(TRAIN HORN BLARES) - Sabrina and Robert Limon were really kind of an It couple. (BELL CLANGS) So bubbly, so vivacious. (HORN BLARES) - They were partying more. They were drinking a lot. - They open up their marriage, meaning... (HORN BLARES) - ...other couples have come into the bedroom. - Robert ` his words were, 'We're having too much fun, 'and everything is fine.' - Julie called me and told me that there had been a terrible accident at the railroad. And I asked her, 'What happened? Where's my brother?' I'm yelling in the phone, 'What's wrong with my brother?' And he told us that my brother had been shot. - Are you thinking robbery? A robbery gone bad? - This looked as though maybe it'd been staged. - But that crime scene is just the tip of the iceberg... - MAN ON TAPE: We have been dirtbags. We've been sinners. We've been selfish. We've sinned. - ...for a whodunnit that's boiling underneath. - This investigation takes cops down a very unusual road that involves God and murder. - A monster took our Robert. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Kia ora. Good evening. Welcome to 20/20. It's great to have you with us. Tonight, we're looking into a small-town Californian couple, Robert and Sabrina Limon. The duo had a Christian faith and two kids, but they also had a penchant for partying, hosting booze-filled nights with a tight group of friends dubbed the Wolf Pack. And when the Limons decide to open up their marriage, well, that's when things get really messy. - Sabrina is my baby sister. She was born when I was 15 years old, and we've just had a bond ever since she was born. We grew up in Barstow, and, um, I got married to Randy, so I moved out at 18. Sabrina would come and she would stay with us. She was always trying to entertain. She has such a talent just to be an amazing, funny person ` even when she was little. - She was just so sweet. She, um... just had` just a heart for people. Just sweet. She was just so loving. - At the age of 18, Sabrina meets Robert Limon, and it's an instant attraction. - Here he was with the big tattoo ` 'Limon' ` you know, tattooed on the back of his head, but he was a big teddy bear. - He wanted us to meet his girlfriend. We were all sitting in the kitchen, and Robert pulls up in his truck and Sabrina gets out. And I looked out the window, and I... I told Mom, 'Robert's gonna marry her.' (CHUCKLES TEARFULLY) - Robert and Sabrina had a total connection, and they started to go to church. And then when they were gonna get married, they were baptised together. Sabrina and Robert got married in 2000, and Sabrina was just a beautiful bride. - Not long after their wedding, Sabrina and Rob move to Silver Lakes, a low-key desert community in California, and with the help of Julie's husband, Randy, Rob gets a job working at BNSF Railroad in Barstow. (HOPEFUL MUSIC) - When they moved to Silver Lakes, they went to church for... a few years. But Sabrina's faith never wavered. She always, always had her Bible. - The family life for the Limons was brilliant. It was loving. Sabrina devoted her life to her children. That was her number-one priority, and she was, by choice, a stay-at-home mom. Robert was really hard-working. They were also a family that liked to have fun. They had a lot of friends. - Sabrina and Robert Limon were really kind of an It couple. In all the photos you see of them, all the stories you hear about them, they seem so bubbly, so vivacious. - Rob and Sabrina would have people come to their house... (DOORBELL RINGS, PEOPLE CHEER) ...you know, to have gatherings, or they would be drinking. - Hey! - How's it going? - Rob and Sabrina, they seemed very happy. - They were always calling each other sweet little names, always kissin' each other, laughing a lot. - A lot of people wanted their husbands to be like Rob, just because he was very 'intuned' with Sabrina. Like, he gave her everything. - They weren't just a tight family; they also had a core group of friends ` other couples. They called themselves the Wolf Pack, and there was a lot of boating and partying. (LOUD CHATTER) - There was a group of friends that hung out with them, and they would go a lot of places together. I wasn't friends with anybody that was a part of it. - Among this Wolf Pack is a couple ` Jason and Kelly Bernatene. They were particularly close to Sabrina and Robert. Jason was a firefighter, and Kelly was a hairstylist. In fact, that's how she met Sabrina. - Kelly Bernatene is the one that started the Wolf Pack. You know, Sabrina would tell me when she first met Kelly... Kelly was just the greatest thing ever. - So between 2000 and 2008, it's a pretty steady marriage ` great family life, great social life. Everything going well. But in 2008, something starts happening in this relationship. - Sabrina would invite everyone over to their house. (CHUCKLES) Sometimes, you couldn't even fit into the house. Sabrina was drinking so much all the time that, um, she was pretty numb, I think, to a lot of things. But she didn't share with me what was going on. - Always stuck in my head of, um` 'It's 5 o'clock somewhere,' is always what she said, 'cause she just always wanted to drink. - Sabrina did not ask for help. I would talk to her about it, and she'd be like, 'Oh, Julie, I'm fine.' (UNEASY MUSIC) - In 2008, Rob and Sabrina decided mutually that they wanted to have a little bit more excitement in their relationship. - I saw a difference in Robert and Sabrina's marriage ` not so much their marriage but their way of living and their lifestyle. (LOUD CHATTER ECHOES, WINE POURS) - HAROLD PIECE: And they started to have relations with other couples. - NICOLETTE: A lot of the community already knew that, like, Rob and Sabrina had an open marriage, in a roundabout way. - JULIE: They went on 'adult vacations'. They went out boating. They partied a lot at the North Lake. - It was usually Sabrina and I, and then we would go have sex with our husbands. - Sabrina, she was tired of being in an open marriage. - I remember her saying Rob would kind of insinuate her to change certain things about her. He did tell her something that he must have liked about me to change on her, and she had brought it to my attention, and I just thought that was wrong. - We opened our marriage bed, and it... changed the dynamics of, um, our sacred... bond as soon as we made that choice together. - Some say it was Sabrina's idea. Others say Rob was into it. Unless we were flies on the wall in the bedroom, we won't know for sure. - The only thing she complained about is that she wanted to go back to church and she wanted Robert to go back to church. Robert, he felt like they would be hypocrites if they went back to church. Robert didn't wanna change back. He wanted to continue with the fun and all that they were doing. (UNEASY MUSIC) (TRAIN TRACKS RATTLE) - On August 17th 2014, Rob is filling in for a co-worker, and that morning, like he's done so many other times, he drives the 85 miles to Tehachapi. When Rob isn't on call fixing broken-down trains, he is typically in the BNSF office, which is a nondescript industrial warehouse on the outskirts of town. - PAT LALAMA: Robert was due to get off at 7 in the evening and return home to his wife and kids. - I talked to Sabrina a few times later on that evening, and then she's like, 'I keep trying to get ahold of Rob. I can't get ahold of him.' (LINE RINGS) Her daughter was waiting up for him, because it was gonna be her first day of school and she wanted to give her daddy a kiss goodnight. And I said, 'Oh, Brina, he'll call you. 'Maybe he's out on a train or something.' (OMINOUS MUSIC) - Around 7pm, Rob's replacement shows up to take over the shift. Immediately, he sees things don't seem right. - Their daughter wanted to talk to him on the phone desperately, and they just kept calling and calling and calling... (LINE RINGS) (VOICE BREAKS) ...and there was no answer. - Julie called me. I asked her, 'What happened? Where's my brother?' And I could hear the phone drop. (POLICE RADIO CHATTER) - As the families grapple with the awful news, police are starting to investigate exactly what's happened to Robert Limon. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) - Hey, Kyle. (MELANCHOLY MUSIC) - If you're lagging behind in the conversation, you might... - Morning! - ...have bad net. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) Welcome back. The Limons are a family of four living in a small Californian town ` Sabrina a stay-at-home mum by choice, while Robert works on the railways. Other people saw them as a picture-perfect couple, but in reality, their lifestyle is beginning to revolve around heavy partying and their decision to try an open marriage, which seems to conflict with their Christian faith. Now, as we return to the story, Robert's been shot at his workplace, and straight away, the police's main question is ` what could be the motive? - On August 17th 2014 ` it's a Sunday ` Robert Limon is working at the railyard in Tehachapi. It's about 7pm when his co-worker walks into the office and finds Robert Limon bleeding on the ground. - DEBORAH ROBERTS: The body is found inside this warehouse. - He'd been shot in the upper torso area and in the hip. We did find an expended bullet that was on the ground just above Rob's head. - And they also found the office inside had been sort of ransacked, and they found drawers pulled from a desk; they found binders and shop manuals and things on the floor. - So your hunch was that this wasn't a legitimate robbery, that somebody tried to make it look like it was a robbery? - Yes. (CELL PHONE RINGS) When detectives contacted Sabrina Limon and informed her that her husband had been, in fact, murdered, her actions and her demeanour was appropriate. I mean, she was crying. - I got a phone call, and it was Sabrina, and she was just screaming and asking me to go over to her house. And I know that I kept saying, 'Are you sure it was Robert?' Because Robert was so strong... we couldn't believe it. We just couldn't believe it. - I got the call August the 17th. Julie called me and told me that there had been a terrible accident at the railroad and my brother was no longer with us. And I asked her, 'What happened? Where's my brother? 'What happened to my brother?' And I could hear the phone drop, or... And then I'm yelling in the phone, 'What's wrong with my brother?' (SNIFFLES) And then... (INHALES SHAKILY) Randy got on the phone... (EXHALES, SNIFFLES) and he told us that my brother had been shot. - We began interviewing his family and friends, and they said that he was a great guy. Everyone that we spoke with said that he was just a fantastic person and he was sort of the husband that every woman would want. When they asked her about her marriage with Rob, she said everything was great. She said there was no extramarital relationships that she was involved in or she was aware that Rob was involved in. And so at that point in time, she was unable to provide us any information with respect to who may have killed Rob. - The expended bullet that investigators find at the crime scene is fragmented and is of no evidentiary value, and there are no shell casings at the scene either. - BNSF Railway is now offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the murder of one of its employees. - Detectives get some leads from the reward offer, but it's the discovery of more surveillance video from a nearby company that helps open up the investigation. - There was multiple vehicles that were on Goodrick Drive, where Rob Limon was located. Um, we were able to identify each` every person driving those vehicles on that day with the exception of a lone motorist on a motorcycle. The video surveillance captured a subject riding his motorcycle eastbound on Goodrick Drive. And then a short time later, he was leaving Goodrick westbound. - Adding to that suspicion, the motorcycle is spotted around the same time investigators think Robert Limon was murdered. But the driver of that motorcycle is a mystery. (UNEASY MUSIC) - PAT LALAMA: About three weeks after Robert was murdered... (TELEPHONE RINGS) ...police get (CHUCKLES) a game-changing phone call from Robert's good friend Jason Bernatene. - He had a very strange voicemail left on his phone. - Jason told us that Sabrina was possibly involved with a Redlands fireman by the name of Jonathan Hearn. - DARIN GRANTHAM: Jason Bernatene knew Jonathan Hearn due to they're both firefighters. - Jonathan Hearn grew up a little bit sheltered, it seemed. He was a good-looking guy, really fit. - Had you heard of Jonathan Hearn before? - No, we had not. - So what did he tell you about? - He knew that Jonathan Hearn actually had, possibly, a dating or romantic relationship with Sabrina Limon outside of Robert Limon. It was odd and suspicious in the fact that Jonathan called Jason and apologised to him for having this relationship with Sabrina outside of Rob's knowledge. (UNEASY MUSIC) - Then, shortly after the voicemail, Jason Bernatene has something new to turn over to cops, and that's the strangest of letters ` from Jonathan Hearn. - In that letter to Jason, Jonathan repeatedly asks for forgiveness from the Bernatenes, but he never explains why he's asking for it. 'The first and biggest regret left undone was my sin against you. 'With no further ado, please let me ask for your forgiveness. 'I'm sorry for being prideful, for being selfish 'and for being disrespectful.' - Why would you write this letter after the fact? Rob's dead, and` This is just odd. This is just very odd behaviour from this person. - Now, what about Rob Limon? Are you learning anything about him and his relationships outside of his marriage? - So, it was told to us that there was the potential that him and his wife had an open relationship, meaning the` non-traditional marriage with other people within their small group of friends. - So if you know that Rob Limon is possibly having relationships outside of his marriage and now you learn that his wife is too, where does that take you in this investigation? - So, it circled us all the way back around to Jonathan Hearn. - But how did Jonathan Hearn even know Sabrina Limon? She was 10 years older, and they didn't run in the same circles. - In 2012, Sabrina went to work with a part-time job at Costco. She was a sample lady, and it was a good match for her personality. That's, eventually, where she met Jonathan. - She realised, 'Oh, you're a fireman. 'I have fireman friends as well.' - PAT LALAMA: They start talking. It's flirtatious. They exchange phone numbers. They have a couple of get-togethers. - He was like nobody I'd ever met before. The attention he showed me... was very different than what I was getting at that time in my life. I don't know why I pursued a relationship with him. - And we learned there was a possible infatuation that Jonathan had with Sabrina. Jason Bernatene's wife, Kelly, actually called us and told us that Jonathan Hearn was spending quite a bit of time with Sabrina Limon at her home, and Kelly found this very odd. - Jonathan's showing up a lot in Sabrina's home. He's bringing flowers ` but bringing his sister with him. - He started hanging around a lot more. He would even cook for the kids. - But what's really bizarre is that Jonathan is trying so desperately to get himself inside this group, this Wolf Pack. He is really trying so hard to get in there and be a part of this group. - One day, Rob Limon discovers some pretty intimate texts between the couple on Sabrina's phone. She says he angrily breaks her phone and insists that she stop seeing Jonathan. - Robert was upset, and he wanted to know who this guy was and what was so special about him, and I told him that I didn't know and... I was sorry. - She promises to break things off, but Sabrina and Jonathan keep seeing each other. - And we began to do some follow-up investigation into this Jonathan Hearn and found that he had a motorcycle registered to him. - Jonathan Hearn has a Yamaha motorcycle that seems a lot like the one you see in the footage. - DARIN GRANTHAM: The lone motorcyclist comes into the gas station on the day of the actual homicide. - The motorcyclist seen inside the convenience store at the station is wearing a red bandana, but detectives can't confirm whether it's Jonathan Hearn. - We immediately started thinking, 'This could be a great case for a wiretap.' - What we were hoping to glean from this wiretap was conversations between Sabrina and Jonathan Hearn. - In the days, weeks, months following the murder, Jonathan and Sabrina talked a lot on the phone, and through these wiretap recordings, we catch this glimpse into what they're discussing, and they talk a lot about God; they talk a lot about faith. - Indeed, quite the twisted take on religion. But are these just spiritual discussions or more like confessions? Stay with us. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) You're watching 20/20. Robert Limon was killed at his workplace, a railway yard some distance from his home. He and his wife, Sabrina, were having an open marriage. But then police are told Sabrina's also in a heated relationship with a firefighter named Jonathan Hearn, and he's identified on surveillance video near the scene. So investigators put wiretaps on the duo's phones. So far, they've captured some intense prayer sessions, but they need something more substantial. - While the conversations are revealing, they're not exactly incriminating, so detectives decide to up the ante. - During a wiretap investigation, you need to get your targets or your suspects talking about the crime that you're investigating. The way you do that is by... uh, tickling the wire, so to speak. - Investigators feed Sabrina some false information that they've got a lead on the person caught on surveillance video riding a motorcycle outside the crime scene. She immediately calls Jonathan. - On November 18th 2014, the decision was made to execute search warrants at multiple locations and make the arrests of Jonathan Hearn and Sabrina Limon for Rob's death. - It was a shocking announcement from the Kern County Sheriff's Department this morning ` a wife and her lover behind bars for her husband's murder. - The arrests and their relationship makes huge news in the Silver Lakes area. - I was at work, and I got a call from a detective that Sabrina... and Hearn had been arrested... and that I needed to pick up the kids. Well, of course, I freaked out. - I went to Jonathan Hearn's home, where detectives were conducting a search warrant investigation. I also helped in the search of that, whereas we found a motorcycle, uh, a helmet, a red bandana, a backpack, uh, as well as` we found a grocery bag full of receipts. - You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand? - SOFTLY: Yes. - Now a widow at 34, Sabrina Limon is suddenly facing some very tough questions. - I'm more than confused here, Sabrina. I'm really tellin' you ` I think you're flat in the middle of this murder. I think you set your husband up, had him killed by Jonathan so you two could be together. - No. - And I can tell you that's not gonna happen. Ever. - Yeah, I` I... - OK? Now, you get that through your head now ` you are not going to be together. He's going to end up going to prison for the rest of his life, and I've got some serious doubts about you. OK? - OK. Understood. - For more than four hours, detectives pepper Sabrina with questions. - If you don't have anything for us, I think we need to get you to jail. - SOFTLY: OK. - Obviously, since you were already brought down here once before... - (HANDCUFFS CLICK) - ...you were told what you're under arrest for, correct? - Yes. - For conspiracy to commit murder and accessory to murder? OK. - It turns out that arresting Sabrina for Rob's murder is one thing but having the evidence to prove it is another. - She was just steadfast. 'I`' You know, 'I have no involvement in this,' and she didn't really give us much. - With all the evidence collected against Jonathan Hearn, who is still in jail, The DA's Office believes it has a good case. But with no direct evidence linking Sabrina, she's not charged. After being released, Sabrina returns to Silver Lakes, but with whispers about her affair and possible involvement in her husband's murder, not everybody's happy to have her back. - They would harass her. Um, the kids couldn't go to school. She had to homeschool them. So... my cousins, they said, 'You know what? 'Come and live down here with us, 'and we'll take care of you.' - Sabrina moves 140 miles away from Silver Lakes, to Camarillo, California. But for two years, with Sabrina now settling into a new life after Silver Lakes, detectives are quietly building their case against her. - Detectives in this case believed that Sabrina and Jonathan did conspire to kill Rob; we just had a little bit more work to do in order to, uh, allow the District Attorney's Office to provide us with a warrant to re-arrest Sabrina. - Jonathan is sitting in a jail cell on murder charges. With his trial date approaching, he now faces a monumental decision. (TELEPHONE RINGS) - We received a phone call from the District Attorney's Office indicating that Jonathan Hearn did, in fact, wish to testify and provide information. - Initially, as charged, he was facing life without the possibility of parole, and so they` they made this deal, but it was a substantial sentence ` it was still 25 years. Jonathan was going to have to tell the prosecutor about Sabrina's involvement, and he was gonna have to tell them everything. - There was a knock at the door... (KNOCK ECHOES) ...and it was... the District Attorney and the detectives, and, um... Sabrina didn't have any shoes on, and she` they asked her... to come outside. And she went outside, and I started freaking out. - The way she was acting towards us was like, 'I can't believe this.' You know, 'How`?' Basically, 'How dare you?' You know, 'How dare you come and arrest me? 'I'm not involved in this. I didn't do anything.' - The widow of a man found dead in Tehachapi two years ago has been arrested in his death. - She couldn't sit back and play the innocent card anymore. - Emotions were high in the courtroom this afternoon as Jonathan Hearn took to the stand for the first time in Sabrina Limon's trial. - The trial begins for Sabrina; plus, Jonathan's going to introduce a whole new plot they supposedly had to kill Robert. That's when we come back. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) Welcome back to 20/20. Sabrina Limon's murder trial is about to begin. Her husband, Robert, was shot to death at his workplace one evening. There's no suggestion Sabrina pulled the trigger or that she was even there, but she's facing murder charges plus conspiracy to commit murder, and her boyfriend, Jonathan Hearn, is going to be the prosecution's star witness. (TENSE, BROODING MUSIC) - DEBORAH ROBERTS: It's September 11th 2017. Sabrina Limon is about to stand trial. She's pleaded not guilty to all charges. - The general interest was insane. This was a national-attention story. - Deputy District Attorney Eric Smith tells the jury that the motive for this murder was love and money. - Both Sabrina and Jonathan, they had a plan, and that plan was to get rid of Robert Limon. Why? So they could be together. Why? So she could get in excess of $300,000 in life insurance money. - The prosecution's case hinges on its star witness... - Go and have a seat, please. - ...Jonathan Hearn, the man who's about to turn on the woman he once loved and adored, Sabrina Limon. - ...but the truth, so help you God? - I do. - Jonathan testifies that he suggested Sabrina divorce Rob but says she rejected the idea. - She expressed that he would honestly rather be dead than divorced ` losing her would essentially kill him. - What Jonathan said was pretty ironic, because that turned into the next part of the conversation for Jonathan and Sabrina. - ERIC SMITH: What did Sabrina tell you she wanted you to do? - Uh, with` with respect to Rob? To kill him. - Jonathan testifies about what he says is the couple's first attempt to kill Rob ` a bizarre plot to poison him with arsenic mixed into one of his favourite desserts. - Banana pudding with Nilla wafers. I, um, stirred in the... the arsenic into the pudding. - Jonathan says she places the container in his lunch bag and sends him off to work, but then she panics, and she chickens out. - She called Robert, and then she told him to not eat the pudding because... I think she said that she told him the bananas had gone bad in it. - But Jonathan testifies that the couple doesn't give up. - She offered to find me, uh, pictures of the facility. She described the office layout and the interior to give me a kind of an idea of what to expect. (UNSETTLING MUSIC) I assembled some of the clothing that I would be wearing, a mask, uh, two backpacks... extra ammunition; also some of the clothing ` disguise clothing ` that I'd be... be wearing. - Once inside the garage, he says, he spots Rob. - At that time, Robert, uh, approached. We briefly spoke. He went to retrieve some things, and... I went to pull out a firearm. However, the silencer was kind of stuck in the corner of the backpack that I had, so I fired the first shot from within the bag. (DARK MUSIC) - Jonathan begins ransacking... the office in this attempt to make it look like a robbery gone bad. He rifles through some drawers. He throws some papers around. He steals the laptop that's on the desk. - Were you feeling... happiness? Elation? Excitement? - Immediately leaving, probably fear, regret and ` I'm sorry; this sounds bad ` but of relief that what had been in the works for so long was... finally done. (MOTORCYCLE ENGINE PUTTERS) - Jonathan says he then gets on his motorcycle and drives home, stopping at a gas station along the way. That's him captured on that surveillance video. (UNSETTLING MUSIC) - When you got home, what did you do? - I saw that I had a lot of missed calls from Sabrina, so I-I called her. She wanted to make sure I was... OK. And I did express that I had done it and that, uh, everything was about to... change. - I think Jonathan Hearn's testimony was particularly striking, mostly because of his demeanour. He talked about the murder that he carried out just so matter-of-factly. It was really strange. - Sabrina Limon's defence attorney, Richard Terry, in his opening statements really was trying to show Jonathan Hearne as a calculated killer who Sabrina Limon was a victim to. - She was vulnerable, and he played on that. He used that and manipulated her, and he killed her husband. (DARK MUSIC) The most important thing I was trying to bring across to the jury was 'that Jonathan had been living a lie his entire life 'by his... religious ideation, 'when he actually didn't believe it.' ...when he really didn't believe it. - I can say probably from the age of, uh... 18 and onward, uh, it was` it was pretty artificial. - 'All this, you know, pious front you put on 'is nothing but fabrication.' So how can you believe anything coming from this man's mouth? - And one thing Terry says Jonathan is lying about is that plan to kill Rob Limon with poisoned banana pudding. - She called Rob when he was at work to tell him not to eat it. Is that right? - That's what she told me, yes. - Were you ever aware that Sabrina never called her husband those two days he was working in Tehachapi in April? - Um, I was not aware of that. - When it's his time to present witnesses, Terry calls three people to the stand who are very close to Sabrina ` her two children and her sister, Julie. - She's an amazing mother. Her heart and soul is... everything in those kids. VOICE BREAKS: She had nothin' but love, love, love. - Would she ever, in your opinion, be involved in anything that would harm Rob? - No. - So the prosecution had Jonathan Hearn as their star witness. The defence? Well, they had Sabrina Limon as their star witness. - Was there something about your relationship with Jonathan that you felt you needed? - Apparently, there was, and at that time, it became our sacred relationship, and... and I guess that's... now, looking at it, what I... (INHALES, SIGHS) was lacking in my life, in my marriage. - But while Sabrina admits to planning a future with Jonathan, she says she thought she could also continue having a life with her husband. - I couldn't imagine my life without Rob. - Why? - 'Cause I loved him. - Sabrina testifies that any life insurance money that she got was put into a savings account for her kids and to pay for living expenses. She also strongly denies ever hatching a plot with Jonathan to poison Rob's dessert. Sabrina testifies that she was grief-stricken when she was notified that her husband had been killed. - I dropped to my knees and... started crying. - Did you and Jonathan at all that day ever talk about him killing Robert? - No. - Were you aware at that time that Jonathan had killed Robert? - No. - But prosecutor Eric Smith argues that Sabrina was hardly acting like a grieving widow, pointing to texts that she sent to Jonathan shortly after her husband's funeral. - ERIC SMITH READS: Did you write that? - Well, apparently I did. I can't explain... that time in my life. It's unexplainable. - Sabrina is also questioned about those wiretaps, where prosecutors say she was tipping off Jonathan about the details of the police investigation. - SABRINA ON TAPE: Detective Meyer called me. - Sabrina testifies that she was just following Jonathan's directions. - He wanted to know everything that was going on, and I told him. I trusted him. He had told me that, um` you know, just the dangers of... of what could happen, um, when an affair is exposed; um, how the... how the police think and how they work. - On the stand, Sabrina Limon was... very emotionless ` just seemed very sullen. - Sabrina, I think, was just so... (SIGHS) tired and devastated. And... I don't know that she came across the way she should have to the jury. - Sabrina Limon's fate is now in the hands of the jury. - So did Sabrina make her case? Or did she bury herself even deeper in the jury's eyes? The verdict when we return. (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) (DRAMATIC NEWS STING) You're back with 20/20. Jonathan Hearn's admitted killing Robert Limon and staging a clumsy robbery scene to cover it up. But did Robert's wife, Sabrina, who's also Jonathan's girlfriend, know about the plan and help with it? Prosecutors argue absolutely yes ` she had to have known, and the intercepted texts and phone calls show it. But the defence claims Jonathan's lying about Sabrina's involvement to lessen his own jail term. So who will the jury believe? - DEBORAH ROBERTS: After 15 days and dozens of witnesses heard, the Sabrina Limon murder case is now in the hands of the jury. - There's no way to predict how a jury's gonna come back. Uh, any lawyer who says, 'Well, this is a slam-dunk win ` 'I can guarantee it,' uh, are lying through their teeth. - So, after about five or so hours, the jury came back with the long-awaited verdict. - FOREWOMAN: We, the jury impanelled to try the above entitled cause, find the defendant, Sabrina Limon, guilty of a felony ` to wit, murder of Robert Limon. - When the jury came back, my first reaction was disappointment. Anger. Frustration. - She didn't do this. I know that. When that verdict came, it was... heart-wrenching. And we had so many people come up to us and just say how wrong... how wrong it was. That was not the right verdict. - It was all very difficult to listen to ` when it's someone that you've loved your whole life... - (WOMAN SNIFFLES) - ...and you get to listen to... people planning what they're going to do or what they've done to end his life. - Sabrina Limon is convicted on four of the six counts against her, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, solicitation of murder and conspiracy. The one thing she's acquitted of is the alleged poisoned-banana-pudding attempt on Robert's life. - We, the jury, find it to be not true that Sabrina Limon placed the pudding with arsenic into Robert Limon's lunch. - The jury did not buy that she had anything to do with that, clearly. But then it makes you wonder ` 'Then on what grounds 'do they think she had something to do with this ultimate murder?' - In November of 2017, Jonathan Hearn is officially sentenced to the terms of his plea deal. He is convicted not of murder but manslaughter and gets 25 years and four months in prison. - KEN MASHINCHI: At his sentencing, Jonathan Hearn was emotional from the start. - To Robert's family and his dear friends, I'm so sorry. (SIGHS) I'm sorry for stealing your brother, your friend, your beloved relative and taking your joy from you. I am at once the vilest offender; by God's grace, I am saved, in Christ forgiven. - But there's no public remorse or apology from Sabrina Limon. She immediately files a motion with a new attorney asking for a new trial, saying that her previous lawyer, Richard Terry, should never have put her on the stand in the first place. - Was I nervous about it? Yeah. But it's not my decision to make. She` She made the decision herself, and I think she had to stand up for herself. - On February 21 of 2018, now going into four years since her husband was brutally gunned down, Sabrina Limon hears her fate. - OK. I've read and considered the briefs, and I've heard the oral arguments regarding the motion for a new trial. Motion for new trial is denied. Proceed to sentencing. - Sabrina is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison, plus an additional 16 months. At the hearing, Robert Limon's sister Lydia speaks. - I believe God gave Sabrina a choice ` build a friendship or choose to deceit by concealing an affair that resulted in the murder of our brother. 'I think she should serve life in prison, myself. You know?' She cheated my brother out of a relationship with his children. She cheated the children from having a father. - After her sentencing, Sabrina Limon is now living behind bars at a California women's prison. - I saw her very recently, and I was very impressed. She has a lot of remorse for how her family was destroyed, and she takes responsibility that that would not have occurred if she had not engaged in that lifestyle. But I do not believe she should have been convicted of murder, soliciting murder or conspiracy to commit murder. - On appeal, Valerie Wass argues that Sabrina was wrongfully convicted because Jonathan Hearn's testimony was never corroborated. - If you took away Jonathan's testimony and you just had Sabrina's testimony that she at one point told Jonathan where her husband worked and that he'd be working that day, how does that prove her intent to kill? - But the Court of Appeals rejects that argument, saying the law doesn't require corroboration of criminal intent. - I feel that it was insufficient corroboration of his testimony, but the Court of Appeal disagreed. We filed a petition for review in the California Supreme Court. That was denied. She's exhausted her state remedies, which allows her now to proceed in federal court. - Jonathan, now 33 years old, is currently behind bars at the Ironwood State Prison in Blythe, California. - Jonathan is... occupied in prison in an administrative capacity, and he's also participated in prison ministry. - And you're convinced that he told the truth? - Absolutely. And I think 12 people on the jury saw it the same. - Jonathan killed Robert on his own. VOICE BREAKS: An absolutely manipulative monster took... our Robert's life, and Sabrina is paying the price for it. - I believe Sabrina only used Jonathan to get what she wanted and still is not admitting her part in` in all the circumstances that revolved around my brother's death. - Sabrina Limon will be eligible for parole in 2033, while Jonathan Hearn, who actually pulled the trigger, could be out in 2028 ` five years before her. And that's our show for tonight. Thank you so much for joining us this Monday. Until next week, kia ora; nga mihi. ('20/20' THEME) Captions by Maeve Kelly. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.