We have all heard this story before: I DIDN'T DO IT.

As a child, the lying may start when questioned about the whereabouts of the missing cookies. Crumbs on the tee shirt and chocolate chip smears about the lips do not stop the quick-talking denial of the obvious. After thorough interrogation, typically from a poker-faced parent, a child realizes he or she is busted and sheepishly confesses to the culinary robbery. A crime spree thwarted, extra broccoli for dinner is administered as punishment and all is right again with the world.

But what happens when someone confesses and there are no crumbs on the shirt, no chocolate smears on the lips? In fact, he was not even near the cookie jar. What if the trail of crumbs lead to a completely different direction like they did 29 years ago in Poplar, Montana?

Poplar, Montana. The name alone conjures up visions of small town beauty, tenderly framed by the still wild Montana landscape. A place that welcomes visitors with down-home grace and long established businesses run by several generations. One can imagine a bustling diner on the main drag where all the locals congregate to share the news of the day over steaming mugs of hot coffee. Poplar has all that, and more. Much more.

Imagination is one thing; reality is another. Poplar, Montana is a toxic dump of murders, secrets and suppositions, oozing out slowly through 24 years of overheard admissions and guilt-racked souls. For whatever reasons-and there seem to be many-the truth failed to surface initially, and a man's life hangs in suspension for a crime he may not have committed.

Barry Beach, now 45 years old, was convicted in 1984 of the 1979 murder of Kim Nees, a popular 17 year old high school graduate, and fellow student. Though Beach was questioned by police, he was assured by the authorities he was not a suspect. Beach states he did all he could to cooperate, even agreeing to a second polygraph test while he was back visiting in Poplar a year later, after visiting his father in Louisiana. The second polygraph test never happened before he returned to Louisiana. A year had passed since the murder and the police were no closer to identifying the killer.

Or were they?

In a small town of 800 people, one must wonder why law enforcement was having such a difficult time. For one thing, there was confusion from the start. This investigation was earmarked for disaster with the conglomerate of different law enforcement

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