Who might be able to stop him. He just reached over the glove compartment and he pulled out the gun, and i said, please dont kill me. I wanted to get out of there alive. Hello and welcome to dateline. Im natalie morales. Amber belken was a force to reckon with, a petite young woman whose big dreams and drive made her seem unstoppable. Then she was found murdered. Was amber the victim of a robbery gone bad or was this brutal crime personal . Three people knew the truth. Two of them would risk their lives to reveal it. Heres Keith Morrison with everything she knew. It was a monday morning in january 2007, 9 08 a. M. A young woman in san antonio texted her boyfriend. I love you. Thats all it said, i love you, nothing more. Downtown the alamo had just opened its doors. A few tourists began boarding little boats to gaze at remnants of Texas History along urban stretches of the san antonio river, and several miles away in the farther reaches of the modern city a manager of a Video Game Store began his daily ritual. His name was mariano rivera. The store opens at 10 00 but e managers get there at 9 00, get the tills, ready, grab the money and take it to the bank. Same process at a sister store, same company, not far away. That one managed by a woman who sent the text to her boyfriend, except this was strange. As the morning slipped by, her store remained closed. Mariano got a call from the district manager. Can you go over there and maybe you can see something, see what is going on. He did. He saw a white car in the parking lot. Looked like the young womans car. He peered into the store window. Nobody there. I thought, man, this is strange, like where is she. So i kept calling, nothing. Her name was amber belken. Tiny, just 52, 100 pounds, but energetic, ambitious and very much in charge. She was a fire cracker. Thats the easiest way to put it. Matt pena is in texas politics nowadays, but back then he worked in amber belkens store. She would let you know what she wanted, but i think she was one of the kindest souls that i have ever met. So i guess it depended on what side you met her on and how much you made her mad. She could be tough. Oh, most certainly. She loved her job. She did. Monica peculiar and Ashley Flores were ambers best friends. Was she cut out to be a manager . Yeah. Oh, yeah. She was fierce. But she still was friendly. She loved all of her employees and she loved all of her customers. She was only 25. She was the store manager, and so it was a very good sense of she is doing it. She is making something of her life. Like she had goals, she had ambitions. She wanted to go back to school, she wanted all of it. Not that she set out to work in a game store. She wanted to be a veterinarian. She was just so loving. We couldnt pass a turtle on the road, she had to turn around and pick it up and take it to her house. She would find these random animals on the side of the road. It is like, how did you find that animal. Like her little dog, buddy. Ambers parents, leigh and randy. She actually ran for buddy across the expressway, and the hair was all matted up. Looked like dreadlocks. And she said, well, i cant put it back out on the road, it will get killed. So i just opened the door and let it in. Amber was their only child. They doted oven her from the day she was born, and she was good in return. She helped anybody that needed it. They didnt even have to ask. She was going to make sure that you were protected. But now where was amber. Why was her store not open . Why didnt she answer the phone . Early afternoon, still no sign of amber. So, again, the district manager called mariano. Something is just strange. And sent him back for a second look. So again mariano looked in through the big front window, but this time he saw someone, ambers assistant manager brandon just standing there behind the counter. I knock on the door, and so he lets me in. I said, brandon, have you seen amber. Hes like, no, but something is strange. Theres money on the floor, looks like there was some kind of struggle or something happened, things got knocked over. My first thought was wheres amber. So he said he didnt know. You know, of course right away im thinking, you know, what is going on with this guy. He clearly sees something is wrong, he must recognize the car. Im thinking, thats her car outside, you see it, you see theres things on the floor, why havent you reacted right away and call someone or check the rest of the store. But he hadnt. So mariano ran to the back office, the only other room in the store. Not a moment he will ever forget, not for the rest of his life. And when i run to the back, i find out amber is on the floor, face down, and she has a plastic bag wrapped around her head. And instantly i knew what happened. One mystery solved. Amber was no longer missing, but a much bigger mystery remained. Coming up most people that rob a store dont kill anybody. Maybe the robbery was just a cover for murder. He had the classic motive. It does kind of seem personal. When dateline continues. There are some things which once seen can never be unseen. Amber belken, sprawled in death in the back office of a Video Game Store, her head wrapped in a plastic bag. Mariano rivera dialed 911, his mind a horrified confusion. He stared at ambers assistant manager, Brandon Beale. I was angry, i was upset. Im looking at brandon, like i dont understand, how does this happen. You dont want to blame anybody, but your first thought is you look around and say, maybe he had something to do with it. It has to be a shocking thing to discover. I mean it is hard to describe. You just have a million emotions just running through and you just dont know what to make of them. The police came. Took one look and called Raymond Ray Bob roberts, then a detective with the San Antonio Police department. It looks like a robbery gone bad. The store is in disarray. The clerk was found in the back office, shes dead. Try to get some information, are there any witnesses . No, sir. You tell them, hold the scene down and get crime scene detectives out there. The news, indistinct, unconfirmed, spread through the texas afternoon, somebody dead in ambers store, but most people did not know who including ambers father as he headed over there. I jumped in my truck and i called a friend of mine who is a defense attorney, and i said, i need you to call anybody that you can and see what you can find out. And i was just about there and he called me and he said, well, how far are you from there. And thats when he realized, it wasnt that amber found someone dead. They found her. And my knees just buckled and i just my whole world just died right there. Thats a pretty dreadful feeling, isnt it . It is the worst feeling in the world, because you totally realize no one can fix this. Nobody can bring her back. Not for them. Not for her friends. And then everything just stopped. Disbelief. Disbelief. Your earth shatters. Everything around me was just a blur. Inside the store detective robert had a look around. Theres a bunch of dvd games on the ground. Where the Cash Register was right there by the front, the till is open, the drawer is open. Theres some change just kind of laying around. Theres more dvds on the ground in the back. Like somebody came in, ransacked it . Ransacked the place, took off, yeah. He went around to the back alley. Was this an escape route . Probably stacked all of the games up here. Either had their car here in the alley or had it parked over there, put the boxes out here, picked them up, took off. You wouldnt think robbing a game store would be worth killing somebody in the process. Well, you wouldnt think anybody would rob a game store. Yeah, it normally during robberies, you know, it is just a robbery, theres no murder. And this was certainly a robbery, given the mess and the empty safe. We checked the bank. There was no deposit made for that morning. There was 1,900 stolen, three or four big video games, play stations and ps3s and dvd games. All of that was taken. The haul totaled just under 6,000. Maybe the stores surveillance cameras could tell the detectives who took it. Except theres no Surveillance Video in the store. Theres none in the strip center that the store is located in. Theres no video anywhere. There was video at the starbucks next door, but it only showed the front door and thats it. You dont see anything. Who would know that . Who would know it was the video game companys only store in san antonio not equipped with cameras . The answer was obvious, thought the detective. An employee would know, just like an employee would know amber hadnt taken the cash to the bank yet. Then mariano told the detective about encountering brandon and that he couldnt understand why brandon didnt look for amber until he, mariano, arrived. His first thought should have been i think there might have been a robbery, let me make sure, first of all, the robbers are not still in here and can hurt me, but also let me see where amber is. Just what the detective was thinking. He talked to ambers coworkers. They said she had issues with brandon. They had never learned to Work Together yet, and it just when you have a guy like that whos not really the same type of attitude or mentality that the rest of us were, it causes some problems. Did she trust him . You know, i dont know. I think at some instances with some things, no. Even ambers parents said they knew she was dissatisfied with brandon. Because she had written him up. She had prepared a negative work review. She was going to turn it in that day. It is just his last chance, mom, she said. I cant i cant allow him to continue to make these mistakes. So motive, opportunity, behavior that didnt seem innocent. I mean he had the classic motive. He didnt want her to write him up. Yeah. He didnt want to get fired. He didnt want to get fired, yeah. This seemed like a personal crime, right . Could have been. Most people that go in to rob a store dont go in with the intention of killing somebody. They go in there, do the robbery and leave. Putting a plastic bag on her head squeezing it tight and holding it for that long. Squeezing it tight, it takes four or five minutes, it takes commitment. No kidding. You know shes struggling. Shes not going to just lay there. It takes a while. It does kind of seem personal. They had brandon in the back seat of a patrol car. A detective went to talk to him. He tells me a story and it is just not making any sense. So he had brandon taken downtown and questioned by a colleague known for her special interviewing skills. Shes a real good detective. She has a way with getting stuff out of people. About an hour later im still at the scene and she calls me back, yeah, something is up with this coming up, ambers parents were convinced it was brandon. Everything pointed to him. Would that explain what ambers mom said she saw at the funeral . He put one of the game stop tag holders that had their id on it, he put one of those in her casket. When dateline continues. And every backache is telling you you cannot do this. Pain says you cant. Advil says you can. Who knows where that button is . I dont have silent. Everyone does right up here. It happens to all of us. We buy a new home, and we turn into our parents. What i do is help new homeowners overcome this. What is that, an adjustable spanner . Good choice, steve. Okay, dont forget youre not assisting him. You hired him. If you have nowhere to sit, you have too many. Who else reads books about submarines . My dad. Yeah. Oh, those are progressive cant protect you from becoming your parents, but we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. Look at that. It was four days after that awful morning in the Video Game Store. Amber belkens funeral was huge, as if in death she had been adopted by the Community Around her. Over 600 people. And the ones that couldnt get into the chapel waited in the lobby and in the parking lot. Was that a comfort . A very big comfort, that she touched that many lives. They loved amber. They said, we love amber. As ambers parents watched, they could not stop seeing in their heads another scene, the one in the back room of the Video Game Store, the way she was killed. They told me it was personal. She had to be so frightened, and when she tried to pick up the phone i know it was to call us and he yanked the phone out of the wall. Was it Brandon Beale . By the day of the funeral they were sure. We definitely thought brandon did it. Everything pointed to him. And then as mourners filed by to pay their respects, suddenly there was he was at the funeral, in front of them. Brandon beale. Did you think, my god, her killer has come to the funeral . Oh, he came in, shook my hands. I got up, and my knees just felt weak, and i fell. And then ambers mother was sure she saw brandon walk up to the casket and put something into it. He put one of the game stop tag holders that had their i. D. On it, he put one of those in her casket. And i got that thing out of there as fast as i could and put it in a tissue and put it in my purse because i thought, thats the last thing i want buried with my daughter. Was that i. D. Potential evidence she wondered . Was brandon trying to bury evidence with ambers body . So i was automatically thinking brandon did it. It has to be brandon. A week after the murder detective roberts questioned brandon on videotape. Im going back over everybody we talked to, trying to figure this thing out. Brandon repeated the story he had been telling from the start, he was nowhere near the store that morning. Got up, let my dog out. Watched sportscenter, and then at 9 45 i left because i had to go help my fiancees parents move a big island that goes in the kitchen. He didnt get to the store, he said, until after 2 00 p. M. For afternoon shift. And when he got there he insisted it was still closed. So he panicked. Was he supposed to open that morning . So im about to put my stuff in so i can check the computer. He looks around and sees the dvds on the floor, the cashiers drawer open. He sees all of this and thought, hmm. So he starts going about to open the store. He thought, hmm . Yeah. So hes not looking for amber or not looking for anybody thats supposed to be working. Brandon told detective roberts he had no idea amber was in the store, no idea amber intended to submit a negative work review about him that very day. Didnt notice her car in the parking lot, he said. Didnt think the obvious mess in the store meant they had been robbed. You saw the disarray. Yeah. If an employee saw that disarray a normal person you would think would go in and start looking, somethings up. Somethings wrong here . Yeah. So roberts got a search warrant for brandons house and car. Maybe they would find some of the stolen dvds and game consoles there. They did not. But there had to be something. For weeks the detective looked for evidence on Brandon Beale. Randy and her mom called me 24 7, every day, two, three times a day. Brandon . Brandon, brandon, brandon. Detectives questioned his fiancee, her parents. They scoured his phone records. We did everything we could to try to get some kind of evidence on brandon, and there was none there. Yeah. There was none there because he didnt do it. That alibi about helping his fiances parents checked out. And his phone records revealed he was miles from the store when amber was murdered. Finally, Brandon Beale was cleared. Did you at some point think, im going to be charged with murder . Yes, i did. Todays ways of working may work differently tomorrow. But you can work out anything with comcast business. Get fast, reliable, and secure internet on the nations largest gig speed network. Flexible tools like wifi you control. Voice solutions that connect you from anywhere. And expert advice here, here, or even here. Be fast. Be flexible. Bounce forward with comcast business. Get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just 64. 90 a month. Plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a 500 prepaid card when you upgrade. Switch today. I feel like were forglet me check. Ing. Xfinity home gives you peace of mind from anywhere with professionally monitored Home Security built around you. No, i think were good. Good. So when youre away, you dont have to worry. The tent. We forgot. The tent. Except about that. Xfinity home. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Hey look, i found the tent get xfinity home with no Term Contract required. Click or call today. Saying that, i cant lose everything with my family. Ive already hit the point of no return and i just grabbed a bag and i told her, just be quiet, just be quiet. He put a bag on her head, he said, and squeezed it tight around her neck. He held it there. And when she stopped oving, i just heard her gurgling and i didnt hear her screaming and i just stopped and i said, you know what, okay, and i turned her around and i untied her. I said, are you okay . And she wasnt breathing and i heard her gasp, but she didnt respond anymore and thats why i left. Until the year 2038. At the sentencing, the belkens finally confronted the killer of their only child, their darling daughter. Is it helpful . It is. It is no. Not for you . He sat back on the constables desk tapping his foot, just looking around, and like youre wasting my time. It would have been beneficial if i had heard him say, i am really sorry. I am so sorry, mr. And mrs. Belken, you know, amber didnt deserve to die, im so sorry. What did he say . Nothing. But the belkens did get an apology from someone else, geovanys now exwife, veronica. Hi. They met for the very first time when we shot this story. I blamed myself for not saying something sooner, for waiting too long, and i always felt like they had maybe some anger towards me. But blame her . No. They knew she was a victim, too. In fact, geovany pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting veronica. Theyre really nice. They were grateful that i said something, that i did the right thing. We dont have any ill feelings at all. Shes a wonderful girl. They are, they told us, broken, still, and always will be, and they cling now to ambers best friends, ashley and monica. My daughters, our adopted daughters, who are ambers friends, through thick and thin. They have each named daughters after amber, and they hang on to memories like gold. Like you have to put it in a box and then just keep it there for safe keeping, because thats what you have. Thats what you hold onto. It hurts. It hurts. Life will never be what it was with her. Thats all for this edition of dateline. Im natalie morales. Thank you for watching. First up on msnbc, potential breakthrough in the fight against the pandemic. Pfizer applying for clearance for its covid19 vaccine overnight. Distribution could come within weeks. The announcement coming amid a grim, new milestone, a new singleday record with more than 194,000 cases reported in the united states. The reality of covid19 hitting close to the president s family in his family, indeed. His son, don junior, testing positive. But look at this. This is dizzying. Adding to a long list of names in the president s orbit to contract the virus. Four columns long there. The president suffering a double blow in his bid t
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