immediately after hearing about this, kinda went into this panic mode. and it s like, okay, if it was her, is it gonna be me next? in fact, in short order, the art institute of dallas moved its students out of the falls and into a more secure apartment complex in a safer part of town. but with the investigation just days old, they didn t know what police were thinking. that this was no random crime that it was personal, an inside job, so to speak. they were looking at people close to shelley. someone who had a key. like a boyfriend or a roommate. someone who knew she d be asleep, and then surprised her, attacked her with a knife. she was small in stature. she was a little girl. it wouldn t take much. but who? as tough as detective ellzey was with roommate ashley and boyfriend nathan, he was not much farther along than when he started. and so he spent some time with a
i couldn t imagine anything like that ever happening. definitely a shock. reporter: the first stage was denial. that shelley nance, their innocent wisp of a sister, had been murdered, was almost beyond comprehending. but maybe worse, quite possibly they weren t going to know who did it. the first and most obvious mystery jumped right out at the experienced eyes that cased her bloody bedroom. shelley had been dead a while. we could tell by lookin at her that she had not been there longer than 24 hours. reporter: but this was curious. her roommate was in the apartment for much of that 24-hour period, and claimed she saw and heard nothing amiss. like shelley, roommate ashley olvera was also 20 years old and from a tiny town taft, texas not far from corpus christi, on the other side of the state. her interest at the art institute was animation. she was shy like shelley but
few of nathan s friends, like his roommate, daniel willyam. reporter: you were a little older than the other kids? i was reporter: i mean, they were all kind of 18, 19 and you were yes, i was 26 years old. reporter: hadn t always been easy for daniel. he, too, was a little different. for one thing, he d been born in indonesia and struggled with some rude culture shocks when his family moved to america. still, he put on a brave face, served in the navy, and then signed up to study interactive media at the art institute. if anybody knew what nathan was up to, it would be daniel whose role in the student apartment was, well, almost like a den mother. i became a big brother to him, you know? it was like, do your homework, take him to school, pick him up from school and things like that. reporter: well, yes. i mean, you were. you were helping him with his homework, you were making his lunches, you were, you know, cleaning up after him. you were driving him to school. h
reporter: shelley died here, in the falls , a large housing complex where the art institute arranged for some of its students to live. seemed like a perfectly reasonable place, looked quite safe, when we stopped by to take some pictures one sunny afternoon. about you, i wouldn t let my daughter live there. reporter: really? absolutely not. reporter: dallas, like any big american city, suffers from its share of crime. and the falls? you go there during the daytime, it looks very nice. but at nighttime, totally different story. reporter: innocent 20-year-old girl out on the street in that neighborhood at night, you d worry about her? no way would i let my daughter walk that neighborhood at night, no way. reporter: the nances didn t know any better. little italy, after all, presents few of the issues a person can encounter in the middle of a place like dallas. anyway, on that september day
and that makes dogs and owners happy. no wonder vets love it too. reported side effects include vomiting, itching, diarrhea, lethargy and lack of appetite. see your vet for more information on flea and tick protection you and your dog will love. nexgard. the vet s #1 choice. reporter: they took shelley nance s body back to italy, texas, not quite a week after the murder. held her funeral at the family s church. and it seemed like the whole town was there, along with many of shelley s fellow students from the art institute of dallas. it s the most horrible thing we ve ever been through. the day after the funeral, i was ready to kill somebody. reporter: the institute held a memorial, too. and it was there shelley s parents met nathan for the first time. he come up and wanted to shake my hand and i couldn t do it. i didn t wanna look at him, i didn t wanna touch him because