The Investigation Reveals Edward Hired a Hitman to Kill His Former Wife

The investigation’s pivotal turn comes when Stein Green, an imprisoned man, claims that Edward Villarosas hired him to kill both of his former wives. The revelation gives new weight to disappearances that had resisted resolution for years, but it does not immediately settle the case: investigators must still test Green’s account against records and physical evidence, and the remains found where he directed them have not yet been positively identified.

The Unresolved Disappearances

Villarosas’s two wives had gone missing five years apart. When the cases first came to the attention of Duan Jeffries and his colleagues, investigators found no solid connection between him and either disappearance. Villarosas maintained that the women had left him for other men. There were dead ends, but no bodies, and his alibis appeared ironclad. The lack of a body or a provable link left the cases classified as missing-person investigations rather than homicides.

The failures had a personal history for Landon Chestnut. Villarosas’s case had come to Landon while he was still a detective, after Duan had left the department and was starting a private-investigation business. Landon remembered the frustration and grief of repeatedly reaching dead ends. His inability to resolve the case was one reason he later left the force to join Duan’s firm. When Villarosas’s name surfaced again, Landon said he did not think he would ever forget him; reopening the investigation offered a chance to revisit a case that had remained unfinished.

Suspicion Tested Against Alternatives

The renewed inquiry begins with suspicion, not proof. Landon had wanted to revisit the cases because something about Villarosas had unsettled him, even though the evidence available during the original investigations had not justified moving either case from missing persons to homicide. Two Atlanta investigations had failed to establish a chargeable connection, and the women and Villarosas had not even been in the same cities when they disappeared. Duan insists on the legal distinction: however suspicious the circumstances appear, Villarosas remains innocent unless guilt is proved.

Kimani Cannon presses the practical weakness in the suspicion. If the women were missing rather than legally established as dead, Villarosas could not collect on their insurance policies; she sees no sufficient financial motive in the known circumstances. She also challenges the investigators’ reliance on instinct, contrasting a detective’s intuition with the scientific data on which people in medicine base their decisions. Her challenge keeps the inquiry from treating a strong hunch as a conclusion.

The investigators also consider that someone else may have been involved. In reviewing Mandy Villarosas’s disappearance, they learn that women who traveled with her believed she had gone to meet a man she had supposedly flirted with at a reunion. Investigators are contacting attendees to see whether photographs captured him. If the account is accurate, the unidentified man could be responsible for Mandy’s disappearance. That possibility matters: the new inquiry does not assume that suspicion of Villarosas rules out another suspect.

Testimony and Corroboration

Landon’s conversation with Villarosas’s former girlfriend adds a separate account of his behavior. She supports a claim from more than twenty years earlier that Villarosas had a jealous streak and threatened to get rid of her when he believed she was unfaithful. She said the accusations and threats continued despite her denial of infidelity, and that she eventually left because she believed he might carry them out. Her account concerns an earlier relationship, not direct evidence of what happened to the missing wives, but it gives investigators another basis for examining the possibility of violence.

The more consequential disclosure comes from Chevis Fleming’s visit to Green in a Florida prison. After intense questioning, Green admits that Villarosas hired him to get rid of both wives because Villarosas believed they had been unfaithful. The claim supplies a proposed perpetrator, motive, and means for the disappearances. It also changes the investigation’s central problem: the team must establish whether Green’s account can be independently substantiated, rather than treating an admission by itself as proof.

Duan explains that the available records offer leads but not yet a complete case. Villarosas’s old bank accounts show large withdrawals at the times Green says he was paid. Investigators have also obtained old phone records showing calls between Green and Villarosas. The withdrawals and calls place the men in potentially significant financial and communicative contact, but the records contain no conversations and do not prove what the money or calls concerned. Green’s statement would otherwise be weighed against Villarosas’s reputation as a model citizen, while Green is already serving a life sentence. The former girlfriend’s allegations, moreover, would not be admissible in court because of their age. The team therefore needs evidence that can support the accusation independently.

The Search and Its Immediate Consequences

At the time Green’s account is reported to Kimani, local and federal officers are searching two wooded areas: one near Orlando and another in Atlanta. Green has said that the remains are there. Villarosas is also to be brought in for questioning that day, with Atlanta detectives already on their way. Duan makes the distinction between questioning and prosecution clear: if the remains are located and identified as the missing women, Villarosas can be charged and extradited to Georgia; until then, the accusation remains under investigation.

A call from Landon brings the first major physical development. Remains have been found exactly where Green said they would be, and authorities are working to obtain positive identifications. The match between Green’s directions and the discovery substantially strengthens the urgency of his account, but the identification is still pending. Duan therefore describes charges and extradition conditionally, rather than announcing that the remains have already been proved to belong to Villarosas’s wives or that a conviction is secured.

The discovery also changes the immediate stakes for Kimani’s family. Villarosas is engaged to Kimani’s mother, Wynona Cannon, who does not yet know the full extent of the investigation. Duan and Kimani agree that she should hear the news from them in person before Villarosas arrives later that day. Duan says he must also disclose his own role in the investigation. Kimani expects her mother to be devastated, but insists on going to her at once; Duan leaves with her. The case’s movement from old suspicion to a search yielding remains now intrudes directly into the planned marriage.

Significance of the Revelation

The sequence makes the investigation’s progress depend on the difference between a compelling story and corroborated evidence. Landon’s unease and memory of earlier failures explain why the case is reopened, but neither is enough to establish guilt. The former girlfriend’s account, Green’s confession, the financial withdrawals, and the phone records each contribute a different kind of support, while each also has a limit. The remains found at the locations Green named offer the strongest new test of his reliability, yet even that discovery awaits positive identification.

For the plot, Green’s claim transforms the missing-person cases into a possible murder investigation just as Villarosas is preparing to marry Wynona. For the investigators, the disclosure is both a breakthrough and a demand for restraint: it gives them a concrete path toward resolving the disappearances, without erasing the need to verify the bodies, substantiate the accusation, and distinguish suspicion from proof.