awful morning in the video game store. amber belkin s funeral was huge, as if in death she had been adopted by the community around her. over 600 people, and the ones that couldn t get into the chapel waited in the lobby and in the parking lot. is that a comfort? a very big comfort. that she touched that many lives. they loved amber. they said, we love amber. as amber s 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 beal? by the day of the funeral, they
hmm. so he starts going about to open the store. he thought, hmm? yeah. so he s not looking for amber or not looking for anybody that s 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, didn t notice her car in the parking lot, he said, didn t think the obvious mess in the store meant it had been robbed. you saw the disarray. yeah. if an employee saw the disarray the normal person, you would think, would start thinking something s wrong here. they got a search warrant for brandon s 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 beal. randy and mom called me 24/7, every day, two or three times a day.
were sure. we definitely felt brandon did it. everything pointed to him. and then as mourners filed by to pay their respects, suddenly there he was at the funeral, in front of them. brandon beal. did you think, my god, her killer has come to the funeral? oh, he came and shook my hand. i knees just felt weak and i just fell. then, said amber s mother, she was sure she saw brandon walk right up to the casket and put something into it. he put one of the gamestop 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, that s the last thing i want buried with my daughter. was that i.d. potential evidence, she wondered? was brandon trying to bury
something was strange. and sent him back for a second look. again, mariano looked in through the big front window. but this time he saw someone. amber s assistant manager brandon just standing there behind the counter. i knock on the door. and so he lets me in and i said, brandon, have you seen amber? he s like, no, but something is strange, there s money on the floor, it looks like there s some kind of struggle or something happened, things got knocked over. my first thought was, where s amber? he said he didn t know. right away i m thinking, what is going on with this guy, clearly he sees there s something wrong, he must recognize the car, that s her car outside, you see it, there s things on the floor, why haven t you reacted right away and called someone or checked the rest of the store? but he hadn t. so mariano ran to the back office, the only other room in the store. not a moment he ll ever forget, not for the rest of his life.