The day after his capture and confession, Stephen Grant, the husband who couldn't get enough of the TV cameras, faced them one more time: in a perp walk, a perp roll actually.

Later that day for an arraignment he was in a hospital wheelchair and wearing not the conventional institutional jumpsuit, but old-timey prisoner's stripes selected personally by the sheriff for maximum humiliation.

Sheriff Hackel: They were a brand new set, and I had one of our officers transport them right up to the hospital.

Grant had told his murdered wife's sister she was probably just "shacked up" somewhere. Now he'd been brought to ground.

Alicia Standerfer: I saw an empty shell. In all honesty I saw an animal.

And, more than anything, Tara’s sister Alicia wanted that animal she saw locked up for the rest of his life. But only a first-degree murder conviction could guarantee no chance at parole.

Alicia Standerfer: He's never going to get out. Second degree? There's that possibility.

So that was what was at stake when the murder trial of Stephen Grant began ten-months after his arrest: would he get life in prison, meaning exactly that? Or would the jury find him guilty of murder in the second-degree, leaving the door open for him to walk free at some future date?

Despite his legally air-tight confession, Grant had pleaded not guilty.

Eric Smith, prosecutor: When you strip it all down it's a domestic violence murder and somebody has to speak for Tara, and that was our job."

The Macomb County prosecutor, Eric Smith, never for a minute believed Grant's story that he and Tara had a fight over her traveling so much.

Eric Smith: I don't see an argument. I see a beating. He picked that very calculatingly, that it makes him look good. Here's my wife. She's out of town all the time. I'm this poor husband sitting at home taking care of my kids. I'm Mr. Mom. This jury of sixteen people, we had to bring them back to reality real quickly to show them what this case was actually about.

Dennis Murphy: And that was what?

Smith: It was about sex. It was about Stephen Grant wanting to replace his wife with his au pair. And something that was really telling in this entire case is, the first thing he did after murdering his wife was pick up a cell phone and text the au pair, saying, “you owe me a kiss.”

The judge wouldn't permit cameras in the courtroom as the prosecutor argued his case for premeditation, which was a requirement for Grant to be sent to prison without the possibility of parole.

He introduced evidence:

There were Grant's recent steamy e-mails to the old flame, all but asking for a fresh hook-up.

And then him changing erotic targets from the former girlfriend to his children's au pair, Verena, the German teen fresh out of high-school.

And in a moment of high theatre, the prosecutor called a blockbuster witness -- Verena, now a brunette.

Amber Hunt: People flew over to Germany to try and track this woman down, and she was having nothing of it. So we really thought that she would just keep her distance.

Murphy: Set the scene, Amber, because we have no cameras, of course.

Amber Hunt: I saw her just shoot these looks at him. They were scowls. And it seemed like she was really there to say, “You've messed me up for some time and I’m here to make sure that you get what's coming to you.”

Watch the broadcast 'Valentine's Day Mystery' videos   Part 1: Wife goes missing   2: Detectives are thinking foul play   3: Police make gruesome discovery   4: The manhunt was on   5: Grant: 'And I choked her'   6: DA: 'It was about sex'

Verena, in a confident voice, recounted how her employer became suddenly flirtatious at the end of January, stealing kisses and actually exposing himself to her, until finally, the night before Tara is murdered, he gets her into his bed.

Eric Smith: No one can ever tell me that it's a coincidence that the night before he murders his wife he has sexual relations with the au pair.

The defense throughout, meanwhile, answered the accusation of premeditation by asking where are the signs that Grant prepared for the crime? Where's the “to do” list of plotting a murder? A defense witness argued the case was really about a man snapping during a physical confrontation, and therefore he should be found guilty of no more than second-degree murder.

(Grant police tape)

Stephen Grant: Tara’s torso, I took and buried in the snow ...

And yet when the jury heard all three hours of Grant's passionless recollection of murder and dismemberment, how could that be anything but first-degree murder?

Dennis Murphy: When you hear it, there's a remoteness from the things he's talking about, isn't there?

Alicia Standerfer: Yeah. There's no remorse. There's not an ounce of remorse.

In his closing argument, the prosecutor brought the jury back to the bedroom as the murder occurred. The medical examiner had testified that Tara likely went unconscious after 15 seconds of strangulation. But then, it probably took another 3 minutes and 45 seconds of Grant choking her before she actually died.

Prosecutor Smith took out a stop watch and set it ticking for four minutes, plenty of time, he said, to think about going through with a murder and just as significantly, plenty of time to make the conscious choice to stop. That, he told the jury, also constituted premeditation.

Eric Smith: When I said, "Tara Grant is now unconscious," those next 3 minutes and 45 seconds were an eternity. Stephen Grant had the opportunity to choose life or death. He chose death.

The jury went out to deliberate and stayed out, confounding all courtroom betting for a fast verdict. Three days later they returned.

(Reporters outside courthouse)

Question: "What is it, Hank?"

Hank: "Second."

Channel 7 reporter: "Second-degree murder."

Radio guy: "Stephen Grant, guilty of second-degree murder."

Interactive Photos: Remembering Tara Tara Lynn Grant was "a family-driven, career-driven woman," says her sister Alicia. Dateline NBC

Guilty of murder in the second degree. After a split jury tussle, they'd finally been persuaded by the defense's argument against premeditation. The defendant, in full panic mode during and after the killing, his rational self, as it were, no longer at the wheel.

(Prosecutor press conference)

Well, the jury has spoken … I wanted first-degree murder, but what I wanted more than anything was to make sure Stephen Grant was going to be off the streets, and be off the streets for a long time.

And two months later, in her sentencing of Grant on Feb. 21, the judge ensured just that. Grant will be in prison for the next 50 to 80 years.

(Prosecutor Smith after sentencing)

"Today, justice was served. Nothing will bring back Tara Grant. But also nothing will bring back Stephen Grant."

Grant's first opportunity for a parole hearing won't come until he's 87 years old.

The judge had far exceeded the state's sentencing guidelines and handed down a virtual life sentence, citing among other reasons, the depravity of Grant's psychological damage to his young children.

(Alicia Standerfer's press conference)

Lindsey and Ian will never have to see their father. They'll never have to experience his hurtful ways, his abusive ways anymore.

There had been yet another shocking disclosure.

In her victim-impact statement, Tara’s sister told the court that this past Christmas day -- just days after the trial ended -- her now 7-year-old niece had spilled a long-kept secret.

(press conference)

Hearing Lindsey describe detail by detail by detail , you know, what she saw that night was unbelievable. I don't think anything could have prepared me for hearing those words come out of her mouth.

Both Lindsey and her younger brother Ian had watched their father murder their mother that awful night. They heard her final groan.

Nightmares, understandably, roam both children's minds, the court was told.

But with time, counseling and a new supportive home life, there's hope for them. Alicia and her husband, Erik, recently adopted their niece and nephew, blending with their own two children. Tara's kids now call their aunt and uncle mom and dad.

Alicia Standerfer: And there was a part of me that felt like I was, you know, dishonoring my sister by allowing them to call me mom and it was really my husband that said, 'You know what? This is the best thing for them.”

Dennis Murphy: So her children will be the legacy for Tara?

Alicia Standerfer: I believe so. How could they not? I mean Lindsey’s the spitting image of her mom, right down to the curly hair and her personality. I think, "Oh my gosh, that's Tara. That's Tara."

Stephen Grant has a little more than a month to file an appeal.

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