Eleanor's hands shook as she described that night.
She had been driving home when she saw Greg's car parked near our house.
She had recognized the license plate.
At first, she assumed Greg was visiting Dad.
Then she saw another vehicle.
Daniel Voss was driving.
She remembered thinking it was strange.
Voss had no reason to be there.
Eleanor slowed down.
She did not stop.
She said she saw Greg enter the house.
Voss stayed in the car.
Several minutes later, Voss went inside too.
“What time?” I asked.
“Just after eight.”
Dad was killed at approximately eight-thirty.
The timing fit.
But one question remained.
“Where was Mom?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I didn't see her.”
That mattered.
Mom had been at a grocery store that evening.
The original prosecution had suggested she returned before the murder.
But Eleanor's statement supported Mom's alibi.
“Why didn't you tell the police?”
Eleanor looked ashamed.
“Because Greg found out I had seen him.”
“What did he do?”
“He came to my house.”
She stared at the floor.
“He told me that if I spoke, my daughter would regret it.”
Noah's jaw tightened.
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he had already shown me photographs of her.”
Nobody spoke.
Eleanor reached into her purse again.
This time she removed a folded receipt.
It was from a motel.
The date was the night Dad died.
The name on the room was Daniel Voss.
I looked at it.
“Why is this important?”
“Because he told Greg he couldn't stay long.”
“Where?”
“In the motel.”
“Then why was he at our house?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I don't know.”
We spent the next few days reconstructing the timeline.
Dad arrived home shortly after seven.
Mom left for the grocery store around seven-forty.
Greg arrived shortly after eight.
Voss arrived minutes later.
Noah was upstairs.
At approximately eight-thirty, a neighbor heard a loud argument.
Then silence.
The emergency call came at eight-forty.
Mom returned from the store at eight-forty-seven.
That was the official timeline.
But one detail didn't fit.
The knife had been found beneath Mom's car seat.
She had driven to the grocery store.
She had returned.
If the knife had been used in the kitchen before she left, she should have known it was missing.
If it had been planted afterward, someone had needed access to her car.
I asked the investigator about it.
He pulled the original evidence report.
“Your mother left her car unlocked that night.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“She said she usually did.”
That was true.
Mom had always been careless about locking the car.
Greg knew that.
He had known everything about our routines.
The investigator continued.
“The knife was found under the driver's seat.”
“Were there fingerprints?”
“Your mother's and Greg's partial print.”
“Why wasn't Greg's print identified at trial?”
“It was too incomplete at the time.”
The same partial print that technology later connected to him.
Everything fit.
Almost.
Then Noah remembered something else.
He called me late one night.
“I know where Dad was standing.”
“What?”
“When I drew the picture.”
He sounded breathless.
“I remembered something.”
I drove to Mom's house.
Noah was waiting at the kitchen table.
He had drawn another picture.
This one was more detailed.
He had drawn the kitchen window.
The back door.
The table.
The refrigerator.
And a small object on the counter.
“What is that?”
“I don't know.”
He pointed.
“It was there.”
I stared at the shape.
It looked like a small recorder.
“A tape recorder?”
“Maybe.”
Dad had been recording conversations.
The cassette we had just heard might not have been the only recording.
I contacted the investigators.
They searched the old house again.
The house had changed hands after Mom's conviction, but some original fixtures remained.
The kitchen cabinets had been replaced.
The counters had been renovated.
The old refrigerator was gone.
But beneath the floorboards near the pantry, investigators found a damaged digital recording device.
It had survived six years in terrible condition.
Technicians managed to recover part of the data.
The first recording was mostly static.
The second contained voices.
Dad.
Greg.
And another man.
Daniel Voss.
The conversation began with money.
Then Greg said something that made my stomach turn.
“You don't understand what happens if he talks.”
Dad answered.
“I've already sent copies.”
Greg became angry.
Voss tried to calm him.
Then Dad said:
“Leave my wife and children out of this.”
There was a long silence.
Then Greg said:
“You should have thought about that before you went looking.”
The recording ended.
We listened to it several times.
It was not a confession.
But it placed all three men in the kitchen before Dad died.
The investigators searched Voss's motel records.
He had checked in that afternoon.
But he had left shortly after midnight.
His room had been paid for in cash.
The receipt Eleanor had kept suddenly became significant.
Voss was arrested.
He initially denied being at our house.
Then investigators showed him the recording.
He changed his story.
He admitted he had been there.
But he claimed he had left before the stabbing.
“Then who killed him?” I asked.
Voss stared at the table.
“Greg.”
The word was almost inaudible.
He said Greg had attacked Dad after the argument.
Voss claimed he panicked.
He said he left through the back door.
But there was one problem.
The investigators had found evidence that Voss returned to the house later.
A shoe print matched the soles of his boots.
He had gone back inside.
“Why?” I asked.
Voss finally looked at me.
“Because Greg told me to clean it up.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The Second Man Finally Explained What Happened After the Stabbing, and His Confession Revealed the Cruelest Part of the Plan
Six Years After My Father’s Murder, I Returned to the Prison Where My Mother Was Waiting for Her Final Goodbye
Part 7 of 27
