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Dateline NBC
Out There in the Dark
00:41:00
In this Dateline classic, Dennis Murphy reports on the mysterious death of a young mother in Ohio and the ensuing investigation that spans years and multiple states. Originally aired on NBC on January 26, 2018.
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Tom Yamas
It looked like a pleasant summer day, but was was in fact a spectacular summer day. Perfect for lounging and listening to Dateline. Subscribe to Dateline Premium and get a free one month trial ad, free listening bonus episodes and early access to new original series. This special offer expires July 30th. So subscribe now to Dateline Premium only on Apple Podcasts. You don't want to miss out, do you? Taking over the helm of NBC Nightly News, a 75 year old broadcast, it's a great responsibility. Good evening. I'm Tom Yamas. You have to go out there to bring people at home closer to the store. Wildfires continue to be a threat. With that massive hurricane comes the massive response. The best reporters in our business know how to listen. And when you listen, you get the truth. For NBC News, NBC News, I'm Tom Yamas. That's what we do every night. NBC Nightly News with Tom Yamas. Evenings on NBC. I got a phone call. Something's wrong with Brandy. She's not moving and the car's running. Emergency vehicles, officers. And that's as far as I could go. There's my baby and I can't do nothing about it. She was a hard working young wife and mom. Sweetest girl you could ever ask to meet. Just minutes from home when she saw the headlights. Somebody was tailing her. My sister is in my driveway and her head's bloody. So you bury your little girl and then it's a murder investigation. There were two people Brandi feared, one in town. She thought she was being followed. 1000s of miles away. Josh was still in Alaska. And then there was the new man in her life. Anybody close to Brandi we need to take a real hard, serious look at? No fingerprints, no DNA, and no arrests for years. You're grieving. How do you put all that awful time together? Molly, take a bite. Then hints emerge of someone's dark past. You've got robberies going on, the homicide and one brave woman willing to talk. He told me. The same that happened to Brandon happened to me. The question wasn't just who murdered a young mother. It was why. There was no money. There just wasn't a reason to do it. She didn't hurt nobody. She didn't bother nobody. Why did they have to kill her? I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Dennis Murphy with. Out there in the dark. It was a chillier than usual Monday night in May as Brandy Daniels drove home from her shift at Kohl's. Zanesville in eastern Ohio is The kind of not too big, not too small city where you can be off the downtown grid and into wooded rolling hills in just a few minutes. And out there in the dark, that's where this 25 year old single mom was heading back home to her daughter. Waiting to be tucked in at Brandy's mom's house out in the country where she'd been living lately. Brandi had been through a rough few months, years really. But one of the big reasons things were finally turning around for her was that soothing voice on the cell phone this night. Her fiance talking her home. Just talking to her as she's driving home, trying to drive a stick shift, which she'd just learned, talking on the phone. The fiance was Craig Berry, her older boyfriend. I'm a hairstylist. I've been for years. One day, Brandi walked into Craig's salon. We hit it off. Women are very funny about who they will turn their head over to, isn't it? Yeah. We turn out to be really good friends. The most beautiful eyes you ever saw. Like the song. Brandi turned out to be a fine girl for Craig. And that right away mutual attraction grew into something more serious. Touched my heart immediately. It was connection like I've never felt. It just kept getting bigger and bigger. Every time we talked, we were looking at houses. You guys were fixing to marry? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Count Brandy's mom, Molly Edwards, among the many people thrilled at the arrival of Craig in her life. Just when you needed something nice to happen. Craig, what'd you think of him? He was really nice. He put her first. He put her first. Growing up, Brandi wasn't much for Barbie dolls. But give her a sketch pad and a pencil and she was lost for hours. She loved to draw. She had a deft eye for realistic wildlife portraits. She took every kind of art class there was. If it had anything to do with art, she took it. Brandy enrolled at her local college, Zane State. But before her freshman year was up, she left school to marry Josh Daniels, a part time student she'd met not too long after she had news for mom. She called me up, said that she was pregnant. You must have been so torn up. I was. That was my baby. Brandi, husband Josh and the baby daughter were living nearby. You couldn't ask for a better mother if it was something that she needed or little girl needed. The baby got it first and had a grandmother like her new baby. The baby got everything. Yes. Yes. The marriage, after seven years of trying, foundered. She filed for divorce. She seemed to be on the Other side. Molly of a really rough patch in her life. Yes. But on this May night, as she was driving home from work with fiance Craig, in her ear, he heard Brandi starting to sound edgy. She says, somebody was tailing her. You know, these people need to get off my butt. And the phone just went dead. It went dead. I text her, you know, what's up? So about 10 minutes passed by and called her sister and said, is Brandy home yet? She goes, no. I said, well, her call dropped on me and she should have been coming in the door by now. She said, you want me to go check? I said, would you? Brandi's kid sister Tess, headed up the almost half mile long drive from her mom's house to look for her. Just a few minutes later, her sister calls me back and is losing it. She was at the top of the driveway, and she says, I see her car. Her headlights are on, but it's not moving. Head slumped down. And then she just became hysterical. And I said, I'll be there. I said, you need to call the cops. 911, your emergency. The Muskingum County 911 center fielded the call. My sister is in my driveway and her head's bloody and she's not moving. I just need someone to come quick, please. I'm just scared. I just. I need someone to come now. Stand the line with me while I get the squad on the way. Fiance Craig was on his way, too. There was his girlfriend's little Nissan Sentry in the drive. I pull in right behind her car, and there's a sheriff there already. And I'm walking up to the car and I see her in the driver's seat. And I said, what's wrong? He goes, I think she's been shot. Nothing can prepare you for that. No, she was dead. That's what he told me. He told you that at the scene? Yeah, you know, and stay away, you know, you don't want to contaminate the crime scene. No bridge ahead, into the abyss. Yeah, that blew me out of the water. Brandi's mom was just leaving the bottle factory where she worked. 1105, I got a phone call and I went running out to the truck. Tess said, something's wrong with Brandi. We get home, see emergency vehicles, officers. We'll go right off into the driveway. And that's as far as I could go. The car with the driver's side window down, the vehicle stalled in first gear, and Brandi inside looking rag doll, shot three times, execution style. The detectives were arriving. Who would want Brandy dead. It's always the husband, right? Maybe not this time. When we return, Josh was in fact still in Alaska that night. But there was someone who lived right in town. Did you wonder what was going on with the boyfriend? Anybody close to Brandy we needed to take a real hard, serious look at? It was May 5, 2014. The car was at the head of the driveway, lights on, and two county detectives arriving to try to figure out what had happened to the young woman dead. In. In the driver's seat, Detective Mike Ryan and Captain Steve Welker. In the first minutes of what would be a years long investigation. Mike and I arrived at about the same time. Did the scene explain itself to you? We could see the basics of what had happened. Their victim, Brandi Daniels, had been shot three times at close range. Crime scene techs would later recover three shell casings and a clip for a semiautomatic pistol. Brandi's purse and phone were beside her. We eliminated robbery almost immediately because there is an amount of money there that somebody would have took if it would have been a robbery. As the CSIs took their photos and estimated bullet trajectories, gathered blood, DNA, Brandi's mom, sister and fiance watched on in blank horror. What do you remember about the rest of that night? Sitting in the vehicle behind her car, just watching it. And there's your girl gone. There's my baby. And I can't do nothing, nothing about it. It was 2 o'. Clock. Went to the house, 4 o'. Clock. Detectives came down to the house, said that they removed her in the car. Who would benefit from a single mom's death? Of course, the questioning turned quickly to the soon to be divorced husband, the father of the little girl. Brandi's mom told them about Josh Daniels. Said he was a personal trainer at the gym and an obsessive weightlift. When you ran him through the computer, what'd you find out about him? Did he have priors? He did not. He was not on law enforcement's radar. Not on law enforcement's radar, but nonetheless somebody they wanted to talk to right now. But there was a problem. A big one. There was every reason to believe he wasn't in the driveway that night, but 4,300 miles away in Alaska. Josh had moved up there to be near his mom, and he'd found work in the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. Josh was in fact, still in Alaska that night. So that's a pretty good alibi. Yes. Because there's domestic turmoil doesn't mean you necessarily have a suspect. Though, does it? Not necessarily. Doesn't explain why she's dead in his vehicle. But it's a good idea to eliminate the husband as a suspect in the get go. Detective Ryan called Josh Daniels on Alaska's North Slope. Can you discern things like demeanor or attitude through the phone line? Not really. I wasn't detecting shock or grief or anything like that, but nothing you can hang your hat on either. One of the questions I asked him was, who have you been talking to here in Zanesville? And he gave me a list of about half dozen people. Daniels told the detective he'd return to Zanesville as soon as he could. But there was another person much closer that the cops had to figure out. Craig Barry, the fiance. He is the last person known to have talked to her, yes. Did you wonder what was going on with the boyfriend? He's quite an older guy. He's got 20 years on your victim, right? Yes. So he's a person of interest. Until he's not, I'm guessing, huh. Well, at that point, anybody close to Brandi we need to take a real hard, serious look at? Within hours of Brandi's death, Craig got the third degree with asking you hard questions, you know, where have you been? What are you doing? Did you think, wow, they think I'm a suspect? Oh, yeah, well, that's common, right? Until you're rented and there's a cop rating your grill, right? They asked for my cell phone, I handed it over. Right then. How long did that last? I got home at 5:30 that morning. Then the legwork of the investigation began in earnest, starting with where she was last seen alive. So you're talking to your victim's co workers. What's the picture coming together there? They all describe Brandi as a very good young lady. A devoted mother in a marriage that she really wanted to get out of. Patrol officers traced the route from Coles to the murder scene, hoping they'd find a security cam that recorded Brandi's car headed home. The boyfriend story is there's a guy right on her bumper. But that image doesn't show up anywhere, huh? No. When the lab results came back, disappointment. No useful fingerprints or DNA. And the long slog of getting search warrants to recover data from the cell phone and the towers the signals bounce off of had only just begun. A few days after the murder, Brandi's husband Josh returned to Zanesville from Alaska. They met him downtown at his lawyer's office. He was fully cooperative. The detectives asked for his cell phone. He and his attorney voluntarily turned it over. Now you can look him in the eye and you can check out his demeanor. What are you seeing? Josh was very cool and collected. He looked very confident with the data from his phone. On the way to the lab, Josh returned to Alaska with his 8 year old daughter. Molly and her family had buried their brandy, but no one was coming to terms with the magnitude of this crime. Did the officers tell you anything about how the case would go? They figured that it'd be summed up within a couple of days, if only. Coming up a new suspect, but he has an alibi. I went to my girlfriend's house and. Okay, stay right there. Was he telling the truth? The texts tell the tale. You're on the clock when you type these. You were sure he was not in the house. When DATELINE continues. Whether you're planning an adventure for the family. Whoa, dad, check this out. Or a getaway for just the two of you, this is perfect. It's time to discover the valley in Spokane. Valley we Washington Adventure is always nearby. The valley is your convenient, family friendly and close to nature getaway. With great restaurants, shopping, sports complexes and entertainment. There's something for everyone. Visit the region, stay in the valley. Plan your adventure@discoverspokanevalley.com as the day wraps up, get the scoop on what's been happening with here's the Scoop, a new podcast from NBC News, with me, your host, Yasmin Vesugian, along with Morgan Chesky and Brian Cheung. We'll take a deep dive into the day's top stories with NBC News trusted journalists. It's a fresh take that's sharp, thoughtful and it's informative, bringing you closer to the headlines and conversations that are shaping our world. From the front page to the zeitgeist, all in 15 minutes or less. Here's the scoop from NBC News. Listen daily on Apple Podcasts. Hey everyone. I'm Jenna Bush Hager from the Today show and I'm excited to share my podcast Open Book with Jenna. It is back for season two. Each week, celebrities, experts, friends and authors will share candid stories with me about their lives and new projects. Guests like Rebecca Yarros, Kristin Hannah, Ego Wodom and more. Like a good book, you'll leave feeling inspired and entertained. Join me for my podcast Open Book with Jenna. Listen now on Apple Podcast. Brandi, the young mom found shot to death in the front seat of her car in the family driveway. Detectives put her fiance Craig through the ringer, but his story, including the part about his last text to Brandi, checked out within two or three days, we were sure that he was cleared. But Craig wasn't a total dead end. The fiance did have a tip for the detectives. He told them they should check out a fellow gym rattler, Josh Daniels. A guy who gave Brandy the creeps. Someone with an unusual first name. Sirius. Sirius E. Underwood. When they ran the name, investigators found a son of a local preacher who'd had some juvenile offenses, but in the years since had redeemed himself. He graduated from Zane State, got a good job with a local manufacturer, and seemed to charm every woman he met. Ford. Four days into their investigation, Detective Brady Hittle found Sirius at a girlfriend's place. I asked him if I could look at his cell phone, if I could take it back to the office and download it. He agreed to let me do that. How did he present himself? Calm. He claimed he didn't know Brandi was killed. Just calm, cool and collected. Sirius came to the sheriff's office. We'll put an airplane that. While the squad's phone expert examined his cell, Sirius explained how he knew Brandi's husband, Josh. We went to Zane State together. Okay. I worked out with him and stuff like that. He said he hardly knew Brandi. I didn't like meter meter. I seen her one time. As for his pal Josh up in Alaska, Sirius said they hadn't been in contact for a while. When was the last time he sent you a text? He called you? I'll say, about two or three weeks ago this week. I didn't talk to him this week. Sirius said he'd been with his girlfriend around the time cops believe Brandi died. I went to my girlfriend's house and stayed in right there. Officers returned Sirius iPhone and thanked him for coming in. Wendy Lemon, the girlfriend in Sirius Alibi, was next up on the detectives list of people to talk to. Wendy, a mother of five, said she met Sirius a couple of years earlier at the same place Brandi and Josh got together, Zane State College. I just knew from the moment I met Sirius that this is just a new friend. Happy, always smiling. The midlife single mom, back to college and dean's list student Sirius were ambassadors for their school. They were just looking for a face for Zane State College that would be friendly and that would be outgoing so that we could go to different events in the community as well as giving tours on campus. Sirius had found time to work as a campus security guard. And that's where he met Josh, who did the same thing. Sirius was an overachiever, even featured in brochures about the College. Wendy liked almost everything about him. They became a couple one year for my birthday, he totally set up an entire day skydiving. And happy birthday was so amazing. So awesome. We took motorcycle rides and went on picnics. Now Wendy found herself caught in the undertow of a homicide investigation. Cops had her downtown the same day as Sirius. I just want to let you know you're not under arrest. Okay. Detective Ryan asked about the night of the murder. He used Wendy's text with Sirius to refresh her memory. Could you put it here so you both can see? Oh, yeah. May 5th. Okay. Yay. Did Wendy's text that night fit in the timeline they were building of Brandi's murder? And did they speak to Sirius? Whereabouts? Around the clock. When you typed these, you were sure he was not in the house. Okay. Until 11 o' clock. He wasn't. He was not there wasn't. Sirius arrived. Wendy said after that 11 o' clock text, Sirius had given the cops Wendy as his alibi. And she'd inadvertently only made him someone detectives needed to take a closer look at. There's a window of opportunity in there in which he could easily have done this crime. Yes. And there was another thing. The squad's phone expert filled them in about some Internet searches he'd found on Sirius device. Sirius had opened every news article that had to do with the homicide. Interesting, because earlier in the day he claimed he didn't know Brandi was murdered. Question was Sirius the gunman in Brandy's driveway? He seemed to be no more than a casual friend of Josh's from the gym. But when the IT guys cracked Josh Daniels phone use history, it told a different story. What had he deleted a lot of text messages. To whom? Sirius Underwood. Sirius Underwood was by far the one he was in contact the most. What's your thinking? When we first talked to Josh, he never mentioned Sirius Underwood. Why would they be lying to us about that? Why indeed? The story told by the phones, the concealed relationship fed a growing theory of the crime. That they were looking at a long distance killing between Ohio and Alaska. If that was their case, then technology was going to be as valuable to them as DNA or bloody fingerprints. The first big question. Did the killer, assuming he was a man, have a phone on him when he did the shooting? And what tower near the murder scene had the phone pinged off? We had tons of, and I'm not exaggerating, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of phone calls that hit all these various towers. In that electronic haystack, a sharp eyed cop noticed a call around the time they believed Randy was killed. It was made from a number with a 310 area code. Now, normally that's Southern California. The county lawmen traced that 310 number back to an anonymous disposable phone, a burner purchased in Zanesville a week before Brandy died. I get the call records for the 310 area phone and start combining through those. He only called two people, a second burner phone and Josh Daniels. Those were the only two. Was this their breakthrough? That burner phone, at the right time, right place, had called Josh's phone in Alaska. Then the phone text did another extraction of Josh's phone. And they retrieved something Josh thought he deleted. A voicemail that was left on Josh Daniel's cell phone from this California area code. Hey, what's up, man? It's me. Hey, hit me up on this phone right here. Whenever you talk about something, hear me, holler at me later. Detective Hittle's ears perked up when he heard it. I listened to it and now I know that that phone 310 is Sirius Underwood's. That is his voice. The detectives wanted another technically deeper dive into Sirius iPhone, which they'd return to him. Sirius came downtown again as requested. But while the cops were preoccupied chasing down a search warrant for his device, he outfoxed them. Sirius found a computer and remotely wiped his. When I reached in and got serious phone, I could see that it had been reset factory restored from the icloud. So whatever story he was going to tell you weren't going to hear it. There was nothing left on that phone. Pretty clever. It was like a whole evidence locker going up in smoke. Their whole techie crime trail. Poof. Detectives by then were sure Sirius Underwood and Josh Daniels were behind Brandi's murder. But could they prove it? We knew at that time we had a serious problem with our evidence. We were not dead in the water, but we were definitely struggling. Coming up a stalled case. Are you starting to lose faith in your police? The investigation, it was stressful. And then a threat convinces a woman to talk. He told me the same that happened to running. Happened to me. What do you say? Happened to Brandi. He killed her. He killed her. What is the next thing we've got to do then? Investigators were pretty sure they had the right guys for Brandi Daniels murder. And they learned a lot about just how awful her marriage to Josh was. Cops found a 911 call Brandi had made six months before her murder. Seems to play some fire. I'm in an abusive Relationship. And I'm afraid to go home. And I tell my husband that I want to leave, but he won't let me. And it gets physical. Brandi didn't request a deputy that night, but she did file a restraining order against Josh when she left him. Cops knew Josh's buddy from the gym, Sirius, was likely involved in the murder, but they just couldn't tie the two of them together, despite some suspicious phone traffic between the pair. An additional difficulty in the investigation was the fact that Josh was still living in Alaska, about as far away as you could get from Ohio and still be in the same country. Josh Daniels was here, starting his new chapter, living in Wasilla, about an hour outside of Anchorage, with his mother and stepfather. Keeping tabs on him from thousands of miles away were the Zanesville police, and they were seeing some patterns. When he wasn't working a job on the North Slope oil fields, he was partying, pumping iron and chasing women. Back in Zanesville, meanwhile, the cops kept their pressure up on the person of interest they did have in their zip code, Sirius Underwood. The detectives were all over his girlfriend, Wendy. Every time that I had a little spat or whatever, I was frustrated or disgusted, was, you know, serious. He would always show up again. Just wondered if maybe you remembered something. Trying to find you at a vulnerable moment, and now you're finally going to spill. It's just like I've already told you every single thing. It's never going to change if you don't lie. You don't have to cover a lie. Brandi's mother was losing faith in the cops ever making an arrest in the case of her daughter's body. Brutal murder. Are they saying trust us? Yeah. Every time we'd hear something, we'd contact them. Still need to get more evidence. Still need to get more evidence. But something was about to happen, and it was enormous. Call it a good luck bolt from the land of the midnight sun. Alaska was calling. It was three months to the day after Brandi's murder when the Ohio investigators got a phone call from up here in Wasilla, it was a woman on the line saying that she had been seeing Josh Daniels and she had a story to tell the police. Something he had told her. Well, when detectives Hiddle and Ryan heard that they were on the plane to Alaska within hours, the young woman explained she and Josh had been engaged at the time of Brandi's death, but he had commitment issues. He lied all the time. He was dating multiple people at same time. She had the detectives undivided attention as she Related what an intoxicated Josh told her on the 4th of July. He told me the same that happened to Brandon. Happened to me. What did he say happened to Brandi? He killed her. He killed her. He said that? He said. He said I killed her, yeah. Do you remember what his exact words were? He said he killed Brandi with a phone call. And I believe everything he said. I believe that he killed her. And I was so afraid. Did he say who killed Brandi? He says a black guy, a dude. That wasn't his group of people. It looked as though the detectives were ready to put a bow on their investigation. Take the blizzard of messages between the two men, mix in the geography of the cell phone towers. That put a suspect burner phone tied to Sirius right near the crime scene. And now add in the story of the woman from Alaska who'd apparently heard a confession, and you should be ready to swear out arrest warrants. Not quite. When the detectives got back to Ohio, their first stop was at the office of State's Attorney Mike Haddix. And they come to you and say, are we there yet? Yes. And you're telling them, no, you're not quite there. I wanted to make sure that before we took the case to grand jury that we had a motive. Obviously, in the case of Josh Daniels, the husband, we had a motive. Marriage was breaking up. He had been violent with her in the past, but he was thousands of miles away in Alaska at the time. We knew he didn't pull the trigger. He didn't pull the trigger. When we came up with Sirius Underwood, the most obvious is there's been some sort of a payment. We spent about a year looking through bank accounts, couldn't find any. Almost two years went by and nothing. How do you put all that awful time together, Molly? Day by day, are you starting to lose faith in your police? The investigation, it was stressful. Mike Ryan, he would call, and I said, have you heard anything? We still have to get some more. More evidence. More evidence. But it's funny how things sometimes work out, because the investigators were about to get another bolt out of the blue lead like the one from Alaska. It began with, of all things, a message to the Facebook page of the Zanesville pd. The tipster had volunteered that her husband was part of a stick up gang. We came in and spoke with her and obtained a lot of valuable information for this investigation. Detective Phil Michael of the Zanesville PD had been working for two years on a string of armed robberies when he got the Facebook tipster in for an interview. Guess who she identified as two members of the robbery crew. None other than Sirius Underwood and Josh Daniels. If the tipster could be believed, they'd been bandits together two years before Brandi would be found shot to death. The woman confirmed something Detective Michael had long suspected but been unable to prove. That the robbery of a local department store had been an inside job. Josh Daniels had been working at the store at the time and handed over $7,000 to a masked gunman. If we had been here on January 1, 2012, what might we have seen? You can see an individual come from the southwest side of the parking lot. He stuck the gun in Josh's face. Shows a pistol. Yes. He ended up falling down, being knocked down. The tipster claimed that Josh wasn't the victim of the robbery, but actually one of the participants. And that his pal Sirius had been the mastermind not only of the department store job, but the prime mover in a crime wave responsible for multiple armed robberies, most of them captured on surveillance video. The two bodybuilders secret sideline was a head snapping revelation. Sirius Underwood at night's over here robbing drug dealers, or he's robbing tumbleweed restaurants, or they're hitting, you know, Gabriel Brothers. But during the day, he's the sweetest guy. Loves the women, they love him. He'll train with you. Poster boy. Just an all around great American. The cops believe that linking Sirius and his partner in crime, Josh Daniels, to the violent robberies would help nail the two for Brandi Daniels murder. We're on the right track for the robberies. We're gonna go try to confront Josh. Back to Alaska. When Josh landed at Anchorage International on his way home, home from the North Slope Airport, police whisked him into their office. Detective Michael showed Josh photographs of the department store robbery suspects. I've never seen him before around the store or anything like that. Detective Michael then handed Josh another photo. You ever seen Sirius Underwood? Yeah. Nice to work with him. Would you have talked to Sirius that day by. Would he have called you or text you or anything like that? Not at all. No. Really. The cop accused Josh of lying, of being up to his eyeballs in the robberies. So if you guys came up with some dumbass scheme to take some money, then you need to be honest with you. Josh stuck to his story, then lawyered up. The detectives, flying home to Ohio, knew they had more work to do. But in any conspiracy, there's a weak link. They just had to pick their man and break him. Coming up, who would crack first? We get the phone call saying, hey, let's make a deal. Let's talk when DATELINE continues. I'm Josh Mankiewicz and I hope you'll join us for season four of dateline Missing in America. In each episode of dateline's award winning series, we will focus on one missing persons case and hear from the families, the friends and the investigators, all desperate to find them. You will want to listen closely. Maybe you could help investigators solve a mystery. DATELINE Missing in America. All episodes available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, I'm Al Roker from the Today show, here to tell you about our Jumpstart July event. The Start Today app has everything you need to get and stay motivated on your wellness. This journey all in one place like walking challenges for all levels to get you moving, healthy recipes that are easy and delicious and so much more. And now when you subscribe for an annual plan, you'll get your first month completely free with promo code Jumpstart. Just download the Start Today app now to get started. Offer in 7, 31, 25. Must enter code at checkout. Must be 18 or up. After first month, you will be automatically dropped. Charge $65.99 a year plus tax for an annual subscription until you cancel. Cancel anytime through your device settings under Apple account. See website for full terms. A dogged investigation with a generous dollop of luck had revealed that Josh and Sirius were more than gym buds. Spotting each other reps, they were armed robbers together. Detectives surmised that Brandi, their victim, must have known about Sirius and her husband's part in the holdups. For State's Attorney Mike Haddix, the homicide case had achieved critical mass. So what was the final green light for your investigators? When did they have it? When we found that these two guys were criminal conspirators, violent criminals in several robberies. There was our motive. And once I felt that we had the motive for Sirius Underwood to be involved in this murder, we were a go. Which is Josh's wife might be a risk for him. That's correct. She might snitch him out. She might snitch him out. Haddocks convened a grand jury. Assistant state's attorneys Ron Welch and John Lytle would present the case. There would be a lot of convoluted storytelling and evidence for the jury to follow. You've got robberies going on, the homicide, the cell phone data, how you link all these people up, you're going to have multiple snitches who are all going to be testifying, who all have Their own issues. The grand jury sat for three months and heard more than 100 witnesses. In March 2016, it returned indictments against Josh Daniels and Sirius Underwood. At the request of authorities in Ohio, the Alaska State Troopers located Josh at his mother's home in Wasilla. Once Ohio gave the green light to the troopers to move on their suspect, they did. The cuffs went on without incident. A bulked up Josh was put in the backseat of a cruiser and driven downtown. Detective Michael confronted him. You've been charged with several counts, including the robberies that occurred at Gabriel Brothers Tumbleweed, the one that you're gonna do at Campbell's. In the murder, murder of your soon to be ex wife, Brandi. Josh was shown a graphic crime scene photo of poor Brandi. This is what you are responsible for. This is what happened to your ex. And I'm willing to talk to you to get your side of the story, if you're willing to talk to me. I think you're a good investigator, but I'm gonna have an attorney, so. Okay, we're gonna do that. That's fine, Josh. Meanwhile, back in Zanesville, police surrounded Sirius Underwood's car and arrested him. His interrogation didn't last long. You know why you're here? Okay. We've had a grand jury, and you've been indicted for aggravated murder, aggravated robberies, attempted robberies, weapon under disability, tampering with evidence. Josh Daniels is also arrested. Josh is up there talking. And I think it's the proper thing to tell you that you have the opportunity to tell me, too. Would you like to talk to me about this? No. No. Lawyer. Want a lawyer? Yeah. Okay. Josh waived extradition and was brought back to Ohio. Brandi's mother got word at the end of her shift. I get a phone call. You need to get down here now. There you are in a courtroom. What's going on? Josh is there doing his plea, and then they go over details that we weren't aware of. So it's got to bring all the pain right back again, huh? How did he look to you in that courtroom? Not a care in the world. Wendy was in the courtroom as well. This is big news. Sirius is charged. He's in jail. Do you believe that he killed Brandy Daniels? That he shot her to death on that road? No, I don't. Sirius had just so much going for him, and he had worked so hard, and I would just say, well, why? What did he have to gain from doing something like that? Over the next few months, Welch and Lytle prepared their cases. Josh would be Tried first, then Sirius. They laid out their case on index cards. Motive was looking more complicated than ever. In opening arguments, they'd have to explain to jurors just who these defendants are. Sirius, the overachieving charmer and bad husband, Josh, who'd been abusing anabolic steroids for years. Josh was roided out. He was out of his mind using steroids. Sirius is a sociopath. Whereas for Josh, it was a status of being enraged and jealous. I think he still loved her, and she was just done with him. Josh sat behind bars for seven months, deprived of elephant doses of steroids. His chemically enhanced muscles deflated like spent balloons. They'd found their weak link. We get the phone call from Josh's defense attorney saying, hey, let's make a deal. Let's. Let's talk. The issue that we had was, you know, who do you make the deal with? The guy that had his wife killed or the guy that shot her point blank range in the face? The state's attorney agreed to a plea deal, but Josh Daniels would have to tell all. I want to start off with the murders coming up. One down, one to go. What was the weakness in the case? You're still going to have Josh come in as your witness. Josh. The jury wouldn't like him. So within that, there might be wiggle room for serious. Right. As part of pleading guilty to murdering his wife, Brandy, Josh Daniels had to admit what he'd done. Provide what lawyers call a proffer. He was brought to a conference room at the prosecutor's office. When was the first time that this idea came about, that no serious Underwood. For a while. We were having a conversation one day at his apartment, and I was telling him about me and how. How hard this was on me. Me and Brandi splitting up. How pissed off I was that she was seeing that guy Craig. And he made the comment, well, that bitch was just offer. And at the time, being emotional and mad, you know, I made the decision that maybe I. That wouldn't be a bad idea. Josh helped him stalk his wife. Sirius asked me where she lived, and I told him, and he asked me about her work schedule, and I told him. And it wasn't just Brandy Josh wanted dead. I told him, see if he could go over to her boyfriend's house, Craig's. See if he can find him where he lives and break into his house, kill both of them. Did he? Huh? Did he find out where he lived? Yeah. Did he try to break in the house? No, not that I know of. They schemed together on the eve of the murder. He asked me a day before, are you sure that you want this done? And I've been drinking and swollen. I had alcohol problems and steroid problems, and I was just mad. I said, yeah, how did it go down? I told him that she was getting off work. I would text Sears and just say the word close. He just said that, I've got this. I see her car. I don't know actually what took place on the night. I know that she was shot. So I don't know if he parked his vehicle somewhere and came running out of the bushes. I never talked to Sirius after the murder actually happened. He certainly confirmed with you that it happened. He said, done. They asked, how could Josh live with himself after killing the mother of his child? I thought that it would just go away, that this day would never come and be. Getting arrested would never happen. After Brandy's death, it became alcoholic. Drinking every day and taking her, using heroin, downers, just anything to numb that pain. The killer husband sounded almost contrite. If I could go back and I could change it, I would. Brandi didn't deserve what happened to her. She was a good girl. And ultimately, years down the road, having Brandi gone, seeing how that affects my. That's gonna affect my daughter's life. She's gonna have her mom. And knowing that, I played a part in that, I can't live with that. With Josh about to throw himself at the mercy of the court, prosecutors still had the accused trigger man to deal with. But serious was hanging tough, not saying a word. So with only one of the two accused going to trial, the state star witness would be Josh Daniels. As prosecutors prepared him to testify, they were still trying to wrap their arms around Sirius motive for the murder. What's he telling you? When I pushed Josh on, why. Why would he do this? And he says that's what dudes do for dudes. That's what Sirius told him. Because he asked him, he's like, you do that for me. And he just said, that's what dudes do for dudes. Kill your wife, Right? Crunch time for the prosecutors. Sirius trial was looming, and they were far from confident. What was the weakness in the case. You're still gonna have Josh come in as your witness, Josh. That the jury wouldn't like him. You're asking the jury to rely upon somebody that's admitted to having their wife executed. That's a tough pill to swallow. So within that, there might be wiggle room for Sirius. Right? Just days before Sirius trial was scheduled to begin, I was Writing my opening, I got a text message from the defense attorney saying, you guys do an Alford plea. Sirius lawyer was proposing a plea deal. An Alford plea, the screwball pitch of American jurisprudence. Alford plea to civilians, to layman, has a very sketchy kind of feel to it. Do you want to take a crack at trying to explain what an Alford plea is? Sure. It basically is when somebody says, I'm willing to say that you have lots of information, and I'm gonna plead guilty, but I'm not gonna say I actually did anything wrong. And I say, huh? Right. And then I turn to Ron and say, how's this go again? So he's gonna take responsibility without saying, you did it. The state's attorney signed off, and the trial judge accepted Sirius Underwood's Alford plea. Sirius was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole after 38 years. Josh Daniels got life with the possibility of parole after 28 years. Not enough time for some of Brandi's loved ones. So where do we stand now? They've both been dealt with, huh? Yeah. My guess, your opinion, do you think they both got off easy? Yes, they did. They're still breathing, she's not. Josh and Sirius are serving their sentences in separate maximum security prisons. Brandy's parents took in their granddaughter. The family is left with a snapshot album itself getting older, but the young woman pictured in the pages inside staying the same, never to have her own album of her daughter graduating, getting married. Time ran out for Brandy on a dark hilltop before she could kiss her daughter good night. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us Friday night on Dateline, 9, 1 1. Where's your emergency? I don't know how to describe it. My wife is missing and there's blood all over our bedroom. Her family was home, but no one heard her scream. This is not a large house. You would think somebody would heard something. A story only the killer can tell. I feel like there's something you're not saying. Dateline Friday at 9, 8 Central, only on NBC.