A man who brutally murdered an 18-year-old mother was finally convicted of the crime 27 years later after the exhumation of her body scared him into a plot to fake his own death.
A recent episode of the Oxygen network's new true-crime series Exhumed revisited the death of Marilyn McIntyre, who was slaughtered by Curtis Forbes in her home in Columbus, Wisconsin.
Marilyn's innocent husband, Lane McIntyre, was suspected of her murder for years after he came home from his shift at a local paper plant and found her with a steak knife sticking out of her chest on the morning of March 11, 1980.
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Tragedy: Marilyn McIntyre, 18, was found brutally murdered in her in Columbus, Wisconsin, on March 11, 1980
Crime of passion: The mother (left) was killed by her husband Lane McIntyre's friend Curtis Forbes (right), who was said to be furious with her for telling his girlfriend to break up with him
'When I approached the front door, the dog was outside on a chain barking. I thought, "Well, that’s unusual." I stepped inside the door and stopped there for a while not believing what my eyes were seeing. I saw my wife laying on the floor dead and it was like I was in a tunnel,' Lane told producers.
The father, then 23, ran to his three-month-old son Christopher's bedroom to make sure he was safe. After seeing the infant was untouched in his crib, Lane managed to call his parents, who called the police.
Investigators at the scene found Lane cradling his baby when they arrived. They noticed that there were no signs of forced entry, suggesting her killer was someone Marilyn knew and willingly let inside her house.
'When you see this level of violence, typically it's a crime committed by somebody that knows the victim and has anger toward them for some reason,' explained Wayne Smith of the Columbia County Sheriff's Department.
In addition to the knife in her chest, she had been also been beaten with blunt force trauma to her head and strangled. An autopsy later determined that she was stabbed after she was killed.
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Awful: Lane found Marilyn with a steak knife sticking out of her chest when he returned home from work at a local paper plant
Crime scene: Police noticed that there were no signs of forced entry, suggesting her killer was someone Marilyn knew and willingly let inside her house
Lane had an alibi, but it wasn't airtight. While his time card showed he was at the paper plant the night of Marilyn's murder, he often worked alone and was allowed to take breaks.
Most suspiciously, he had taken out a life insurance policy on Marilyn just days before the young mother was murdered. Lane was an obvious suspect, but there was no evidence linking him to the crime.
At the crime scene, investigators collected fingerprint evidence and found bloodstains as well as hair from an unknown source.
A neighbor told police that she woke up around 3 a.m. after McIntyres' barking dog was let out, giving them a time frame in which the murder likely occurred.
Lane wasn't the only suspect, however. During interviews with Marilyn's family and friends, investigators were told that Forbes was furious with her for advising his girlfriend at the time, Debra Attleson, to break up with him.
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Miracle: The couple's three-month-old son, Christopher, was left untouched in his crib
Evidence: At the crime scene, investigators collected fingerprint evidence and found bloodstains as well as hair from an unknown source
Forbes, who was a high school friend of Lane's, had an alibi, but it was shaky at best, with periods of times he couldn't account for.
He told the police that on the night of Marilyn's murder he was out drinking at a bar and later went to see his friend Lori Beattie and her boyfriend at around 1 a.m.
Suspicious: Lane had a shaky alibi and had just taken out a life insurance policy on Marilyn just days before her murder
While Lori confirmed his story, she noted that he left to go more beer and never returned. Forbes said he had gone back to see Debra, and while she said he had spent the night with her, he didn't arrive at her place until 4 a.m.
Forbes was unable to account for the time between when he left Lori's and went to Debra's to sleep. Even stranger, he fled town after his interview with the police, which prompted more suspicion.
However, because there still wasn't any hard evidence to link him to the crime, an arrest could not be made.
Marilyn's family was left without any closure as her case went cold for 27 years without any new evidence.
'A loved one was taken from them. There's just no answer for it. It's tragic,' Wayne said, recalling how Marilyn's twin sister Caroline called the police department every year asking if there were any new leads, trying to keep the case alive.
The small town speculation that Lane had killed his wife ruined his life and led to him being estranged from their son, Christopher the San Diego Tribune reported in 2009.
'They all said because he had an insurance policy on her, and they think he did it for the money,' his sister Wendy McIntyre Duren told producers.
Life-changing: Even though Lane was innocent, his reputation in the community was ruined because people assumed he had killed his wife for insurance money
Horrible: The wide-spread speculation of his guilt led to Lane becoming estranged from his son, Christopher
Nearly three decades had gone by when Marilyn's niece accidentally called Columbia County Sheriff's office instead of Columbus Police in 2007.
The detectives were previously unaware of the case and decided to reinvestigate, thinking new DNA techniques could possibly solve the case.
They had the blood sample found in the bathroom sink at the time sent to a lab for analysis, which revealed it was a mixture of Marilyn's and someone else's.
Lane was finally exonerated of the crime after he voluntarily offered a DNA sample to investigators, who concluded it wasn't his DNA found at the scene.
'Nine times out 10, I, too, believe the husband did it. But I know what it’s like to be the one out of 10,' he said. 'It was torture.'
Police shifted their focus to Forbes and were reinterviewing witnesses who were with him that night when they learned a damning new piece of information.
Too late? In 2007, Lane was finally exonerated of the crime after he voluntarily offered a DNA sample to investigators, who concluded it wasn't his DNA found at the scene
Haard to handle: 'Nine times out 10, I, too, believe the husband did it. But I know what it’s like to be the one out of 10,' Lane said. 'It was torture'
Lori recalled how Debra told her that Forbes had asked her to wash his shirt that night because it had blood on it.
'I remember being shocked and uncomfortable with the conversation but I assumed Debbie had told the police,' she explained.
Still, there wasn't enough evidence to arrest Forbes, so they made the decision to exhume Marilyn's body to see if there was any DNA under her fingernails.
Investigators also heavily publicized the exhumation to try and spook the killer into giving himself away, a wise play that ended up solving the case.
Marilyn's body was too decomposed at that point, making any DNA evidence found under her artificial nails unusable, but Forbes didn't know that.
'We wanted our suspect to know, you may have escaped for many years, but DNA evidence exists and we’re looking for it,' Wayne said. 'Even though our exhumation didn't yield evidence, we didn't release that to the public. The suspect doesn’t know that evidence isn’t going to be used.'
Running scared: The exhumation of Marilyn's body in 2007 prompted Forbes to make a plan to fake his own death, but he was arrested for the crime before he could attempt it
Justice: Forbes was found guilty of first-degree murder in November 2010 and sentenced to life in prison
Forbes was kept on surveillance in the months following the exhumation and it was revealed he was contacting a carpenter's union in Hawaii.
'Because of the exhumation, Curtis began hatching a plan to fake his disappearance,' prosecutor David Wambach told producers.
Forbes planned on taking a boat along with an inflatable raft out onto Lake Michigan and sink it to make it seem like he died in the accident. He would use the raft to get to shore and flee the state.
When police spoke with Debra again, she confirmed that she had seen blood on Forbes's shirt the night of the murder, giving police enough grounds to arrest him.
Forbes also failed to deny the blood on his shirt that night during a recorded jail phone call between him and Debra.
He was charged with first-degree murder and found guilty after just three hours of deliberation in November 2010. He was sentenced to life in prison for Marilyn's murder.
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