The board opened a second hearing to listen to people, ordinary people who wanted to talk about Barry Beach and to make personal pleas for his release.

Guard: He said you need to concentrate on my voice I’m going to get you out of this block.

There was the female prison guard, who told of nearly passing out while on a cellblock once. She came to thank Beach, who, she said, protected her from what could have been unspeakable harm.

Guard: But I owe that to him, and that's a debt that I could never pay no matter what I do.

And then came a virtual who's who of Montanans: a former state senator, who said Beach helped quell tensions during a near-riot; the chief actuary for Montana’s state fund, who met Beach in prison ministry…

Gengler: I would have no problem with him staying overnight in my home.

Childhood friends, also ready to take responsibility for Beach's life after prison…

Simons: If he needed a place to stay, he could always come stay with me.

Williams: I would be honored to have him come visit us and stay with us when he gets out.

Witness after witness came forward, even the former mayor of the town of Poplar showed up with a plea.

O’Connor: I'm just here to ask you to find it in your hearts to recommend parole for Barry, as I do believe it is the town's feeling that it's time.

And finally, there was a surprise witness: Pam Johnson, the victim's sister.

Barry Beach's one-time girlfriend, she’d always harbored doubts about the conviction. Still after all these years, she was unable to believe it.

Ash: She's not emotionally capable of speaking right now so I’d just like to read what she wrote last night. “Barry and I were close friends years ago and I honestly believe that Barry did not kill my sister … finding the truth will set Barry free as he should be.” And that's from her heart.

Minutes later, the unprecedented hearing was history.

Barry Beach was cuffed and shackled, temporarily at least, for his return to the Montana State Prison.

Would it be for the last time?

Beach: I'll never give up until I walk out. The truth is there. And the truth is that I did not kill Kim Nees.

For Beach's mother, dreams of her son's release were consuming her.

Clincher: It will take awhile for both of us to catch our breath, I’m sure.

Keith Morrison: But you imagine the moment?

Clincher: It's impossible not to. Twenty-four years is a long time to wait for that.

But for the sheriff who put Beach behind bars, any decision by Montana’s Board of Pardons and Paroles to offer Beach clemency or commute his life-without-parole sentence would be devastating.

Keith Morrison: If they vacate the judgment, it says that your belief in the veracity of that confession was false.

Mahlum: No. What it says is that someone else killed Kimberly Nees. And no one else killed Kimberly Nees.

Keith Morrison: Your confidence is overwhelming.

Mahlum: Good.

And then there was silence.

A week went by.

No decision.

Then two weeks came.

And finally, after three weeks of deliberation in private, the Board of Pardons and Paroles issued an e-mail. It had reached a decision, and it was unanimous.

In the matter of Barry Beach, the answer was no.

No clemency, no pardon, no commutation of sentence. No parole. No appeal.

Barry Beach stays in prison. For life. Period.

McCloskey: My initial reaction was one of utter disbelief.

For Centurion ministries, it was, quite simply, stunning.

Keith Morrison: They didn't buy a single one of your arguments.

Jim McCloskey: Not one. We brought forward, in both hearings, 34 witnesses. And we were zero for 34 in the board's eyes.

Centurion believed it had proved Beach's confession was clearly false.

But the board called it "as compelling as fingerprints" and "consistently in keeping with the actual physical evidence."

Centurion had pointed out that none of the physical evidence, like footprints, or the palm print, connected Beach to the crime.

But the board wrote that there was "no reason to believe the footprints are in any way connected to this murder' and said the telltale bloody palm print, had "little probative value."

Centurion presented witnesses who offered evidence Kim Nees was killed by a group of girls.

But the board called their testimony "amorphous statements" and said the victim's wounds were "more typically reflective of a single assailant" than any group.

And in a final sentence, the board wrote that “a day ultimately comes when matters are deemed settled; from our perspective, if never before, at last today is that day."

Racicot: This case did not have any kind of persuasive force to it.

The parole board declined Dateline's requests for interviews. But for former prosecutor Marc Racicot, the decision confirmed what he had always believed to be a righteous conviction.

Racicot: I don't think they performed the kind of searing scrutiny that they should have before they moved forward with the case.

Keith Morrison: So now the questions have all been laid to rest?

Racicot: Well I think all the reasonable questions that people can answer, everything that could be done, has been done in order to answer every question that people have.

Well, not quite.

Centurion ministries founder Jim McCloskey and attorney Peter Camiel, who'd worked for nearly a decade on the Beach case, said it seemed to them that Montana’s Board of Pardons and Paroles simply ignored or twisted the evidence pointing to Beach's innocence.

Jim McCloskey: Their opinion exhibited a real distortion of the facts of the case. In the end, we really have to question their sincerity.

Keith Morrison: That's a pretty serious charge. Pretense. Question their sincerity?

Jim McCloskey: Absolutely. But that's what we think we have very good reason to believe.

Keith Morrison: What happens to Barry Beach? Does he die in prison?

Peter Camiel: Not if we can help it.

Jim McCloskey: We will do all in our power to continue the struggle to free him.

In fact, Beach's defense team filed papers in court asking for a hearing on what it calls “newly discovered evidence,” those witnesses claiming to have heard the girls confess, and asking for new tests on that bloody palm print.

But four days ago, a judge refused to grant that hearing. An appeal to Montana’s Supreme Court is next.

But, despite the lack of physical evidence linking Beach to the crime, despite the evidence dug up by Centurion for his innocence, Barry Beach --who after all did confess to the murder -- remains in prison, likely forever.

And in Poplar, that little Montana town that is still reeling, in some ways, from a death nearly 29 years ago, the whispers about "real killers" persist.

Keith Morrison: What is it going to take to stop the whispers?

Sissy Atkinson: I don't know. I don't care. Because I’m not involved. If Barry didn't kill Kim, then I don't know who killed Kim. But Barry put Barry where he's at. He confessed.

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