By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – A Bloomington murder case that held the attention of Central Illinois residents during a five-week trial earlier this spring is about to receive national exposure.

NBC’s Dateline has released a minute-long preview of a story that will air Monday at 9 p.m. about the November 2014 shooting death of Pam Zimmerman, and the trial that resulted in a jury finding her former husband Kirk Zimmerman not guilty of her murder.

The Zimmerman’s three children, David, Heidi and Rachel, were among those interviewed for the story. All teenagers at the time, they were worried one morning when their mother did not come home from work.

“I walk out into the hallway, the lights were still on. Her bedroom is dark, and looks like no one had been there,” David Zimmerman said.

“We made up every possible excuse there could have been for why she wasn’t coming home,” said one of the Zimmerman’s twin daughters.

That same morning, Pam Zimmerman’s close friend, Julie Koh, told Dateline she heard from Pam’s fiance, Scott Baldwin, who lived a few hours away, and like the children, he too was concerned.

“My home phone rang, and it was Scott. He said, ‘I haven’t heard from Pam. I’ve been trying to reach her since last night.'”

Koh testified at the trial that she went to Pam Zimmerman’s east side Bloomington office and found her body. Koh was the prosecution’s first witness during a trial in which the jury of ten men and two women acquitted Kirk Zimmerman of murder.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]