Dangerous Liaisons

How Far Would You Go For Love?

(CBS)  If Tracey was worried about his upcoming assault trial, he certainly wasn’t showing it. "He wanted to go out and sleep with other women," says Hector. "They were sexy women."

But in the autumn of 2002, Tracey had his eye on a different kind of girl - a girl just out of high school, Ashley Laney, age 19.

"Ashley. Was a little scared girl," Hector remembers. "Not a sexy girl, not pretentious, not stuck up."

"I liked Ashley the first time I met her. We had a lot in common, we went rollerblading together and we even had the same taste in music," says Charli Williams, one of Ashley’s best friends.

The girls worked together at a frozen yogurt shop across the street from the gym where Tracey was head trainer.

"I came in and met her and I was kind of taken with her right away. She has that girl next door kind of thing going. She was nice, she was fun, she was eager, she was very eager," Tracey recalls.

Ashley was something new for Tracey. "Ashley wasn’t a bartender, Ashley wasn’t a topless dancer," Hector explains.

She was a bright girl, getting A’s and B’s in high school. But at home, Ashley led a troubled life.

"Her mom was horrible and her family terrible. Her dad pretty much spent his life in prison," says Tracey. And her friends say that background left her insecure, vulnerable; she aggressively looked for love and that played right into Tracey’s hands.

In no time, Ashley and Tracy had moved in together.

But Ashley’s best friend Charli thought Tracey was a bad influence. "I knew something was wrong, 'cause she wasn’t the normal Ashley," she explains. "He definitely took over her life. You could just tell that, Ashley, there’s something wrong with her."

Soon Ashley was shedding her old friends, taking on a new job with Tracey at the gym; eventually the couple started their own personal training business.

Tracey says he fell in love with Ashley but Charli claims he was cheating on her friend. "I just knew there was something not right," Charli says. "We started hearing about all the different girls he was with."

Charli says she and Ashley talked about the issue. "But when you think you’re in love, you're not gonna listen to what anybody else has to say," she says.

In fact, more and more, the only person Ashley listened to was Tracey. By springtime, he confessed that he was potentially facing serious time in prison, because of what, he claimed, was a bogus assault case involving his ex-girlfriend Sandee.

Asked how Ashley felt about the case, Tracey says, "I think she found a way to hate Sandee."

"Essentially she would lose everything if she lost me," he says. "I told you she had a bad life. She struggled, and now we were starting a business together, she was an equal partner. If she lost all that, she goes back to mom and the trailer park life."

Just a week before Tracey’s trial in the Sandee Rozzo assault case, the couple surprised everyone and got married.

Tracey admits it was his idea to get married. The couple tied the knot at the gym. There was no minister, no rings - just a marriage license.

There would be no romantic honeymoon to make up for the less-than romantic impromptu wedding at the gym. A day after Tracey got married, the woman who had accused him of rape was murdered.