what they normally do, type thing, and just come and see you guys? absolutely. is that okay? yeah. what did you make of his demeanor that first time when you went to go see him? well, you know, he was friendly. he was acting like he was concerned, but it was almost an act. but then he wouldn t give his dna. we thought it was odd for a man of that age to say they wanted to talk to their mom. his wife is right there. he s, what, in his thirties and suddenly he s wantin to talk to his mom. and so we re like, is his mom a lawyer? and you know, just the whole thing seemed suddenly very odd and a big red flag, yeah. and he seemed like a bad actor yeah. when i spoke with him. it seemed like he was putting on an act. it wasn t genuine to me. before she left hansen s house, gonterman decided to rattle his cage by telling him, brittani s memory was finally starting to return. your statement doesn t match what she remembers. she remembers very well that you
the scientific way of working the case through dna and fingerprints was a bust. and so was gonterman s old knocking on doors approach. did you ever say to jodi, you know what, i think we need to stop folks on this case so much? oh no. oh, good heavens no. we just hadn t found this person or this person was deceased and we just needed to figure out who they were and get their dna and solve it that way. but no, yeah, we just have to keep plugging away at it. there was no doubt brittani was improving dramatically, but she still had no recollection of the attack. no one knew if her memory of that day was gone forever or would eventually emerge from the haze. detective gonterman thought if they re ever going to solve this case, they had to do something radical. possibly even dramatic. to get brittney to relive the attack that nearly killed her
lifestyle changed. the marcells were terrified brittani had been attacked by someone who knew them and their routines, someone who might strike again. we just never experienced that kind of imminent danger. did you worry about them, that they could be targets? that he could go after one of them or that he could finish off brittany? right, because we know don t know that britney was the official target. it was unsettling for everybody. and i think that every reason to be worried. they worked out a yuck schedule, taking turns standing vigil at the hospital with brittani. they tried to be hopeful, but they also knew the doctors and the police all thought brittani was going to die. and all the reports at the hospital were looking like, the trajectory was for brittani to pass. but, somehow, brittani held on, and six weeks after the attack, against all odds, she
diane called 9-1-1 but waited outside certain the attacker was still in her house. i am afraid to walk in, and he was coming after me, he ran to the kitchen. police and paramedics were there in minutes, and brittani was taken to the hospital. someone was calling me saying that brittani got stabbed, i thought she was in a car accident and we didn t realize what had happened. i rushed home to my mom and she told me what happened and i truly thought brittani would die. the sisters rushed to the hospital but once then, they were met with confused looks. they are, like we don t have a brittani marcell. putting brittani under an assumed name. may have been a smart move, because the family was later
done something like that before. brittani s attacker, basically, vanished into thin air. yes. so now morales investigation went from the lab to the street. he d heard brittani was seeing someone, kind of a boyfriend. was he a potential suspect? absolutely. did you do a dna test on her sort of boyfriend? yes. he was cleared. his dna did not match that. police didn t have to rely on just hard evidence, though. they had an eyewitness to the attack. i could see his height. brittani s mom had actually seen the guy. i saw he had jeans on. he had a long-sleeved shirt on, and what does he look like? either a dark caucasian man or a light hispanic with brown hair, kinda spiky. police created a composite sketch and spread the word across the rio grande valley. there was both billboards, rewards, crimestopper s rewards. names just start pouring in. so we were talking to a bunch of people. but to no avail. the