tragically short. by 2008, she had been dead longer than she had lived, and still her case had been unsolved. but with advances in dna technology, police were now ready to reveal a promising new suspect. for years, angie s friend, sheila wysocki, wanted nothing more than the truth. what she learned was as stunning as the murder itself. 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 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
was screaming. lance had take an knife and shredded all of her clothes. did he threaten her? yes. yes, he did. physically, verbally? verbally. and you have a weapon, whether it s a knife, scissors, he threatened her. he was a pretty scary guy. he was creepy. suddenly, lance was at the top of the investigator s list. prime suspect. absolutely. especially when we have an 18-wound stabbing. there was no forced entry? that s right. suggesting whoever had gotten into her apartment had either figured out some way of getting in undetected or angie knew them and let them in? yes. all of that pointed either to the ex-boyfriend, lance. or to angie s current boyfriend, ben. or maybe to a new man in her life, the man she had been out with the last night of her life, russell. soon, police would ask sheila, then a
her friend, anita. another female engineering student at smu. you saw her that last night? yes. how was she? she was angie. i mean, she was fine. that night, anita accompanied angie and russell on an expedition to a series of bars and clubs. angie s boyfriend, ben, was not present. ben was aware of the fact that angie, russell, and i were all going out together. at least angie s friend, evelyn, ben didn t seem like the type to get jealous or violent. you could never imagine ben hurting angie? i could never imagine that. the evening ended at 1:00 a. m. angie dropped russell off from his apartment, which was walking distance from her own. and then took anita home. she thought about spending the night at angie s but decided against it. what was the last thing you said to each other?
you think ben was angrier than he let on? much angrier. even though he appeared calm. there are a lot of suspects that can appear calm when they need to be calm. they put on a defense of anything they could that would stick. the best way is to attack the victim, and the victim s reputation and credibility. and she wasn t there because he had murdered her to defend herself. and so that s what they did. and shame on them. it didn t work? it didn t work. despite the defense s attack on angie and suggestions about the men in her life, the jury deliberated for less than an hour. the verdict was guilty. the same jury sentenced donald bess to the death penalty. his appeal to the texas supreme court was denied in 2013. for angie s friends, this was the end of a very long and very sad
then or records of local phone calls, so that phone call may have never happened? that is correct. i would expect someone to be, i can t find her, i don t know where she is, she s not answering. it was a very mellow, feelingless phone call. it was somebody who didn t seem too concerned. ben waited in the living room while they went into the bedroom. they came out and told him angie was dead. the first responding officer, what he remembered most was even after he had discovered the body and said so, ben didn t even ask what condition, 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. 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