Deadly Secrets Of The Well

48 Hours: Investigator Returns To Crime Scene He Witnessed As Child

(CBS)  Ianuzzie was convinced that someone had gotten away with murder. And her persistence finally led to Bryant being assigned the case. Bryant told Ianuzzie that he was there the day Gwendolyn's body was pulled out of the well.

"It was something that he carried with him for a long time," says Ianuzzie.

Bryant now needed to build a case against Gwendolyn's husband, Marshall Moore. But Moore was 67 and ailing and many of the cops from back then were dead. So was the medical examiner who'd written "homicide" on the death certificate.

To prosecute Moore, Bryant needed new evidence, and he hoped to get it by exhuming Gwendolyn's body. He was at the gravesite for the exhumation, and with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation pathologist for the autopsy.

At first, Bryant says the pathologist wasn't able to find anything that resulted in Gwendolyn's death. But then, the pathologist noticed that the bone just in front of the voice box, called the hyoid bone, was fractured: "There's not but one way for it to be fractured in this traditional manner. And that's with the thumbs in a manual strangulation."

So three decades after Bryant, just a teenager, watched Gwendolyn's body being pulled from the well, the district attorney charged Marshall Moore with first-degree murder.

Moore went free on bond, insisting through his attorney, William Steinberger, that he's innocent. His trial was delayed by an illness and an appeal. He argued that he couldn't get a fair trial after all this time.

Moore lost his appeal. He would have to stand trial.

What is it going to be like for Allen Moore to see his father in the courtroom? "I know what my mother went through. I'm a big boy now," says Allen Moore. "And I look at him dead in the eyes and say, 'You were wrong. You wanna put your hands on somebody now, come put them on me.' 'uz I'm old enough and big enough now that I can defend my mama's reputation."

But that showdown wasn't to be. Moore died before his trial even began, leaving behind a trail of frustration.

"I wanted everything to brought out in the open," says Allen Moore. "I wanted everyone to know. I really feel cheated."

Even so, Bryant feels he got his man, and that some measure of justice has been served.

A freak thunderstorm through western Georgia in May 2003 would bring Bryant and his boss, district attorney Pete Skandilakis, together.

"It was an act of God to bring everyone together at the same time," says Skandilakis, whose new pickup truck was crushed by a pine tree.

Skandilakis took his truck to a La Grange repair shop owned by Tim Wilkerson, who had heard about Bryant's success with the Gwendolyn Moore case. Wilkerson has also been haunted by a long-forgotten case, the disappearance of his father, Fred Wilkerson, and wanted Skandilakis to reopen the case.

Fred Wilkerson, 49, a truck driver, had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth in November 1987. The only clue left behind was Fred's car, found at the Atlanta airport a month after he disappeared. "In the word of the investigator at the time, the car was as clean as a hound’s tooth," says Bryant.

But even more suspicious to Bryant were two uncashed payroll checks in the glove compartment. "A man who's fixing to go assume a new identity, surely he's not going to leave $500-600 laying on the seat of a car, uncashed," he says.

Apart from the car, Bryant had very little to work with. But then, the pieces started coming together as he kept hearing one name: Connie Quedens, Fred's ex-girlfriend.

Quedens was divorcing her husband when she and Fred Wilkerson bought property together in 1987 and built their dream house. "He loved her," says Bryant. "As a matter of fact, he deeded the property over to her 'for love and affection.'"

But Bryant says that shortly after moving in together, Quedens wanted out of the relationship and she wanted Wilkerson out of the house. By then, Wilkerson was broke, and wanted his half of the property back.