Hey, I'm Andy Mitchell, a New York Times bestselling author. And I'm Sabrina Kohlberg, a morning television producer. We're moms of toddlers and best friends of 20 years. And we both love to talk about being parents, yes, but also pop culture. So we're combining our two interests by talking to celebrities, writers, and fellow scholars of TV and movies. Cinema, really. About what we all can learn from the fictional moms we love to watch. From ABC Audio in Good Morning, America, pop culture Moms is out now. Listen now, ad free on Amazon Music. This is Deborah Roberts. Welcome to the 2020 True Crime Vault. Each week, we reach back into our archives and bring you a story we found unforgettable. Only a true psychopath could do this. A pool of blood coming from his head.

Somebody had been paid to kill me. Why would you want your husband killed? Take a listen. Coming up. A handsome captain, his beautiful family safe at home until a knock on the door. He cannot look at that crime scene and not have the word madness come up.

All of them gone, except the tiny toddler left alive in her crib.

You need to stop. The world stops.

Twenty-five years later, locked away in a cold case file. A shocking discovery.

But is it enough? Dna evidence does not make a case open and shut. You won't believe the twists this story takes.

Why didn't he kill me?

Why didn't he?

I'm John Quineones.

We always feel safest in our own homes. And that's why a story about a family being victimized where they live has such an impact.

That's what this story is about, a family slaughtered in their home with only one tiny witness left behind.

Who could do such a thing? As Elizabeth Vargas first reported in 2010, it would take 25 years for justice to be served.

The murder of a military wife and two of her young daughters in 1985 was still making headlines in Fayetteville, North Carolina, 25 years later. The loss of his children and his wife, Katie, would haunt former Air Force Captain Gary Eastburn forever. Katie had captivated him from the moment they met.

It sounds stupid, but you talk about love at first sight. That was Katie. We got married. Then I went in the Air Force.

Eleven years after his romantic dreams came true, Gary supervised air traffic control at North Carolina's Pope Air Force Base, right next to Fort Bragg. By then, Gary and Katie had three daughters, five-year-old Kara, three-year-old Aaron, and Janna, just under two. They lived at 367 Summer Hill Road. The next door neighbors were Bob and Jeanette Seafeld.

They were just precious little girls.

And what about Katie? Did you get to know her at all? I would say she's the most devoted mother I'd ever seen. In the spring of 1985, the number one song was Don't You Forget About Me by Simple Minds. It was featured in The Breakfast Club, a big hit at the movie house. Ronald Reagan was in the White House. That spring, Gary Eastburn was nearing the end of a 10-week training course at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, 500 miles from home. Family matters, like putting their dog Dixie up for adoption, fell to Katie, who had been alone with the girls for two months. She and Gary stayed in touch by writing letters in a time before email and cell phones. Every Thursday night, Gary called Katie from the barracks' payphone. But one Thursday night in May that pattern was upended.

That was the night I called her and she didn't answer the phone.

She had never missed the Thursday evening phone call. No. Unable to leave his military post, Gary says he frantically called home for two days and nights. By Sunday morning, Mother's Day, the neighbors were also concerned. After noticing the Eastburn's newspapers were piling up, they went next door to investigate.

Rang the doorbell and I didn't get any answer. Sounded like a baby was crying.

The Seafelts called authorities, and Sheriff's deputies, when they arrived, broke into the locked house. They found 21-month saw Janna in her crib, crying, dirty, hungry, and thirsty. Police handed her to the waiting neighbors.

So I just laid her down in my bathroom on the rug there, and I changed her. I grabbed an old T-shirt and I just put that on her. Then I went to the kitchen table with her, and I had a glass of milk, and so I started giving it, but she would put her hands around the glass and just try to force it because she was so thirsty. Her little teeth were really black for, I guess, dehydration.

An ambulance was called for Janna. Doctors say she was only hours away from death, but she was the lucky one. Back Back inside the Eastburn house, everyone else was dead. Her mother and her two sisters had been murdered in their beds. Calls went out to Homicide Detective Robert Biddle and Jack Watts.

I was back in my mother's house at the time because it was Mother's Day. It was right around between 12:30 and 1:00 that I got the call, and I proceeded over to Summer Hill.

It was their first day on a horrific case that would involve them for more than two decades. Decades. The detectives took us through the former Eastburn home. Another family now lives there.

This is the first time we've been back in this house since 1985, and it's a strange feeling.

It was in these rooms that they found the bodies of Aaron and Kara Eastburn and that of their mother, Katie, who had been murdered and raped.

Here in this area here was her sneakers, the laces still tied. Died. I think her panties were there. And they had been caught off of her. Yes, ma'am. This is the room in which Janna was left. She was left in this-In the crib.in the crib in here.

Police believe the surviving toddler was in that crib for nearly three days before neighbors heard her cries and that the murders going on around her happened on that Thursday night. Her mother didn't answer the phone.

As we came down the hall, Erin was laying over here on this side. On this side of the bed? On this side of the bed. Katie was over about where the edge of this bed is right here. She was laying over here on her back. Had her brows was pulled apart, brows and brow, and her throat was cut. Both of them. Multiple stab wounds.

Down the hall from her mother and her three-year-old sister, police found five-year-old Kara in the same condition. Police think she was trying to hide from the killer. She was found in her bed under a Star Wars blanket.

It was multiple stab wounds to her chest, and also her throat had been cut. I can picture that little baby there with that blanket over her head trying to hide. That's the picture I see. A lot of things come back to you. A lot of things, sometimes you've forgotten that scene of Kiara and Aaron and Katie. You don't ever forget that. As I said, you just don't ever forget anything like that. It stays with you forever. I was in the dorm room and someone said, Hey, Gary, you got a phone call? I go, Oh, good. It's her. She said, Some detective. The first thing I said, How many of them are dead? He wouldn't tell me anything. He just said there had been a death in the family and that I needed to get home as soon as possible. The chaplain and a couple of other people came, and I got on a plane with a friend of mine that escorted me back.

It was a two-hour flight that Mother's Day evening, and Gary Eastburn spent every second of it worrying about what had happened to his family. Detectives had waited to give him the news in person.

I remember how emotional he was, and he just I'm going to broke down. Oh, yeah. It's hard to explain. You just stop. The world stops. Detectives say they found the bodies of Katherine Eastburn and her two children. Their throes had been slashed.

Scares me.

Terrifies me for them. Really does. Who would do such a thing? I mean, you cannot look at that crime scene or hear about that crime scene and not just have the word madness come up.

People wanted whoever could kill a mother and two tiny girls off the street. Exactly.

The Sheriff's Department really felt a huge amount of pressure to solve this thing and solve it quickly. Coming up, desperate police turn to Janna, the only survivor. What did she see or hear that night? Did anything ever scary happen in that house? And a portrait of the murderer emerges. Stay with us.

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Introducing June's Journey, the free-to-play mobile game that will immerse you in a thrilling murder mystery.

Join June Parker as she uncovers hidden objects and clues to solve her sister's death in a beautifully illustrated world set in the Roaring Twenties. With new chapters added every week, the excitement never ends. Download June's Journey Now on your Android or iOS device or play on PC through Facebook games. Hey, I'm Andy Mitchell, a New York Times bestselling author. And I'm Sabrina Kohlberg, a morning television producer. We're moms of toddlers and best friends of 20 years. And we both love to talk about being parents, yes, but also pop culture. So we're combining our two interests by talking to celebrities, writers, and fellow scholars of TV and movies. Cinema, really. About what we all can learn from the fictional Mom's We Love to watch. From ABC Audio and Good Morning, America, Pop Culture Moms is out now wherever you listen to podcasts. Whoever murdered Gary Eastburn's wife and two of his daughters mysteriously spared the youngest child, Janna.

I was so relieved to find that one was still alive. She saved me, I think.Janna did?Yeah.

If they'd all been gone?

I don't know what I would have done.

She It gave you a reason to go on. She didn't. Detectives wonder whether the little survivor might help them, too. They are so desperate for leads, they try something extraordinary, taking Jannah to visit with a child's psychologist, Dr. Helen Brantley. Who is this? Mom. Mom. At one point, Janna kisses a picture of her murdered mother.

Oh, that's nice.

Did anything ever scare you happen As deputies videotape, the doctor delicately probes for any memories of that night, and there are some. In her report to the authorities, Brantley writes, Janice said, Hide from the burglar so he doesn't get us, and he's going to come get me.

She talked about hiding, and at one point she said, Shh, be quiet. I can't kill her anymore. So she heard things.

Brantley says the child probably heard the killer but could not identify him. Janna is just too young to help. And 25 years later, she says her recollections of that night are a blank.

I don't remember anything at all.

But it must be a burden of its own. It is.

It's really hard for me.

I feel like I'm disconnected from it.

My biggest thing is, why didn't he kill me?

Why didn't he? I don't know.

Obviously, I think I was left here for my dad.

Why do you think the killer spared her? If he was willing to kill a five-year-old and a three-year-old, why stop at the baby?

She was young. She probably couldn't identify him. He was more concerned about the individuals that possibly could identify him.

Janna may not have been able to help, but in the days after the murders, detectives soon found others who could. A woman down the street tells them she saw a car parked near the crime scene, a little a white Chevy Chevette. Then Patrick Cohn, a 20-year-old from around the block, flags down a deputy. Say, look now. The investigation was later depicted in a television movie, Innocent Victims, based on a book by journalist Scott Wisnent. A man coming out.

He was carrying something like that. That Sunday night, a young gentleman named Patrick Cohn said, I saw somebody leaving the house about 3:30 that morning. A man comes down the driveway with a bag over his back. He passes Pat within three feet, and he says to Pat, I'm getting an early start today.

Cohn helped create a composite, giving police their first idea of what the killer might look like. Detectives also learned that Katie had written to Gary about a man who adopted the family dog. Just days before the killings.

She mentioned that he'd come over and said, He seemed like a pretty nice guy. Earlier today, authorities issued a press release requesting information on an individual who apparently picked up the family pet Dixie.

The man who adopted the dog is Tim Henness, a 27-year-old army sergeant married with a two-month-old daughter. When they see that news broadcast, Hennis and his wife, Angela, come forward.

I think he expected to go down there, give a statement, be cleared and sent home.

The detectives say Henness looked strangely familiar.

I stopped dead in my tracks. I'd seen a lot of composites, and sometimes you can say, Well, that looks a little bit like her. That looks a little bit like him. But honestly, it looked like an artist just sat there with a pen and drew this picture. I mean, it was the best composite.

Police ask, and Hennis readily agrees to give hair, blood, and fingerprint samples. He had no idea that at the same time, Witness Patrick Cohn was pointing to his picture in this photo lineup.

No hesitation. There's number two. It was just that fast.

The detective's interest grew even stronger when they escorted Henness and his wife to their car. A little white Chevy Chevette. Later that night, Tim Hennis is arrested.

Investigators say the arrest of Army Sergeant, Timothy Henness, early this morning, capped off one of the most intensive murder investigations in Cumberland County history.

With Henness in custody, investigators continue to build the case against him. Police learn before the bodies were discovered that someone had used Katie Eastburn's ATM card. Bank transaction records led detectives to the next customer to use the machine. And she ultimately picked Tim Hennis out of a photo lineup and said, That's the man I saw use the ATM right before I did.

You follow the evidence in around every corner That stood Tim Hennis. Every corner we turned, that was Tim looking right back at us.

Why would a family man with a daughter about the same age as Janna Eastburn and no history of violence commit such a heinous crime. Police trace his motive to something he failed to tell them. On the night of the murders, with his wife and baby daughter out of town, Hennis went to see an ex-girlfriend. Police say when she rejected his advances, he went out into the night looking for sex. They say he wound up at Katie Eastburns, whom he had met two days earlier when he adopted their dog.

Katie Eastburns was a very attractive woman, young and attractive. He went over there, and I think he misread her. It went too far, and he had to kill everybody.

But that's a big leap. Sure it is. To go from wanting to have sex with a woman to butchering her and her two little girls.

I understand that, but I don't know what else. I don't know how else you can describe what happened in that house or why he was there.

Why all the rage in this? The overkill?

He just went over the edge. He is capable of extramarital sex just like millions of other men in this world are. Does that mean he's capable of holding a knife to a five-year-old's throat and cutting it from ear to ear?

A jury would answer that question in a trial that began a year after the murders and packed the courthouse.

Courtrooms seats for the Hennis trial have been at a premium these past weeks. I'm curious of what's going to happen and how the family is reacting to it. People literally were getting in fights, lining up to get in the courtroom the morning of the trials.

Billy Richardson was one of Tim Hennis' lawyers and was quick to point out to the jury that there was plenty of physical evidence. Fingerprints, hair, footprints, none of it matched his client. At a time before routine DNA testing, even semen found during Katie Eastburn's autopsy led nowhere.

There is a significant amount of foreign evidence in that house showing that a male has been in that house that is not Captain Eastburn and is not 10 minutes. Well, who the heck is it? There is absolutely no humanly possible way that a person can do what was done in that house and not take a piece of that house outside with them in their car, on their clothes, on their body. It's impossible.

Were you satisfied that they had the man who killed your family?

Absolutely.

Late on the afternoon of July 4, 1986, the jury returned its verdict. Tim Henness was found guilty on all counts. Four days later, he was sentenced to death. When he was sent to death row, did you feel vindicated? Did you feel justice had been served? Yes.

It's awful to say, but I had no remorse at all. I thought he'd deserve it.

Do you feel that's what he deserved? Yes, ma'am. Why?

Aaron Eastman, Katie Eastman, Kerry Eastman, that's With Tim Henness on Death Row, it seemed the case of the horrors on Summer Hill Road was closed.

But then the mystery only deepened. In his prison cell, Tim Henness receives a letter. It reads, Dear Mr. Henness, I did the crime. I murdered the Eastburns. Sorry you're doing the time. Thanks, Mr. X. Is the wrong man about to be executed?

Every fiber in my being bleed these are us.

Stay with us. We're this weeks into this year, and the news is already nonstop. Two overseas wars, a presidential election already testing the democratic process, a former president in court. It can feel impossible to keep up with, but we can help. I'm Brad Milky, the host of Start Here, the daily podcast from ABC News. Every morning, my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand.

So kickstart your morning.

Start Smart with Start Here and ABC News, because staying informed shouldn't feel like a chore. A Fayetteville, North Carolina jury had given the evil that happened on Summer Hill Road a name, and it was Tim Hennis.

Hennis' lawyers feel the jury's decision was based more on emotions rather than the evidence in the brutal murders of Katherine Eastburn and two of her children.

In spite of the verdict, Hennis' his family continued to insist he was no killer.

We knew that he was innocent.

On Death Row, the man convicted of murdering Katie Eastburn and her two daughters gets regular visits from his wife, Angela, and their daughter, Christina.

There was a plexiglas wall that would separate him from his daughter, and she would beat her fist on the wall. Open it, Daddy. I wanted to open it, Daddy. That was the hardest thing for him to take.

Hennis holds a dream Common among the condemned? A second chance. And from the moment of his conviction, his lawyers were fighting for a new trial.

I'm sitting there with a man that is on death row, and I think in large measure to my inadequate representation of him. And that's a hell of a burden to carry.

That burden would be lifted when in a precedent-setting decision, the state's Supreme Court overturned the guilty verdict. It found the trial judge had allowed prosecutors to inflame the jury with a graphic parade of disturbing photos of the dead victims projected over the defendant's head.

This huge image of grotesque violence. The jurors couldn't help but see him at the same time they were seeing these bodies. It was awful.

After he had spent more than two years on death row, the high court awarded Tim Hennis a new trial. The second trial begins in 1989, four years after the murders. The prosecution's case is still strong. Their star witness, Patrick Cohn, is back to swear again that he saw Hennis leaving the scene of the crime.

There's something about sitting in the courtroom, and there's a person that has placed their hand on the Bible and said, I swear before Almighty God that I'm going to tell the truth. And then that person takes their finger and they go, That man's sitting right next to the fence, counsel. That is compelling drama.

But in this new trial, the defense unleashes a string of surprises, including a compelling new witness of their own.

The defense had found a newspaper carrier in the neighborhood. She saw a shortish white male leaving the house with long stringy hair. Clearly not Tim Hennis.

The defense emphasized no physical evidence tying Hennis to the crime scene, and they noted there were other potential suspects, like the mysterious Mr. Who was mailing letters to Hennis and authorities taking credit for the crimes. Do you think whoever wrote that committed the crime?

The one rule I have in this case is nothing in this case surprises me.

The second trial was filled with surprises, but the most explosive was a new strategy. The defendant himself took the witness stand. In the first trial, defense lawyers had decided against that. They worried that the muscular 6'4 Henness was a big man with a short views and a bad attitude.

I thought the problem was arrogant human beings that I'd ever seen.

His own lawyers were afraid Hennis might be set off by a prosecutor. What were you afraid would happen if Tim took the stand?

I thought Tim would come out over the witness table and get in a fight with him, really. You're dealing with a fellow that's 6'4, 6'5. Yeah, he's a big man.

Well, and that prosecutor would have liked nothing more than for Tim Lucet.

He would have baited him on the whole trial.

But keeping Henness off the stand hadn't kept him from being convicted. And the second jury hears Henness himself, swear he didn't do it.

So they put Tim on the stand, and he did fine. It's hard. Obviously, he denied having any involvement in this case. He denied having any involvement in Ms. Eastburn. And that was his opinion against the States, but still, that was fine. He was able to get in front of the jury, tell him he didn't do it, keep his composure.

But do they believe him? The husband and father of the victims, Captain Gary Eastburn, wasn't convinced.

You would think if somebody didn't do it, they would certainly... At least I would. If I did, I'm sorry.For.

Your loss?

Yeah.

I didn't do it, but I'm sorry that this terrible thing happened to your family. Did anything in that second trial make you doubt, even for a second, that Tim Hennis is the person who killed your wife and daughters? No.

I put my hand on heart and say no. He's guilty. He did it.

The jury in the first trial thought Tim Hennis did it, too. They sent him to death row. But not this jury. On April 19, 1989, they set Tim Hennis free.

After more than a month of testimony, the jury found Henness innocent on triple murder charges. They did not prove It proved to us that he was definitely guilty. It was just a whole lot of circumstantial evidence.

What was that moment like when you heard the verdict?

Well, I felt like we had won the big one. And I felt relief because I felt like now I didn't have that burden of knowing an innocent man was on death row because of my inadequacy. And he got to hold his daughter, who was now four years old, leaving the courthouse. It was a happy moment for him and his family.

The joy and relief had changed hands. Now, after the second trial, it was Gary Eastburn and his family who were shocked. What was your reaction when you watched him walk out a free man?

Sent me back a bit.

Were you angry?

I was angry, yes, but I tried to get myself to the point where I said, No matter innocent or guilty in this trial, you just got to let it go. I guess It's hard to believe it's finally here.

9, 10.

Ready or not?

A month after he was freed, Tim Hennis and his wife, Angela, were paid to appear on a current affair.

They were out to get somebody, just somebody, that they could pin it on and get it out of the news. And you didn't do it? No, I did not.

Tim Hennis was cleared, and for decades, no new suspects emerged. Whoever slaughtered the family on Summer Hill Road had gotten away with murder. The killer for the past 20 years has walked free. Have you ever thought about that during that time?

Oh, yeah.

About the fact that somewhere, someplace, somebody who committed barbaric, horrible murders is enjoying a cup of coffee or the sunrise.

Or his children.

Or his children. As the years went by, what happened on Summer Hill Road was all but forgotten until one day a cold-paced detective took another look. What was in this box is what proved to be the lynch pin in this case. Yes, ma'am. Police finally get an answer as our story continues.

Gary Eastburn has suffered the loss of his wife, Katie, and two of their three daughters. Tim Hennis has faced trial for their murders and has been found innocent. But as Elizabeth Vargas reports, the story is far from over.

What happened on Summer Hill Road would haunt two families for more than two decades. Gary Eastburn says in those years, he focused on the only child the killer had spared, Janna, his youngest daughter.

Janna was my first, second, third, fourth, and fifth priorities, her well-being. He's always given me anything I've needed or wanted and always been there for me.

He's like my mom, really.

He always has been. But we have super close bond, and so I'm thankful for that, if anything, that I'm able to have that relationship with my dad.

Captain Eastburn transferred to an Air Force base north of London, and there he met an English nurse and married her in 1991. Janna was eight years old at the time and now had a stepmother.

And she really is the only mom that I've ever known, and I wouldn't want her to feel any other way about that.

As for Tim Henness, after he was set free, he returned to his family and resumed his career in the army. Which often took him away from home and hearth.

He served in the first Desert Storm War. He served in the war in Somalia. He got promoted multiple times, and nothing but good marks.

Journalist Scott Wisnett, who wrote the book Innocent Victims, later an ABC television movie, says the title refers to both the Eastburns and Tim Hennis.

And the point of view was that Tim Hennis was not guilty of these crimes.

Shortly after the second trial, a book came out called Innocent Victims. Did you read the book or watch the show?

I've never read the book. I've never seen the show. I was asked that question, you just ask, and they asked me, did I read the book? And I said, I have not. And they said, Why not? And I said, I don't read fiction.

Not guilty.

I think the book probably annoyed them. The TV movie pissed them off. Tinnitus, you are free to go. And they still thought they had the right guy all along.

I have a warrant for your arrest. The book and the movie suggested that after police wrongly arrested Tim Hennis, they failed to investigate any other leads or potential suspects.

Look at that. Nothing on that board relates to Tim Hennis.

The movie ends with a reminder that the case was never closed.

We got a 25-year-old case that hadn't been solved. If there ever It was a case that cried for justice, that cried for looking at all the facts, looking at all the evidence, it's this case.

The case that once transfixed Fayetteville, North Carolina, had become a box on a shelf, a time capsule of an unsolved crime. And there it sat, year after year. This section here is going to be predominantly for all homicides investigations. Twenty years after the murders, Captain Larry Trotter of the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department treatment was working the cold cases unit. So you were looking up at a shelf one day and noticed what?

I saw a box got large and realized it had to be something pretty significant to it. Then obviously put a lot of work into it for a case that didn't get solved.

Here we have Katherine Eastburn's necklace. Sifting the evidence from the killings of Katie, Kara, and Aaron, a necklace, a lock of hair, bloody bedding, Trotter found the one clue that would lead to the real killer. What's this? This is going to be a swab from Katherine Eastburn. It would be the vaginal swab box. The vaginal swab. What was in this box is what proved to be the linchpin in this case. Yes, ma'am. The DNA. Yes, ma'am.

The DNA.

Authorities say vaginal swaps from Katie Eastburn's autopsy contained semen from the man who they say raped and then killed her and her daughters. When the crime was investigated in the mid '80s, DNA testing was not available, but it was now. Captain Trotter sent the swab off to the state crime lab. Detectives called Gary Eastburn with the results.

I'm the one who called Gary. I said, Are you sitting down? He said, No, should I? And I said, Take a deep seat.

The killer revealed. Stay with us. A cold case detective found the clue that would finally solve the 25-year-old mystery of the Eastburn murders. It had been there all along. On the swab that went in here. Hidden in the DNA of Seaman, the killer left inside Katie Eastburn after raping her. With a certainty of one in 12,000 trillion crime technicians identified the man.

A lab person calls me a young lady in her late 20s who was probably about four years old when this occurred. She said, I have a hit on your Henness case. He said, Who is it? She said, Well, it's him. He said, Him who? She said, It's Tim Henness. That's his DNA.

Tim Hennis, the man who had been acquitted 20 years earlier, cleared of a terrible crime. The case had come full circle, back to the very detectives had first suspected. What did you do?

I just wanted to jump up and scream. I was so happy.It.

Was vindication.It.

Was vindication. Exactly.

But Hennis' supporters, including former defense attorney Billy Richardson say they're not convinced by the new evidence.

How does a person do that one night and then go 25 years in the military with a spotless record and go in the private sector and have a spotless record and stay married to the same woman and raise two fine children? I mean, it just doesn't fit.

The science in this case says that Tim Hennis, his sperm was found inside Katie Eastburn.

Not necessarily.

But what could anybody What does that do to a sperm sample to make it- It tried contamination.

I mean, the stuff's in with all the other stuff. I mean, you can't convince me that somebody hadn't put the stuff and mixed it all together.

Mix what altogether, though? There's only one sperm sample in in all of those evidence boxes. That comes from the inside.

That lab has been called into question numerous times. I mean, there's an investigation going on right now. I still don't think he did this. Something is wrong.

Scott Wisnent, who wrote a book proclaiming Henness's innocence, refuses to believe he was fooled.

How could he be guilty of this? How could he mislead all these people all this time? How did he pull this off? It shook me to the foundation because I'd come to learn so much about the case, and absolutely none of it pointed toward him being the culprit. And now they found his DNA inside the victim's body, and it still doesn't compute.

If Henness's supporters were shocked, imagine the reaction of the husband and the father of the victims, Gary Eastburn.

I'm the one who called Gary, and I said, Are you sitting down? He said, No, should I? And I said, Take a deep seat. We've got some DNA reports. They match Tim Hennis. You could knock me over the feather when I got that call that day. And it was this long silence, and I kept saying, Gary. Gary? Gary.

Had you given up hope that justice would ever be served?

Yes. I started crying. It was just hit with this wave of emotion. I just, God, I don't believe it. And we got one more shot. At to see this man get justice.

Just one thing now stood between Gary Eastburn and justice, the Constitution. It prohibits double jeopardy, trying somebody two times for the same crime. But determined prosecutors discovered a little known loophole. The state couldn't touch Henness, but because he was a soldier, the US Army could. They ordered Henness out of retirement and back into uniform.

And he got knocked on the door and said, You're reactivated. You're coming to the army. And he was furious about it, understandably. I mean, he had carved out a life for himself. What is this about?

Henness had retired to Washington State near Seattle, something the Eastburns were shocked to find out, because that's where Gary Eastburn and his second wife had also settled, as had Janna and her boyfriend, Brenton Sebenbaum.

This guy lived 30 minutes from us. All the way across the United States. This guy lived 30 minutes from us.

It's a pretty amazing coincidence.

Scary. How's my girlfriend supposed to sleep the night knowing that this man is walking around free? That's hard. My biggest fear always was that seeing him or knowing that he was anywhere near me. And so obviously, when we found out that he lived in the Northwest, that was really shocking towards me. That was my one thing I never wanted to happen.

But When Henness would soon be leaving the Northwest. The army had ordered him back to Fort Bragg.

Tell you, Jen, you need to be back over there now, near the sidewalk.

After two decades of freedom, Tim Hennis was being tried a third time for the same crime. This time in a military court martial.

For the third time, Tim Henness is fighting for his life. If convicted, he could again face the death penalty. I'm living in America, and I'm sitting there going, Third trial. What's wrong with this picture? If you look at the Constitution, it says, There shall be no double jebber. It doesn't say jurisdictionally.

Lawyers for Hennis tried to get a federal court to intervene on the issue but failed. The court martial would go forward. In this third Hennis trial, there would be a new witness, Janna the little survivor, all grown up and determined to testify.

I just want them to know how it's affected my life and how it's affected my dad's life and how I feel like I've been robbed half of my life, half of my family. I just want to have a closure for them, really. They deserve that.

The trial begins in the spring of 2010. At 52, Tim Henness is no longer the fit young sergeant first arrested in 1985. His daughter, Christina, a little girl during her father's first trials, is 25 pregnant with her second child. But some things have not changed. Henness' wife, Angela, is still by his side, and Tim Henness insists that he is innocent. They love him as a husband, as a father, as a grandfather now. Frank Spinner, Hennis' lawyer at the court martial, argues that the facts of his client's life do not paint the portrait of a man who could kill a mother and two little girls.

How could a man who's led such an example in your life be the same man who committed these murders.

Tim Henness, after his acquittal, went back into the military, served this country with distinction, raised his family, and has never committed a crime. And yet on one single night, you're going to have this episode where you slaughter a woman and her two little girls. How does that add up?

I don't know that it adds up. I just know that it occurred, and I don't have the answer why he did this or what pushed him over the edge. I don't know.

The detectives say at this point, motive doesn't matter. There is no physical evidence, DNA linking Hennis to the rape and murders.

I think there is a public perception out there that, well, if you have DNA evidence, then the case is open and shut. What we tried to show is that no, DNA evidence does not make a case open and shut.

Hennis' lawyers astonished the courtroom, arguing the DNA doesn't prove Hennis raped or killed anyone, only that he and Katie Eastburn had sex. And he went further. He suggests that with her husband away on duty, Katie was lonely and that the sex was consensual.

When the defense attorney said that, you could literally hear the air go out of that room. I mean, everybody went... It was just an unbelievable moment. When the lawyer sits there and is calling your wife a whore, and then sits there and turns around and gloats at the prosecution saying, I think I hit a hot spot there. That's uncalled for. That's unprofessional.

You have been in touch with Tim? Yes. Did Tim agree with the decision for his lawyer to say there might have been consensual sex between Tim and Katie Eastburn?

In fairness, I'm not asking that question.

So you haven't asked him whether or not he ever had with Katie Eastburn?

I've asked him that. I asked him that 20 years ago.

What did he say?

No.

Now saying that he may have and that Katie Eastburn was a willing partner was seen as a desperate last minute, last chance for the defense. And the Men and women on the jury, all soldiers themselves, didn't buy it.

As the military panel members walked in, some looked at Sergeant Henness. The verdict was then handed to the judge and then handed back to the high judge.

They found Tim Henness guilty of the murders Katie, Kara, and Aaron Eastburn. He was led away in handcuffs, and for the second time in his life, Tim Henness was sentenced to death.

Timothy Henness maintains his innocence, will continue to maintain his innocence, and we will fight for reversal of his conviction on appeal.

Minutes after the verdict Gary Eastburn had waited 20 years to hear, he and his daughter spoke to the press. The man who who had suffered so much had something to say to the family of the man found responsible.

My heart goes out to them. I can certainly relate to the pain they're feeling. And my heart goes out to them.

For the Henness family, the case will go on.

And I hope none of you feel that I'm gloating over this. I'm not. I just I just feel like justice has finally been done.

Do you feel like you have finally closed a chapter in some way? I mean, if that's even possible to do?

Yes, I do. I definitely feel more at peace now for myself, for my family, that he's behind bars.

For the family that once lived in the house on Summer Hill Road, it is finally over. This is Deborah Roberts. Tim Hennis remains on military death row in Fort Levinworth, Kansas. You've been listening to 2020's True Crime Vault. Join us Friday nights at 9:00 for all new broadcast episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.