By Tim Stelloh -
NBC News
On the night of September 21, 2001, Sherri Malarik's house was bustling with activity.
The Navy air traffic controller was organizing a family pajama party with pizza, video games and a large group of children, including her own – her mixed family had five – and her sister's.
At one point, Malarik, 34, left the house.
He never returned.
The next morning,
they found his body inside the family's Dodge van
, in a parking lot on the outskirts of Pensacola, Florida.
He had been shot twice with a 25 caliber gun.
Nearly two decades passed before an arrest was made for Malarik's murder.
In the two first-degree murder trials that followed, prosecutors failed to convict the suspect, her husband.
Nearly two decades passed before an arrest was made in the murder of Sherri Malarik. Kelsea Petersen / NBC News
The first trial against Greg Malarik, now 61, ended with a hung jury, and when he was retried last year, he was acquitted.
The trial revealed a deep division among the family members, which has separated them not only over who they think is responsible for Sherri's murder, but also over the memories they share as a family.
Tera Malarik, Greg and Sherri's youngest daughter, told NBC's
Dateline
: "I don't even know how to describe, to be honest, what it feels like to go through all that and then not see anything at the end, other than a broken and separated family.
Tera, 26, has publicly supported her father, who
has always denied killing Sherri
.
She testified for the defense during her second trial and, after her acquittal on October 13, she posted words of support on Facebook: "Thank God, justice prevailed and Dad is innocent."
[A Latino is free after 25 years in prison when his conviction for a murder in Chicago was annulled: "Justice is very corrupt"]
However, Tera's older brother Jacob, 33, testified for the prosecution at both trials and believes Greg killed their mother.
He told
Dateline
that although he and Tera are "very close," their connection is broken for now.
"I texted him on his birthday," Jacob said.
"Just to let her know that I haven't abandoned her. I haven't pushed you aside. I'm just not ready yet."
Tera and Jacob with their mother, Sherri Malarik.Courtesy Family
Her cousin, Lisa Leake, described the family breakdown in even bleaker terms.
When she was asked if she had anything to say to Tera, Leake said, "I have no words."
Greg declined an interview request from
Dateline
.
Tera claimed that her father is trying to rebuild her life after spending more than three years under house arrest.
A happy beginning, then a romance
Jacob, Sherri's son from a previous relationship, remembered his mother as someone who loved music, dancing and being a mother.
She was also very organized and well prepared for the stressful atmosphere of an air traffic control tower or a house full of children, according to her family.
Sherri met Greg in Bermuda
in the early 1990s, when they were both in the Navy.
Jacob's first memories of Greg are good.
He remembered his mother's new partner when he would pick him up early from daycare to go fishing or go on motorcycle rides.
Greg and Jacob Malarik.Courtesy Family
The family returned to the United States and ended up settling in Pensacola.
According to Jacob, while Sherri was in Greece on a year-long deployment, a Navy employee who sometimes babysat for Greg began spending more time at her house, even when she had nothing to do.
Once, Jacob said, he found his father "making out" with the woman on the living room floor.
[3-year-old twins found dead in a car on the Miami highway. The driver jumped off a bridge when the police arrived]
Two decades later, this affair with Jennifer Spohn became a key piece of the case against Greg.
But at that moment, Jacob was too scared to confront Greg.
He, too, did not tell her mother what he had seen, a decision motivated in part by the fact that when Sherri returned, Spohn had disappeared from her home, Jacob claimed.
He left and never came back
That changed on September 21, 2001, the last day Sherri was seen alive.
She was busy directing what Jacob described as the "controlled chaos" of the cousins' first sleepover.
At one point, one of the children sat down to eat, she recalled, and her mother came out to talk to Greg, who was in the backyard working on the family van.
"That was the last time I saw her
," Jacob noted.
Sherri and Jacob Malarik.Courtesy Family
The sequence of events that followed also became central to the prosecution's case: At some point, Jacob told investigators that Greg came back through the back door and the children asked where their mother was.
Greg told them that he had gone to the store, Jacob recalled, adding that Greg then went to the bathroom and turned on the shower.
Shortly afterward, Jacob noted, Spohn – the woman Greg was having an affair with – stopped by to return a lawnmower.
It was about 9 p.m.,
Wayne Wright, an investigator with the state's attorney's office in Pensacola, told
Dateline .
At 8 am, Sherri
was found dead in the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie
.
After the discovery, Spohn told authorities that his visit to the family home that night had been a coincidence.
He felt Greg "needed" the lawnmower back, recalled Buddy NeSmith, a detective with the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, who investigated the murder.
Greg and Jacob Malarik.Courtesy Family
Authorities did not trust Spohn's account, NeSmith told
Dateline
.
But in subsequent interviews over nearly two decades, he always gave the same version and said he knew nothing about Sherri's murder, explained prosecutor Amy Shea of the First Judicial Circuit of Florida.
Then, on March 7, 2020 – almost 19 years after the murder – Greg was arrested.
The evidence against them was based largely on the recollections of children who, in some cases, recounted the events of the sleepover to authorities.
There was "no smoking gun pointed at one person or another," Shea said.
"It was the circumstances."
It's easier to "just kill her"
After Greg's arrest, investigators saw Spohn again and offered him a deal: if he told the truth about what happened the night of September 21, he would get complete immunity from prosecution.
Spohn accepted.
Spohn recounted what happened to
Dateline
in his first media interview: Greg had been through a divorce before and believed it would be easier to "just kill her," Spohn claimed Greg told him.
"It doesn't make sense," Spohn said.
"
You don't kill your wife just like that
. And it's not going to be easier."
Spohn said he didn't think he was going to do it, although he allegedly instructed her on the night of September 21 to meet him in the Winn-Dixie parking lot, where he had parked the family van.
Spohn said he took it home, then waited a bit before calling, at Greg's request, and saying he had the lawnmower.
The real reason he was there, he confessed to
Dateline
, was to help establish Greg's alibi.
Spohn noted that he never asked Greg why he had picked him up or what he had done.
But he remembered thinking, "How the hell did I get into this?"
Spohn claimed Greg gave him clothes and bags – including where Spohn said there was a gun – and
told him to get rid of them
.
He confessed that he then threw them into a river.
[Florida authorities confirm at least three dead after small plane crash in Clearwater]
"I know what I did," Spohn said.
"I know it was wrong. I made some bad decisions, but once you make that bad decision, there's no going back. I'm sorry for what I did."
After Sherri's death, Spohn often stayed at the family home and moved away briefly in 2009. She dated Greg until she left Florida in 2014.
A shocking accusation
Tera was 3 years old when her mother was fatally shot.
She has some memories of Sherri, but she is not sure they are real.
Still, when Tera was growing up, her siblings often described Sherri as a "super mom," she told
Dateline
.
Sherri and Tera.Courtesy Family
Tera commented that she was 15 years old when she learned that her father could have been responsible for her mother's death;
A cousin of hers sent him a Facebook message where she suggested it.
Tera was angry when she found out about her father's affair, she said, but she had always known him to be a caring and protective person, someone with whom she shared a love of music and old movies, and with whom she later became close friends. .
When Tera confronted Greg about the Facebook accusation, she recalled, he denied it and responded that she didn't understand why her cousin would say that.
"He gave me a hug and told me everything was going to be okay," he said.
To Tera, Spohn seemed like the most likely suspect in her mother's murder.
Spohn has denied any involvement and has not been charged.
Jacob, for his part, claimed that he became convinced that Greg killed Sherri, based on the fact that Spohn "reappeared" quickly after his mother's death and on a series of events that occurred on the night of the murder that, according to his They didn't seem to add up, like why did her very organized mother go to the store when she had just gone two days earlier?
Jacob reported that he shared his suspicions with another brother, but not with Tera.
For her, the accusation in the Facebook message caused a shock.
Despite differences between Tera and Jacob over who they believed was responsible for their mother's death, Tera and Jacob stayed away from the topic and remained very close.
The jury deadlocks
Tera stated that she went to her father's first trial, in June 2022, with an "open mind."
Two of his brothers, including Jacob, testified for the prosecution.
Spohn was the Government's star witness.
Chris Crawford, Greg's attorney, argued that Spohn had little credibility and that law enforcement had conducted
a botched investigation
.
There were times when Tera doubted her father's innocence, she confessed, but in the end she came to believe that he had not killed her mother.
When the jury deadlocked, she said, "it was a tough pill to swallow because it's not something you want to go through once, let alone twice."
["Sorry, I'm Dead": Why You Should Leave a Note for Your Loved Ones When You Die]
When the second trial began last October, Crawford presented a defense that suggested Spohn was the possible killer, someone who "wanted that life," Crawford said at trial.
"And he decided to take it."
Crawford also attempted to show that Sherri's family had tried to turn her children against Greg, and Tera testified that she sometimes felt uncomfortable around them because "everything always revolved around Mom's death."
Jacob said he was surprised by his sister's testimony, because he believed it distorted the past.
His cousin, Lisa Leake, said Tera's testimony was like a stab in the back.
"My heart breaks
," he said.
Tera said her testimony was truthful and she is open to explaining her statements to her family.
"I tried to be respectful of everyone's point of view," she said.
"And it seems like absolutely no one respects mine."
For Jacob, the second trial was much more difficult than the first.
He didn't like the defense's strategy, because he believed it made it seem like it was his family – and not Greg – that was on trial.
And he was shocked when the jury returned a not guilty verdict, making Greg a free man.
Jacob and Tera Malarik have had little interaction since the acquittal last fall.Courtesy Family
Aside from the birthday text message, Jacob has had no contact with Tera since then, he said.
"I have a lot of anger in my heart right now that I'm trying to deal with, and that's why I've put Tera aside for a moment," he said.
"I need to take care of my things."
Jacob said he understands that Tera wants to protect her father "when no one else will."
"You don't want to lose the only father you have," he said, adding, "But at the same time, I think that says a lot about why no one else is on his side."
Tera, for her part, just had a baby and
hopes to reconnect with her brother
,
whom he considers his "dad brother."
"He's been one of the biggest supporters in my life," she said, adding, "I'm ready when he is."