narrator: does the attacker have a panty fetish? police are sure of it. when brianna s body is finally located in a south reno lot, discarded in just her orange socks, on a heap of christmas decorations, with two pairs of thong underwear crammed beneath her. we ultimately learn that one of those pairs of thong underwear had very likely been used as the instrument to fatally strangle ms. denison. narrator: james biela learns about the discovery of the body from his girlfriend who happens to work in the office building overlooking the crime scene. and cause to inform him about the development in the high-profile case. when she finds a collection of panties in her own truck, she
strangers about innocuous things. he s talking to some of the cops about, are they salaried or hourly, about how much they make. he s just very calm. he s not crying. he s not distraught. he s just kind of there. narrator: in 2010, biela goes on trial for the sexual assault and murder of brianna denison as well as the other attacks. if convicted, he could face the death penalty. jurors are riveted by surveillance footage of brianna in a diner, just hours before she s kidnapped off a friend s couch and strangled with a pair of thong underwear. what was heart wrenching about it is just the mundane nature of it. at one point she just kind of yawns. everybody has kind of been in that situation. she was out, she was just going home, she was with her friends.
first off, i m sorry, this is very difficult for me. i just wanted to say i m sorry about this incident because this hurt several families. narrator: but, rather than address the family of brianna denison directly, biela despairs about his fractured relationship with his son. i won t see my son grow up and be a father to him, but i just wanted you to know, this might not be the time or place, but i love you. that just kind of got back to the whole thing he s so focused on himself that he s not realizing what he s supposed to be talking about. and i certainly don t think it helped him with the jury deliberation as far as the penalty went. narrator: moments after he finishes, jurors hand down the ultimate penalty death by lethal injection. biela appeals, but this time there s no girlfriend offering a lifeline. instead, she works on repairing her own life, heartened by the
of 19-year-old brianna denison as well as the sexual attacks on two female students from the university of nevada s reno campus. did you do this? oh, my god, did you? did you? narrator: by court order, we re required to disguise her face and voice. i don t know if i can hit you or hug you. did you do this? narrator: despite his girlfriend s distress, biela glances at the wall where he believes detectives have hidden a microphone. he knows that it s being recorded. i ve seen cases in the past where defendants ask to use the telephone and the defendant will call somebody and actually confess. did you? look me in the face. did you?
november 25, 2008, 26-year-old james biela paces a reno, nevada, interrogation room, charged with the murder of brianna denison, a 19-year-old college student, kidnapped while sleeping on a friend s couch. from an adjoining room, police watch him lick and bite his hands. i remember looking at that and i have no idea what he was doing. it was unusual. the whole time he s just biting his nails, he s biting the cuticles on his fingers, and he s actually making himself bleed. he s bleeding around his fingernails and his cuticles. biela also covers an electrical socket with his coat. suspicious a recording device may be hidden there. the room itself is very small, but there are a number of different microphones in the room. there s a one in a false wall bin that for some reason catches his attention and he goes and