how she was or anything like that. and sometimes people who don t ask that question don t ask it because they already know the answer. exactly. he didn t ask how she was killed, whether it was gun shot, stab wounds. that s unusual. very. and there was something else. ben s story may have been suspicious, but ben himself was squeaky clean. this was approximately 2:00 in the morning. he had been awakened from sleep, and he arrived at the location in a clean, pressed shirt and he smelled of soap as if he had just cleaned up. that tended to raise some suspicions with the first responding officers that something just didn t seem right. while police were trying to process the story ben was telling, they widened their investigation to include angie s ex-boyfriend, lance. the boy next door in amarillo.
on the night of the murder. he was staying with his parents in amarillo, working at the gym there. so he was eliminated based on that. what about ben, angie s oddly unemotional boyfriend, who officers thought acted strangely the night of the murder? the police checked to see if there was scratches or bruises on him? they checked that, his vehicle, they checked his apartment for any type of blood, bloody clothes, anything like that. nothing? nothing. and tests showed ben was also a secreter. whoever had raped and killed angie was not. so cross ben off the list. which leaves russell. and he was a nonsecreter. his alibi, he was at home in bed, not the strongest. there was no witness that could confirm where he was after he was dropped off by
here s josh mankiewicz with the conclusion of in the middle of the night. more than 23 years after the rape and murder of angie samota, the man with that dna was finally identified. it was not, as we now know, russell buchanan. it was not lance, the ex-boyfriend. and it was not ben, the boyfriend who never asked police how angie died. the man whose dna was found in angie samota s body is donald andrew bess. not a name you had heard before? never. never hit the radar of the dallas police department. not someone she knew? never crossed paths. why was his dna on file in the national database. he had been arrested and convicted previously of two different rapes. donald bess had been out on patrol only seven months on a
many wounds could certainly suggest rage, anger at the victim. absolutely. from what you could tell, did angie samota have any enemies? it seemed like she had broken some hearts. but she was the type of person that did not have enemies. everyone seemed to like her a lot. the only people that seemed to be mad at her were ex-boyfriends or people that wanted to be her boyfriend. police immediately focused on the man in angie s life, starting with ben, her then boyfriend. ben told police a story that sounded a bit suspicious. he said that after dropping off anita after their night out, angie stopped by his place, waking up him for a brief visit, an then drove home. within minutes of reaching her condo, ben says angie called him at around 1:45 a. m. in that phone call, ben says angie told him she let a man she didn t know into her home in the middle of the night. a man who had asked to use her phone and bathroom. ben said angie hung up, promising to call him back a few minutes
not. you re going to tell me she chose to have sex with him? no one was there but angie samota and donald bess. and the defense did the same thing police did in the first hours after angie s murder. make her boyfriend, ben, a suspect. the man who made that calm 911 call that police found suspicious. to assume that a very intelligence young lady is going to throw the door open to a stranger at 1:30 in the morning to use the bathroom, but is so afraid of this person, that she picks up the phone and calls her boyfriend. and then hangs up the phone willingly, and yet this is supposed to be the one that kills her? it doesn t make sense. you find ben s actions suspicious? extremely suspicious. she and the others on the defense team didn t point their fingers only at ben. but also at ex-boyfriend lance, at russell, and at any other man who could have been invited by angie into her home. it almost seems as if she was overcome by someone she