- I'm craig melvin,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
- It was wrong
And I will never forgive myself.
I am her closest friend.
I mean, the worst kind of betrayal.
I felt awful.
How could I have done that to her?
- They were college sweethearts married 13 years.
Then, the mystery started.
- She asked, "dad, where's mom?"
And I said,
"mom didn't come home last night."
- A drive to the mall and she vanished.
- We were scared to death.
- He was alone with three kids.
- That's probably the most difficult thing
I've ever had to do.
- A grieving husband, a missing wife,
Turns out, both of them had secret lives.
- The first thing I thought was,
"these people on the game."
- Her secret?
An online fantasy game with a mystery man
Who was very real.
- Maybe she met up with somebody else
To start a new life.
- His secret involved romance too.
- It was eating me up alive.
- And the best friend?
What was she hiding?
- My world was crumbling.
- Love, betrayal, and maybe murder.
- I'm scared to my death
That they're gonna send me to jail.
- You can't take back what you've done.
- You never know what's goin' on next door.
♪♪
- Hello, and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
Jen and remy ramsaran, in love since college,
Were busy rearing their three children.
Then, one day jen disappeared.
Turns out,
There were secrets in this marriage.
Jen was escaping into a fantasy video game.
And remy?
He was playing games of a different sort.
Now, authorities had a very real mystery on their hands.
Here's andrea canning with "secret lives".
- It was two weeks before christmas in 2012
When a sudden disappearance sent a chill
Through this sleepy town.
- She was going to buy her daughter a dress
For her christmas concert.
- A young mother on a 60 mile journey
Through winding backcountry roads.
- When do you start to get a little worried?
- Right around that time once it started getting dark.
- Well, he actually called me
And asked if I had heard from her,
And I said, "no".
- I just had a bad feeling. I just didn't know.
- Jennifer ramsaran, wife and mother of three,
Had vanished.
- A nightmare. A nightmare.
- And before the nightmare was over,
Secrets would come tumbling out.
The kind that make you wonder
If you ever really know anyone at all.
- Did this kind of play out almost like a novel?
- It could have been a made for tv movie script.
Marriage affairs, sex, nudity,
Sexting, social media,
Misleading the police, it's got everything.
♪♪
- Where it all began
Would be a picture-perfect setting for a movie.
Nestled in the backwoods of upstate new york
Is a town so small it barely registers 2,500 residents.
It's called new berlin.
Here, family is everything
And neighbors still help neighbors.
- This is a great place to raise a family.
- Absolutely!
We found a beautiful home right next to chenango lake.
- Remy and jen ramsaran had been married 13 years;
They were college sweethearts.
- It's not every day you come across someone
That has and wants the same exact thing that you do
Ten years down the road, five years down the road.
- What was it that you fell for the most about her?
- Her personality, it was special.
- Eileen sayles and her husband and daughters
Were close friends with the ramsaran family.
Eileen and jen met through girl scouts
When eileen was a troop leader.
- She was so friendly
And you felt instantly comfortable with her.
She was very welcoming.
She had that personality.
- To eileen, and everyone who knew the couple,
Jen was remy's opposite.
She was sweet and quiet, he was loud and boisterous.
- That's how I am.
In fact, there's so many people that would walk up to my wife
And go, "I'm so sorry.
"how do you put up with him?"
- Has anyone ever described you
As quirky or odd or a goofball?
- Absolutely.
Including jen
And probably anyone that's ever met me.
- Remy is a real force. - Yes.
We knew when he walked in the room.
At some points you're like, "oh, here comes remy."
You know?
- But their opposites attract relationship
Somehow just worked.
Remy made a good salary as an ibm project manager,
And jen seemed happy being a stay-at-home mom
To their two daughters and a son,
Says childhood friend teresa leiser.
- That's pretty much the biggest thing
That she talked about was her kids.
- Jen was a Sunday school teacher,
Girl scout troop leader. - Yes.
- Knitting instructor. - Yes.
She was also very good at cooking.
- Very martha stewart? - Yes, mm-hmm.
- Remy was focused on fitness,
And he had big goals.
- If you wanna attain anything in life,
You have to have a plan.
- His plan was to run marathons,
Lots of them.
- 26 marathons, and I was sponsored.
- In one year? - Yeah.
- 26 marathons? - Yes, ma'am.
- Remy wanted to get everyone in shape,
Including jen and her friend eileen.
- I started working out,
Um, and then he had mentioned running.
- So running became a family affair.
Eileen and remy would run the races
And jen and the kids would cheer them on
At the finish line.
But as remy spent more time training for marathons,
Jen immersed herself in a competition of her own.
She started paying an online game called
"kingdoms of camelot",
Where players from all over the world
Take on medieval roles
And team up to wage battles together.
- She would show me, like, pictures of her castle
And her kingdom that she was building
On the phone.
- But on that December day in 2012
With christmas right around the corner,
Jen was focused on one thing: Her daughter.
- That morning of the 11th,
She was supposed to go to syracuse.
- The big city with a big shopping center,
And plenty of stores to choose from.
Jen planned to buy her daughter
That new dress for her concert.
But day turned to night, jen didn't return home.
Remy called her cell,
Sent text messages, heard nothing back.
So he decided to call the police.
- I told 'em that my wife's a few hours late,
But the reason I'm worried
Is I haven't heard from her since about 11:00
When she left, which is highly unusual.
- What are the scenarios playing out in your head?
- Car accident was the big one.
I really thought some type of car accident.
- Are you able to sleep at all?
- Oh no, I was up all night.
- The thing was, there were no reports
Of any car accidents in the area,
And no sightings of jen at the local hospitals.
What had happened to jen ramsaran?
- Coming up...
The clues begin piling up.
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- It had been a long night of waiting, wondering,
And now it was morning.
Jen ramsaran had still not returned
From that shopping trip to the mall.
The kids were waking and asking.
- "dad, where's mom?"
And I said,
"mom didn't come home last night.
"I'm kind of worried, I called the police."
- Remy made breakfast and told his children,
Ages thirteen, eight, and six, not to worry.
- "mom will probably be home
"by the time you guys come home from school.
"she's probably still out shopping and stuff."
- Did you believe that?
- That was my hope.
- But did you believe it?
- I didn't know what to believe.
- He started calling everyone in their circle.
Had anyone heard from jen?
- At that point, I was on the phone
With many of my friends,
Of our mutual friends, and goin' out of my mind.
- Remy's best friend, jason wicks, had an idea.
- After he had told me about jen missing,
I was talking with some of the guys at work.
A couple people asked me if they had tried
The find my iphone app.
So I called him, "remy, did you try this?"
- After driving the kids to school,
Remy headed straight to the new berlin police department.
While talking with the police chief,
Remy tried the app.
- And lo and behold, it connected to her iphone.
- You figured out where her iphone was?
- Yeah-- oh, right there at the police station with him
And, um, it looked like the phone was moving.
And I was freaking out.
- The spot was several miles outside of new berlin,
And they called in richard cobb,
Then a detective
With the chenango county sheriff's office.
- It did show a location of jennifer's phone
On, uh, 23
At the intersection of moon hill road
In the town of plymouth.
- Officers headed there, looked around,
And found nothing.
Frustrated, remy decided to go look for himself.
He got out of the car
And opened the find my iphone app.
- I'm hitting the "play sound", "play sound".
[cell phone dinging]
And it's a high shrieking, loud sound.
And I walked the bank
And I didn't hear anything yet,
And then I crossed the street and I started hearing it.
And I looked, then I saw it.
I immediately called 911.
- Where exactly was it found?
- Uh, it was kind of right over in that area.
Uh, it was-it's a little more weedy now
Than it was then.
Uh, but it was amongst some weeds,
Some shorter weeds, and some rocks.
- You must have felt like, "we have a key piece of evidence
"pretty quickly in this disappearance."
- You know, obviously it was key evidence,
It was the first,
Uh, real physical clue that we had
In the investigation.
- There was no sign of jen or her van.
So how did the phone end up here?
So far this was just a missing person's case,
It didn't necessarily mean there had been foul play.
Maybe jen herself ditched the phone.
- It certainly wasn't outside the realm of possibility
That maybe she had decided to,
Uh, leave home for a time frame
And meet up with somebody else.
- Remy says, it crossed his mind.
Maybe jen had simply left him.
Inside the house,
He found something in the trash that seemed odd.
- Q-tips of putting makeup on.
Jen had cut her hair some additional length,
And some of her older hair with the new color.
- He told the detective that in recent months,
Jen seemed to be changing.
She spent more time chatting online,
Immersed in that fantasy world,
And she'd become strangely focused on her looks.
- She started putting on makeup.
This is not what my wife normally looks like.
- But it seemed too far-fetched.
Remy thought jen would never abandon her kids.
- She would never do that. Not to the kids, no way.
- Jen's best friend, eileen agreed.
To her, a discarded phone was a very bad sign.
- He said, "I found her phone."
And I said, "oh, my god."
I couldn't believe it, my heart sunk.
- And the more detective cobb thought about it,
The more it seemed like someone other than jen
Had ditched the cell phone.
- If she wanted to get away from her husband
And her family for a day or two,
Um, and, you know, wanted no ties,
She could have ditched the phone anywhere.
- Or just turned her phone off.
- Absolutely, yeah.
- Another day passed, and then another,
No jen.
Then, on day five, a major discovery.
It happened when jen's father was driving around town
Looking for any sign of his daughter.
- It was jen's red van.
It had been abandoned here in this apartment complex
Eight miles from her home.
- That must have been just an awful, awful discovery
For her father. - I'm sure it was.
- The van was empty,
But inside there were spots of blood.
- Are all your worst fears being realized?
- Absolutely, yeah.
Devastated, absolutely devastated.
Shocked.
- Did you start to fear at that point
That jennifer is never coming home?
- Whatever was going on here
Was probably not gonna be a good outcome.
There's two questions really:
Uh, where is jennifer and who...
Who did something to her?
- And now eileen, jen's best friend,
Began thinking back to that game,
The virtual kingdom that had jen so fascinated.
- Did you think something sinister had happened?
- Absolutely.
I-- you know, the first thing I thought was,
"these people on the game."
- Coming up...
- Had jen been meeting online?
- We swung into the mall,
And she wanted to smell his cologne.
- Fantasy or reality?
Jennifer ramsaran had a secret.
- This man online knows where she lives.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- While remy ramsaran spent much of 2012 running marathons,
His wife jen was immersed in the fantasy world
Of "kingdoms of camelot".
In the online game, jen, the stay-at-home mom,
Was transformed into a lady among lords.
- She just wanted to be on her game.
And I would joke around about, "jen are--"
You know, "come back to the real world," you know,
"pull yourself out of that game."
- From her iphone, jen chatted with other players
From all over the world.
It began as a way to pass the time,
But became, in remy's words, "an obsession."
- It started turning into addiction, and, uh,
She was on it quite a lot,
Close to eight hours a day, maybe more.
Even in the evenings.
- She was definitely sucked into it.
- She was checking out a little bit?
- Very much so.
- Eileen and her girls spent lots of time
At the ramsaran house.
She says she saw first-hand
How her martha stewart-like friend was changing.
- She wasn't cooking,
You know, they were ordering out every night.
You know, I did their laundry one night
Because it was just so stacked up
The kids didn't have anything.
And I said, "you want me to do your laundry?"
She's like, "sure."
- While on a recent shopping trip together,
Eileen says all jen could talk about
Were her gaming friends.
And there was one player in particular,
A british man named rob,
With whom she was clearly smitten.
- And she would joke around about, you know,
Things they would talk about, you know,
'cause in England it's different
Than it is here, so different.
And I think she liked that.
- Eileen says jen confessed that the online friendship
Had turned flirtatious.
She even knew what kind of cologne
This rob from England wore.
- We swung into the mall,
And she wanted to smell his cologne.
And we did, we smelled his cologne.
- And it sounded to eileen like jen was ready
To take the virtual romance with rob
Into the real world.
- Rob knew where she lived and, um,
Was thinking about relocating,
Coming up here.
- And he's in England? - Yeah.
I said, "what if he does come up here?"
And she kinda giggled.
- But now, with jen missing, she felt she had no choice
But to tell the police and remy.
- When I told him, he was furious.
You know, he said, "what?"
I said, you know, "this man online
"knows where she lives."
- Did you feel the need to get in touch
With this rob immediately?
- We worked to do that almost from the start.
We sent him messages through the-through the gaming app.
You know, "this is the chenango county sheriff's office.
"um, jennifer's been reported missing,
"we're wondering if you had any contact with her."
- The detective wanted to interview
This potential suspect, but he was an ocean away.
So interpol arranged a meeting
Between rob and the british police.
Rob admitted he was married and used the word "intimate"
To describe his relationship with jen.
- Well, jennifer had sent some sort of lingerie,
And he had sent her, I believe it was $150,
Uh, that she never picked up.
- Did he express what that money was for?
- I believe it was for her to buy herself a gift.
You know, this is, uh, early December,
It's close to christmastime.
- And though it was clear
Rob and jen had talked about meeting in person,
He insisted he had not been anywhere near new york
When she disappeared.
In fact, he said, he'd been worried too,
Wondering why jen hadn't been online for days.
So as the detective worked to check out his story,
Remy was at home fuming,
Wondering if there was even more
To jen's secret life online.
- Do you think she was having an affair?
- I can almost guarantee it.
In fact, that's what I believed happened
On December 11th.
She went to go meet someone.
- Despite the blood found in her abandoned van,
Remy says he clung to hope that jen was still alive.
He asked for help from a missing person's organization.
They blanketed the area with fliers.
Remy says he couldn't take the not knowing anymore.
- You actually enlisted a psychic to help you?
- Absolutely. What harm could it do?
- The psychic believed jen was still alive.
So remy says he wanted to keep the search going.
- He was alone with three kids,
And I thought he was grasping at anything
That he could get to feel like
Maybe his wife was out there still.
- The new year didn't bring any new leads.
The winter snow was piling up,
And underneath it all another secret.
This one so explosive
It could not stay hidden for long.
- Some people are gonna remember you
As being the worst kind of friend to jen.
- You know, you can't take back
What you've done.
- A stunning revelation
Is about to put jen's best friend
At the very center of this case.
Coming up...
- That's kind of a bombshell.
- It's-it's a big bombshell, yes.
- And hidden in all that snow?
The discovery everyone had been dreading.
- That's probably the most difficult thing
I've ever had to do.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered",
I'm craig melvin.
Jen ramsaran had vanished,
And police suspected foul play.
Now, investigators were focused on
Jen's virtual romance with a man overseas.
Soon they would discover someone else
Was also carrying on a secret relationship,
And this one was much closer to home.
Here again is andrea canning with "secret lives".
- Jen ramsaran had been playing a game online
With people all over the world.
Had one of them come to upstate new york
Looking for her?
Detective cobb was checking out the alibi
Of the brit jen had been flirting with online,
The one she wanted to meet in person.
- Anybody was a suspect in the beginning
Of the investigation.
Um, rob and-and anybody else
That she may have had contact with.
- The detective asked u.S. Immigration
To run a check on rob's passport.
The agency reported back:
Rob had not entered the united states in 2012.
So rob from the fantasy game was quickly cleared,
And no longer a potential suspect.
But still, remy was convinced
She'd met up with someone.
- I've told that to the police many times,
Many times.
- And do you think it was a direct link
To these online games? - Absolutely.
- Remy made no secret of how hurt
And angry he was with jen.
But instead of getting sympathy
From his best friend jason,
He got some words of wisdom.
You see, jason knew about a secret
And it was a big one.
- How are you so mad at the possibility
That she was having an affair?
I was like, "remy,
"you've been having an affair yourself."
- That's right.
Mad as he was about jen's online romance,
He'd been cheating on her.
And remy's affair
Had been going on right under jen's nose
With the last person on earth she would ever expect:
Her best friend, eileen.
- In my heart and in my stomach,
I knew it was wrong.
- This is your wife's best friend.
- Oh, yes.
- The girl scout troop leader.
- Oh, yes... Very bad thing.
- The affair began nearly a year before jen disappeared.
- I asked her if I could kiss her,
And I did.
And we both felt extremely guilty.
- And did you kiss him back?
- I did.
And then I left, just like that.
- Some people would have been--
- Shocked?
- Shocked and said, "what are you doing?
"jen's my best friend. Why are you doing this?"
- Right. Right.
- What was your gut telling you?
- My gut was telling me, "no. You can't do this,
"it's wrong. It's so wrong."
- Despite that, they had sex
In jen and remy's house
Not long after that first kiss.
- Did you feel any guilt consummating this relationship
In the house that you share with your wife?
- I-I know I should say yes, but I didn't.
Jen and I had already grown apart.
- Did you talk to jen about getting a divorce?
- Yes, oh yes.
A handful of different times.
- Eileen says
All those marathon training sessions together
Drove them into each other's arms.
And for eileen at least,
It was more than just physical,
Even though she was married herself,
She was falling in love with remy.
- We had a lot in common,
You know, with the running.
And the feelings for him took over
And just filled my-my head.
- You seem a little out of remy's league.
What was it about him that you were so attracted to?
- His personality was huge.
I mean, always lifted you up,
Always made you feel important.
- But eileen was racked with guilt.
She was hiding the affair from her best friend
And her husband.
- That's a lot of sneaking around.
- Yeah, I couldn't take it,
I couldn't-- it was too much.
It got to be too much.
- Did he say to you, "I'm going to divorce jen"?
- He said it, yeah.
- Did that make you happy? - No.
No, because I knew it would hurt her.
- During the affair,
Eileen and her husband separated.
But then in November, she broke it off with remy
And moved back home.
Still, she and remy got together one last time
The night before jen went missing.
- We did have sex.
That in my--
As far as it goes,
I did not want to further the relationship
At that point.
- How did he handle that?
- You know, he... He gets upset.
You know, he wants what he wants.
- An affair with the best friend?
Just imagine how bad it would look
When police found out.
That's why, remy says, the morning after
He realized jen was gone,
He and eileen went to the police
To let them know about the relationship.
- Tell 'em right off the bat.
That's so-- I don't have anything in my life
To feel embarrassed about except that.
- I needed to help jen, I needed them to find her.
And I would do anything to help them at that moment.
- That's kind of a bombshell.
- It's a big bombshell, yes.
- A bombshell the detective had to follow up on.
They interviewed a very cooperative remy
Several times.
- Okay.
- He never asked for a lawyer,
And let investigators search their home.
He even turned over the clothes he was wearing
When jen disappeared.
- He was a suspect at that point.
It was as much to rule him out,
As it was to rule him in at that point.
- And eileen?
She was now under investigation, too.
- Why was eileen a possible suspect?
- Just because of her relationship,
Her involvement with jennifer and mr. Ramsaran.
Generally you would think a husband or a male
Might commit murder, but women can also.
- But until a body was found,
Investigators had no way of knowing how,
When, or even if jen had been murdered.
That all changed on February 26, 2013,
Two and a half months after jen went missing.
- The snow had started to melt and settle enough
That, you know, she-- part of her became exposed.
- She had no clothes on?
- Right. She was found naked.
- Jen's body was found in an embankment
Along an uninhabited stretch of road
About 20 miles from her home.
Two detectives knocked on remy's door
And gave him the news.
- It's my wife? Are you sure?
Th-that was heart-wrenching, heart-wrenching.
And I called all three kids into the master bedroom
And I told the kids,
Um, mommy's in heaven,
But she's always gonna be with us.
That's probably the most difficult thing
I've ever had to do.
- It was awful, the grief.
And I knew at this point
There's no telling her I'm sorry.
- What really frustrates me,
Jen's body was found just a little over three miles away
From where that phone was.
- You feel the police should have looked harder?
- Absolutely!
Even helicopter, something.
- And on the day jen's body was found,
Remy summoned the local media to his house
And through tears spoke to the cameras.
- Just gotta be strong for the kids,
Make sure they're okay.
And we'll figure it out.
- But by then,
People around the tiny town of new berlin
Had caught wind of remy's affair,
And some were starting to wonder
If his tears were real.
- Coming up, from cheating spouse
To chief suspect?
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- The search for jen ramsaran had come to a bitter end,
And there was her husband, remy,
Telling anyone who would listen,
He wanted payback.
- I've always said, "in order to get true closure
"we've gotta find out what happened to jen."
And I don't just want justice,
I want vengeance.
- Detective cobb could see remy was a big talker.
- He's the kind of guy that I think, uh, in his life
He's been able to talk himself through
Most every situation.
- Yes, he'd come down to the police station
To confess his affair,
But now the detective felt like remy was trying to control
The focus of the investigation.
- He was using social media and news media
To kind of get his message out.
- What message was he trying to get out in the media?
- Uh, that jennifer had changed,
And that she wasn't, you know,
The mother or wife or housekeeper or cook
That she used to be.
- Trying to deflect off of himself?
Is that what you believed? - Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah.
And put this on jennifer.
- Jen's childhood friend, teresa,
700 miles away, noticed the same thing
As she read remy's frequent updates on facebook.
- He started saying things about jen like,
You know, "well, she wasn't really a mother
"for the past six months.
"she had, um, disconnected herself from the family."
- He seems like a total oversharer.
- Yes. Yes.
Overshared everything.
- And teresa thought remy was flirting with people
Who were trying to find his wife.
Like that psychic he enlisted.
They had some weird exchanges on facebook.
- He said something about her putting on a bikini
And going outside in the snow,
And that- that's what she should do.
And I just- I thought that was very strange,
Putting on a bikini.
- So the psychic should put on a bikini?
- Yes.
- Remy's close friend jason
Started to think it was creepy
That remy seemed obsessed with jen's possible infidelity,
Even exaggerating it as time went on.
- He said that, um,
He had found naked pictures of her
That she had sent to other people.
And, I mean, there was times
Where he was trying to tell me
That there was three or four people
She was sending these to.
- But investigators found no proof
She'd been sexting with strangers,
So they were back to picking apart
The story remy told them
On tape about the day she went missing.
- Remy was sure that jen left to go shopping
Before 11 a.M.,
But when technicians analyzed her phone,
They found that at the time he said jen was gone,
The iphone was still connected to the home wi-fi,
Which to the detective meant jen was likely
Still in the house.
- This is a red flag for you that her-her phone
Is clearly at home when she's not supposed to be?
- Right.
It's hard for him to explain.
- And looking back,
It seemed strange that it was remy,
Not the police,
Who was able to find that phone
20 feet below a bridge.
- What's more, when they examined the phone,
It was in perfect condition.
- There wasn't any damage.
So to us, that said that somebody had actually,
You know, come down here and placed the phone.
- Placed it, right. - Yeah.
- So where exactly was remy on December 11th?
He said that after jen left he went out for a run,
Ended up at the ymca.
- Detective cobb pulled surveillance videos
From the convenience stores and banks along that route.
Turns out, remy wasn't on any of them.
The only video he appeared on is this one
Where he stretches before entering the y.
- So his-his alibi of running this certain route,
Uh, appears to be false.
So we have all these things
That are now taking the focus off
This could be anybody,
And putting it really on mr. Ramsaran.
- Were they talking as though remy was a suspect?
- Yeah. And I just said, "no."
That, you know, I'm not believing that.
- Remy could be controlling. - Yeah.
- But just, in your eyes, not controlling enough
Where he would take his own wife's life.
- No.
I-- that never even crossed my mind.
- As for eileen,
The detective was able to verify her alibi.
She'd been working that morning,
But she did meet remy at the y that afternoon.
- We still have the question though
That eileen picked, uh, mr. Ramsaran up from the ymca,
Um, shortly after 1 o'clock that afternoon.
- Eileen drove remy home.
Though both she and remy told the detective
That she did not go inside the house.
- Did you still think that maybe she was covering for remy
And that she knew all along what had happened?
- That was still a possibility
That-that she had some kind of guilty knowledge.
- They thought I wasn't giving them everything,
In which I was.
You know, if I had more I would have given it.
I would have given anything to help.
- But one-by-one, the folks around town
Began to turn against remy and eileen.
- Were you wearing a scarlet letter?
- Absolutely. I felt awful.
Um, so it pushed me towards him.
- Did you start to talk about being together
Permanently? - Mmm-hmm.
And leaving-- just getting out of here.
- It was now may 2013,
Three months after jen's body was found
Along that embankment at the side of the road.
The autopsy report was back,
Jen's body had been outside too long
To determine a cause of death.
But the medical examiner declared it a homicide.
- I get a phone call, "can you come on down?
"um, we have, uh, those medical results.
"uh, we'll finally get to talk to you
"and tell you exactly what happened."
- Well we wanted one more shot at-at, uh,
Interviewing mr. Ramsaran.
- Remy ramsaran was charged with second-degree murder,
But it was a circumstantial case.
The prosecution would now have to sell to a jury.
- Coming up...
- He dumped the body, then he dumped the phone,
And then he dumped the van.
- The showdown. Prosecutors against remy.
- Everyone needs to know the truth.
- Do you have a strategy?
-What strategy? Tell the truth.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back.
Remy ramsaran told police he did not kill his wife, jen.
But, they believe the evidence said otherwise
And arrested him.
By now, the entire town knew remy had cheated on jen
With her best friend eileen,
But did that make him a killer?
As prosecutors prepared to argue their circumstantial case,
Remy's lover stood by him.
Could anything shake her support?
Here's andrea canning with the conclusion
Of "secret lives".
- Remy ramsaran was charged with his wife's murder.
But after looking at all the evidence,
Investigators completely cleared his mistress, eileen.
- I would never hurt her.
- There was no evidence that she had any involvement
In jennifer's homicide.
- Remy had been in jail for more than a year
When we spoke to him just before his trial.
He was focused on what the prosecution didn't have:
No murder weapon, no eyewitnesses,
No evidence of violence in his marriage.
- Is there no doubt in your mind
That you will walk out of here a free man?
- I'm scared to my death
That they're gonna send me to jail or prison.
But here's the thing, I have truth on my side.
I did nothing wrong. I did nothing.
I would never harm my wife.
- Joseph mcbride,
Then chenango's district attorney,
Told the jury a different story.
- ...When December 11th rolled around,
It was time for him to get rid of his wife.
- The prosecutor painted a picture of a man
So infatuated with his mistress
That he chose murder over divorce.
He played jailhouse phone calls
Between remy and eileen.
- Remy's best friend and confidant
Was called by the prosecution to testify
About conversations they'd had about divorce.
- I mentioned to him
That jen would end up getting the kids,
And he was very confident
That he would be the one that had the kids.
I kept telling him, I was like,
"I don't think that's exactly how it's gonna play out."
- Jennifer was gonna get custody,
And why is that important?
That gives him another reason,
Another motive to kill his wife.
- The prosecution presented all the little bits
And pieces from the investigation.
Jen's iphone that was found by the defendant himself,
The alibi that could not be verified by video,
And the timeline that didn't exactly hold up.
- In our theory of the case,
He had actually killed his wife at home,
Cleaned up for a few hours,
And then he dumped the body,
Then he dumped the phone,
And then he dumped the van.
And then he continued on that straight line
To the ymca.
- The prosecutor brought the one-time potential suspect,
Rob from England, into the case.
Via skype, he told the jury he became alarmed that morning
When, like a ghost, jen disappeared
In the middle of a "kingdoms of camelot" game.
- Why is that important?
'cause she never, ever left the game before.
She never, ever, left without an explanation.
- The prosecution believed
Remy caught jen playing the game in bed
And snapped.
They found a spot of blood on the mattress
And on the sweatshirt remy was wearing
The day jen went missing.
- And the dna on that bloodspot
Was also partially remy's
And it was partially jennifer's.
And that was powerful.
- Actually, not powerful at all,
Countered remy's defense attorney, gilberto garcia.
- The problem is that the evidence
Does not demonstrate
That mr. Ramsaran killed his wife.
- Remy's attorney argued that all the prosecution had
Were theories, no real proof that remy murdered jen.
He said even those surveillance tapes
Were worthless.
One video was missing a date and timestamp...
Another had a partially obstructed view.
- And I argued to the jury,
"you can't see this person walking
"because there's still another 75 feet further
"that the camera doesn't see."
- The defense's entire case was just one witness:
Remy himself.
- Everyone needs to know the truth.
- Do you have a strategy?
- What strategy? Tell the truth.
There is no strategy.
- Remy testified for two full days.
- It is a circumstantial case.
- Wholly circumstantial.
- Do you worry about motive
And how the jury will feel about motive?
The affair...
- People have affairs all the time
And they don't wind up killing their wives,
But it's very weak
If that's what they're gonna claim.
- Remy pointed out that he was always cooperative
With the police.
- Here's the thing,
If I had done anything to my wife,
Would I have gone out and try and find her phone?
Would I try and help and answer every question
To the police?
I should have lawyered up right off the bat.
You have to remember,
My life was absolutely fantastic.
Absolutely fantastic, not a care in the world.
- You were living, though, with a secret.
- Okay.
- That isn't always fantastic.
- Might be a secret, but in regards to jen and I
Splitting apart and whatever happened,
It was always there.
I mean, it's not like a bad thing.
- You had a plan? - Absolutely.
- Did you have a plan to kill your wife?
- Of course not.
- Is this all about remy?
Remy wanted to have the life he wanted?
- Whoa, that's where you're absolutely wrong.
I had the perfect life.
I had a wife, had a girlfriend,
Have kids, have everything anyone would want.
The worst thing to have ever happened to me
Is jen go missing.
Absolutely worst thing.
- Eileen, who had supported remy
Through the entire investigation,
Was now living in rewind.
Her doubts began while remy was in jail.
- Just little things were starting to play in my head,
And it scared me.
- Eileen began thinking back to December 11th,
The day jen disappeared,
The day she gave remy a ride home from the y.
She says it was out of character for remy
To miss a chance to get her into bed.
- Looking back, why didn't he invite me in?
No one was home,
Jen was shopping,
The kids were at school.
- So she wondered,
Had he been cleaning up a murder scene?
Eileen went to court the day remy took the stand
And listened.
- I knew he was lying.
You know? I-I could tell.
Some of the things he was saying--
I needed to hear--
I needed to hear how he was talking,
How it was sounding coming out of his mouth.
- What do you think happened that day
When you run it through your mind?
- He knew I was gone, he knew I was back home,
And he was angry.
And I think jen had decided that, "I'm moving on too",
And I think he just couldn't handle it.
I just think he just snapped.
- Eileen started to worry
What would happen if remy was acquitted.
He was sending her messages on facebook from court.
- He was on his lawyer's laptop messaging me,
Telling me how much he loved me
And how could I give up on him?
- After three weeks of trial,
The jurors got the case.
They filed back into court just three hours later.
- With respect to count one of the indictment,
Charging the crime with murder in the second degree,
How do you find the defendant?
Guilty or not guilty?
- We find the defendant guilty.
- He took her away from everyone,
He took her away.
She was just the nicest, caring person
I think that I ever met.
She was just- she was nice to everyone.
- Remy was sentenced to 25 years-to-life.
And from behind bars he faced another charge,
Bribery.
Offering a corrections officer $100,000
To help him escape.
He pleaded guilty to the bribery charge.
Then, one more twist,
Two years after the murder trial,
Remy won an appeal,
Citing ineffective assistance from his attorney.
His conviction was thrown out,
But before he could be retried,
A higher court reversed that decision.
Remy remains in prison.
And eileen, a devoted mom,
Has decided to face her regrets,
Her mistakes, her deep sorrow head on.
- Do you wish you would never have met him?
- Yeah, I do.
I feel like, honestly, things would be okay
If I hadn't walked into their lives.
- You did something that was wrong
In pretty much everybody's book.
- Mm-hmm.
- Does it make you a bad person?
- It was wrong, absolutely.
I am not a bad person.
And I will never forgive myself.
I'm so very sorry.
So very sorry.
♪♪
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered".
I'm craig melvin, thank you for watching.