close friends, and, a summer night in the park. they had this look out, and you can see the harbor bridge that up. it s really pretty when the stars are out. it was the next morning that they found it. i could see the two girls laying. there it was horrifying. there was duct tape on their mouse, on their hands. a mystifying scene. the only thing we have our cigarette beds and suspicion. dna would 0.1 way. it was like star you gotta take a look at. this a bombshell message would point another. i read a letter, and immediately knew this was something very important. a twisted trail leading to a sinister suspect. take some special kind of mind that wants to do something like that. to crack a case this kind of alluded, it might just take a miracle. that was extraordinary. i just couldn t believe it. welcome to dateline, two young women were discovered in a park bound and gagged both were sexually assaulted and shot in the head. one died, but th
could it be real? should police take this at face value? is it possible that this thinly veiled threat to christine, you survived but we know where you live? yes, the letter definitely contained and applied threats to her safety. so we moved very quickly to make sure that she was safe and protected. and i was like, okay you need to leave town. but no one could know where i was, that only my family knew i was at. with christine in a safe place, he went straight to utah. with the help of the local pd. he was soon sitting across from his new person of interest. christopher melcher said that he was on a training exercise in california at the type of the murder. not only was he not in texas, he was on the other side of the country? he was. was there anything to suggest that he had some kind of vendetta against the family? we were not able to find any connection between him and the chapas family or the other
discovered christine hadn t come home. the night before. that s unusual. and that was very unusual. by now, how many times have you called her daughter? i would say about 45 times are called her. i even told, or i m gonna call the police if you don t call me right now. which is just what grace did. that s when she learned christine had been hurt. but the officer wouldn t say much else. only that grace needed to get to memorial hospital. he didn t tell you what happened? no, he doesn t know what happened. it was only after arriving at the hospital that the chapas learned christine had been shot. but they still didn t know if christine was alive or dead. the nurse walks in and tells us, one girl died, and one girl is on the second floor. and we need you to identify her. and they don t know who died and who lived? no. it was up to the chalk us to identify the survivor. you couldn t know? i couldn t go. i couldn t do it. so grace assigned her eldest daughter,
attach dylan s ball into them. does any of that lead anywhere? no. unfortunately it didn t. two years had passed. the case grew so cold that chavez s chief decided to give it to a new detective. hoping he might have better luck finding the missing pieces. detective erin vallow men had been working the case. and now he took the lead. when we first want to do is expand the scope of the crime scene search. because if there was one crucial piece of evidence that we didn t have at that point. which was a murder weapon. follow and hold the murder weapon might definitively link spellman to the shootings. what did that turn up? we can find anything. nothing a value. so you are back to kind of nowhere? that s right. and then? we received a phone call from the investigators at the senate police department. those investigators in the neighboring town of sinton, had just been given a ladder. addressed to christine chapas bother. what does the letter say? the letter is
so the best you hope for here is that it s her daughter but she is, she s hurt already pretty seriously hurt? for the chapas, the way it was excruciating. and then their daughter returned with the news that they had been praying for. she goes back down and says mom, it s chris. family and friends took turns at christine s bedside. wondering if she would ever regain consciousness. i was talking to her telling her at that i was there you know. that we love to you know. how did she look? it was bad. it was so bad that you couldn t even, you didn t know it was her. the bullet had entered the right side of christine chapas head and shattered destroying some of her brain tissue. during a lengthy surgery, doctors decided not to try to retrieve the bullet fragments. but at least christine was still alive. by now, the other victim had