weatherman, has died. he passed away peacefully at the age of 87. now back to dateline. brandon beal did not kill his boss amber belkin. that was very clear. which meant that detective ray roberts had a big problem. we had everything going against us. we didn t have witnesses, didn t have video, didn t have dna, didn t have fingerprints, didn t have nothing. he went public then. had to. we held a big news conference with the parents, mom and dad, pleading for help. we kept saying, if you can do this to amber, you ve got to stop him, because he can do this to your child, to your daughter, to your son, to your mother. there s no telling what this person can do. crimestoppers put up a lot of money. nothing. i was hoping, you know, money
did she trust him? you know, i don t know. i think in some instances with some things, no. even amber s 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 s just his last chance, mom, she said. i can t i can t allow him to continue to make these mistakes. so, motive, opportunity, behavior that didn t seem innocent. i mean, he had the classic motive. he didn t want her to write him up. yeah. didn t want to get fired. didn t want to get fired. this seemed personal. most people who go in to rob a store don t go in there with the intentions to kill anybody, they just do the robbery and leave. putting a plastic bag on her head, squeezing it tight, takes
my whole thought process was, let me get this store open. because i think i screwed up. i screwed up, right. why didn t he notice it had been robbed? some stores are messier than others. totally opposite of, there s somebody dead here, there s a robbery. brandon was 23 then and terrified. i m just thinking, you know, they re really just put this on this young black man, you know. when they questioned his fiance they was trying to convince her that i did it. they would say things to her, how can you sleep with a murderer, you know he did it, you re possibly next. what did that do to you? it angered me, because you re trying to convince my fiance to lie on me, pretty much. but she s a strong woman and so she s telling me, don t worry about it, you know, i know you didn t do it.
next door but it only showed the front door and that s it. you don t see anything. who would know that? who would know it was the video game company s only store in san antonio not equipped with cameras? the answer was obvious to the detective. an employee would know. just like an employee would know amber hadn t taken the cash to the bank yet. mariono told the detective about encountering brandon and that he didn t understand why brandon didn t look for amber until he arrived. 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. that s what the detective was thinking. he talked to amber s co-workers. they said she had issues with brandon. they had never learned to work together yet. just when you have a guy like that who s not really the same type of attitude or mentality that the rest of us were, it causes some problems.
brandon, it s brandon, brandon, brandon, brandon. detectives questioned his fiance, 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. there was none there because he didn t do it. that alibi about helping his fiance s parents checked out. and his phone records revealed he was miles from the story when amber was murdered. finally, brandon beal was cleared. did you at some point think, i m going to be charged with murder? yes, i did. the memory still fresh. i had nightmares of going to jail, you know, it was hard for me to sleep. that terrible day. what time were you supposed to be at work? i would come in at 2:00 and close the store. what did you think when you got there? when i got there to the store, i m thinking, because it was all closed up like normal, you know. like it had never been open? like 2d never been opened.