Transcripts For MSNBCW Dateline 20240702

this is not what was supposed to happen. >> the note was under her blanket. >> i saw it sticking out and i grabbed it. >> their daughter was a runaway. >> i am frantic! because i did not know how to find her. >> they called police, they searched, and then, a jogger found a red shoe and a pool of blood. >> here they are, three people at the door. >> i just started sobbing. >> they had found her daughter, but not the boy she was with. it was if he had never existed. >> we couldn't find anything -- about. >> months went by, still no trace of lj. and then, a rookie took the case. >> how did you feel about it? that this was not gonna be your case? >> i didn't think i was capable of doing this. i cried the first few hours. >> a teen found dead. >> we still don't have an answer. >> a mysterious answer and the missing suspect. >> they say, lj has killed someone before. >> and hurts to solve. >> i have the feeling, you are learning how to become a detective as you go. >> this is the case that taught me. >> you have notes, we're trying to keep your children safe. >> hello and welcome to dateline! social worker veronica made one of her toughest cases deeply personal when she decided to adopt annie. over the years, annie thrived. but it turned out, she was keeping a secret that was only discovered after her disappearance. cut a fake pregnancy really have been the motive for an all to real murder? or had any run into the wrong crowd? here's dennis murphy, with the girl with the red shoes. >> veronica kasper zach is a determined woman. >> if someone said you can't save them all. >> my mother is probably the one who would say that. but yeah i heard that a lot. >> she rarely was a. the desire to do good, to save a child was too strong. though, something in the quiet hours, she wonders if she did the right thing. >> if i didn't have that house, if i had not taken a shower. if i would have done something else, she would not have been in that situation. >> of course no one could have now and then that it would end up like this. >> police department, i need to report a one-way. my daughters missing. >> her daughter was annie grace, the when veronica first met her, she was not -- . she wasn't even her daughter. she was a client, just seven years old, with the rough childhood. >> she had been through some abuse, and she had a hard time trusting other people. >> back in 2005, veronica was a caseworker for utah's division of children services. her job was to find a home for kids who no longer had one. and he was one of those kids. >> annie has a larger than life personality. whatever she does, it is not small. if there was something she liked it, it was huge. if there was something she didn't like it, it was big. and there was nothing like it. >> drama came with it? >> oh yes. >> for a nickel tried for years to find amy a stable home. but after any had been flown back to the state nine times, veronica, young, naive, and stubborn. made the surprise decision to adopt annie. >> did your superior tell you we do not do that veronica? don't cross that line? have a professional relationship with his child but do not bring her into your home? >> that was very true and at the time i happen to be six months pregnant. so i'm sure the shot thought was the pregnant lady. she does not know what she's doing! but it was very much, are you sure? you can't save everybody. but veronica was determined to try. >> she and her then husband adopted ten year annie in january 2007. annie who had bounced around from house to house finally had a home. parents and brothers who adored her. >> she was the immediate cool big sister. she liked being the oldest, being in charge. and teaching them all this cool stuff. she was wanted, happy making memories. >> opening gifts on christmas morning, her first trip to the beach. not that everything was perfect mind you. >> there was still definitely a, i'm going to test you as much as you say you love me and are keeping me. i mean to say that i don't believe you. >> how did she challenge you? >> just the quintessential, i'm not gonna do what you say. just whatever i want. >> so psychological tussle? >> yes. >> which only intensified when annie entered her teen years. >> she was a bout as boy crazy as i could imagine. she always had a boyfriend. she liked boyfriends, they liked her. and it was never a, here let me see. i'm in love with you! this is forever! i couldn't imagine anybody being more amazing! she was very all in. >> but any was also into her education and her future. she wanted to be a therapist just like veronica. she even wanted her new family to adopt more kids. >> she's there, she's really having a hard time, i think we should bring our home. >> she was really becoming her daughter in a way. >> yeah. >> francesca ventral-y divorced and remarried. she and her new husband james settled here in utah, a suburb of salt lake city. and he had james wrapped around her finger. >> i took her with me to help me pick up her mother's valentine's day gift and a huge already crossed the right. she had away with me, she could talk me into just about anything . one of them was her favorite shoes that she found. she was so excited when they arrived. >> just a few days later, march 10th 2012, annie, now 15, was watching her brother's while veronica and james went to dinner. >> then when we came home, everything seem the same. and he had changed from running around the house in shorts to jeans. i chalked it up to, okay she's gotten cold! i had a massive headache i couldn't get rid of, and i went to take a shower, and any went downstairs to listen to music, we figured it was another saturday. >> but it was not. when veronica finished her shower, and he was gone. yay james search her bedroom. >> the note was tucked underneath her blanket. i grabbed it, and it just said i'm sorry. i have not been totally honest with you. >> annie, it turned out, was keeping a secret. in the note she wrote, i lied to my friends. i told them i was p. p? francesca and james knew that it stood for the word no teenagers parents wanted to hear. pregnant. just a few omnths earlier, they learned that any had sex for the first time. >> she had sex, so any assumed that since she had sex, i could be pregnant or i am pregnant. but the pregnancy test was negative. and she was now on birth control. so why would she lie about being p? even more alarming, is where annie said she was going. by the time you read this note, i'll be on my way to cal's love for nia, please don't try to look for me, i do not want to be found. >> the first thing is, we call the police. and the second, i called, chris. >> 14 year old chris --, annie had brought him over to the house a few times. >> he was kind of quiet, i kind of took it as the i want to make sure that you don't kill me as my girlfriends partisans. >> was he good as a boyfriend? >> his stock would rise and fall? >> she was crazy about him. >> chris told veronica he did not know where any was. but he did have some information. chris said annie told him she was running away with a guy named lj. >> we were shocked because, we didn't know all of her friends, because they changed a lot. anyone she was hanging out with at the moment. but it wasn't familiar at all. >> a police officer came and took a report. james, meanwhile, called up the gps function on any cell phone. >> it took her around the golf course. within a mile of that, which is the bridge area. >> the bridge of the jordan river. just a couple of miles from their home. a place joggers, and horseback riders were at during the day, and young lovers at night. james, veronica, and the hospital what as her phone pinged across the computer screen in realtime. >> you're watching her move? >> yes. >> it was so fast, our immediate assumption is that she's getting in the car. >> so this is a hot pursuit now? >> yeah. >> and then the signal just stopped. veronica drove to a walmart near where they tracked her phone. >> and i have her picture on myself phone and i'm showing it to the people who are sitting at the front and going have you seen this girl? >> are you collected or are you a wreak form all this is going on? >> i am, frantic! >> veronica went back home and she and james watch the front door, and they kept calling annie but her phone went straight to voice mail. >> in the best of worlds she's out with some boyfriend you may or may not know off on a lark of some kind but you can get her back in the group. >> yes our worst-case scenario is she's gonna come home. >> worst-case scenario? not even close. >> coming up! >> he had told us that lj had been by the house, threatening chris. >> and a jogger makes a grim discovery. >> 9-1-1 what is the address of the emergency? 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[coughs] when caroline has a cough, she takes robitussin. so, she can have those one on ones again. hey jim! can we talk about casual fridays? oh sure. what's up? get fast, powerful cough relief with robitussin, and find your voice. ♪robitussin♪ and find your voice. dennis murphy (voiceover): march 11, 2012, spring was still officially days away, march 11th 2012, spring was but in draper, utah, its promise was clear. still officially days away, but in utah, its promise was clear, morning to on the brush, the crisp air, the sun rising over the mountains. it should have been a beautiful day, but for a jogger on the jordan river parkway that morning, it was anything but. >> 9-1-1 what is the address of the emergency? >> you know, i'm not real sure, i'm at the river bottom, and there is pools of blood. and i'm guessing it's just an animal, but in the water right by the river there is a shoe. >> sergeant -- was one of the first on the scene. >> we called forensics, that we did a presumptive test which was able to tell us that it actually was human blood. >> human blood, that changed things. >> that made us think okay, we might have about in the, water so we called a helicopter. >> the helicopter was in the air for just under an hour before it spotted something about a mile north of where the jogger saw the blood, it was caught up in some branches. as the chopper got closer, it was clear if there was a body in the river. >> sergeant, when the divers pulled the -- what did they observe to her face? >> she had a laceration on her forehead, her face was swollen, we weren't able to tell to what extent the injuries were and we couldn't even identify who she was. >> they're jane dough, red and why plaid sure looked to be about 20 years old. her features, possibly asian. and obviously, she had been murdered. leading the investigation was a young detective named derek johnson. tell me about him. >> right when he came into the academy he sat next to me and started teasing me and the rest of the class time we just harassed each other and lofton giggled all day. jacqueline met derek at the police academy, and they hit it off immediately. >> a detective spot came open, we both applied. >> did you think rats? >> yeah. >> he caught his first case, which was also the first homicide in the small town of jaipur had seen in years. some would call police just after -- gruesome scene. by the time veronica and james saw, had been missing for nearly 20 hours. >> the information that it's an asian woman under 20 that would rule out -- >> initially we were thinking no, that is not possible, there is no way. >> but then, a detail sergeant shared with salt lake city the nbc affiliate -- there was a shoe found out the crime scene and there was one on the body. >> a red shoe, the same kind james had bought any for valentine's day just weeks earlier. veronica and james tried to stay calm. we call the police, we said hey our daughter is missing. i said logically they are going to rule it out. but they couldn't rule it out. >> after call the police, that called my parents to come and pick up our boys. i just started sobbing. >> police soon determined that 20 something asian victim was a really 15-year-old annie. she had been killed by a blunt force trauma to the head. veronica and james had thought the rapid pinging of her phone meant she was driving away, now there was no hope of her ever coming home. >> it's the worst moment of your life at that point, here they are three people at the door? >> they confirmed that it was annie. i think we were in shock. we went into automatic what do you need from us? tell us what you want, you can have, and look at anything. >> veronica told investigators which he learned from annie's on again off again boyfriend chris. and he had run away with a boy named lj. >> when you talked with lj, how did you talk to--? >> i talked to him once. >> okay. >> actually on the phone. >> okay. >> police spoke to chris and his father at their home. >> and when you talked him on the, phone did he speak with an accent? or did you notice anything distinctive about his voice? >> no. >> naturally police also had to ask chris where he was. >> i was with my grandma, and at one point i did walk up to see my friend to hang out. he was at home. >> they went through the usual questions. >> when you walk to your friends, what were you wearing? >> just regular jeans and a t-shirt and my red jacket. >> just blue jeans? >> just blue jeans, nike shoes, a t-shirt underneath, and a red hoodie on. >> do you mind if we see your nike's? >> sure. >> he wanted to help, he gave the nike's to investigators as well as this close. he even gave a dna sample. after his interview, his dad called up the sergeant. >> he told us, on his phone, call that lj, a driven by the house was threatening chris. >> so more information that this lj is a very real and threatening person. >> yes. >> detectives also spoke to chris and annie's friends spencer. he said he was at the gym with his brother the night and he was killed. >> did she have an interesting gangs? >> not that she didn't really tell me. maybe she does, because of some person named lj that i have no idea who he is. all i know she told me he was in a gang. i don't know for sure. >> before he left the interview spencer shared one more thing with police. >> she said that lj has killed someone before. she never gave me the name, but she said that she knows that or something like that. that is why she was scared when apparently lj threatened chris to come kill him. >> you thought it was your killer. >> we thought lj was involved. >> did boy crazy annie fall for a gang member -- interim police found a poem she had written to lj, and with it for the first time a name. leighton tanden. but police could not track him down. jacqueline wasn't working the case then, but she remembers crossing paths were spencer at the station. >> he immediately tensed up, clenched his fist, his eyes got big, he couldn't take his eyes off me. i thought this kid has done something wrong, he thinks i'm coming to arrest him, because i'm approaching him in uniform. >> did you share that? >> yes. you said we have received more information, now and we think we have another suspect. >> another suspect, a new name altogether. based on information from an eyewitness who may have seen annie -- the night she was killed. and knew who killed her. >> coming up. is this how annie was murdered? >> -- >> and is this the man who murdered? her? >> when dateline continues. annie -- had been brutally murdered and dumped into the jordan river. >> we kept asking, are you sure it wasn't an accident? the idea that somebody did that to her, even now it's hard to imagine that that is even possible. >> and now, police were working hard to catch her killer. >> we are trying to actively locate suspects in this case. any witnesses so that we can bring this case to a conclusion for the parents. >> and within a week of annie's murder, they found that witness. her name was joanna, and she had been picked up on a fraud charge by neighboring west jordan pd. during her interview, she started telling detectives about a young girl she had seen a week prior. the cops thought that some of which she said seemed eerily familiar to annie's case. so they called -- pd, detective came over to hear what she had to say. >> tell me what you know about this girl? >> it was the second time i've seen her over there. >> there, at the home where a man named danny used to live. >> danny -- is a guy known to law enforcement? >> yes. >> as maybe a drug dealer? >> drug dealer. he was a member of a gang called -- . and law enforcement has dealt with him quite a few times. >> danny had a long rap sheet. he had a search warrant on his home a year earlier. and now joanna was telling police she saw a girl who sounded a lot like annie, on the night and he was killed. joanna also said the girl showed up with someone the police had been searching for but could not find. >> lj, the guy annie had written that note to. the alleged gang member. the one annie had run away with. >> we had an ease entries that said lj. we had joanna telling us about lj. >> on that night, said joanna, lj and the girl disappeared into the garage. she assumed they were having sex. then, when they came out, she saw daniel approach the girl. >> he asked her if she -- and she was like no. any kind of like grabbed her head and just rounded into the wall. >> she said the girl was knocked unconscious. lj and another girl tried to calm her down. and then the three carried the girl out to the garage, and change her clothes. >> tell me about the clothes that she was transferred into? >> there was a lot of red. that's what i remember the most. >> what parts do you remember being red? >> pants and shoes. the shirt was like, bright red. >> the shirt was white and red? >> yeah. her shoes. shoes had white laces and we were tying them. >> then joanna said, daniel, lj, envy wrapped her in a tarp, put her in a white suburban and took off. and when they came back hours later, she said daniel was covered in blood, and the girl was not with them. >> i asked daniel where she was, and he said that she went swimming. he said, she put up one hell of a fight. >> joanna's story rang true. leading derrick johnson to believe the mystery girl was annie. and danny was her killer. >> did you see blood on the carpet? >> yeah. >> it was a carpet or hard floor? >> it was carpet. i'm positive it was carpet. >> after, the search team found the carpet in ferry's house had been ripped up, and the walls were freshly painted. >> you're seeing signs of a cover-up? >> yeah. it's looking more and more like this is actually true. all this information that we were receiving. >> did you find blood on the wall? >> we found instigations that there were in blood on the wall. >> they swabbed those areas and then went looking for daniel. they found him at an apartment complex, arrested him, and brought him in. >> did you want to talk to a counselor? >> yeah. >> let me ask you that, what do you think? >> i got no clue. >> it was the detectives thought, the typical bad guy response. they were sure danny knew something. they asked him about lj. >> who the hell is lj? >> dude i do not know an lj. >> and then about annie. >> tell me about annie. >> annie who? who the bleep is annie? >> annie -- >> dude i have no idea who annie is. >> they will verify she was there. >> show me a picture then. >> you showed him a picture of annie? >> brittani? is her name britney? >> detectives thought he was lying, and they were done playing around. >> what if i told you that she's dead? >> i didn't do it. what the hell? >> if you guys do this, -- >> [inaudible] >> derrick was confident he had they booked danny for the murder. lj, whoever he was, still did not turn up. but detectives still thought he wrapped up his first homicide. all he needed was the lab to confirm that the blood found it daniel's home was annie's. but then the lab called, and everything unraveled. >> coming up! >> i cried for two hours. i had only had a few months with detectives and i did not know if i was capable of doing this. >> when dateline continues! copd isn't pretty. i'm out of breath, and often out of the picture. but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ [laughing] ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful, all day and night. >> reporter: i'm katie phang with the hours top stories. israel and hamas are entering day three of their hostage deal after a second group was released by the gaza strip on saturday. 13 israelis and ty nationals cannot return home. 39 palestinians were also freed from israeli partisans as part of the deal. and derek chauvin is expected to survive after being stabbed in prison. the former minneapolis police officer was convicted of murdering george floyd. he was hospitalized after an assault at the federal correctional institution in tucson. now, back to dateline. >> and it had a rough childhood. she was passed on from foster home to foster home before she was adopted by her caseworker. her life seemed to be turning around. then, in 2012, and he, just 15, was found murdered, her body floating in the jordan river. >> there was never a second that your mind didn't go to this is not what was supposed to happen >> an eyewitness said she saw daniel assault a girl tonight annie was killed. that witness also said the girl had shown up with lj, who police could never find. during the course of their investigation, detectives learned something interesting. >> you had another lj in that crowded it? >> yeah. >> daniel? >> yeah. >> what was his nickname? >> so there was, joker, and little joe. >> little joe? >> lj. -- they were one and the same. either way, it seemed like their man. but the da wanted more evidence before filing charges. -- thought the blood samples taken from daniels home would push the case over the finish line. >> and the blood work comes back and -- >> it was negative for blood. not only where the sample is not annie's blood it wasn't even blood at all. the major blow to the investigation. didn't mean he is not good for the crime? >> didn't mean he wasn't fit for the, crime and just lead us to believe that it didn't happen here at the residence. >> so you are just not getting there? >> yeah. >> the only bright spot, daniel was not getting out of jail. he was also being investigated for an unrelated kidnapping assault case in the neighboring town. >> so he is on ice while you develop your theories about his -- in this thing? >> yeah. >> they continued to investigate. months went by. lead detective derek johnson was promoted to sergeant which meant -- dream of making detective finally came true. maybe a case of beware of what you wish for. one of her first assignments was the annie murder. how did you feel about it? that this was not going to be your case? >> i cried for two hours. >> jacqueline decided she needed to start again from the beginning. following the chain of evidence that led her colleagues to daniel --, she thought she might link him to any through his phone calls, but when she checked -- >> all his cell phone records showed he was in the salt lake county he had never gone south close enough to where annie was killed, not even near her house. >> and she knew the physical evidence wasn't there either. >> none of the dna came back saying -- annie was ever at his house. >> detectives had never found enough evidence to make a murder charge stick, and it turned out, there was an explanation. remember while under suspicion for annie's murder, ferry was arrested for an unrelated kidnapping in a different town. the charge stuck. he eventually pleaded guilty, and was sent to prison. police came to believe it was this kidnapping -- that star witness joanna had recounted to them. she had seen a totally different crime, not any's murder. once more, it happened on the same day and he was killed. no way he could have committed both crimes. so now rookie detective jacqueline went back to the boxes and binders piled high in her desk. >> i felt lost. i felt it needed to start from the beginning and see what information derrick had when he first got the case. >> and so began the education of a detective. she started reading through pages, pages of annie's notes and journal entries. >> who does an eternal to be the more you learn about her? >> she is very lost. she wants to be loved by anyone and everyone. >> and jacqueline saw that there was one person in particular anyone did to be loved by. chris. his name was scribbled all over her journals. veronica remembered any gushing about him. >> she liked them, he was different -- annie's stories revealed something else too. she and chris had sex. >> chris was the boy annie had slept with just months before her death. after which, remember, she lied about being pregnant. >> i'm starting to think that you made up the pregnancy to keep chris around because he didn't want to be with anymore. >> next, jacqueline poured over their phone records from the night of the murder. not only was chris the last person annie spoke to, but the pattern of the calls spoke volumes. >> 30 seconds, here and then it hangs up immediately. immediately one calls the other back. sometimes the call is ignored, sometimes chris's phone is blocked. >> what do you think is going on? >> a looks like a fight. it looks like they're yelling at each other and hanging up. >> chris had no criminal record, and no eyewitness put him at the scene. there was still the mysterious lj. -- police could never find. not in any police database, not anywhere. that is until jacqueline knocked on one more door. >> hey. >> how is it going? >> hi. are you jack? >> i'm detective -- >> her close buddy and predecessor derek johnson was by her side when she went to interview annie's friend jackson. he told them the same story that they have been hearing all along. and he telling friends she was pregnant, nothing new. but then they asked jackson if he knew who lj was? his answer floored them. >> she would always refer to the skies lj, and i asked what's his real name? she said chris. >> a stunning revelation, was lj all along just annie's nickname for chris? coming up, a death on the road, and a body blow to jacqueline's case. i lost any information i needed on that case. when dateline continues. new emergen-c crystals pop and fizz when you throw them back. and who doesn't love a good throwback? 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[music playing] [coughs] when caroline has a cough, she takes robitussin. so, she can have those one on ones again. hey jim! can we talk about casual fridays? oh sure. what's up? get fast, powerful cough relief with robitussin, and find your voice. ♪robitussin♪ september 1st, 2013. and find your voice. dennis murphy (voiceover): september 1, 2013. it was 6 am. derek johnson, once the lead detective on annie's murder case, was now assigned. he was just finishing his graveyard shift and heading back to the station, when he noticed a car in the back of the road. it looked like a stranded motorist. derek stop to help, but never made it out of his car. >> the motorist had a gun. and he was angry. >> police chief, brian roberts. >> and he fired at derek johnson while sitting in the driver seat of his car. >> derek, wounded, trying to drive away. but lost control and drove head on into a tree. he died at the scene. >> it was hard. yeah it sucked. you have to give me a second. so derek, he was a good guy. good cop. good friend. >> derek was just 32 years old. leaving behind his wife, and six-year-old son, and his family at draper pd. >> everybody talks about a cops a cop. and the best cop you can have. and how we treated and serve to the community. derek was one of those guys. >> for jacqueline moore, the loss was twofold. >> he was starting to get some free time to help me with the case, and telling me what he was doing when he was on the case. and then he was killed. i did not have anyone else. to ask. >> you had lost your friend? your old competitive friend? >> i lost my friend. and i lost any information that i needed on that case. there was no one else. >> because he was the institutional memory of this thing? >> yes. >> jacqueline had only herself to rely on now. in the balance? justice for annie now dead for a year and a half. she strongly suggested chris knew more than he was telling. jacqueline listened to chris's interviews again and again. and noticed something interesting he said about his shoes. >> she had a bloody nose last time i hung out with her. and we were sitting right next to each other, and she did drip on my shoes. >> do you remember where on the shoe is that? >> adam, it was on my shoelaces. i'm not sure where -- >> about five days ago. me and my friend spencer were hanging out, and she just came over. >> spencer, remember jacqueline had seen him coming into the station in the days following annie's murder. she had a gut feeling back then that he was hiding something. and detectives at the time, asked for his phone. >> you have any idea why we took your phone? >> for call logs. >> well no, that was the reason. but there is a message there that we were kind of interested in. do you know that messages? >> it was a message from chris. the cops might come back to your house. i need you to tell them that and he got a bloody nose, so i don't get blamed. >> he told me about that -- he said something about the bloody nose. that, i actually don't remember seeing. i remember hearing it though. >> lab results did show that annie's blood was on chris's shoes. detectives questioned him about it during the second interview. >> okay wouldn't just have been one drop? >> yeah. >> but then his story began to change. >> where did it drip on your shoe? >> there was a little bit on the shoelace. and then there was a little bit right here. >> okay, so two separate drops we could see? >> yeah. >> in fact, the lab found more than just the two spots of blood. they found several. but studying the case file, jacqueline noticed that the lab did not test every spot to see if it belong to annie. they also had not tested the bottom of his shoes. >> so what do you do? >> at that point, i met with a private lab to test the shoes further. it appeared the bottom of both shoes were stoking wet. >> it seem like damning evidence. but after testing that blood further. >> it came back with two males and two females. >> again, nothing you can take to the jury. >> right. >> six months past and more dead ends. it had now been two years since annie's murder. >> i was starting to think that maybe we were not going to actually solve this case. >> but jacqueline was tenacious. she enlisted the help of a cell phone expert, former homicide detective named--. >> with cases like this case, when you hear the details and understand what's going on. and see that the agency is having challenges. how do you not get involved? >> he reviewed 35,000 of chris 's calls and texts. one call stood out. an incoming call at 9:01 pm, the night annie was killed. >> what really stood out is that we see these 25 handoffs. >> handoffs, the signal bouncing from tower to tower. >> the similar strength was so similar within those four towers that it would cause the handoff we saw with a poor signal. >> eventually they found, it the only spot in town that called the strange power of pins. it was at the jordan river. the very spot where any was killed. >> we can feel very comfortable saying at 9:01 pm on march 10th, the phone was within a hundred metres of where we are standing. >> it turned out that all of the people that called chris that night, the one who did at precisely one at 9:01 pm was annie's mothers veronica. that was because of something that she had told her mother earlier that morning, something about chris. >> he said what would you do if i ask you to run away with me? >> and i told her, if you're ever missing, he's the first person i'm calling. >> which she did, and without even realizing it, helped police place chris at the scene of the crime. right around the time her daughter was killed. it was early morning october 16th, 2014. when veronica got another life-changing call. >> coming up! >> jacqueline was on the line. she says we are in colorado, and we are talking to chris. >> when dateline continues! chris now 17 had moved to grand junction, colorado. he was living with his mom. he was completely unprepared for the undercover officers who would approach him on his way to school, and the young detective who met him in the interview room. >> hey. nice to meet you. >> jacqueline had wanted to question chris all along. now she finally had her chance. >> is this an interview? >> yes. >> but just as soon as it began. >> i want to lawyer -- >> it was over. >> we have a warrant for your arrest. >> for? >> murder, and obstruction of justice. >> i want a lawyer. i thought i'd proven myself innocent. >> no you didn't. >> chris it was extradited back to utah. veronica and james were grateful to police, but they knew nothing could bring annie back. >> while we support the police department and the attorney's office, and we appreciate all the work they have continued to do. it does not change what happened. >> february 29th, 2016, almost four years since annie's murder, and christopher's trial was just a week away. he had refused to talk to police, and pleaded not guilty. >> we were preparing for trial in the following week, and i got a phone call that chris's attorney scheduled a hearing that day. >> jacqueline, now a sergeant with the utah state police, had barely made it in time. when she got there, she saw chris standing before the judge. >> the case is set for a change of hearing -- we are going forward with that? >> all right. >> there was no deal offered, just a change of heart. are you pleading to the charge because you are guilty of? >> yes your honor. >> wanted to take responsibility for what he had done. >> -- how do you plead? >> guilty, your honor. >> a guilty plea. confirming what jacqueline had pieced together over the years of investigation. she had a theory about how it all went down. >> she's discussing over the phone what her options are with the baby with chris, and chris is telling her he has a plan, and they can run away and be together. >> she thinks chris really believed annie was pregnant, so he persuaded her to meet him at the river, but -- >> chris has no intention running away. chris's only reason for being there is to kill her. so he just starts beating her until she dies. >> it turns out to be a very sloppy crime, the amount of blood. >> i feel that he betrayed annie more than he betrayed us. and she knew him, and annie trusted him. >> at his sentencing, chris now 18 sounded remorseful. >> i'm very sorry for everything that has happened, i want to apologize to annie's family, and to my family, and to everybody in court today for putting everybody through this. >> i'm still trying to put words into everything that has happened -- >> but for veronica, no amount of i'm sorry's could make up for what she and annie's entire family lost. >> i hope you feel sadness, may you feel loss, may your tears heal your soul. but may your conscious never clear. i will grieve my daughter every day. >> and so for the charge of murder first degree felony i will serve a term of no less than 15 years. >> chris back shaw robbed any of her future, and now a judge had described his fate. it had been 15 years to life in prison. >> jacqueline has other cases to work, these days but this one, and his case will surely -- do you think derek would've approved? >> his confidence in you would've been vindicated finally? >> i wished so bad he was there. -- she became so much more. >> we put her ashes in the ocean, so that she would never be in one place, and so that wherever we were, we could feel like she was there. >> despite the horrific events that took away her daughter, veronica is still is determined as ever to continue to do good work and help children in need. she and james have since adopted five more children, it is just what annie would have wanted them to do. >> that is all for this edition of dateline. i'm andrea canning. thanks for watching. >> hello everyone. i militiaman and as. we start this saturday with the release of 20 more hostages in gaza. 13 are israeli detainees and seven are foreign nationals. this is the second group of hostages to be released as a part of

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