what was your impression of what had happened to Scott Sessions? - There was rage involved in it. Absolute horror that somebody could be treated that way. - The body had been wrapped in plastic sheeting. It was a man, and his head had been covered and duct-taped as well, and his body had been burned. - 'We found your son. 'He is deceased.' - It was like somebody had punched me in the gut. - At this point, police are scrambling for clues... anything that might lead them to Scott Sessions' killer. - What about girlfriends? - He had a hell of a track record there. - He became very jealous. He would get really angry. - You meet somebody that you think might be a great person to start dating, and then, all of a sudden, your life is gone. - But before it's all over, there'll be a second body. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Kia ora. Good evening. Welcome to 20/20. It's great to have you with us. I'm Daniel Faitaua, filling in for Carolyn Robinson. Tonight's story starts in the small town of Greeley, Colorado, where a popular local musician called Scott Sessions has failed to show up for a gig. When his burned body is found in a campground the next day, police are stumped and start looking at his relationships. And it is one of his relationships that proved deadly for Scott ` but not in a way anyone expected. (FUNK MUSIC) (TRUMPET PLAYS MELODY) - He started playing probably 8 or 9. There's a picture with a trumpet ` holding it across his chest. That trumpet is bigger than he is. - His high school teacher said, 'Hey, you ought to play in the jazz group,' and I think at that time, he really started getting interested in playing the trumpet. (TRUMPET MUSIC ECHOES DISTANTLY) - When he put that trumpet to his lips was... (SIGHS) I've known Scott since high school. We've been friends for the last 40 years. He always wanted everybody to be happy and to get along. - STEVE: He was a very caring person. He cared about people. He cared about helping others out. - Music made him larger than life. He was always on. There was no off switch with Scott Sessions. - He was a very loud and explosive personality, and that's what made him great on stage. - He played the trumpet in a Denver-based band called The Movers & Shakers. - This song's called Hot Rod Helen. - It's incredible when you watch video of Scott performing. - When he was up on stage, he had the facial expressions. He had the body movement. Like, when he was really hitting those high notes, be kinda crunched down and got the look on the face. He really got into the music. - Scotty Sessions on the trumpet! - Scott and I met in... January of 2018... at a gig of his. You know, he had this, you know, strong arms and, yeah, he was very cute. - Scott's former girlfriend agreed to do an interview, but she asked that we not use her name. - Scott's really good at love, and he's good at expressing love. He's really good with his words, and he would sing me songs ` just all those romantic things. When Scott played up on stage, you know, women would grab his butt or try to kiss him. I always called them fangirls. - Scott loved being up on stage. He loved being part of a group of musicians. - Scott could lose his left leg, and he would still show up to a gig. (MUSIC ENDS, APPLAUSE) - Scott was always known to be reliable, so it stunned his friends and bandmates when he didn't show up for his sold-out concert. (CELL PHONE RINGS) - STAN: It was Tuesday morning. I get a call from George Gray. - And I said, 'Hey, Scott didn't make it to the gig last night.' And he said, 'Well, that's strange.' - Turns out that's not the only thing he missed. - They had made plans to go see his mom. His mom wasn't doing well with her health. - He never came out, and I didn't give it any thought. Those guys stayed up late or something. - And he thought maybe he'd just slept in. I said, 'I'm gonna go over to his house and see if he's OK.' His father met me there. So he checked in the garage, and Scotty's car was not there. - The snow hadn't been shovelled. The cat hadn't been fed. - Scott was very particular about taking care of his cat. It was the one thing that could get him to leave a party is if his cat needed attention. - Something was clearly wrong. (SOFT, MYSTERIOUS MUSIC) - There'd been a snowstorm. Maybe he went off the road somewhere while he was going for a drive in the mountains. - STAN: I went to the police department and filed a missing persons report. - The body had been wrapped in plastic sheeting. It was a man, and his head had been covered and duct-taped as well. He was found next to a smouldering log, and his body had been burned. - The detective said, 'We found your son. 'He is deceased.' - Stan immediately broke the news of Scott's death to his ailing wife. - She said... 'Who would wanna... 'kill my Scotty?' - He was a person, you know? He had a soul. He had a smile. He had a laugh. He was real. I mean, it's hard to describe. And now, you know, he's just... he's just a body. - It was very deliberate. There was rage involved in it. Absolute horror that somebody could be treated that way and then disposed of that way. No one deserves that. - You don't get a lot of murders in Larimer County. - No. - And here you have a body that's almost decapitated. - Yes. This is probably the worst I've ever seen. - (SIGHS) - It was like somebody had punched me in the gut... and a lot of regret that the world had just lost a very amazing man. We didn't know at that time... who would` (SNIFFLES) who would have killed him. Something had to go terribly wrong. - It was important that investigators find out everything they could about their victim, Scott Sessions. - I was the last person he talked to before he died, and I get this call on a Saturday evening, and he said... 'Dad. 'I'm back home, and... 'I have a date tonight.' - They began questioning his friends and his family, including Scott's father, Stan. - He was an emotional guy, and if he fell in love with a woman, he went clear to the core. There was no holding back. And this was` this was a kind of a flaw. - What about girlfriends? - He had a hell of a track record there. - He had a difficult relationship with a girlfriend that lived in Greeley. There was documented contacts with law enforcement, and there was a restraining order that was in the system. - PAT: Scott had several tumultuous past relationships. While interviews with some key witnesses are happening, another set of investigators are busy analysing data from local cell phone towers. What they're trying to do is pinpoint exactly where Scott Sessions may have spent the final moments of his life. - Scott's cell phone last pinged 3 miles away from his house in Greeley, Colorado. - That was the last location where Scott's cell phone had been prior to his death. (SOLEMN TRUMPET MUSIC) - At this point, police are scrambling for clues, anything that might lead them to Scott Sessions' killer. They have cops canvassing neighbourhoods, and they find Scott's car here, right across from that King Soopers. - It looked like somebody else had driven Scott's car, intentionally left it in the parking lot of this supermarket with the keys in it. - It was pretty evident to us that this was a vehicle dump. (OMINOUS MUSIC) - Police pulled surveillance video from the King Soopers supermarket and surrounding businesses. - And they were able to see the car pull into the parking lot. They were able to see somebody get out of the driver's side, walk around the car... and then ultimately walk away from the car on foot and leave the car in the parking lot. And that happened after they had already found Scott's body. - That was the first video that we had of our potential suspect. (DRAMATIC MUSIC) - Who is that man, and what's his connection to Scott? We'll be right back with more. (THEME MUSIC) (THEME MUSIC) Welcome back. Scott Sessions, a popular jazz musician, has been found dead in a park near his hometown in Colorado. Police described the scene as gruesome, saying it looks like a killing motivated by rage. They have no obvious suspects, though, so while one team of investigators is trying to figure out who could have dumped Scott's car in a supermarket parking lot, another set of detectives are interviewing two of his ex-girlfriends, and they have some concerning stories to tell. - I like to go out and listen to live music, and he's a trumpet player, and I met him through that, dated for... two years, and then I broke up with him. - OK. And so during that relationship... you had indicated that there were some troubles and stuff like that? - He became very jealous. He would get really angry, so I decided, for my own safety ` I filed a restraining order. And that was for three months. He's really straightened out. He's the happiest I've ever seen him. That's why this is such a shock. - We were on and off. It was pretty tumultuous. And so we were... (CLICKS TONGUE) seeing each other for a little less than two years. When you would go do things with him, he'd hold you, and he put his arm around you. I felt so safe... and loved when I was with him. - Little did she know that investigators were already eyeing her as a person of interest. They were collecting pieces of chewing gum and a hair sample from the ex-girlfriend's trash. And there were a series of text messages and a 30-minute phone call between Scott and his ex just one day before he went missing. - There was a restraining order that was in the system and that they had an argument where the police were called. And we knew that her house was in the central part of Greeley. - We dated... consistently until he... got arrested on July 15th 2018. There was a restraining order put on him. We had a big fight here at the house. We started yelling at each other, and he ended up throwing coffee at me. I told him to get the F out of my house or I was gonna call the police, and he left. He was pretty agitated when he left, but I didn't think much of it. I started cleaning up, and then the cops showed up at the door, so he'd called the police. - He reported himself? - He thought, 'She'll call, and then I'm gonna get picked up.' Well, he called, and he got picked up anyway. - I wrote a nice letter to the judge. To me, it really wasn't that big a deal. I said, 'Please help Scott resolve this situation.' And so he solved it, and we moved on with it. - After hours of questioning Scott's exes, police get a new lead, one that would clear his ex-girlfriends of involvement. - They served a search warrant on the 14th of February on Scott's apartment. During that investigation, they actually found passwords. - We had broken into Scott's Facebook Messenger and found out that, at the same time that Scott was talking to his dad on the phone, Scott was having a Facebook Messenger conversation with whom we identified as Heather Frank. - PAT: Just a couple of weeks before his murder, Scott Sessions met a local Greeley woman. - Heather and Scott had exchanged multiple communications via Facebook Messenger. They were talking about her attending some of Scott's concerts. In particular, she had seen him perform, and she liked him. It was obvious that they had met in the past. - What we discovered to be the beginning of the story, so to speak, January 24th, there was some Facebook communication between Scott and Heather that seemed to be starting or developing between the two, and it seemed to be romantic in nature. - When I met Heather's friends, they described her as a fun-loving, free spirit. - She's very colourful, and she always had the best clothes. She's very friendly, very boisterous. Just a happy girl, just super fun. - Heather was a mom to three boys. Her eldest son, Alex, said the two were inseparable. - We did everything together. My mom and my dad got divorced in 2010, and after they separated, it was kind of rough. But us three boys always put a smile on her face. She was always blasting music. She loved it. Every time I'd come over, we'd always do dance parties, like, little dance-offs. - I remember meeting Heather. He had brought her down to one of our gigs in Denver. - He'd only met her a few weeks prior to when we'd gotten on this trip to go down to Memphis. He says, 'Oh, there's this new girl that I'm talking to.' (MESSAGES DING REPEATEDLY) - So, in the days leading up to his disappearance and murder, what were they exchanging? What were they saying in those messages? - They were very friendly with each other. They were... making plans to hang out with each other. There was a point, though, on the 8th of February where the tone of those messages changed. You could actually see the different tone. It was more of a, 'Hey, let's connect, let's meet. 'Come over to my house.' It was a little bit more direct and demanding. - At this point in the investigation, police are putting the pieces together, and they realise that the date Scott told his father about on February 8th was actually with Heather Frank. - By that time, they had pulled the phone records for Scott Sessions, and they had started to put those pieces of the puzzle together and realised that Scott Sessions' phone had travelled to the area of Heather's apartment. - It started pinging in the area of Heather's apartment, and they also knew that his phone had stayed there overnight. But at that time, the fact that his phone eventually dies in her apartment or gets shut off ` one or the other ` and they never found his phone was very telling for detectives. - Police have zeroed in on Heather Frank as the last person to see Scott Sessions alive. - So we had to be very cautious about what our next steps were. We can't just go storming in there and say, 'Hey, Heather, 'what are you doing? And what happened to Scott?' I remember very vividly pulling into this cul-de-sac. There was a vehicle that was there that had some damage to the front of it, and it looked like it had driven in a snowstorm. It had very, very bright red dirt on the side of it. - They can't say for sure that Scott Sessions died at Heather's apartment, but they can start watching behaviours. - We started writing cell phone data record warrants for Heather Frank. At the same time, we're doing this background check and finding out that she had a very difficult relationship with a subject, Kevin Eastman. - Usually, whenever she got a new boyfriend, the first thing she would do is introduce us three to the person she was seeing. In the beginning, Kevin ` he was always very nice and always interested in our lives. Like, 'How was your day?' 'How did work go?' - Kevin is a oilfield worker. He had worked here in Greeley. - Kevin was previously married and had a daughter. He'd been dating Heather for more than five years. - Kevin probably proposed, that I know of, three or four times. She didn't wanna be tied to that forever. But as hard as she tried to get away from him, it just got harder and harder every time, it seemed like. - There were a number of police reports where she had been the victim of domestic violence at the hands of Kevin Eastman. - She didn't want to continue talking to him, but... they'd still see each other from time to time. But it wasn't until the end of the year of 2019 when she told us that she had finally told him that she's done. - Despite telling friends and family otherwise, Kevin appeared back in Heather's life in February 2020. (CELL PHONE VIBRATES) - My mom called and asked if me and my husband and my two brothers would all like to go out and eat. And I heard someone whispering in the background. My brother Blake and his girlfriend, they ended up going. He told me that Kevin was back, and he was there at dinner with him. This was after they posted on the news that there was a body found up in Pingree Park. - We identified that the vehicle that I had seen that had the mud on the side of it belonged to Kevin Eastman. It registered to him. So all this stuff was starting to come together that... we're going down the right path that we need. - Detectives decided they are gonna now start to surveil them. (CELL PHONES RINGS) - Investigators realise that Scott, Heather and Kevin's phones are all in the same place at the same time on February 8th, the night that Scott disappeared. - All three cell phones were in the same location at the same time, and then Scott's cell phone disappears. It's not registering any more. At this point, Kevin Eastman and Heather Frank are both suspects in the disappearance and death of Scott Sessions. We got a tracker on Heather Frank's vehicle as well as Kevin Eastman's vehicle. We decided instead of having a law enforcement officer parked on their street 24 hours a day, watching their front door, watching when they leave, we can put a pole camera on there, and we can remotely watch. - Police didn't notice anything suspicious while they're surveilling Heather and Kevin, but more data from their phones starts to come in, and police get a big break in the case. - All the details on that big break right after we take a quick ad break. Stay with us. (THEME MUSIC) (THEME MUSIC) You're with 20/20. Thanks for your company. So, Scott Sessions has been found dead with his body in a horrific state, dumped near a campground and left to burn. Police discover he had been seeing a woman called Heather Frank and had been at her home before disappearing. She's a suspect, but so is her violent ex-boyfriend, Kevin Eastman, who appears to be back in her life. Now investigators trawling security camera footage have spotted Kevin's car. - The way the surveillance camera is positioned, it shows Kevin's Subaru passing the restaurant, going westbound up the canyon. And I think it was 8.37 in the morning. - MATT GUTMAN: This footage shows Kevin's car driving toward the area the body was found just three hours after Scott's cell phone dies at Heather Frank's house. - Same damage that I saw on his vehicle parked outside of Heather Frank's apartment was on the camera at the Mishawaka. - Then we see what would appear to be his Subaru... travelling the opposite direction. And I think it was 11.30 or so later that morning. So it was about a three-hour time frame where it looked like Kevin's vehicle was up in the canyon, in the area, generally, of Pingree Park. - On February 15th, about 5.30 in the evening, we saw Heather Frank leaving her apartment with Kevin Eastman walking directly behind her. - This is the moment that turned the case upside down. One of these people will never be seen again. (DRAMATIC STING) - Heather is carrying a jacket in her hands. She looks almost unsteady on her feet as she's walking out. They're not having a conversation, and she gets into the passenger side of the vehicle. - PAT: The plan is to arrest Frank and Eastman the following morning. But while the investigators are trying to get some rest, Kevin Eastman is not. He's driving far and wide into a rural area, and overnight, he'll be making multiple stops. The first stop is to the home of a man named Troy Bonnell. - Troy Bonnell runs his own trucking company, essentially, and Troy is always needing help and assistance with that. And that's actually how Troy and Kevin are connected. They used to work together in the past. - So, I came to the office, and Donnie Robbins called me, and he says, 'Some strange stuff happened overnight while we were sleeping.' And we had a tracker that was going off on Kevin Eastman's vehicle all throughout the Pawnee grasslands. - That concerned me enough that he is destroying evidence. I wanted to get out here and see what he's doing. - Upon his arrival at Troy Bonnell's, he sees who he positively identifies as Kevin Eastman, wearing a baseball cap and tending this fire. - It's a very rural area. Some people burn their trash. What was uncomfortable was he couldn't see Heather Frank. He could see Kevin Eastman. - We executed the search warrant on the Bonnell property, and that first contact we had with Troy Bonnell... we cleared the entire property... which was a garage, the house, and we didn't find Heather Franks, which I was concerned with at that point. - Just because investigators can't find Heather Frank on the property, doesn't mean she's not there. - REPORTER: A Greeley man has been arrested in the murder of a Northern Colorado musician. - Her children don't know where she's at. Her boss doesn't know where she's at. - My head's kinda all screwed up. So, I had a crush, so, yeah, my memory's not always what it should be. - PAT: During this interview, Eastman has this story about getting a head injury at work that caused all this memory loss, so much so he just cannot remember being read his rights only about one hour earlier. - I know you don't believe that I can't remember. I'm sorry. I can't remember. Cos I can't remember (BLEEP). - But Eastman's mind is not totally blank. He is able to recall certain dates and times and conversations ` just as long as they have nothing to do with either Heather Frank or Scott Sessions. - Sunday the 9th, it snowed. - EASTMAN: I remember it snowed a lot. - OK. - That's kind of different from the guy who was warning you, 'I have a head injury and can't remember anything.' - He's telling us that he can't remember things that happened two or three days ago, but he's telling me stuff that happened six weeks ago. 'He's starting to lose credibility with me at this point in the interview.' And I'm sure that you've seen stuff in the news about somebody disappearing from Greeley. - Is it a... musician? - Is it a musician? - Yeah. - He was a musician. - Yeah. - This is a person that is hiding. He really does not want to be present in this conversation, because he's very uncomfortable. He does not want to face me. He's hiding his face. He's hiding his emotions. He's hiding whatever his reactions are gonna be. - PAT: Some of the more interesting moments in this cat-and-mouse game come when the investigators briefly leave the room. But those cameras are still rolling. - Right, this is almost three hours in, and he's alone... in the room. - (SIGHS) Please, dear father, let me help these men get to the bottom of this case, please. (SINGS QUIETLY, INDISTINCTLY) # Frere Jacques, # Frere Jacques. (SIGHS) - We're trying to get him locked into a timeline of events prior to... Scott going missing. - And this musician guy... - Why don't you just say his name? You can say his name. Scott. You're having a hard time saying his name. - He cannot utter the name Scott Sessions. - Yeah, he continued to say, 'Well, I didn't know the guy.' - Yeah, well, I never knew the dude. - He didn't wanna say his name. - Eastman appears to have this emotional breakdown when investigators attempt to read him a transcript of the messages between Heather and Scott. - Oh, please. - No, it's` it's not detailed. It's not detailed. - I don't` No, I don't wanna hear anything. - Kevin. - Are you thinking that this is someone who is a clever criminal? - I think he's experienced. He knew exactly what he was doing. He had a plan. But we need to be completely honest with each other, OK? - I can't. I can't be completely honest with you. - Originally, he said that he wasn't there, that he didn't know anything about Scott Sessions. And then he says, 'I was in the scene, and I started dry heaving.' Need the trash can? - Where was the big mess at? - I said, 'If you guys are any good, 'they'll be able to find it for sure.' - PAT: Many hours into this back-and-forth... - Pick your head up and breathe, OK? - ...the one word that changes everything ` blood. - It had to be something quite serious for that amount of (BLEEP) blood. - So there was a lot of blood there. Where was the blood at? - Every (BLEEP) where. Every (BLEEP) where. - Outside the room, another bombshell. - Yes, there's another fire, and sadly, another body found right alongside it. We'll be right back. (THEME MUSIC) (THEME MUSIC) Welcome back to 20/20. Police are gravely concerned about the fate of Heather Frank, a woman Scott Sessions was having a casual relationship with before he was found dead ` his body burned and dumped in a forest park. As we resume the story, Heather's ex-boyfriend Kevin Eastman is still undergoing a lengthy police interview. He was picked up after a period of suspicious behaviour, including lighting a fire outside his friend Troy Bonnell's house. - PAT: As Kevin Eastman continues to bend but not break in his interrogation... - I don't know, man. This is just crazy. - ...investigators are still hunting for Heather Frank, so they get a warrant to search her property. - In the living room of the residence, there were some shopping bags near the sofa, which contained some paper towels, some cleaning products and the box for a cell phone. I did see a large reddish-brown stain that was consistent with the appearance of a blood stain. It did look like the blood stains were trying to be hidden from view of someone entering the apartment. That blood, as well as other blood stains located around that area of her living room, were tested, and those blood stains came back to Scott Sessions. - You can see in some of these clips that Ryan had his cell phone out, and he was getting text messages from other investigators as to, 'Hey, we found out this information.' - So, the first time you heard that Heather is dead is from hearing Ryan talk about it to Kevin? - That is correct. - We found Heather, and Heather is in the same condition that Scott is. - No way` - It's time to start talking. - The information came in that Heather Frank was found deceased at Troy Bonnell's property, and it was like a baseball bat to my gut. I was like, 'Whoa.' And I was expecting something, but I wasn't expecting that. - Heather Frank had been shot to death. An autopsy would later conclude she was killed at close range with her body pressed up against a hard surface. - Her body was found, and it was near the fire pit, and he had placed her underneath a piece of wood that looked like a big door. - With the body being wrapped up, it made it even more suspicious. The fact that it was wrapped in plastic made it pretty comparable to the first murder that was involved in this case, and that was that of Scott Sessions. - Happy New Year. (LAUGHTER) - The detectives came to the house, and they told us that they had found my mom. - I answered the phone. I said, 'Alex, are you OK?' He said, 'Yeah, I'm OK, but Mom's not.' And I just started bawling. I said, 'Please tell me she's still alive.' And he said, 'I wish I... 'I wish I could.' - Now, there are also some questions for the man who owns this property, where Heather Frank's body was found and where Kevin Eastman was seen just hours earlier. So Troy Bonnell is brought in for questioning. - They found a body out on your property. They believe it's a female, so obviously, you know what we're thinking. - (BLEEP) - That it's... That it's Heather. - Jesus (BLEEP) Christ. - Yeah. Yeah. - I got nothing to do with this (BLEEP). - OK. - Bonnell says he was sleeping at the time Eastman was at the burn pit ` had no idea what he was doing on his property. But investigators cannot take Bonnell at his word, especially after they learn about a missing gun from his garage. A .22 calibre. - We served a search warrant in his house, and we're not finding this gun. Where is this gun? - Bonnell also acknowledges Heather didn't care for him. - She didn't like me for whatever reason. I think it's because... I kinda had some words with Kevin, you know? - Back in his interrogation room, Kevin Eastman is implying that Troy knows more than he's letting on. - No more games, Kevin. Tell us what happened. It's OK. Tell us. You can tell us. Troy's gonna start talking. - That's OK. You guys can talk to him. He probably knows more than I do. - Who's in the burn pit? - To my knowledge, nobody's in the burn pit. - We need the truth. The truth needs to be told... out of respect for Heather and respect for her boys. - I'm done talking, guys. I'm sorry. - After a marathon interrogation, Kevin Eastman is finally arrested. - Kevin. You're under arrest, OK? Face the wall for me, please. - I'm here at the Weld County Courthouse, where, after two and a half years, Kevin Eastman finally goes on trial. - Eastman is charged in the murders of Heather Frank and Scott Sessions, Sessions a well-known trumpet player here in northern Colorado. - At its very core, this case... is about domestic violence. The defendant, Kevin Eastman ` he didn't want to lose Heather Frank. - Kevin Eastman was the only one that had a motive to kill Scott Sessions. - These hands, these hands brought danger, destruction and death. These hands killed Scott Sessions and Heather Frank. - What really happened to Scott Sessions and Heather Frank? That's what everyone is hoping to hear from the prosecution. - On February 8th, Scott Sessions never saw it coming ` literally ` ambushed from behind by a man with an anger, fuelled by jealousy and a large, sharp knife. - It's obvious that it's a very large, sharp knife that went from the front to the back that nearly decapitated Scott Sessions. - At the heart of the prosecution's case was the abuse they say Heather Frank suffered at the hands of Kevin Eastman. - Can you tell the jury about the first time you knew the defendant had physically harmed your mother? - It was in February of 2014. When I seen her, she had a... slash in her throat, like a knife, like a` you know, a cut in her throat. Her... I believe it was her right side of her face was really beaten up, like really bad. It was black and blue. Her wrist had been broken. - That alleged throat-slashing incident was never reported to police, but in 2015, Eastman pled guilty to misdemeanour assault against Heather for a separate altercation. - Can we turn the lights on? - 10 months before her death, police responded to another domestic violence incident between Heather and Kevin, speaking to her at a Denver hospital. We shared this video with the family's permission. - Punches to the left side of my ribs, and I had to get out of there, because he was gonna hurt me worse. So I left. - Who did this to you? - Kevin Eastman. - How many times did he punch you? - Three times. - A warrant was issued for assault in the third degree, but Kevin was not arrested until after the murders. - Just, like, (BLEEP) get away, like he always does. This isn't the first time he's done this to me. - During trial, the defence acknowledged that the relationship between Heather and Kevin was tumultuous, but they did not directly respond to the claims that Kevin was abusive. - This case was about domestic violence, and we wanted to make sure that the jury understood that power and control, ultimately, was what killed Heather Frank and Scott Sessions. - I think that Kevin Eastman murdered Scott Sessions. And I think Kevin started to believe that Heather was gonna go to the police, or Heather was gonna go tell somebody to somebody, and Kevin was gonna get caught. And he had to eliminate the last witness. (INTRIGUING MUSIC) - Every piece of credible evidence in this case points to one reasonable conclusion. Kevin Eastman killed two people between February 8th and February 16th. - You saw no physical evidence that proves at all, let alone beyond reasonable doubt, that Mr Eastman murdered Mr Sessions. - When we come back ` the defence team's version of the fatal encounter between Kevin, Heather and Scott. (THEME MUSIC) (THEME MUSIC) Welcome back. Kevin Eastman's on trial for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Heather Frank and the man she was casually seeing, Scott Sessions. Prosecutors believe Kevin's jealousy and anger issues are the main motivations for the violent deaths. His defence team, though, have a completely different theory on what happened between these three people in a Northern Colorado town. - MATT GUTMAN: As the trial enters its second week, attorneys for Kevin Eastman lay out a much different version of events than prosecutors. They allege it was Heather Frank who killed Scott Sessions, and then Troy Bonnell who killed Heather Frank. Kevin Eastman, they claim ` he was simply left to clean up the mess. - Mr Eastman made an easy target for an accusation built on assumptions. But he did not kill Mr Sessions. Ms Frank killed Mr Sessions, and Mr Eastman helped in the aftermath. - Eastman's lawyers claim the motive for the attack on Sessions would be revenge. - The defence team would like you to believe that Scott raped Heather. Heather was so mad about the rape, that Scott wouldn't leave her alone, that she lured him to her apartment so that she could kill him, and Kevin may or may not have helped her dispose of the body. - Ms Frank planned for Mr Sessions to come to her residence that evening. Miss Frank initiated Mr Sessions to hurry up and come over. Who was it that wrapped Mr Sessions' head in duct tape before his body was burned? And the DNA on that duct tape was Ms Frank's. - I feel like she had no way out and that she had to help Kevin clean up that mess. I don't think that she lured him. - That was rough. And I feel like, with the lawyers, you know, on Kevin's side, they tried to put it all on her. - So, Heather killed Scott; Troy Bonnell killed Heather. That was their theory. - Mr Bonnell panicked. He took matters into his own hands, and he killed Ms Frank. - Bonnell testified for the prosecution, and they seemed convinced he wasn't involved in any way. But to try to make their alternative suspect theory plausible to the jury, the defence would throw everything they had at Troy Bonnell. - He was cross-examined at length about everything, and he took a beating. - You told Detective Schall, quote, that you did not even know (BLEEP) people, referring to Mr Eastman and Ms Frank. You said, and I quote, 'I don't even know these (BLEEP) people.' - Correct. - Your DNA was found on a pack of cigarettes on her deceased body. Explain how that could be, how your DNA could be on Ms Frank's` - I` I have no explanation. - It was odd that his DNA would be there, but touch DNA can be... on items for lots of different reasons. If that cigarette pack had been in his house, and he picked it up and moved it, that would mean that Heather was, in fact, there at his house. - So certainly, that caused problems, and it raised suspicion and turned him into an alternate suspect for the defence that was viable for them, gave them an argument at trial that, had he been honest about everything, I don't think would have carried much weight. - What we knew at that point was that the night before, Troy was with another woman and that the other woman had confirmed his... his location and what he was doing. - He had an alibi. - Yeah, he had an alibi. - Two years have passed... since both deaths, and the government will still not be able to show you any murder weapon. They will not be able to tell you where Ms Frank was killed. - I would be lying to you if I told you that every time I got a case, that I sat there and said, 'Ah, I got this one in the bag.' Get 12 people to agree on what pizza to order. Good luck. - July 20th, 4.52pm. - Please rise. - After 10 days of testimony and less than 10 hours of deliberation, the jury has reached a verdict. - We, the jury, find the defendant, Kevin Dean Eastman, guilty of murder in the first degree. - I think when you hear a guilty verdict in a homicide, my initial thought is gratitude that the injustice of the death itself wasn't compounded by the system not working. - Kevin got two consecutive life terms as well as an additional 27 years on some of the other charges. - Kevin Eastman was offered the chance to speak at his sentencing, but he declined. - Mr Eastman does not wish to make a statement at this time. Thank you. - It was a relief knowing that he's not going to get out. - In my head, I danced a jig. But the thing about guilty verdicts is this. Nobody wins in a homicide. Their families are devastated. People still feel unsafe. - I will not let him or anyone else determine my happiness for the rest of my life. So, Mr Eastman, I have no quarrel with you. I basically turned to him and said, you know... 'I forgive you.' - I wish I was able to forgive him the way Scott Sessions' dad has forgiven him. I'm not there. I can't. - As for Troy Bonnell, the Colorado rancher who says he was unjustly dragged into Kevin Eastman's murder trial, for him, closure has been hard to come by. - I've never been charged with anything. I've pretty much been alienated. - ALEX: I miss talking to her. I miss her laugh. But she was a great woman. She was a beautiful mother. And she loved all of us and loved all of her friends. She just ended up being a part of something that she didn't ask for. She was a victim. - Scott's family hopes his spirit will live on through his trumpet. - What we wanna do is find a good home for this, somebody that plays trumpet that's not as fortunate. - Maybe a young child. - A young child or somebody that we could give that to. - Right. (BAND PLAYS QUICK, JAZZY MUSIC) - Scotty Sessions on the trumpet! - (PLAYS JAZZY MELODY) - Kevin Eastman did not appeal the verdict and hasn't spoken publicly since the sentencing. And that's our show for tonight. Thanks so much for joining us this Monday. Carolyn will be back next week. From me, e noho ra. Captions by Alex Walker. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.