Is the case against Bruce Beresford-Redman falling apart?

Produced by Paul LaRosa, Joshua Yager Ana Real, Ira Sutow, James Stolz, Alec Sirken and Avi Cohen

In February, "48 Hours" went inside a Mexican prison for the only interview with Bruce Beresford-Redman, the American television producer accused of murdering his wife, Monica. The interview, recorded on a smart phone, is raw and gritty.

Now, Beresford-Redman talks with "48 Hours" again in a new interview from behind bars as his trial remarkably enters its seventh month. The question is - is the case against him falling apart?

For more than seven months, American Bruce Beresford-Redman, once a highly regarded reality TV producer, has been a prisoner in Mexico.

"I've been here...almost seven months now...and I've been on trial that whole time and there's no evidence. It's very hard for me to understand why I'm still in jail," Bruce told "48 Hours" during a recent interview by phone.

It's a painful reality for Bruce's anxious parents and his two young children.

"In many ways, they're doing beautifully but they never forget about... their dad and their mom, but mostly about Bruce. They want him home so badly," Bruce's mother, Juanita Beresford -Redman told "48 Hours."

Like the children, Juanita and Bruce's father, Dave, have not seen Bruce since last February when he was extradited from a federal lockup in Los Angeles.

"What is so hard for me is that my son is in a Mexican prison where there are stabbings and riots and tear gas," Juanita continued. "...this is just so horrible. His children need him. He needs his children desperately, he is desperate to be back with them."

And that's why Bruce made a special video for his children during a recent visit with "48 Hours" inside El Cerezo prison in Cancun:

"I'm really glad that things are going so well with Grandma and Grandpa. But, I miss you guys, and I love you. And Alec, I'm not going to get my haircut until I come home, so we can go get out haircut together. Alright, pumpkin. Take care. Be good to your brother. Alec, give your sister lots of kisses for me. Bye guys."

But Carla and Jeane Burgos, the sisters of Bruce's wife, Monica, question Bruce's sincerity. They say he is a killer. Bruce insists he is nothing but a loving husband.

"She was as lovely a person inside as she was beautiful on the outside," Bruce told "48 Hours" in February. "And in all the accusations and all the discussion and everything, I think very few people have said anything about her, about what my children have lost, what I have lost. ...She was amazing."

Amazing... and friends say a perfect match for Bruce - a behind-the-scenes star in the world of reality television.

"He's a very, very bright, talented guy. ...He and a partner created 'Pimp My Ride'....Bruce was involved in 'The Contender'" said Jeff Wald, who worked with Bruce on "The Contender," a boxing reality show with a high testosterone cast who tried everyone's patience.

"He handled Sylvester Stallone and Sugar Ray Leonard and 16 boxers," Wald explained. "The guys who hit other guys for a living can be very volatile and very physical...and I watched him diffuse situations...never raising his voice, never being imposing. He's a big guy, Bruce... he did it in a really smart way. I was very impressed with that right off the bat."

Back then, a lot of people in Hollywood were impressed with Bruce. He was moving from hit show to hit show and he'd already proven his mettle as a supervising producer in the early years of "Survivor," the world's most popular reality show.

Bruce wasn't just surviving, he was thriving. At his side was then-girlfriend Monica Burgos, an alluring Brazilian national he met at a popular Los Angeles nightspot.

"I went back again to see her. You know, the food was OK, but I went back to see her. And I spoke to her again and then got up enough courage to ask her on a date and we were together from that point on," said Bruce.

Bruce and Monica married in 1999 and had two children: Camila, now 7, and Alec, now 5.

"In the beginning, it appeared they had a solid marriage?" Troy Roberts asked Monica's sister, Jeane Burgos.

"I think Monica loved him very much...she felt strong about him. She fell in love for him and I think he fell in for her too 'cause Monica was his opposite," she said.

"She was gorgeous. She was this exotic, tall, beautiful creature with long at the time, very dark, curly hair. She was just spectacular and she had this accent that was like listening to honey through gauze. It was beautiful. It was mellifluous," said Bruce.

They were a handsome couple and lived in a stunning $2 million home in Palos Verdes, California.

But today, a Mexican prison is home to Bruce Beresford-Redman, accused of suffocating his wife, Monica, and stuffing her naked body in a sewer.

"I'm not the greatest guy in the world. But I'm also not a criminal," Bruce told "48 Hours" producers who met with him inside the prison last spring. He wanted to talk on the record. The interview was recorded using a smart phone.

"I've never been arrested in my life...until this, I've never been in jail. I've never been in trouble," Bruce continued.

But Monica's sister, Carla, had long considered Bruce a cad. In 2006, she had observed him with Joy Pierce, Bruce's go-to casting director.

"I went with him to a party...it was a club...we got to the place...she jumped on his lap like here and here and I was...you know..." she said.

"You were stunned," Roberts noted.

"Yeah," she replied.

Carla says Monica began to suspect Joy was not just Bruce's casting director - she was also his girlfriend.

"She found out he had given, like, presents to this woman and he used to work with her," she said. "...they were lovers for years, I guess."

Eventually, Monica confronted Bruce and the reality show producer found himself thrust into a real-life soap opera complete with confessional emails.

He admitted to Monica that "Joy and I were lovers." "We first had sex in Detroit...since that time, we have had a sexual and emotional relationship." In a separate email to his girlfriend Joy, Bruce promised "to get therapy for being a liar."

"It was their lives. They had to sort it out," said Juanita.

Bruce's mother says he was so distraught, he even confided in her about the relationship.

Asked if she encouraged her son to break off the affair, Juanita told Roberts, "I did. I said, 'You know, that's the only smart thing to do. You will hurt yourself. You will hurt Monica.' ...I got the impression that he had really fallen in love and it was going to be very difficult for him to break it off."

Juanita said she felt badly for her daughter-in-law.

"She was hurt. Of course she was hurt...but she was as determined as Bruce not to do anything to hurt the children," she said. "I said to her at one point in one of these conversations, 'Do you still love Bruce?' and she said, 'I'm not sure, I think I do but I don't want a divorce...'"

But by spring 2010, Monica had reached her breaking point. She fled the Palos Verdes home, drained their joint bank account and took the children to Hawaii.

"So she went to Hawaii to contemplate about her future?" Roberts asked Jeane Burgos.

"Yes," she replied.

"And when she returned, she decided that she wanted to try to save this marriage."

"Well, when she came back Bruce totally shifted...he start crying and really...creating this emotional -- situation around her that he never had done before," Jeane said. "...she start, like, kind of falling into it. 'Oh maybe he really regret, you know, everything that he did.'

"He start, you know, asking forgiveness," she continued. "'I just found out you are really the woman of my life...It's your birthday. You can chose to go wherever you wanna go.'"

Their choice was Cancun. Monica would give Bruce and the marriage one last chance. With their two young children in tow, Bruce and Monica took off on a trip that would change the family forever.

Their once vibrant marriage on the rocks and in danger of breaking apart, Bruce and Monica Beresford-Redman came to Cancun in April 2010.

"We needed therapy a little bit. We sort of took a time out. It was her birthday. We took a family trip. We said let's go have a good time," Bruce told "48 Hours."

They'd check into the Moon Palace Hotel, a bit of heaven laced along a perfect beach... a peaceful place where a family might repair itself.

"You know...I'm not -- I wasn't the perfect husband. There are times since Monica's death sitting in prison, having nothing but time, that I thought that she probably deserved better," said Bruce.

He hoped Monica might forgive him for his affair with Joy Pierce, says his friend, Jeff Wald.

"I saw him a few days before he left Mexico. He talked about the fact that he was trying to work something out with his wife -- but he was also prepared, if need be, to be divorced," he said.

"They had their squabbles. I mean they truly loved each other. They loved the children," said Bruce's mother, Juanita Beresford-Redman.

The family of four would sleep in the same room. Room 7816 was spacious and airy with an ocean view and even a Jacuzzi.

"We just said, 'Look, let's just go and have a good time,' and that was it. So while there were issues that preceded it, there weren't any issues going on at that time. We were just enjoying each other," said Bruce.

Monica and Bruce took Alec and Camila to a water park and a ride down an underground river.

"So at one point Bruce and the two kids clamored up the side of this slope onto a walkway," Bruce's father, David Beresford-Redman, said.

"And in doing so he scratched his shins and ankles. I guess."

Those scratches, and others on Bruce's body, would later become one of the keys to the case and would raise suspicions about his entire story.

"Did either of you hear from her while she was in Mexico?" Troy Roberts asked Carla Burgos.

"Yeah, I talked to her on Sunday," she replied.

Monica's sisters, Carla and Jeane, say the plan to repair the marriage was already falling apart when Monica caught Bruce texting his mistress as the family was traveling to Mexico.

"She was devastated," Jeane said. "And I told her, 'Monica, don't worry. You know, come back here, just move on with your life.'"

April 5, 2010, was another beautiful day as the sun broke over Cancun.

"Well, it was a morning when she disappeared. OK, it was a morning that I last saw her," said Bruce.

According to Bruce, Monica decided to take a trip into town.

"Monica's plan, and this was part of her birthday present, was to go into town and go shopping and spend the day just for herself, and go to some spas maybe," said Bruce.

Monica's sisters say that's just the first thing about Bruce's story that doesn't add up.

"How many times did I see my sister go to a spa? None," said Carla.

"Never?" asked Roberts.

"Never."

"Monica's not a spa person," said Jeane.

By 11 p.m., Monica hadn't come back. Bruce says he had no way to contact her.

"Her cell phone was so cracked and damaged, that you had to shout to make yourself heard. And she just didn't take it with her. So I couldn't call her," said Bruce.

"She didn't take her cell phone? She left the kids all day with him?

She never does that, ever," said Jeane.

That night, Bruce says he was nervous and worried, watching his sleeping children and waiting for his wife.

"And of course had the sort of silly hope that I'll go back in the room and she'll be home. She'll be back, but she never was," he said.

The next morning there was still no sign of Monica.

"So I called the hotel, to the front desk and said, you know, 'I expected my wife back last night. She didn't come back. What do I do?'"

Bruce filed a missing persons report with the police and called his sister-in-law, Jeane.

"When Bruce called you to say that Monica was missing, what went through your mind?" Roberts asked Monica's sisters.

"'Oh, my God. My sister missing. Monica?'" Jeane replied. "It doesn't make sense."

"'Monica went shopping.' I said, 'Oh really, why didn't she take the kids?'" said Carla.

The next day, Jeane flew to Cancun determined to find Monica.

"I looked at him and I say, 'Bruce, where is my sister?'" said Jeane.

Two days later, she got the worst possible news.

"What did the manager say to you?" Roberts asked Jeane.

"'They found your sister,'" she replied.

On what would have been her 42nd birthday, Monica Beresford-Redman's beaten, suffocated body was found, dumped like garbage, in a hotel sewer pit.

"How could someone put a person naked in the sewage. Very, very, very horrible," said Jeane.

"It's not something you're prepared to hear or to handle," Bruce said. "You know, you live your life, you meet a girl, you start a family, buy a house...all of a sudden everything you know and everything you love and you care about just sort of disappears."

After Monica's battered body was discovered, a roadmap began to take shape. And details emerged about her final hours in Cancun, leading police to focus on one suspect.

"They immediately question Bruce at length," said Jen Heger, a reporter for Radar Online, who has covered the case since the beginning.

"It is alleged that he did kill his wife and that his two children would be in the room," Heger explained. "It was one room with two beds."

Mexican police say screams came from that room at 6:30 a.m., on the day Monica went missing.

"Two teenagers that were staying in the hotel...heard screams coming from the hotel room that Monica and Bruce and the two children were staying in. These were female screams crying for help," said Heger.

And there was a "Do Not Disturb" sign hung on the door of room 7816.

"The Mexican authorities believe that Bruce wouldn't allow the maids to clean the room that day because there was a dead body inside, and that dead body belonged to his wife, Monica," said Heger.

Mexican police would examine the electronic door lock and find that the night Monica disappeared someone had been in and out of the room multiple times. The implication: It was Bruce going in and out of the room looking for a place to dump his wife's lifeless body. Or was he simply looking for Monica, as he claims?

"I would get up. I would walk up and down [the] balcony outside our room, or I would walk around that area a little bit. But my kids were sleeping in the room, so I went back very quickly every time to check and see that they were OK," said Bruce.

The situation was chaotic. Still, what no one could quite understand was Bruce Beresford-Redman's final plans for Monica.

"While I was at the police station and the mortuary guy was there in my room...and he asked me what I wanted to do with my sister's body," Jeane told Roberts. "And I told him, 'I'm going to bring her back to Los Angeles.' And he said, 'Oh, you are?' And I said, 'Yes, why?' And he said, 'Because Bruce just paid for the cremation."

"Why do you think Bruce moved to have Monica cremated?"

"Well, the only thing that I can think... at this point is to get rid of any evidence," said Jeane.

"Burn any evidence or whatever," added Carla.

Monica's sisters had her flown back to Los Angeles for burial. Mexican police would continue their investigation They had Bruce's passport, but it didn't really matter. Soon the star television producer was gone.

"I was asked by the police to give a statement, um, which I did-- in the hopes that it would help them find whoever killed my wife," Bruce Beresford-Redman told "48 Hours".

Beresford-Redman stayed in Mexico for two weeks after his wife Monica's murder, but then decided to return to the United States.

"He didn't want to stay and assist in the investigation?" Troy Roberts asked Bruce's mother, Juanita Beresford-Redman.

"Everything that we know about what happened from the coroner's report to the forensic scientist that we hired to go over the scene, says it was an unbelievable mess," she said. "What in the world could he have done."

"They didn't ask him to stay in Mexico?"

"No one ever told him to stay," Juanita replied.

But "48 Hours" spoke to Mexican authorities, who insist they did request that he stay. Though they never legally required it, his departure - hitchhiking to the Mexican border in Texas and boarding a train to Los Angeles - raised suspicions.

"You know all this surreptitious traveling makes him seem a little concerned about people thinking that he was guilty," Roberts commented to Juanita.

"I object to the word surreptitious," she said. "I mean, he went to the border, they looked at his license. They asked him a couple of questions and he walked down to cross. He was exhausted and he was upset..."

"My children were already safely back home," Bruce said. "And -- I met with my attorneys. And, after a couple days, they said, 'Look, the police have spoken to you. And you've spoken to them. Go home and be with your family.'"

Back in Los Angeles, Bruce's parents were battling Monica's sisters in court for custody of Alec and Camila.

"The kids were used to being with us...we love those kids more than anything else in the world," Jean Burgos said. "...it's not...what is good or what is bad, it's what is the best for the kids."

"The sisters have professed their deep love for the children. I know they love the children, I'm sure of that," Juanita said. "If that was a true and honest love, wouldn't they want the one person in the world these children need more than anyone else, their father, to be able to come home to them?"

A judge agreed to appoint Juanita and David Beresford-Redman as guardians.

"Monica is gone. It's horrible but she is...the children have Bruce left. That's all and they adore him," said Juanita.

And when Bruce surfaced, it surprised pretty much everyone.

"He was able to outwit, outlast and outsmart the Mexican authorities and he surfaced here in southern California. I think it was a big shock to the Mexican authorities and made them look very bad," said reporter Jen Heger.

By this time, Bruce Beresford-Redman found himself on the other side of the prying cameras as his attorneys rushed to his defense. His lawyer, Richard Hirsch, laid out Bruce's theory of who may have killed Monica.

"What does he think?" Roberts asked Hirsch.

"He has suggested to us that she was murdered by someone else...and it may have been a hotel employee, it may have been anyone. We don't know. But clearly he would say that he is innocent of this crime," he replied.

There's no question Mexico can be a dangerous place for visitors. Over the past 10 years, more than 500 American citizens have been murdered here, according to the U.S. State Department. Very few of those cases have been in tourist areas or this resort, but it can happen.

In fact, Moon Palace has its own troubled history. Since 2007, two other Moon Palace guests have died under suspicious circumstances. And just three weeks after Monica's murder, there was yet another violent incident, involving a female guest and a hotel worker.

Karen and Eric Hamilton from Baltimore, Maryland, had scheduled their wedding at the Moon Palace. Friends and family called their attention to Monica's murder, but they were determined to carry on.

"We kind of brushed it off and [said], 'Yeah, we're going, we're going. Don't worry, don't watch the news!'" said Karen.

"We weren't at the point where we weren't gonna cancel anything," Eric said. "And by no means did we."

Family members had all checked in at the resort, including Eric's sister, Emily.

"So when you arrived at the property, did it seem like a secure and safe property?" Roberts asked Emily.

"Oh, yeah. It was very nice," she replied.

Until one night when she ordered room service. The waiter began flirting with Emily and her roommate, Casey.

"...we stared getting really, really uncomfortable and that's when we asked him to get a bottle of wine but to have somebody else bring it. 'Cause that was our way of having him out of the room," she explained.

Casey went out on the balcony to make a phone call, but the same waiter came back and that's when it got terrifying for Emily.

"He threw me on the bed. He had his arms around me and I was trying to force him off and, um, I remember feeling pain...'cause I thought I could fend for myself but he was too strong and overbearing and that's when I yelled for my friend, Casey, and she came back in and that's when he was pulling up his pants and that's when he ran out of the room," said Emily.

"So you must've been frightened out of your mind," said Roberts.

"Very much so," Emily replied.

"What do you think would have happened if Casey wasn't there?"

"Who knows. I could be dead right now," Emily replied.

Her stepfather, Dave Howard, reported the crime the following morning.

"I said, 'Somebody's attempted - that one of your employees have attempted to rape my daughter,'" Howard said. "And they tried to -- to basically blow it off like I was orderin' a sandwich."

But a hotel representative later told the family the waiter had been fired within days.

After all they went through at the Moon Palace, the Hamilton family believes that Monica Beresford-Redman might well have been murdered by an employee of the resort.

"Given your experience, is that within the realm of possibility?" Roberts asked Howard.

"Oh absolutely, absolutely," he replied.

But the case against Bruce Beresford-Redman was building. The Mexican government pursued him across the border. Seven months after the murder, Bruce was arrested and held at the federal detention center in Los Angeles. More than a year later, he was extradited back to Mexico to face murder charges.

"I believe that Bruce now probably feels that he is trapped in the worst reality show that he can ever imagine," said Heger.

Two-and-a-half years after leaving Mexico, Bruce Beresford-Redman is returned on a midnight flight to Cancun wearing handcuffs and a bulletproof vest.

"I had hoped that the United States would take a look at the request from Mexico and say: 'Not good enough. There's no sufficient evidence.

There's no probable cause, here.' They didn't agree with me. And it became clear to me that the longer I stayed in the United States, I was simply wasting my time," Bruce told "48 Hours Mystery."

In court for a preliminary hearing, Bruce looks on, with a translator by his side, as prosecutors argue they've got enough evidence for a trial.

"...they claim that in one hotel room with my two small children...that I killed her and then I left her in a room all day long, while my children and I went in and out," Bruce said. "It's ludicrous and it's also completely false."

Allison Triessl is an attorney representing Monica's two sisters.

"I discount and discredit anything that man has to say," Triessl said. "...this man, we believe, killed his wife in front of his children. ...And if that is in fact the case and he has, how incredibly horrific. How horrible!"

"I have no idea how they came up with that theory," said Bruce. He says his daughter backs up his story and in fact, she has told a therapist that she remembers her mother leaving the room and saying, "I love you. I'll be back soon.'"

Bruce's Mexican lawyer, Jaime Cancino, says the prosecution's case against Bruce Beresford-Redman is basically one big mess.

"This was a criminal investigation very wrongfully made with a lot of errors," said Cancino.

In the coroner's report, there is no indication that Monica's body was checked for the presence of semen to help determine whether or not she'd been sexually assaulted and remember those scratches on Bruce? If they were inflicted by Monica, Bruce's DNA most likely would be under her fingernails, but investigators never ran those tests, saying her body was too decomposed for results to be meaningful.

Asked if they examined her clothes, Cancino told Roberts, "No. They never found her clothes. They found her bag and they didn't find none of her money...her credit cards were missing and all of her money was missing."

There were two tiny specs of blood found on a pillowcase in the room and Monica did have a head wound. Defense experts testify that blood was not from a female and that pillowcase is now missing.

"It is not possible to kill someone and produce that type of injuries without leaving blood," Cancino explained.

Still, prosecutors insist they'll pursue a circumstantial case against Bruce, citing his refusal to allow housekeepers into his room the day Monica disappeared, the teenagers who heard screaming from his room and the scratches on Bruce's body.

"Well, you know I had a couple of scratches on my fingers and on feet which obviously have long since healed," Bruce said. "... my daughter remembers putting Band-Aids on those cuts."

He says he got those scratches on family outings before Monica disappeared and he says there is an innocent explanation for what the downstairs hotel guests heard.

"What they heard in fact was my son and my daughter squealing and laughing and playing... And just roughhousing," he said. "I don't think there is a circumstantial case against me. ...And it makes sense that there isn't because I'm innocent. I didn't kill my wife. I haven't killed anybody."

Bruce has always maintained his wife went off shopping - alone- the day she disappeared. A local shopkeeper testifies he saw her in his jewelry store, though he cannot remember exactly what day.

After presenting their case, the lack of blood in the room, the missing evidence and the lack of thorough testing on Monica's body, Bruce and his defense team allow themselves to hope.

"It's OK to hope -- but only a very little bit," Bruce said in prison. "Hope is like a drug. You can get addicted to it in here."

By the sixth and last day of the hearing, Bruce is convinced he is just hours away from going home.

"I can't imagine how anyone who listened to everything said could possibly think I had anything to do with killing my wife," he said.

"All I want is to get back to my children."

But in February 2012, the judge rules that Bruce must stand trial for the murder of his wife.

"The judge decided to file a trial against our client..." Cancino told reporters.

"It just devastated me..." Bruce said. "I really didn't think I was coming back here. I thought...they were gonna just finally put an end to this part of the nightmare. ...And when they told me that I was gonna be held for trial, I just couldn't believe it."

Now he's in the fight of his life.

"If I'm convicted, I'm facing 30 years in a Mexican jail," said Bruce.

"Being in prison in the first place is horrible... You can't go where you wanna go. You can't be with your family. You can't go outside when you want to... You can't do any of the things that are so elementary to just being a human," said Bruce Beresford-Redman, who has been in a Mexican prison and on trial for the past seven months. It's a long time, he says, to be away from his children.

"I'm so preoccupied all day long with my children and their well-being and -- and worrying about them and wanting to get to them and - and -- and just -- loving them and missing them, you know," he told "48 Hours" just a few weeks ago by phone.

"Their lives are -- are racing ahead," he continued. "And -- Camilla just started third grade. Alec just had his first day of kindergarten, and they're -- they're doing all that without their parents, which infuriates me."

His trial is ongoing, but it often stops and starts and some weeks nothing happens. Then there are court days when witnesses simply fail to show up.

"Do you think the prosecutors are dragging this out because this is a high-profile case involving an American?" Troy Roberts asked Bruce.

"I don't really...I don't really get the impression that I'm being treated any differently than anybody else down here. I think it's just a very different system than what I'm accustomed to," he replied.

The government's theory of the murder has never wavered. The prosecutor believes that Bruce argued with Monica around 6:30 on the morning of Monday, April 5, killed her in his hotel room and then kept her dead body hidden until he could dump it that evening.

"I've been accused of a really, really horrible crime. And I would like very much to have the chance to exonerate myself," he told "48 Hours".

And, in fact, he's getting plenty of help from the state's own expert witnesses who seem to contradict the prosecution case. The coroner, for instance, pinpoints Monica's death at 11:40 p.m. Monday night.

"His testimony, to me, obliterates their entire theory. He's the expert. It's his job to determine when...she died. And he's quite clear about it, 11:40 is -- is pretty definite and it's 18 hours off when they say it happened," said Bruce.

And if Monica was killed at night, then Bruce argues that the screams heard coming from his room earlier that morning should not be relevant. He's always claimed that he was roughhousing with his children.

"Also, we have the housekeeper...who made the room of my client. And he stated that...he continuously saw Bruce and his two little children coming and going," Bruce's lawyer, Jaime Cancino, told "48 Hours" via Skype from Mexico City.

"And he said, 'I saw them completely normal. I saw them happy. I saw them having a great time.' Now, how can it be possible that a person killed his wife in front of his two little children. They were at the time three and five. And...the children -- appeared completely normal?"

And when the state's own criminologist takes the stand, incredibly, he testifies that he can find no link between Bruce and Monica's murder.

"I am looking around, waiting for someone to stand up and say, "Okay, well, we've got the wrong guy, you know, let's get him the hell out of there." And that doesn't happen. And-- and it's-- it-- it absolutely floors me.

When "48 Hours" asked the chief prosecutor about the trial, he said, "We want to punish him... we have to work with what we have" and he claims to have other evidence. He also admitted that he is very concerned about upholding the reputation of Cancun as a tourist mecca, saying: "We don't want it to look like anyone can come to Cancun and commit any crime you want."

Bruce's lawyer says his client plans to take the stand, and, overall, Cancino remains optimistic.

"He's gonna be free. At the end of the day, he's gonna be free. I can assure you that. Without any doubt for hesitation of my-- of my part...it is gonna be proved that he didn't kill her," said Cancino.

Watching all of this play out from Los Angeles are Monica's sisters, Carla and Jeane, who continue to believe Bruce is guilty as charged.

"Why do you think Bruce killed your sister?" Roberts asked Jeane.

"Greed...to keep the woman, to keep his kids, to keep the money," she replied.

"What do you believe is the strongest evidence against Bruce?" Robert asked Alison Triessl, the sisters' lawyer.

"There's not one piece of evidence that convinced me. It's the totality," she replied.

"The story about Monica going shopping doesn't make any sense. Leaving her cell phone behind, it doesn't make any sense...the fact that he left that room 15 times in the middle of the night and never once alerted hotel security or anyone at the hotel...it's the totality. You can have an answer for one or two but you really can't answer all of them," said Triessl.

"If he really killed my sister, which it looks like he did, I want him in jail but it doesn't make me happy to see him in jail," sais Carla Burgos.

Monica's sisters have not given up their fight to be appointed guardians of Bruce and Monica's children. They've petitioned the court and a trial is scheduled for November.

"I really believe that we are closest to the mother," Jeane said. "How could two elderly people take care of two kids under the age of seven?"

"Carla and Jeane believe that because of your advanced ages, it may prove to be too much of a handful," Troy commented to Juanita and David Beresford-Redman.

"We manage very well. We are both extremely healthy," said Juanita.

"Every evening when we sit at the table, Alec raises his glass. And -- he says, 'Family cheers.' And we all touch our glasses together," added David.

"It's all right. It's OK," Juanita said, comforting her husband. "Alec instituted this toast. He -- he takes his glass and he says, 'To mommy,' no, 'to daddy and to mommy in our hearts.'"

Given the contradictory statements from state's expert witnesses, contaminated and missing evidence and a strong defense, Bruce is hoping against hope that he'll be freed.

"We once asked you if you're a survivor. What would you say now?" Roberts asked Bruce. "Are you a survivor?"

"I guess being through all that I've been through, yeah," he replied. "I need to resume my life, I need to get back... I still believe that at some point being innocent will...will matter... the fact that I'm innocent is gonna, at some point, get me out."

There is no jury in this trial. A single judge will decide his fate.