He had eight projectiles in his body and one
of them was in the middle of his head.
What we would call a stone-cold assassination.
NARRATOR: An execution-style murder in the dead of night.
This person gunned him down and made
sure that he was dead before he left.
DAVILA: In my 20 years in law enforcement,
I've never seen such a brutal murder.
GARCIA: And nobody called 911 hearing gunshots.
NARRATOR: A man with many enemies and scorned exes.
Some liked him, some didn't.
GARCIA: It was a pretty rough breakup.
She was very irate and yelling and causing a scene.
[pounding noises]
There were notable run-ins that those two gentlemen had.
NARRATOR: The truth will be revealed.
We have a love triangle, and one of these three is dead,
and two of them are now together.
I thought this might be the person who committed
this crime.
NARRATOR: Every day in North America,
dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline,
the minutes and hours containing evidence
that can help unlock the mystery
and catch the killer.
♪♪
Tucson, Arizona.
A high dessert city with a lot of heart.
A true dessert rose.
GARCIA: Tucson is a larger city,
but it has a very small community feel.
You go downtown, people are very friendly.
GEORGE: Like any other major city with a population
of about a 1,000,000 people, you're gonna see
the same kind of problems as far as crime
goes, but all in all, Tucson's of pretty safe city.
NARRATOR: But on a hot summer morning,
Tucson's quiet charm is shattered when
a local woman makes a grisly discovery.
Kristy Trepanitis was the person who called 911.
She just found her loved one murdered.
NARRATOR: The victim is 45-year-old Nick Morelos.
Nick was a tough guy.
A former United States Marine, served his country.
He was really dedicated to his job at Marana Aerospace,
and Nick didn't put up with any B.S.
Some liked him. Some didn't.
He was just one of those people that
was focused at the task at hand
and held people accountable for their actions.
NARRATOR: Heading up the investigation
into Nick's murder is Detective Jennifer Garcia,
a new recruit to homicide.
GARCIA: This particular case was the big deal to me,
because this was gonna be
the first big homicide that I was in charge of,
and I was the lead detective.
NARRATOR: Investigators head directly to
the crime scene -- Nick's bedroom.
I opened the door,
um, as far as I could and entered the room
and immediately observed Nicolas Morelos
laying on the floor.
He had eight
projectiles in his body, and one of
them was in the middle of his head.
What it showed me is that this person gunned him down
and made sure that he was dead before they left.
NARRATOR: Why would someone want to kill Nick Morelos
in such cold blood?
DAVILA: In my career, I've never seen such a brutal murder.
We were trying to get a motive or a reason,
and it didn't look like a burglary at that point.
GARCIA: Normally, if there's a homicide in a burglary,
you're gonna find missing items, the TV is gonna be gone.
Valuables are gonna be gone.
We didn't notice anything missing.
NARRATOR: Detectives make another important discovery.
We also found two cleaning bottles that were next to
the body.
The floor felt sticky and smelled
to me very much like cleaning solvent.
It looked like the person was trying to clean up
the fact that they were at the residence.
NARRATOR: To solve Nick's murder,
detectives must reconstruct
the final 24 hours of his life.
When was the last time the victim was heard from
or seen? When was the victim found?
That's your major timeline that you're working with.
And then you start talking to investigative leads,
persons of interest, suspects, and everybody else involved,
and then you narrow the timeline down.
NARRATOR: They start their investigation
by talking to Nick's fiancee, Kristy,
who found his body.
I didn't get any sense that she had anything
to do with this crime, that she truly was upset.
She appeared to be in shock.
She appeared to be shaking at times
when she spoke to us and tearful.
Kristy had worked at Marana Aerospace,
and that's how they became involved.
She said he was a loving guy to
the people in his life and close with his family.
NARRATOR: Detectives question Kristy about Nick's
whereabouts on the day leading up to his murder.
GARCIA: On the day before he was murdered,
it was a Sunday.
He went to her residence.
They spent the whole day together.
He went back to his residence around 5:30 p.m.,
and they spoke a couple of times that evening,
and the last time that she had contact with him
was around 8:30 p.m.
Kristy relayed to us that Nick has
to leave for work around 6 a.m.
Around that time, he will normally either
call her or send her a text message.
But on Monday morning, she didn't hear anything,
and by about 8:30, she had been calling and text messaging
both of his phones,
his personal phone and his work cellphone,
and she had no answer,
so she decided to drive over to
Nicolas's residence to check on him.
NARRATOR: Detectives theorize that Nick
was brutally gunned down after
texting Kristy at 8:30 p.m.
and before he was supposed to leave for work the next morning
at 6 a.m.
With the evidence we were looking at this point,
it appears that an assailant was firing into the house from
the backyard.
We picked up 11 spent 45-caliber casings at the scene.
Each of these spent casings had a distinct
mark on the back of the bullet itself.
It's called the headstamp -- We noticed that it had
five distinct stars across the top
and that underneath that, it said 45 auto.
This ammunition was made by an obscure company called
Golden Eagle,
which is an ammo that's manufactured outside
the United States and pretty much not used in this area.
NARRATOR: Detectives start developing a theory as
to how the attack went down.
So we have bullet holes in multiple walls,
which means Nick was moving,
and Nick was fleeing for his life
during this assault on him.
NARRATOR: Detectives proceed with examining the exterior of
the house and make a surprising discovery.
When we went outside, you could see a gray,
very large pit bull dog in the backyard.
The pit bull is Smokey, and he belonged to Nick.
MOSHER: If you look at a picture of Smokey,
he was a big pit bull,
and that's a scary-looking dog.
Not many people want to tangle with a pit bull.
So that's a problem for the killer to have to deal with.
NARRATOR: Along with the pit bull,
they uncover some important clues about the shooter.
We thought that they were on
the ground shooting into the residence.
But the trajectory showed us differently.
DAVILA: Following that trajectory out,
it was parallel to the ground.
There was no way someone was shooting at this house
from the backyard of that residence
to make these impact points.
GARCIA: The A-frame ladder was collapsed and closed,
and it was propped up against the patio wall,
which we kind of thought was odd.
And it looked like somebody had climbed onto
the patio roof and shot through the window
standing on the roof.
You can see two defects into the stucco, so we could
tell that somebody with outside shooting into
the residence.
There was also a couple of panes of glass on
the patio roof that had a red substance on it.
There was a red substance found on the bottom of
the windowsill,
and then a red substance found on the stucco area
under the window. It was blood.
We surmised that when this person entered the room,
they received a cut on some part of their body.
NARRATOR: Thinking someone may have seen
the killer as they entered and exited
Nick's home, detectives canvass the neighborhood.
We have Nicolas's neighbor
saying that around 4 a.m.,
4:15, she heard a strange noise.
[glass crashing] [bullets zipping]
I believe what she is actually
hearing is a projectile smashing the glass.
NARRATOR: The neighbor's statement helps detectives
significantly narrow Nick's time of death,
but questions remain about the sound she heard.
We thought that there might be a silencer or a suppressor
that was used in this crime,
because 11 projectiles were fired from a gun,
and nobody called 911 hearing gunshots.
The use of a silencer
really has one purpose, which is
to conceal the sound of a gunshot.
But even though they're perfectly legal to own and use
in the state of Arizona,
they're not necessarily easy to fire with.
That tells us that this is an experienced shooter
who not only acquired the necessary equipment
but has put some rehearsal into firing with a silencer.
NARRATOR: A silencer explains why the neighbor couldn't
distinguish the sound of gunshots,
but why wouldn't she hear Smokey barking in the backyard
if there was an intruder?
The dog was reported to, I think, have slept in
Nick's bedroom, so this speaks to routine.
And so when folks are interviewed, and they don't hear
the dog outside, there's a number of theories,
I think, that could explain this -- one is that a person
known to Nick and the dog did this -- to be able to
remove it from inside and take outside -- or another one
is somebody with information about either how to
manage animals or had information
about Smokey in particular could have done it.
MOSHER: So now you have somebody going in through
the bedroom window, somebody staying and cleaning up,
somebody who effectively
used a silencer and evaded detection
in that way.
You could conclude that the killer was
more sophisticated,
what we would call a stone-cold assassination, and probably
somebody who knew Nick.
NARRATOR: Nick Morelos was gunned down in his own home,
the victim of a targeted attack.
Believing the killer to be someone in Nick's circle,
detectives shift their investigation to his workplace,
Marana Aerospace.
Nick was the director of maintenance, and he's really,
um, kind of a success story
as far as how he rose up through the ranks of the company.
DAVILA: We were looking to see what
his involvements were at work, and did
he have any issues or problems with any
current employees or past employees
that may be bad enough to
where it gravitated towards something like this happening?
We made contact with the human resources director.
Nicolas had several negative exit interviews where
ex-employees had mentioned his name and had mentioned his
managerial skills as one of the reasons why they left
the company -- that kind of led us to talk to some of
the employees there and try to
figure out what was going on with Nick at work.
NARRATOR: One of the first employees detectives
speak with is James Lapan.
MOSHER: Nick had a really important position there
at Marana Aerospace.
James, not so much.
He was somebody who worked on inspections
on the airplanes but certainly
had -- had not risen to Nick's level in the organization.
NARRATOR: Police asked James
about his relationship with Nick.
GARCIA: In the weeks before Nicolas's murder,
James had made a couple of complaints,
and there were a couple of issues at work
between Nicolas and James.
[door creaks open]
When we ask him about his working relationship with Nick,
he stated that it was tumultuous.
Nick was always on him at work, he yelled at him.
James felt that he was being targeted
and possibly picked on by Nick Morelos.
There were notable run-ins that those two gentlemen had,
and so that's a known factor.
James didn't like Nick because of work,
and we've seen that as a motive for murder before.
NARRATOR: Flagging James and Nick's working relationship,
Detective Garcia proceeds to question James about
where he was the night Nick was murdered.
I asked him what his schedule was -- Sunday all day,
he spent the day with his family.
They went to the grocery store.
They ate dinner.
Him and his wife were working on their marriage,
because they were having problems with their marriage.
So they watched, like, a Bible counseling session
on the computer with one of his relatives.
They went to bed around 9 p.m.
and got up at around 6 a.m.
Him and his wife worked out together,
and then she went to work.
NARRATOR: With a corroborated alibi,
James is removed as a suspect,
but he reveals he's not
the only employee who had problems with Nick.
We found that Nick had many ex-girlfriends,
and a couple of them had worked at Marana Aerospace.
You could say Nick was a womanizer.
GARCIA: So then you start looking at exes,
ex-girlfriends, ex-wives,
and you try to figure out if they had anything to do with
the homicide or if anybody that
they're with now -- New boyfriends, new husbands --
If they had any issues with Nicolas.
NARRATOR: Working backwards, detectives meet Nick's most
recent ex-girlfriend, Claudia,
a former employee at Marana Aerospace.
When I spoke to Claudia, she was very cooperative.
She described Nick as a good person.
The relationship was very good.
The break-up was very amicable.
She was a lot younger than him,
and I think she wanted to focus on a family,
and he was already past that threshold in his life.
She provided any information that I asked.
I didn't feel like she was hiding anything,
and I didn't feel like she had anything to do
with this homicide.
NARRATOR: Claudia is a nonstarter as a suspect,
but when Detective Garcia asks if there is anyone else
she thinks would have had reason to kill Nick,
she offers up a name -- Jessica.
Jessica also works at Marana Aerospace,
and she was also Nicolas's ex-girlfriend.
MOSHER: A year before his murder,
Nick had been dating Jessica, and then suddenly,
there's a split with her, and he's -- he's with Claudia.
GARCIA: It was a pretty rough break-up.
And shortly after she moved out,
um, Claudia had moved in.
One day, Jessica went to Nick's house when Claudia was inside
the residence and was banging on the door,
wanting to go in,
wanting to talk to Nicolas and Claudia.
She was very irate and yelling and causing a scene,
and she said, "I know that Claudia is in here."
So now we have an ex-girlfriend who was very irate,
very hurt about the way the break-up with the victim,
Nick, occurred.
So that kind of raised a flag in my head.
When we look at Jessica, it's such a complicated picture.
You know, often the question will be asked,
what makes people kill?
Other than maybe drugs and money,
jealousy and rage and control around a relationship with
a significant other is something that we see commonly,
you know, and it's really -- It's -- it's sad and tragic.
But again, that type of rage, that jealous rage,
is certainly enough to motivate a killing
and does frequently.
NARRATOR: Detectives have zeroed in on Nick Morelos's jealous
ex-girlfriend, Jessica, as a suspect in his brutal murder.
When I heard about this altercation at
Nicolas's house,
it was probably a pretty important piece of the puzzle
in the investigation.
So we wanted to speak to Jessica
to get a statement from her.
Jessica never had a good word to say about Nick.
She just really seemed burned up by the break-up.
And so you have to pay attention to that
when you've got his ex-girlfriend
really kind of feeling hostile or venomous
towards him.
NARRATOR: Detectives confront Jessica about
the day she pounded on Nick's door.
GARCIA: She was heartbroken.
She was very upset that Claudia was in the house with
Nick and she had just been kicked out of the house.
STOCKDALE: Jealousy can be a very
powerful motive for murder.
Even in most studies,
it's consistently touted as being one of the top reasons
why people kill other people.
That being said, for me, envy is a bigger motivator.
So envy is like jealousy.
You covet what you can't have,
but you also want to destroy it, and that, in my mind, makes
a potential killer even more dangerous.
NARRATOR: Jessica has a motive for murder,
but did she have the opportunity to kill Nick?
She provided her phone for a forensic cellphone
download and answered any questions that we had.
It turns out that the cellphone tower
near Jessica's home was pinging between 7 p.m.
and 5 a.m., confirming that she was at home
and on the device this whole time.
We know that she was nowhere near the crime scene.
NARRATOR: With Jessica's credible alibi
and no hard evidence against her,
detectives remove her as a suspect.
They pursue another lead that they received from Nick's other
ex-girlfriend, Claudia.
MOSHER: Claudia had an ex-boyfriend named Justin.
And Justin was a real concern.
GARCIA: Claudia said that her and Justin
were engaged, and they broke up.
She just told him that she's moving out, and she moved in
with Nick immediately,
and he was very hurt and upset at that.
NARRATOR: As detectives dig deeper
into Claudia's relationship with Justin,
they uncover some troubling details.
Claudia had things to say about Justin
that make Justin seem pretty scary.
He showed up on horseback on one occasion near her house,
which she thought was scary, because it meant that he was
popping up there, and she was worried about almost, like,
kind of a stalking element to that behavior.
Another time, Claudia is driving along with Nick,
and Justin sees them and follows them, and Claudia
lets Nick know what is happening, and Nick stops
the car to get out, and Justin just takes off.
There was another time,
shortly after the murder, where Justin had left her a note
saying something along the lines of,
"I heard what happened.
I'm sorry." And he's talking about the homicide.
Um, "If you would like, I can buy you a drink some time."
So I thought that was odd.
Either way, to murder someone and remove them under
the pretext that this is gonna allow you
to move in on an ex-girlfriend and begin courting them
and taking them out, uh, is...
number one, obsessive, but rather delusional.
NARRATOR: Detectives also learn that Justin is an avid marksman.
GARCIA: In this investigation,
there was a pretty specific weapon involved,
a 45-caliber handgun.
And so when I spoke to Claudia,
she had mentioned Justin had many guns.
NARRATOR: As detectives continue to put
more of the pieces together,
they come across a curious piece of information.
Claudia had mentioned that it was almost to the day a year
prior to the homicide,
she had broken off the relationship with Justin.
MOSHER: So Justin has reason to be really upset with Nick, and,
you know, the year to the day element just seems strange.
It's like a strange coincidence.
ARNTFIELD: We all know that in police work,
there are no coincidences,
especially in murder investigations, especially
in murders as seemingly organized as this one.
So when they start to rack up in Justin's case,
not surprisingly, he becomes the prime suspect.
NARRATOR: With evidence of a credible motive,
Detective Garcia hauls Justin in for questioning.
People lie to the police all the time, so when you go talk
to somebody, it's -- you have
a 50-50 chance that they're either telling you
the truth or they're lying.
And you just have to -- through your investigative skills,
by putting all the pieces together,
you have to figure out if this person is
being honest with you or not.
NARRATOR: Detective Garcia pushes Justin on how
he's feeling about Claudia and the break-up
one year later.
At the time, it didn't seem like it bothered him anymore.
And you gotta take that with a grain of salt.
Is he really over it, or does he still have issues?
GILLIS: I've certainly seen cases where someone's break-up
can lead them to take desperate measures.
When you're fueled by passion, heartbreak,
betrayal, that can make you do irrational things.
And if someone is so desperate that they want to get someone
back or they can't stand seeing their ex-lover with
someone else,
they're not thinking straight, and it can turn deadly.
NARRATOR: As the interrogation continues,
Detective Garcia notices that Justin has a suspicious injury.
When I was talking to him and looking at him,
I observed some superficial
linear scratches up his arm.
MOSHER: The reason that that's interesting
is because we know that
when the first shots are fired, the killer is outside.
He quickly moves in through the window,
possibly cutting his arm badly in the process.
And here we have a corresponding cut on Justin.
GARCIA: I thought
this might be the person who committed this crime.
NARRATOR: Detective Garcia is moving in on a prime suspect in
the murder of Nick Morelos -- Justin,
the jealous ex-fiance of Nick's ex, Claudia, and he has
suspicious wounds on his arms.
GARCIA: He said, "Well, yes, I'm a landscaper.
I have cuts and scratches all the time."
So I asked him if I could take photographs
of him and of his injuries on his arm.
He said no.
When I asked him if I could take a DNA sample,
he would not give a DNA sample.
DNA in the timeline of a murder case, dependent on
where it's located,
can show whether they were involved in the murder or not.
If it's, for example, found at the scene,
that is a direct connection to show the DNA was left at
the time of the offense.
But when someone doesn't give a DNA sample,
it certainly sends off warning bells
that perhaps they were involved with the offense,
and they don't want to be caught in a crime.
NARRATOR: Without a DNA sample,
detectives focus on the timeline.
Having already established that Nick was
killed between four o'clock and 4:15 a.m.,
they pursue Justin's alibi.
That particular Sunday night,
Justin's roommate knew that Justin was
at the house till about 6, 6:30,
when Justin went to the bar.
He said that he was there till about 12:30.
He then comes home.
He went to bed.
I believe he got up at about 6 a.m.,
took some aspirin, and then went back to sleep.
NARRATOR: Justin's alibi appears to put him far away from
the crime scene at the time of the murder.
But Detective Garcia wants solid proof.
We obtained video surveillance from the bar,
showing Justin at the bar all the way up until about midnight
or 12:30.
But then, after that, to about the following morning,
there was nobody able to corroborate his alibi.
NARRATOR: She's established a motive and opportunity,
but Detective Garcia still needs physical evidence to
connect Justin to the murder.
GARCIA: We continue to talk to him for maybe half an hour.
At the end of the conversation,
he finally agreed to give a DNA sample.
NARRATOR: But when Justin's DNA sample is tested,
the results come back negative for a match, and he is
eliminated as a suspect.
GARCIA: It's very hard, because this was my first
real investigation assigned to me,
so I was pretty overwhelmed at the time trying to make sure
that I dotted all my Is, crossed all my Ts,
because all eyes were on me at that time.
NARRATOR: With no prime suspect, detectives return to
Nick's workplace to hunt for more clues.
They learn that Nick's ex-girlfriend, Jessica, is
having an affair with coworker James,
who they had spoken to earlier in the investigation.
GARCIA: There was rumors that Jessica was dating James Lapan.
So we have a series of women that had been in and out of
Nick's house,
a series of women that had been upset over break-ups.
And Jessica being one of the women, now is linked to
James Lapan,
who also had issues at work with Nick and filed
a formal complaint.
And so I started putting the pieces together,
and I thought we might have something a little more here
regarding James Lapan and Jessica's relationship,
DAVILA: We had what appeared to be in a love triangle.
We have James Lapan,
Nick Morelos, and Jessica,
and one of the three is dead,
and two of them are now together.
NARRATOR: Detectives summon James to the station to
question him about his connection to Jessica.
GARCIA: He looked like a little boy that got in trouble
and said, "I did not tell you the truth."
"Me and Jessica were in a romantic
relationship together,"
and this had been going on for a couple of months.
MOSHER: In the timeframe
when James meets Jessica,
James's wife is away, and James
misrepresents to Jessica that
his marriage is over and lets out the possibility that he
and Jessica will get together and get married.
But the fact is, Jessica had
filled James's ears with complaints about Nick.
So here we know two things.
One, James hates Nick because of how
he treats him at work, and then two,
we have that
James believes Nick has treated a woman
that he loves inappropriately,
so both of those could be motives for murder.
NARRATOR: While Detective Garcia assesses a possible motive,
something unusual catches her eye.
There was this huge gouge in his arm,
and it was pretty deep, as well.
And so I asked him, may I take photos of your injuries?
And may I take a DNA sample?
And he said no to both.
The killer got in through a broken window.
You have James with a huge gash in his arm,
clearly not treated medically.
And then when James is asked to provide his DNA,
and he refuses,
there's no question that any investigator is gonna be
highly suspicious of his involvement and is gonna look
more deeply into his activities.
NARRATOR: James claims the injury came from work,
but Detective Garcia isn't buying his story.
We got with the Human Resources director and said, "Hey",
"we were told that there was an incident that happened on
Saturday," and he knew about it.
He said, "Yes, James had fallen on the airplane."
So we said, "Okay, can we see the airplane?"
So he walks us into the hangar, and he showed us how James
fell into the access panel
and how he had received scrapes on his legs
when he fell, as well as
maybe some superficial cuts on his arm.
So on the airplane, right by the door,
there's plastic panels.
When you take those off, there is airplane insulation.
James told us that that was all off,
and there's metal pieces that are exposed called
stringers, and, um, that is
where he said that he cut his arm, but the insulation
and the panel was on,
so the stringers would have never been exposed, so he would
have hit the side of the airplane, and there was
nothing jagged or rough where he could have cut his arm on.
NARRATOR: Based on this discovery
at the airplane hangar,
detectives get a search warrant for James Lapan's home.
We were specifically looking for weapons, ammunition,
anything related with weapons.
We were also hoping to find
the weapon that was used to kill Nick Morelos.
GARCIA: We found 18 boxes of 45-caliber ammo
with the five-star stamp on it,
and we found a gun box for
a 45-caliber Para Ordnance 1911 handgun.
There was also an empty box for
a silencer -- that silencer fit the 45-caliber handgun.
We also found a pair of
blue pants that was tucked up high
in his closet with bloodstains on it.
NARRATOR: Detectives send the casings out
for ballistics testing, the pants to
the lab to test the bloodstains,
and get a warrant for James's DNA,
hoping to catch him off guard on his drive to work.
James left his residence very early in the morning.
Somebody else was driving.
We followed him for a couple of miles
and eventually conducted a high-risk stop on James Lapan.
[siren wailing]
And the driver of the vehicle was Jessica.
One of the things that's disturbing is that we've got
Jessica riding with James Lapan
to work together days after Nick's murder.
And so it raises some red flags in terms of what must
have been going on in her head.
Had she talked about the killing with James Lapan?
And was she involved from the very beginning?
NARRATOR: Detectives are closing in on James Lapan as the prime
suspect in the murder of Nick Morelos
but now question whether he was working alone
or with Nick's ex-girlfriend,
Jessica, and bring her into the station to be questioned.
NARRATOR: And then Jessica reveals a critical piece
of information. - The evening of the murder,
and we're talking hours before the killer goes in through
Nick's window and kills him,
James Lapan is texting with Jessica,
saying, "His pit bull?" And Jessica's writing back,
"His dog's name is Smokey."
James Lapan is asking about the pit bull that Nick had,
and Jessica is providing information about the pit bull.
And again, Nick is gonna be dead within a few hours.
And then Jessica's gonna find that out,
assuming she didn't know.
And they're gonna be riding to work together,
spending time together, in the days after the murder.
They have plenty of time to have conversation,
and one would think that conversation would be,
"What the heck? You texted me about
this guy's pit bull, and now he's dead."
But there's no indication that that's the conversation,
and that leads to big question marks for me,
and it did for law enforcement.
ARNTFIELD: The text messages to Jessica alone speak
to the elaborate premeditation of this crime.
I mean, the dog being outside at the scene was significant
in its own right.
The fact that we see these detailed inquiries being made
to Jessica about the dog, its habits,
its movements, where it is at that particular moment,
I mean, things really start adding up here.
He's gaining essentially
inside knowledge and doing reconnaissance of the scene
before he even gets there to commit the murder.
NARRATOR: When detectives drill down on her,
Jessica offers up information about James and his experience
with guns.
DAVILA: James has taken specialized tactical
firearms training in the past.
He's proficient with a firearm, and with
my training and experience,
I think that it's likely James had the skill set
to do this crime.
NARRATOR: James's training suggests
that he has the skill set,
but the blue pants found in his home are even
more revealing.
When we get the test back from the lab work that
was done, there was an area
that had been tested from the pants that
showed James Lapan's and Nick Morelos's DNA on them.
But then it didn't even stop there.
We had James Lapan's DNA
in the form of blood left
in multiple places throughout Nick's bedroom.
GARCIA: Also, the casings we found in James Lapan's
house, when those were tested for ballistics,
those casings matched the casings at the crime scene.
At this point, all arrows are
pointing towards James Lapan in this investigation.
NARRATOR: Despite having hard evidence against him,
James Lapan has a corroborated alibi.
So we had James Lapan and his wife giving the same statement.
NARRATOR: But then his wife, Serena,
comes forward with a shocking revelation.
James forced her to lie about
his alibi and threatened her with abuse
if she didn't comply -- She had finally had enough.
The impact of abuse on an abuse victim is
so huge in so many different ways.
But what we do know, of course, there's a lot of fear.
So it's not uncommon for people to lie to cover up for
an abusive partner, because they're --
They're afraid of them,
and they're afraid of what could happen if they don't.
And then sometimes something happens to remind you
that this is not something that's normal.
This is not okay, and then you
are also forced to reconcile that difference.
And so, you know, people might come forward with information
or take risks that they ordinarily wouldn't,
because they now realize what the situation is.
NARRATOR: Serena tells detectives that James
had always been jealous of Nick.
GEORGE: There was this competition
between James and Nick.
You get a lot of guys that have that A type personality,
and that was just kind of part and parcel of James
and Nick's personalities.
STOCKDALE: Someone like James would be
incredibly envious of somebody like Nick.
I see James as somebody who possibly
collects injustices, collects grievances.
If you're an arrogant person, and you feel like you deserve
more and you're special,
you're gonna be affronted when somebody says to you, "No",
you can't park in that parking spot, " or, " No,
you can't do these things."
And so, at some level, I wonder if this narcissistic
wound that he has that keeps festering for him,
plus this enviousness of Nick and wants to be more like him,
added to this warrior mentality.
He sees himself as a pseudo commando,
has this military-type background.
Those things combine for a toxic mix for revenge
and violence.
NARRATOR: Detectives are now able to reconstruct
the final 24 hours of Nick's life.
After spending his Sunday with Kristy,
Nick goes home, and he's in bed at his own home by 9 p.m.
James and Serena are having that counseling session at home
and went to bed early, roughly between 9 and 9:30.
At 3:30 a.m. on Monday, James sneaks out of the house,
and we know is at Nick's place, positioned outside
the second floor window by 3:50 a.m.
Nick wakes up, lets Smokey out at 4 a.m.
James knew that habit, because Lapan had
conversations about Smokey the pit bull with Jessica.
And then he waits, Smokey's in
the backyard, and then he begins firing.
[muffled gunshots]
And then he goes in through the window.
Nick is moving.
There's a closely packed pattern of shots
and a final shot to his head.
[muffled gunshot]
James Lapan cleaned up and got home before 5:30 or 6,
went to bed, and he didn't get up till 6 a.m.
James Lapan is a monster.
He murdered Nicolas Morelos for
no other reason than jealousy.
He gained nothing out of it.
He destroyed the victim's family,
the victim's extended family.
He destroyed his family.
NARRATOR: On October 2, 2018,
James Lapan is convicted of
the first-degree murder of Nick Morelos.
He is sentenced to life without parole.
In my 20 years in law enforcement in Pima County,
this is the only incident that I can think of where these type
of military, paramilitary type of tactics
were used to hunt someone down and kill them.
This case was very important to me, and I'm very,
very proud of myself.
We were able to narrow down suspects very quickly,
get the suspect off the streets, make the public
more safer, so I'm very satisfied with the way this
investigation panned out.
MOSHER: I can't bring Nick back.
And the family --
It will still be a devastating tragedy
for them the rest of their lives.
But we can do something that helps them in some small way.
They're looking for justice,
and I get to try my best to give them a little piece
of justice,
and so I'm honored to serve my community and do that work.