Tonight on 20/20... As a doctor he deals with sickness. He turns up. He's got a smile on his face. But what his patients don't know... I'm trying to deal with this the best way I know how. ...is that he's living with dying Everybody dies, some of us sooner than others. Then body extreme ` Pec implants and augmentation, bicep implants, tricep implants. The stranger the surgery, the better. but does plastic make perfect? And bombs in suburbia. I put the key in the ignition, turned it on and kaboom. An explosion happened... The blast blew out the windshield of the truck... Who tried to kill this suburban mother and why? Captions by TVNZ Access Services. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright TVNZ Access Services 2012 Kia ora, I'm Sonya Wilson. He works every day to save lives, all the while not knowing how long he has left to live himself. Dr Jared Noel is just 31 years old and he has terminal cancer. He first appeared on 20/20 last year with Claire Wilson, who died not long after the story went to air. For Jared, his work as a doctor has helped him shift the focus away from disease. And for now, Jared is defying the odds, as he continues to hope, love, laugh and work, treating those who're often much healthier than he is. Emma Keeling and the doctor who's living with dying. ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC You're still with us, still alive? You're still with us, still alive? Yeah, I'm still here. I'm happy about that. BUSH'S 'GLYCERINE' Dr Jared Noel is a man who lives in the shadow of death. He has terminal cancer but continues to put others first. All right, sit back. For those he works alongside, the people he helps, his dedication is astounding. You wouldn't know that he's got cancer. He turns up; he's got a smile on his face. Had much to eat and drink this evening? Had much to eat and drink this evening? Uh, no. (CHUCKLES) Amazing bedside manner. Not even worrying about personally what's going on with him. I think when they realise that you can kinda understand what they're going through, there's sort of a sense of, 'Oh, I'm not alone here,' or, 'I'm not just one tiny cog in a giant system.' You can't tell Jared he's something special. To him, he's just a man living with dying. And when I work, it's like life is back to normal. There's a real sense that it means that chemo is not` or cancer is not the core thing of what my life is about. He's not an emotional guy. In fact, he'll always laugh before he cries. I should pretend to tell a joke and you have to laugh. You see this humour in his blog, even after chemo. Tim-tams aren't the best to regurgitate. Chemo's not easy, and it gets harder and harder. But it's keeping the disease stable. Most patients will have 12 to 24 rounds max. This is round 49. Almost three years. When I had the meeting with my oncologist just recently, he did say that he would doubt that there's anyone else in the world who's had 49 rounds of chemotherapy for this regime. Every two weeks, he comes here and loses the next four days of his life to the effects. Feeling sorry for myself, but that's pretty normal for a Friday. Feeling pretty nauseous. Tummy kind of feels a bit bloated. Um, really all I can drink is... Gatorade. But on the upside, I haven't really dry-retched over the toilet yet. Um, often doing that on a Friday, so, uh, yeah, could be worse. For the past hour or... (HICCUPS) so, I've been plagued with hiccups, which, um, I sometimes get and sometimes don't, but basically it's a manifestation of nausea. You hiccup a lot, and there's not really any way of getting rid of them except for laying down. (HICCUPS) So this is what I've had attached to me for the past, uh, 46 hours. Basically it's a giant balloon full of fluorouracil. So once that's disconnected, that will be the end of this round of chemotherapy and I will spend the next couple of days slowly recovering and be well enough to be back at work on Wednesday, hopefully. How many days has chemo taken from you? Well, if you were to do the maths, 49 rounds ` I mean, I take five days off work with each round, so I guess five times 49 is... 240... (CHUCKLES) (CHUCKLES) BOTH LAUGH (CHUCKLES) BOTH LAUGH I can't do it! > Five times 50 is 250. Five times 50 is 250. BOTH LAUGH < I'm not good at maths. I'm not helping you. (LAUGHS) < I'm not good at maths. I'm not helping you. (LAUGHS) Where's my calculator? It's quite a lot, then, Jared, yeah. It's quite a lot, then, Jared, yeah. Well, 250, uh, days is three-quarters of a year, and that's three-quarters of a year that I've spent, um, either in bed or just at home not being able to do anything. PEARL JAM'S YELLOW LEDBETTER When 20/20 first met him and wife Hannah 18 months ago, Jared only had a 20% chance of still being alive today. I think that was where it hit home most of all is when we actually had to break it to other people. His friend Claire also featured in our story. She'd just got married and turned 30 when she died a few weeks later. How did Claire's death affect Jared? He was just sobered by it, really. Um, he's not a... (SIGHS) a hugely emotional guy, but I think it's something just to walk that road with someone and have similar experiences, a similar journey. And along with that comes a sense of almost guilt ` you know, it's that sense that we're here a year later looking back, and` and she's not. THE STONE ROSES' 'WATERFALL' LAUGHTER You could understand Jared and Hannah focusing on final moments, but that's not how they roll. See, reporters do carry things! With his parent's help, they're moving out of their rented apartment... and into their first home. Tingly feeling, Hannah? Yep, yep, it's really nice to have a place that's ours. Um, well, a little bit of it's ours. The rest is the bank's. The rest is the bank's. The rest of it belongs to the bank. (LAUGHS) # Now you're at the wheel. # And what does it mean to you to be in your own home? And what does it mean to you to be in your own home? I think it just feels really normal. This is what a lot of our friends are doing and what a lot of young people do when they're our age. They're living for the present while Jared's planning for Hannah's future. In some ways, that's the hardest thing for me is knowing that at some point... she is gonna have to cope with my dying, and I'm not going to be around to look after her. BRIGHT EYES' 'FIRST DAY OF MY LIFE' I have just a little group of, um, friends who I cry with now and then, and that really helps because, um, I don't want to burden Jared with that either. She's gonna have to go it alone afterwards, and that` that's hard, and that's probably the hardest part of this entire journey is that, um... yeah, is` is thinking towards that kind of future. Mm. OK, so this will be a little scratch. OK, so this will be a little scratch. Yep. Tonight Jared's in the emergency department at Auckland Hospital. For me personally, every time I've gone down the track of starting to think that I need to look after myself more or cut back or do things, that's when I get more depressed about the situation. I have a bit of an understanding of what chemotherapy's like, but to` to actually be doing it himself, I can't imagine how that would feel, and then come into such a high-intensity job... # I don't ever want to let you down. # When did all this start? He doesn't tell patients, unless he thinks it might help. He comes home and tells us about the young people who he knows who have been diagnosed with cancer. I think he sees his own story in each and every one of them. Emotionally, do you feel more affected, especially when it's people in in your situation? If I meet young people with a significant diagnoses, um, then.. I would certainly sort of feel for them a lot more, because, you know, I know what it's like to have your world changed overnight. But even doctors can be seduced by hope, and Jared saw a glimmer in February. Was this the first time anyone had said, 'This could cure you'? Yeah, it really was. Um, since I've been told that it was likely gonna end in my death, um, that was the first time that medicine had really begun to offer a solution, and so we were quite excited about that. THE STONE ROSES' 'FOOL'S GOLD' I'm glad somebody knows what's going on in here. 'Ever since being diagnosed with bowel cancer at 27, the news had always been bad.' I thought we said five? I thought we said five? Six. Better to have too much. > However, they never stopped living, continuing to work and travel. So what was the` the favourite spot in Italy for you, Hannah? I think for me ` for both of us ` it was` it was Tuscany, really. Romance? Bit of romance there? What did you do? Turn it on? Just bought cheap euro bottles of wine and` Nice. Good Kiwi boy. Well done. Nice. Good Kiwi boy. Well done. LAUGHTER POP! There's lots to celebrate and laugh about. Jared's parents Ruth and Royston often drop round. It's just nice to get home and` and share the cooking as God intended. It's just nice to get home and` and share the cooking as God intended. BOTH LAUGH What's he like on dishes? What's he like on dishes? Poor. Poor. Poor. Poor. Poor. Poor. He gets eczema so... (LAUGHS) I dry. I don't wash. I dry. I don't wash. He uses it as the most convenient of excuses. What other excuses have you got lined up? Oh, terminal illness. That works often. Oh, terminal illness. That works often. LAUGHTER This would get me through to the next round of MasterChef. This would get me through to the next round of MasterChef. Bon apetito. Bon appetite. Earlier this year, they hoped for more to celebrate when Jared's cancer wasn't behaving as expected and doctors operated in February. We were thinking that kids could be on the cards again. I was thinking career ` what I was gonna do, get on to a training scheme. I guess it was a period of hopefulness and a sense that we might have dodged a bullet, um, but it wasn't to be. CANDLEBOX'S 'FAR BEHIND' In May, Jared was told the cancer was back and now in his liver. It was like being sucker-punched... (ECHOES) sucker-punched. How did he tell you? I just drove home like a maniac, and, um, he just met me at the door, and we were both, um, in tears in a really short space of time. All I could say to her when she came home was sorry. You know, 'I'm so sorry.' And she's like, 'It's not your fault.' I said, 'I know that, but I feel like I've just sort of dropped the ball here, you know.' It was this little ray of light that hadn't been shining for a quite a period of time, and, yes, we found ourselves drawn to grasping this hope, and, uh, you know, in hindsight, you can say, 'Well, you know, it that that was a bit silly wasn't it?' But I wouldn't have done it differently if I had the chance again. You know, it` it was worth hanging on to that hope. Just very recently, I said to him, 'I can't imagine life without you.' And his response to that was, um, 'Mum, 500 kids die every day of pneumonia in the Third World.' So that's Jared's typical sort of response: 'I don't want pity', you know. And we've learned to sort of manage it and embrace it. Jared knows he may not be around this time next year, but cancer isn't his focus. Had I decided to stop life at the diagnosis, I wouldn't even finished medical school. THE STONE ROSES' 'I AM THE RESURRECTION' His photography shows just what's important; what's helped him through these last four years. Medicine, his work, faith, new experiences and his community. On top of everything else, Jared runs a not-for-profit cafe with friends. Where we meet, where we eat and where we laugh together and journey together, because life is not meant to be lived alone. How do you feel about the future now? We definitely talk about this quite a bit that we must make it count now, and we see Jared's life counting now too, and that's a privilege, because we're proud of him, what he's doing and` and the impact he's having with his life and his medicine and with Hannah and his faith. Jared will keep saving lives until his own can't be saved. When he's not on chemo, he's still well and he's still working and he's still enjoying life, and that for me is the biggest thing. Um, so I think I've just given up trying to guess how long we` he'll have and, um, just resigned to enjoying the life he's got. I'm alive and life is about living, and so for me I will go ahead and try and live the best life that I can. And it will be shorter than everybody else's, or most other peoples, but that's OK. I'm OK with that, you know. Um, some people die younger and some people die older and have never lived. Now, we'd just like to say a special thanks to Jared's patients and his colleagues at Auckland City Hospital who agreed to be part of our story. Um, my condolences too to Claire Wilson's family and friends who continue to mourn her loss. She was part of our original story on bowel cancer. She was a lovely, lovely woman, and she passed away last year. Next up on 20/20 ` does plastic make perfect? Over the past decade, he's had dozens of surgeries. I've had cranial-brow bone shave, cheek augmentation, four sets of lip injections, pec implants, chin augmentation, bicep implants, tricep implants. The grand total? 90. < 90 procedures? < 90 procedures? Correct. 1 In the search for perfection, are some people going too far? You're about to meet Justin Jedlica who calls himself the 21st century Ken doll, has had over 90 procedures and never wants to stop. Then there's Lacey Wildd, the woman with the seventh-largest breasts in the world. She supports her kids with her paid public appearances and has had to have a special system built into her body to support her triple-L cup size. No matter how strange the desire ` from supersizing your breasts to transforming into a human Ken doll ` when it comes to plastic surgery, is beauty getting more extreme? With those chiselled cheekbones and sculpted biceps, Justin Jedlica is a self-proclaimed addict. I love to, really, metamorphosise myself, and, um, the stranger the surgery, the better. Really? Really? Yeah. Bucking the norm is so much fun. Over the past decade, he's had dozens of surgeries. I've had a cranial brow bone shave, cheek augmentation, four sets of lip injections, pec implants, chin augmentation, bicep implants, tricep implants... The grand total: 90. 90 procedures? 90 procedures? Correct. And when will you stop? And when will you stop? Why`? Why would I stop? Those 90 procedures have transformed Justin into a living sculpture of silicone. Nearly every inch of his upper body bulges with implants. I started with, uh, my glutes. I started with, uh, my glutes. What did you want done? I started with, uh, my glutes. What did you want done? Perky, high, tight. 13 sessions later, he has a ledge to rival Kim Kardashian's. But it didn't end there. Then, after I did the chest, people used to say, 'Do you just work out your chest? It's amazing, but you have no arms.' So I ended up going and, uh, was looking for a doctor who would do bicep, tricep implants. Let me throw out a crazy question ` why not just work out to get biceps and triceps? That is so not exciting; not glamorous or fabulous. As a child, he was an overachiever; a straight-A student with a secret loathing. My nose was always a big source of tension in my head. For me, it was something that was astronomically huge. It took him five nose jobs to achieve something close to his ideal ` close. It's still not 100%. From three-quarters this way... This side could be tacked in here. This cartilage could be tacked in, like, a tish. And this could be rotated up about 1.5mm. OK, that sounds crazy. It's being very particular. What do you see when you look in the mirror? What do you see when you look in the mirror? I still think I'm a handsome guy. I always have ` after my first nose job. (CHUCKLES) The first nose job was a need, and everything after that has been a want. I love what it is I've allowed myself to become. Lacey Wildd is all that and more. She has the seventh-largest breasts in the world. There's a million blonde girls with big boobs in this world, but there's not a million blonde girls with humungous boobs in this world. Just so happens that I am one of those. How much do your breasts weigh? How much do your breasts weigh? 21 pounds. Each? Each? Together. Each? Together. Together. Why are you doing this? I do this to take care of my family and to make money. Do you think you look beautiful? Do you think you look beautiful? I think I look like a regular girl, but just to the extreme. A regular girl with L-size cups. I know. You don't see me on every corner. At home in Hollywood, Florida, she tries to hide her assets so she looks like the mom next door. Extra-large pants, extra-large jacket required for this operation. Look. Normal mom, right? In 100-degree weather. On the way to picking up her kids from school, she talks about how she makes her living. 'I do public appearances. I have a website I go to every day.' I just got asked to do... go to the grand opening of a daycare, because they want the dads to get involved. No matter the rewards, those volleyball-sized breasts do restrict her life. I can't run and do things. I can't work out. I can't jog. My implants, sitting on my ribs, have actually indented my ribs. And sleeping under the weight of two bowling balls takes weird choreography. After a little while, I can't take it any more. I feel like I'm... being suffocated. So then, um... (GRUNTS) Turn... (GRUNTS) It's no surprise that she has to custom-make her bras. But her breasts are so heavy that her doctors surgically implanted a pigskin corset into her chest to support them. You can feel it. It goes all the way down. It wasn't always this way. Before she was Lacey, she was Paula ` just a poor girl from West Virginia. That's the house I grew up in. I slept on the floor. I don't think I'll ever, um, be that poor again. She married at 16; was divorced with two kids by 21. Lacey was scraping by on her salary as a waitress when suddenly she had an inspiration. I knew that the girls that were waitressing that made the most money had the bigger boobs. 12 breast surgeries later, Lacey Wildd was born. She says her oversized breasts earn her thousands. What do the world's biggest-boob models make? What do the world's biggest-boob models make? You can make about $250,000 a year. But for her children, the costs of living with a mom who looks like this are high. On this day, her public appearance at a weekend event draws a mob. And that brunette next to her, that's her daughter Tori. It's just crazy. It's annoying. It's really... I feel like we should have a normal time, you know, walking down the street. I wish she could take 'em off when we go places together. Amazingly, she's now preparing to go even bigger ` from a triple-L cup to a triple-M. But her last implants were so large that she tore a pectoral muscle and started haemorrhaging. And now no doctor in America is willing to do her next operation. I went into this knowing that there are going to be very big risks involved, and I'm ready to take that chance. But Tori is upset about that gamble. When people put on the internet, 'I'm gonna kill myself,' people write, 'Do it. Do it.' They don't care about you. They just wanna see you do something crazy. And then they're done. So, are you gonna do it? Well, I haven't done it yet, so... Well, I haven't done it yet, so... That` That wasn't my question. < How are you making more money if it's an M versus an L? Big is big. I'll be the number-one-booked breast star in the world, I'm sure. Then people will start booking her. Kind of like, you know, when you go and see the two-headed man. It's not like they're booking her because, 'Oh, wow, she's sexy.' It's not like they're booking her because, 'Oh, wow, she's sexy.' Thank you, dear (!) I just love you saying that. Like, you know... Like, people` Like, you know... Like, people` She's basically saying I'm a sideshow. I'm won't do this forever. There will be a day that I do settle down in my little house in the country or whatever and I take my implants out and I look like I used to ` just with grey hair. (CHUCKLES) It's hard to say what really drives the obsession Lacey and Justin have with their bodies,... The way this world works, sex sells. Um, the world has actually Lacey Wildd, not me. ...but at the end of the day, I couldn't help but wonder, does plastic make perfect? There is no perfect. I don't think that there's any real end point. You have to wonder if all this surgery's about making us look better or just about making other people look twice. Hard to know what to say about that one. Uh, next up on 20/20 ` car bombs in suburban America. BOOM! A scene straight from the Sopranos... GUNSHOTS ...rocked this suburban San Diego neighbourhood. An explosion happened... The blast blew out the windshield... A scary moment in... I put the key in the ignition, turned it on and kaboom. It just... was a very very loud explosion. CELLPHONE BEEPS Mummy needs a coffee. Thank you. Hey, where's Tina? At school. At school. BOTH READ: Ed's been cutting hair again. Yuck! Nescafe ` gets you together. 1 Welcome back. A San Diego daycare worker is blown up by a car bomb in suburbia. She survives the blast, but it turns out this wasn't the first attempt on her life. So who on earth would want her dead? On a quiet September afternoon, as parents picked up their kids from daycare,... BOOM! a scene straight from The Sopranos... GUNSHOTS ...rocked this suburban San Diego neighbourhood. An explosion happened. The blast blew out the windshield of a truck. I put the key in the ignition, turned it on, and... kaboom! It just... was a very very loud explosion. Just made my heart stop. The victim was Connie Hoagland ` a daycare teacher, wife and mother. I saw Connie laying in the middle of the street, curled up in a ball, in a pool of blood. There is glass, shrapnel everywhere. And my first thought was, 'This is what it looks like in a war zone.' Someone had planted a pipe bomb in her truck ` powerful enough to explode a small shack. I just remember my feet were... they were in such pain. It felt like they were just jelly; like they were` they were just blown off. Paramedics rushed her to the hospital. And it was just hard to see your mother like that and not know what happened yet. So you're just confused. They literally had to rebuild her right leg ` there's a rod in it ` and rebuild her left foot. I'm praying, 'God, don't let her die.' Did you have any idea who could have put that in your truck? That was the hard part. I just thought it was a random explosion. I couldn't think of anyone who would do that. It didn't make sense to Detective Robert Luke either. Who would want to kill a suburban housewife like Connie? Maybe the bomb was intended for someone else at the daycare centre. There was a lot of law enforcement people that took their kids there. 'Was someone trying to target one of these people 'for a case that they're working that we know nothing about?' 'for a case that they're working that we know nothing about?' One of the policemen who was a parent of one of the kids at the daycare centre ` might he or she have been the target? Yes ` mistaken vehicle. But this wasn't the first pipe bomb to turn up in the area. Two weeks earlier, an unexploded bomb was found two blocks from the Hoagland home. For Detective Luke, that was too much of a coincidence. Was there something about Connie Hoagland? Something in her past that had come back to haunt her? Was it gambling debt? Was it some kind of drug deals gone wrong? We looked at every angle there was. When you did question her family, her husband and her children, what did you learn? How did they strike you? They struck me as a very... nice family. They stuck together. They were very proud of each other. They were supportive of each other. They were as all-American as a Norman Rockwell painting. Connie and Larry fell in love and married in their 20s. He was a professional photographer ` charming, well liked and respected. Connie always had a smile for everyone and rarely spoke an unkind word. Both were active in church and taught bible study. Their kids: Jill, Jacquelyn and Jonathan. This wasn't a family with enemies. And yet, as Detective Luke dug deeper, he discovered life inside the Hoagland home wasn't as tranquil as he thought. Like so many people, they were deep in debt and facing bankruptcy. Connie revealed Larry was depressed. You describe a pretty marked personality change in Larry. A little more tense; snapped more; just grumpy ` because of all the stress, no money and everything. I was just extra nice to him. But the financial strain was taking its toll on Larry. He took on extra work, making frequent business trips all the way to the East Coast. He was travelling to Pennsylvania a lot ` to someone back there named Bob. This was a client? This was a client? Yes. This was a client? Yes. Bob must have been a big client. That's what I thought. I thought, 'OK, well, go back and make money.' So, who was this mysterious Bob? Where was the money from all those trips? That's what Larry's business partner wanted to know, so he went snooping on the office computer they shared. The business partner was doing a search ` uh, previous web searches. It came up with, uh, almost 23 different sites ` uh, various bomb-making information. Somebody at Larry's office had searched on the internet, 23 times, how to build a bomb? Yes. And that somebody was Larry. He'd been the only one in the office when the searches were made. And there was more. His cell phone revealed a virtual blueprint of a life he had hidden from his wife and kids. Larry Hoagland was arrested and jailed. From behind bars, he delivered yet another bombshell ` he had been carrying on with another woman for three years. He said, 'Hi, Connie. I just wanted to let you know, because it's gonna get out, 'that I've been having an affair.' Then I said, 'But I'm dedicated to you ever since the day of the bombing.' 'I've been having an affair, but I'm rededicated to you since the bombing?' Yes. Uh-huh. And then he said, 'And I didn't do it.' He called me from jail, and he, um, said, 'I didn't do it. I didn't do it.' I said, 'No, I know you didn't. I know you didn't.' But after 25 years of marriage, how well did Connie and his children really know him? From behind bars, he insists investigators have the wrong man. I did not try to kill my wife. There is someone out there who did. OK, next up we're in court to hear the husband mount an incredible defence as the evidence piles up against him. All the pieces began to fall into place. While the case against Larry as a cad was air-tight, Detective Luke teaming up with ATF agent Matthew Beals was building a case against Larry as a would-be killer. Remember that unexploded pipe bomb found near the Hoagland home? They believed it had fallen from underneath Connie's car, where Larry had taped it. But investigators needed proof. ANGELIC MUSIC Discover irresistibly soft hands every time you wash with new Dettol Touch of Foam. Unlike ordinary handwash, its dual-effect formula delivers moisture to the skin and kills 99.9% of germs, keeping your hands soft and healthy. ANGELIC MUSIC For irresistibly soft and healthy hands, don't compromise. Try new Dettol Touch of Foam. 1 Welcome back. She has survived her husband trying to kill her with a car bomb, and now has tell her kids that their father was living a double life. We're in court as the awful truth comes out and her husband takes the stand, still claiming it wasn't him. Shocking twist in the... The woman's husband is behind bars. Larry Hoagland charged with attempted murder. Trying to kill his wife. His wife. ...his wife with a bomb. BOOM! No one was more shocked by Larry Hoagland's arrest than his own family. It never once occurred to you that Larry could be behind this pipe bomb? It really didn't. It really didn't. Despite all the tension at home? I didn't even think that he would have been a suspect. But she had suspected an affair; even questioned him about it. He denied it, and she let it go. Now, from her hospital bed, the harsh reality ` not only was her husband a cheat; he also tried to kill her. You've been lying to us, cheating. It's, like, 'I don't know you. Who are you?' He just quit caring about, I think, Connie as a person, and he became so self-involved with himself that's that all that mattered ` him and LeeAnn. LeAnn Rupert ` the other woman. Larry insisted a cheating heart was his only crime; not attempted murder. But for Connie and the kids, their empty bank account and those frequent so-called business trips to Pennsylvania suddenly made sense. LeAnn and Larry had a history. They were high school sweethearts and had reunited three years earlier. Teenage love quickly morphed into middle-aged passion. He wasn't just having an affair; he was leading a double life. He considered that his home. Pennsylvania? Pennsylvania? Mm-hm. Pennsylvania? Mm-hm. LeeAnn's house? He refers to it all the time in his texts to her: 'Can't wait to get to our house. Can't wait to get home.' All the pieces began to fall into place. While the case against Larry as a cad was airtight, Detective Luke, teaming up with ATF agent Matthew Beals, was building a case against Larry as a would-be killer. Remember that unexploded pipe bomb found near the Hoagland home? They believed it had fallen from underneath Connie's car, where Larry had taped it. But investigators needed proof. I just had this thought, 'You know what, has anyone gone through his wallet yet?' And so I went through all the scrap paper in his wallet, and lo and behold, I found the telephone numbers for the first bomb. That's right ` two numbers connecting Larry to the cell phones used to detonate the bomb. Investigators say he tried unsuccessfully 18 times to set off the bomb. So that was huge in just confirming, uh, that we were on the right track; we had the right guy. Last April, the man who had led a double life without batting an eye went on trial for attempted murder. During Larry's 19 months in jail, Connie never saw him. But before she could write him off completely, she had to face him one last time. What was that like? What was that like? It was hard. Um, I do have scars on my legs. There's a rod in my foot. And my hearing is bad. It's just a sickening feeling to look at someone who tried to... to,... you know, blow you up. And for him to act like he didn't do it... It's just unbelievable, is what it is. In court, Connie looked into the eyes of LeAnn Rupert, the woman Larry loved so much, he was willing to risk everything, even abandoning his own family for hers. She says she knew nothing about the plot to kill Connie and believed Larry when he said he had filed for divorce already. He was going to move back to Pennsylvania, and he was going to move into my home, and... I often told him I didn't care what he had or what it was; he could come with the shirt on his back. And then, to a hushed courtroom, Larry did something criminal defendants rarely do ` he took the stand in his own defence. < Connie asked you directly, 'Are you having an affair?' < Connie asked you directly, 'Are you having an affair?' I` I told her that I was not. < Why would you do that? < Why would you do that? I was` I was being less than honest. I was lying to Connie. And, in a moment of astonishing candour, he revealed his true feelings about divorce. I never really believed in divorce. < You weren't going to tell your wife that you were getting a divorce until... when? (SIGHS) It... It sounds so cold, but I... just about when I was leaving the house. It sounds very cowardly, but that's... that's what I was gonna do. Larry's defence fell apart when he explained how those phone numbers ended up in his wallet. Prosecutors say his answer stunned the courtroom. They were given to me by, um, a transient that I called Jerry. It'll stand out in my career as one of those moments where you realise, 'This case is going better than expected.' You don't know the last name? You don't know the last name? No, I don't. And I don't remember the... the specific wording, but he said, 'Here's my phone number.' How many times has that happened? Somebody takes the stand and, out of the blue, comes up with a new theory? Just doesn't happen that often. Just doesn't happen that often. Right. I think Larry truly believed that he could say anything he wanted and the jury would believe him. But they didn't. The verdict: we, the jury, find the defendant guilty of the crime of attempted murder. He was sentenced to life plus 13 years. Today, Connie is divorced. She is a survivor. Connie is an amazing lady. She walked through the shadow of death and came out dancing. In the end, Connie says she had to forgive Larry in order to forget him. It's a miracle that I can even walk and that I'm even alive. I have a new life, and I don't want to think about him any more. And, at the end, I just had to forgive him. Next up on 20/20 ` mirror, mirror, off the wall ` we meet a woman living without mirrors. In a world obsessed with image, Kjerstin is obsessed with its opposite. She's decided not to look into a mirror ` not for a day, not for a month but for an entire year. It takes a lot of nerve. You're on national television, and you have not looked in a mirror. I am curious about what I look like. 1 Welcome back. In a world obsessed with image, Kjerstin Gruys has decided to avoid looking into the mirror not for a day, not for a month but for an entire year. Six months before her wedding, in an attempt to avoid fixating on the perfect, Kjerstin launched her project A Year Without Mirrors. Robin Roberts reports. All right, I'm gonna get up. 29-year-old Kjerstin Gruys is living her life mirror-free. Her mornings begin with a typical teeth-brushing, but a curtain obscures the view. Make-up is applied by instinct alone. That's pretty much it. (CHUCKLES) Driving to work requires quick glances in the mirrors, but peeking at her own face is not allowed. I just put a Post-it note, um, over it as a reminder. In a world obsessed with image, Kjerstin is obsessed with its opposite. She's decided not to look into a mirror ` not for a day; not a month; but for an entire year. I gotta tell you, it takes a lot of nerve. You're on national TV, and you have not looked in a mirror. I'm curious about what I look like. I have no idea what my haircut looks like. You look great. You look great. (CHUCKLES) I'll take your word for it. It's an unusual experiment ` an attempt, she says, to save her self-esteem. She's in the process of wedding planning ` the day brides hope to be at their most beautiful. But to avoid fixating on perfection, six months before her wedding, Kjerstin launched her project ` a year without mirrors, documented in her blog Mirror, Mirror... Off The Wall. For Kjerstin, mirrors often bring more pain than pleasure; a reminder of not living up to an ideal standard. There aren't a lot of beauty role models who are above a size 4 or 6. You know, I'm roughly a size 10. I have a very normal body. But I compare myself to women who are photoshopped so they don't even look like the actual women. Insecurities about her appearance have plagued her since high school, when she developed an eating disorder. I was afraid I wouldn't find someone to, you know, love me unless I was perfect. All of my obsessing was kind of directed toward, you know, how much I weighed. Didn't you have some... some real health issues because of your disorder? Yes. I had kidney stones five times, and the lack of body fat started affecting my bone density. When you decide you want to change and you can't, that's when it gets really scary. And... that's when I decided I really needed to get help. Because I didn't want to live like that. I especially didn't want to feel like that. And I felt like I was going crazy. With years of therapy, Kjerstin successfully overcame her eating disorder. She became a PhD student in sociology and even began volunteering for About-Face ` an organisation that teaches young women about positive body image. Be an example to others, focusing on the things you love about yourself. And, in 2009, she met the man of her dreams, Michael. PEOPLE SCREAM, CHEER But the thrill of romance lost its lustre during her wedding dress shopping, which resurrected those old anxieties. I saw myself in the mirror and was being critical. I thought, 'Maybe I should lose a little weight before the wedding.' I thought, 'Maybe I should lose a little weight before the wedding.' Triggers were going off? Yeah, I just kept coming back to obsessing about my appearance, and I thought, 'Maybe I need to change something about my environment, 'um, to force me to change.' And I just thought to myself, 'Get rid of mirrors.' First step: Kjerstin transformed her apartment into a mirror-free zone. There is only one mirror, and it's in a huge box. It wasn't until a couple of weeks in that I started realising, like, 'What have I signed on for?' In the beginning, there were some maintenance mishaps. The first month of the project, when I was walking out the door, it was maybe, like, a 50/50 shot that I had mascara on my nose. But she learned to adapt. As I bring something to my face, I'm actually looking at this. I can feel it touching my eyelid. And then, when I close down on my lashes, I can also feel that. Well, let me turn your chair. Well, let me turn your chair. Thank you. Kjerstin does have help at the hair salon,... It looks great ` fabulous. ...but she can't see the end result. Can I touch it? She says she's trained herself to avoid eye contact with her own image. By the way, I can see myself in your sunglasses. By the way, I can see myself in your sunglasses. Oh! OK. A lot of people are saying, 'Come on, there's certain things you gotta look in the mirror to do.' I do see myself out of the corner of my eye every day, because reflective surfaces are everywhere. But I don't look. If I'm talking to someone,... If I'm talking to someone,... Yeah. Yeah. ...it's better for me to talk to you... ...it's better for me to talk to you... Ah! So that I'm looking in the other direction. Some people would say that not looking in the mirror isn't really dealing with, deep down, the obvious issues that you must have. that you must have. Mm-hm. Do you feel that you're really facing them head-on? I think this is the most head-on I have ever faced them. Because I'm not looking in the mirror, I think a lot more about how I feel than how I look. While not looking in mirrors has curbed self-criticism, Kjerstin has not been able to avoid cruel comments online. 'Wouldn't it be easier just to lose the weight?' 'If I looked like her, I would look away too. She's ugly.' She admits they do sting. I mean, those comments are so hurtful. And I swear, if I hadn't had, like, 10 years of therapy after an eating disorder, it would have given me one. But the biggest challenge by far is the wedding day. What bride can resist the temptation to see themselves on their big day? But Kjerstin was resolute. Bridesmaids scurry to shield the mirrors from her view. And, while Kjerstin had help with her hair,... Your hair looks really cute. Your hair looks really cute. Thank you. ...unbelievably, she did her own make-up. If I feel the brush up here, it's in the right spot; you know, bronzer down here. This is actually highlighter, because I'm gonna be a bride today. Then, the moment all brides dream of ` the sight of their own magnificent reflection in the mirror. For Kjerstin, it was a sight unseen. I don't get that, um... (GASPS) in the mirror. 'I'm a bride!' But I don't have any regrets about not seeing myself on my wedding day. I think I look good. (LAUGHS) And if she didn't, she had plenty of backup. No one was gonna let me walk down the aisle with broccoli in my teeth. I now pronounce you husband and wife. CHEERING, APPLAUSE Their first dance as husband and wife: fittingly, it was to a song called I'll Be Your Mirror. # I'll be your mirror; # reflect what you are. # If you want to see any of tonight's stories again, head to our website ` You can also email us at... Or go to our Facebook page ` and let us know what you make of tonight's show. Thanks for all your feedback. Keep it coming, and give us a shout if you've got a story idea you think we should look into.