-year-old mom. She was sitting in a parked car while her husband shopped.

I was in the car because the baby was sleeping.

She told Detective Boone her car was two rows from Heather's Escalade when a green minivan pulled up right next to it.

Who was in the green minivan? It was a gentleman. I don't... Was he meeting with this person? Yes.

She described the swap as brief, no chit-chat between Heather and the man. He handed over the toddler and seemed to drive away. What was she doing when he was backing out and leaving? She was putting the baby in the back seat. The witness then saw a white male she'd noticed wandering around the parking lot suddenly change direction.

I saw him turn around and with a brisk walk head towards her car.

And what happened?

He approached her while she was closing the back door.

A few seconds later, Heather screamed.

And she backed up facing the suspect still, closed the front door, walked around the front of the car, closed her driver door.

Okay.

And then he stood in front of the driver door. Was he keeping her from getting in the car? Yes. So he was leaned up against the driver's door? Yes, but he wasn't a big guy.

She said that Heather and the shooter then exchanged a few brief words.

Could you hear what he was saying? No, I couldn't hear any of that. What about body language? Based on their body language, what do you think was going on? She seemed startled, taken aback, I think confused.

I want to say no. But Detective Boone spoke with a second witness who disagreed. This witness remembered Heather and the shooter exchanging what seemed to be tense words as she drove by them in the parking lot.

I got the impression they knew each other. Okay. It seemed odd to me after it happened. Like I said, when I first saw it, I thought it was a confrontation between like, maybe I'm saying teenagers, but yeah, like a, yeah, exactly, like a boyfriend-girlfriend.

But then she heard Heather softly cry out.

Right as I passed her and him, my window was down and she said, help.

Help. She knew she heard it, but wasn't sure if what she was seeing and hearing was real, so she kept driving. But this 18-year-old witness could see the fear in Heather's face.

I don't know if she knew him or whatever it was, but she recognized that this was a dangerous situation.

She was riding in the backseat of her parents' car when the shooter first caught her eye.

I noticed his hair because it was poofy and it was really, really dark and he had a mustache on and it looked really, really fake. I made the comment to my parents saying, oh, look at that guy's mustache, kind of being a joke, and my entire family turned and looked.

Moments later, she could see Heather was in danger.

I saw him reach over his shoulder into his bag and pull out something that was dark, and it was, I guess the gun was inside of it.

Suddenly, the first witness saw the man fire a single shot.

Did you see where he pointed the gun at? Right in the forehead.

Did you see the gun itself? No.

Okay, was the gun in something? I couldn't tell you. I couldn't.

All three women saw Heather fall to the ground and say. the shooter then turned and calmly walked away. But why was the shooter strolling away from a murder? I'd be lugging it out of there, right?

Let me get out as quickly as I can.

But that's not what they saw.

No. No. Just walked away.

How did they describe the shooter?

Small in stature. Some people described kind of like a little boy, but wearing a disguise to the effect of a Sonny and Cher type of disguise, a wig and a mustache, but small in stature.

And he was wearing pretty nondescript clothing, khaki pants, long-sleeved button-down shirt, and a black laptop or messenger bag.

What'd you make of that, the central fact that your shooter was in disguise?

We've got to figure out why. If you're going to put a disguise on, that means that person knows who you are. Could be one reason. Second reason could be because if you get caught on surveillance video, it's going to give you a disguise that we can't tell exactly who you are.

And there were surveillance cameras in the area. Officers were already tracking down the footage. But detectives found the heated exchange between Heather and her killer just as important as his disguise, maybe more.

Biggest takeaway to me was them being in an argument. They just showed that this was not a stranger-on-stranger incident.

Instead, they believed the man in disguise had to be someone who knew exactly when and where Heather did her custody swap.

There were 12 people that knew that Heather was going to be in that parking lot to do the custody exchange.

Theory. Find the names of everyone with those details, and they'd find the shooter.

There was a conversation that entailed, which led us to believe they knew each other.

The murder also appeared well-planned, down to just the right moment to attack.

We knew that the perpetrator was there, lying in waiting prior to the custody exchange.

And detectives realized that was the key to finding Heather's killer. Pinpoint, who knew when and where the custody swap would take place, and they'd eventually find the shooter.

There were 12 people that knew that Heather was going to be in that parking lot to do the custody exchange.

Who knew how this was going down, huh?

Right. We needed to know who knew.

So you got a box, all these faces, and each of them's got to explain themselves and give you an alibi?

Correct.

Because your theory is what? That. maybe your killer is in that group because somebody had to know that Sunday night was the time and Target was the place.

Right.

The list included Heather's friends, extended family, and business associates. Only seven fit the profile of the shooter, male. And while the shooter was in a bizarre disguise, which made identification difficult, detectives felt they had a good description of his height and build. They hoped it would narrow the list, and it did that night when investigators learned that Heather was seeing someone.

Now, Heather, your victim, has had a present-tense boyfriend. If I were you guys, I'd be interested in that fellow. Michael?

Right. Michael Vickers.

They immediately asked Michael down to the station, and he agreed. And whether it was shock or something else, he appeared calm and composed throughout the interview. Get up here. I have a 90-card reading with you, just to get your basic information. Michael was one of the last people to see Heather alive.

Well, 9 o'clock, around 9 a.

Right away, detectives noticed something.

He caught our eye because of his height and weight. He fit the physical description of the perpetrator. And, you know, it made sense, okay? They knew each other, according to the witnesses, same height, same weight.

How long have you been together? Since, I want to say the middle of November.

No, we were together since the middle of November.

That's when I met him.

As they talked, Detective Boone remembered the eyewitness accounts about the exchange between Heather and the shooter and thought.

He could be the person wearing a disguise. That could explain why they had a conversation prior to shooting.

Boyfriend-girlfriend things happen. I mean, that's very common.

Yeah, all kinds of things happening in private life that not everybody else knows about.

And there was something else. Michael knew every detail of Carson's custody swap. He'd made the trip with Heather weeks before and observed it from the store entrance.

I was at the Target. I had already done my shopping and just waited.

And then I saw her get out of the car and pull him around, put him in the car seat, go back around.

So y'all had driven out there together?

Yeah.

So the exchange never really took a long period of time? No, it was a couple of minutes.

But did Michael have the means to carry out the shooting? Detective Boone asked.

Do you own a gun? No. Never owned a gun?

No. Ever fired a gun?

No. Ever shot a gun? No.

He said he and Heather were happy together. Tell me about yours and Heather's relationship.

It was awesome. Okay.

It was great. She kept me together.

Michael also gave them an alibi, said he was at work as a restaurant manager nearly 20 minutes away.

Who can we talk to at work just to verify that you were there the whole day and all that?

Anybody that's working. You can talk to Abby.

They'd have to see if Michael's alibi held up. But in the meantime, the biggest lead that night came from someone else entirely. Her name was Tracy, and she was one of Heather's closest friends.

First of all, I just want to say I'm sorry for your loss. I don't know how close you two are, but my understanding is you're pretty close. She's like my sister. When was the last time you talked to her? She left my house at 445 this afternoon.

She explained, Heather and her estranged husband picked the location two months prior.

How come in Snowbowl? Because she lives in Winder with Michael, and Stephen. lives in Winnette County. She works at Conyers, he works in Tucker, so it's kind of a... Okay, is that where they normally exchange the cue?

Detective Boone dug down deeper to see if there was anything in Heather's background that might make her a target.

Did she do any drugs?

No.

Never? Never.

Okay, she didn't take anything back? No.

Nothing out of the ordinary? No.

Okay.

What about the people she hung around with?

No.

Heather was the type of person who would do anything for anybody, anytime they needed it. If someone came up to her and needed her last dollar, she would give it to them.

But there was one person Tracy feared might be involved in Heather's murder. Stephen, her estranged husband. Tracy explained that Heather and Stephen were going through an ugly divorce and custody battle. As Carson's father, he was at the top of the detective's list of 12 people who knew about the custody swap.

If he did this, or had this done, it would be to lessen the hassle over the baby?

Child support.

Did he want the full custody of the child?

He did.

And do you think he's capable, he's the type of person who would do this with Carson there?

I think he would have done it and not thought about it until afterwards.

Was he on a gun?

I don't know.

Okay. I don't know.

Do you think this is something he would want to do himself or he'd want to hire someone to do?

I don't know.

It wasn't proof, but it had the makings of a strong motive for murder.

Give me a snapshot of what you've learned about Heather, what you've learned about her ex who was part of this transfer of the child.

Biggest thing was a divorce. They were not getting along.

Any ugliness going on between them, were there words or closed fists or anything?

None that we were aware of.

Detectives needed to find Stephen and see what he had to say. And when they did, his actions raised more than a few eyebrows.

He's lied.

From the get-go.

That's correct.

Detectives were homing in on the men in Heather Stroob's life. Men who were also on detectives' list of 12 people who knew the details of her custody swap. First off, her boyfriend, Michael Vickers. He told police he had nothing to do with Heather's murder, that he loved her and had an alibi. But he remained on their list of possible suspects.

I was kind of questioning why they were asking me these questions, because I'm like, I was not there.

Did you say, what's going on here, guys?

I was asking, but I wasn't getting any answers, which kind of made me think, well, maybe they do think I had something to do with it. You know, they didn't say no, and they didn't say yes.

Why'd you keep digging down on him?

Because we wanted to make sure that we were going in the right direction. We never wanted to focus on one person to the exclusion of others.

But that all changed once detectives checked out Michael's alibi.

He was able to provide where he was working that night. And so we went out to his place of business and actually cooperated his statement with several people who were working, who said, you know, no, he was here.

As you left his place of business, that restaurant, did you say, Michael Vickers is likely not our guy?

Correct. Now it was Heather's estranged husband, Stephen Stroob Jr., who suddenly took priority.

Their relationship was really rocky. Obviously, they were getting divorced. It was a lot deeper than that.

Heather's close friend, Tracy, told investigators that Stephen cheated on Heather and, when confronted, refused to end his affair.

They filed for the divorce.

She did. And just because the cheating?

Okay.

Who was the person that he was having an affair with? Her name was Stacy. I did not know her last night.

However, she did know Stacy and Stephen were still together and felt Stephen was the only person with a possible motive for murder.

Why Stephen? Because he didn't like the fact that Heather had moved on with her life and that they argued constantly over arson.

Plus, she pointed out, only Stephen could have known just when and where to pull the trigger.

Unless someone had followed her, but they would have never, no one else knew.

Officers were already looking for Stephen, since he was Heather's next of kin. Now, finding him was even more important. They finally tracked him down at the home of his mom and stepdad, Joanna and Jack Hayes. According to police, when Stephen's stepdad answered the door, a young man approached. When police asked if he was Stephen Strube, they say he replied, no, I'm his cousin, and walked away.

The man says, who you here to talk to? And I said, Stephen Strube. And he's like, well, you were just talking to him.

What is that about?

It was very suspicious, and then it drew him in.

And he's lied to you.

And he's lied. From the get-go. That's correct.

According to police, Stephen tried to explain, said he thought they were there about a debt he owed. They told him that Heather was dead, and he swore he knew nothing about it. But could police trust him?

At that point, they asked him to come back to the police department where he was interviewed.

I'm always interested in demeanor. Who's this guy in the room now? Who are you seeing?

He was upset when he found out about Heather being dead.

Does he understand the peril of that situation?

Yes, and so we had to either prove that he's the one that did it, or prove that he didn't do it.

Stephen confirmed to detectives that he was the man witnesses saw at the parking lot custody exchange. Do you want to know where he goes, Stephen?

Well, that was important to know. He told us that he went to a car wash in Lilburn to meet with his girlfriend.

His girlfriend, Stacey Atkins, the same woman he'd had an affair with. From the car wash, Stephen told detectives they both drove to Stacey's house, where they hung out until he drove home later that night. But Stephen had lied to police once. They needed to check his alibi to be sure he wasn't doing so again.

Timelines are always important, and not just for them to establish a timeline that we can go back and either corroborate or disprove, but make sure they stay consistent with where they were at certain times of the day, prior to and after.

So he's still in your interview room. What's he giving up?

He's not really saying a whole lot. He's just saying, I don't know what happened. I mean, that was pretty much. his stance, is that he didn't have anything to do with it, that he wasn't there, he left, and that he couldn't have done it.

So were you done with him for that night?

We were, yes. We let him go.

So not to say you're not going to see him again?

Right.

As the only person with a possible and compelling motive for killing Heather, Stephen had become their lead suspect. And when detectives spoke to, Heather's friends and family, turned out. Tracy wasn't the only one who believed Stephen was responsible for Heather's death. Heather's other best friend, Jennifer, did too.

Oh, I absolutely thought that he was a part of it. We all did.

That the gun was in his hand.

It made sense. You know, it just made sense. Everything was so volatile.

Jennifer says Heather often complained about heated arguments. Stephen started during the custody swaps, and feared he might take Carson from her.

She honestly just expected to show up, and for them not to. She expected to get there to pick up Carson and the baby.

Swap day, and there's no swap. And there's no swap. There's no Carson, huh?

That's what she expected.

Concerned something more aggressive might occur, Jennifer and other friends asked Heather to contact them as soon as each custody swap was over.

We weren't comfortable with the constant arguments that were started. Unfortunately, when you have a situation, you know, as tumultuous as that can be, you don't really know what can transpire from a heated argument.

Heather's dad, Buddy, also worried about Stephen's temper.

What, he snapped at her?

I don't care to go into that.

But something happened.

Yes. Buddy and his wife couldn't bear the thought of their grandson in the care of someone suspected of killing his mom. After Heather's murder, a relative brought Carson from the hospital to their home, where he spent the night. You had Carson. You and Mary had Carson.

That's right.

The next day, he and Mary hired a family law attorney to fight for custody. And, with financial help from his mom, Stephen would soon do the same. Things between Heather, and Stephen's families were heating up. So was the hunt for Heather's killer. Police were about to find new video and new evidence that would cast a whole new light on the investigation.

You can tell, by the way, the perpetrator's walking that that's not a normal gait. It's not a normal walk.

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You ready for what's coming?

Steven Strube Jr. swore to police he had nothing to do with his estranged wife's murder. But detectives still had doubts.

We did not know if he was involved.

But he's acting a little squirrely. I think I hear you saying.

He was.

While fellow officers looked into his alibi, detectives turned their attention to an important discovery. Security footage of the parking lot where Heather was killed. And when they sat down to screen it, they saw this.

Chief, it's not great video, is it?

It's not good video.

And the camera's always moving, huh? Yes.

And we tried to get it enhanced as best we could, but even with that, we didn't get much from that.

However, after watching it over and over again, detectives found important evidence. It's hard to see at first glance, so Detective Boone and Detective Downs took us through it minute by minute.

So if you'll notice that the camera actually pans left to right and then a little bit up and down. So what you're looking at is the front of the Target store, and then the direction it's facing is actually east. Right. here you'll see Heather Stroop's vehicle.

She's already arrived.

Yes. And that's her. That's a burgundy Escalade right there in the parking lot.

Five minutes later, that's Stephen's green minivan parked right next to Heather.

So, at this point in time, both Stephen and Heather are there. The custody exchange is occurring. And then what we see is this figure that we believe to be the perpetrator, which matches, kind of what the witnesses tell us about the perpetrator. kind of being there ahead of time, lying and waiting and watching the exchange. So right here you'll see Stephen's green minivan start to exit the parking lot, as it just exited right there.

But just before the crucial moment of the shooting, the camera moved. There were no images of the shooter approaching Heather or of the shooting itself.

You don't have everything, but what is good about it?

Well, although the picture quality is not great, it still paints a picture for us about where Heather's vehicle was, where was the killer hiding out at. And also we can tell when the crime actually occurred, because you can see the people on the video just stopping their tracks. And reacting to it. Reacting to it and looking in that exact direction towards her car.

It. lets us also confirm that Stephen had left the parking lot prior to the shooting.

And why was that important?

Well, because we didn't know initially if he was a suspect or not.

So if he had gone up a few parking lanes and pulled over, that would have been a different story?

Would have been a different story.

Detectives now knew it was impossible for Stephen to be the shooter. He didn't have enough time to drive out of frame, return and shoot Heather. But there was also a second security camera that recorded a different angle. And this one gave investigators more of what they were hoping for. A better look at Heather's killer.

So there are two cameras. These are the pictures taken by the second one. And here you actually see your shooter, huh?

What you'll see is the suspect come around, as you see now, walking down the sidewalk.

There's the figure walking. That's the shooter?

That's the shooter right there, walking across the parking lot.

The murder has not happened yet?

Not yet.

And just 11 minutes later, after the shooting was over, the perpetrator walked by the camera again. This time exiting the parking lot.

What's interesting about that is, if you notice, the approach and the exit were at the same speed. The approach was nice and calm, walking up to the area where they were going to do surveillance prior to the exchange. And then, as the perpetrator was exiting and leaving, the same speed, the same walk, the same gate. The exact same way they walked in here.

Cool, calm and collected, huh?

Very, yeah.

It was impossible to see any details of the shooter's face or disguise. However, there was one thing that did stand out to detectives. The killer's wide, straight-legged walk.

The separation of the legs, how far apart they are.

And even though this particular camera is only capturing every other frame, you can still tell, by the way, the perpetrator's walking that that's not a normal gate. It's not a normal walk.

My recollection.

We're not sure where the perpetrator went once they went out of the frame of the camera.

But it's clearly back here.

But it clearly went behind the building.

That's what the canine does, right?

Correct.

Takes you to a parking space?

It basically gets to an asphalt area behind the building and no longer has a track.

While the security footage helped clarify everything witnesses described, the shooter's identity was still a mystery. The video ruled Steven out as the shooter. However, it didn't clear him of all suspicion.

He doesn't get off your suspect list because of that, right?

Absolutely not. We don't know what his involvement is and whether he still had involvement, whether he was part of the conspiracy to put this together or anything. He's still very much a viable suspect for us or a person of interest.

In the meantime, in the hope of finding Heather's killer, detectives continued down the list of 12 people who knew about Heather's custody swap. They had no idea they were about to get a head-spinning lead, one that would throw all their assumptions about the man in disguise right out the window.

He came out of the back entrance to smoke a cigarette, and that's when he saw the suspect in a white pickup truck parked over here.

And Heather's estranged husband was about to be back in the hot seat, this time with a revelation that would send the investigation in a completely new direction.

How did you get through the next days, the next week?

Not very well, but at the same time, as long as Carson was okay. We just had to know that Carson was okay.

How distraught was Michael by the loss of Heather in such an awful way?

Very.

He was right down on the floor with the rest of us.

But he says he always knew that Michael had nothing to do with Heather's murder. Michael adored Heather. Good guy, in your estimation.

Absolutely.

So if she hadn't run out of time, he might have been many chapters of her life, huh?

I think it would have been a novel. It's all gone. Everything changed that night.

Michael found it hard to accept that the future he imagined was suddenly impossible.

Did you think marriage was right around the corner?

We were both planning on getting married, yes.

She was the real deal for you?

She was, absolutely.

He found it hard to accept, too, the loss of Heather's son. They had begun to bond. You can hear Heather's voice cheering them on as she recorded this video. Carson, say hello!

Say hi!

Now, Heather was dead. And Michael was too consumed with grief to think about anything else.

Are you starting to pour doubles at that point?

I had triples and quadruples. I mean, there's times where I don't remember.

So you had blackout-like-less periods here?

I did, because I was so angry. I didn't know why I wasn't ever going to see her again.

For detectives, that meant working their way down the shrinking list of potential suspects. Including Mom and Dad, or did they get a pass?

No, nobody got a pass. I mean, Mom and Dad were on the list, so we had to prove that they were not involved.

They needed an alibi the same way everybody else did.

That's right.

Though you can't imagine parents shooting their child.

No, but we had to rule them out. We couldn't just assume and say to ourselves, well, Mom and Dad wouldn't do that.

It sounds cold, but it's the way you guys work.

Correct.

Detectives confirmed that the parents, Buddy and Mary, were driving back to Georgia. They were taken off the list. Stephen's girlfriend, Stacy, was another matter. She was also on the list and part of Stephen's alibi.

Are you interested in her story?

We are.

In romantic entanglements, you can create an ugly story involving the girlfriend, right?

That's right.

Even though Stephen wasn't the shooter, there was still the possibility that he was involved in a murder-for-hire plot or acting as a conspirator of some kind. Perhaps Stacy knew something.

Stephen said right after the custody exchange, he went and met her at the car wash. She was also with him prior to the custody exchange and was there with Carson.

Investigators wanted to hear Stacy's version of that day, starting with her visit to see Stephen at his mom's house. Stacy said she spent the afternoon there and that Stephen left for the custody swap around 5.45 p.m. She lingered around the house a little longer.

How long do you think that you were at the house? Maybe five or ten minutes. And then you decided to go to the car wash? Mm-hmm.

State and local investigators spoke with Stacy several times over the course of the investigation, and her story always remained the same. She left for the car wash and texted Stephen about her plans.

Did he send any texts back to you? Mm-hmm. Okay. Do you remember what time he got to the car wash? It was probably around 6.15..

They met in a neighboring town about ten minutes after Heather was killed. Detectives were able to confirm Stacy and Stephen's stories.

Those stories jive.

So that did match up. That was part of us being able to clear Stacy.

So who else had a motive to kill Heather? Investigators had talked to six people on their list and come up empty. And where did he go next?

At that point in the investigation, we had kind of run out of leads.

The heat was on, right?

Right. We had a whodunit, you know, homicide.

And you needed to get that person off the streets?

As quickly as possible.

Detectives were stumped. Then a call came in to the police station, one that would force them to throw all their assumptions about the shooter right out the window.

I was notified of this potential witness, so I pretty much stopped what I was doing and grabbed a detective.

Here's what they learned. A man named Daryl, a truck driver, called the police station after watching a news report on the shooting. He had a story to tell.

He was staying in the In-Town Suites, or Crestwood Suites, is what it was called in 2009.

More or less behind the Target store.

Yeah, it was the hotel that's adjacent to or right behind the parking lot.

Daryl said he spotted a white pickup truck parked in a far corner of the motel lot.

A person was in. It looked like they had a wig and a mustache.

He picked up on that?

Yeah, he's close enough to see that.

And he said he saw it all a few hours before the shooting. The detectives knew this was big. They got in their car and drove over to that motel lot to meet this Daryl in person.

He was staying here at the motel. He came out of the back entrance to smoke a cigarette, and that's when he saw the suspect in a white pickup truck parked over here.

The lot was close to the area where the K-9 unit lost scent of the shooter. It also made for an easy escape.

You can make a right-hand turn and you're outside of our jurisdiction. in 30 seconds. You can be outside of the county that we're in in just a few minutes.

Daryl said he'd seen the white pickup at least three times, twice the day before the shooting and again on Sunday. What really caught his eye about the pickup was the personal touch the driver had added to it.

He was an over-the-road truck driver, so all he did was observe vehicles all day. And he talked about a piece of black plastic trim that wasn't standard to that vehicle. So it was more of like an add-on. It was an upgrade.

It was an aha moment. Detectives suddenly remembered their visit to Stephen's house just after the murder. His mom, Joanna, wasn't there at the time. They couldn't recall if it had been Stephen or his stepdad, who told them she'd driven off earlier that evening in her white Ford F-150.. Now, what were the chances, out of the thousands of white Ford F-150s on the road at that moment, that Joanna's would have black plastic trim?

We asked him if he would ride with us by a house. And all we were going to do is point out the house and ask him if he recognized any of the vehicles in the driveway.

Not coaching the witness?

No, we just sat there. I pointed. I said, OK, it's going to be this house on your left. And we slowly went by it. He said, that's the truck.

A white F-150 with aftermarket black trim. Right there in Joanna's driveway.

We both kind of looked at each other like, we've got a big break right here.

Was it possible? the shooter witnesses saw wasn't a man at all, but a woman? Police were about to bring in a sketch artist to put a face to their descriptions. The result was unlike anything they'd ever seen.

You know, I said, I don't know if this is going to help us. But what's interesting, I think, is the pointed nose and the fact that it does indicate that the person we're looking for is pretty slender.

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