daytime, it looks very nice. but at nighttime, totally different story. reporter: innocent 20-year-old girl out on the street in that neighborhood at night, you d worry about her? no way would i let my daughter walk that neighborhood at night, no way. reporter: the nances didn t know any better. little italy, after all, presents few of the issues a person can encounter in the middle of a place like dallas. anyway, on that september day when detective ellzey arrived at the falls, he had no idea what sort of scene would confront him there. all he knew was that a female had been murdered. i m ready to go different directions and i have to make some assessments. when i walk in that door and i make a left hand turn and i see that girl there, then i can eliminate things relatively quickly. she still had her panties on, which generally reporter: means no sexual assault. exactly right. it it relieves the sexual assault part of it. she has a t-shirt on. so i m not thinkin that
who collects that kind of stuff? reporter: then detective ellzey learned something very interesting from shelley s mom something shelley had told her mom not long before she was killed. she said, mom, i m thinking about breaking up with nathan. she said, i just don t have the feelings for him that i think i should. you know, i just don t, you know, don t see the relationship going anywhere. reporter: had a furious young man struck back at the woman who rejected him? a not uncommon motive for murder, as the detective knew very well. he confronted nathan. shelley told her mom that she told you that ya ll were through. no. ah, yeah. no, she didn t. her mama told me that. son, i talked to her mama. don t call me a liar! i just talked to her mom her mama, shelley told her mama that ya ll had had nothing in common. and that it was over. that it was through. she never said that.
as tough as detective ellzey was with roommate ashley and boyfriend nathan, he was not much farther along than when he started. and so he spent some time with a few of nathan s friends, like his roommate, daniel willyam. reporter: you were a little older than the other kids? i was reporter: i mean, they were all kind of 18, 19 and you were yes, i was 26 years old. reporter: hadn t always been easy for daniel. he, too, was a little different. for one thing, he d been born in indonesia and struggled with some rude culture shocks when his family moved to america. still, he put on a brave face, served in the navy, and then signed up to study interactive media at the art institute. if anybody knew what nathan was up to, it would be daniel whose role in the student apartment was, well, almost like a den mother. i became a big brother to him, you know? it was like, do your homework, take him to school, pick him up from school and things like that. reporter: well, yes. i
this looks terrible, terrible, terrible for you. reporter: no, detective ellzey did not go easy on shelley s roommate. but there was a murder to solve. and the first day of an investigation is crucial. time to bring in the boyfriend. what a collection he had. he had throwin stars. he had daggers. he had knives. he had swords. who collects that kind of stuff? j
image of that intensely personal murder scene. could ashley have been so full of rage? reporter: one of the things that can make a roommate situation between two girls deadly is if there s a romantic attachment. absolutely reporter: did you did you go down that path with her? you know, i went down two directions. i went down the part that maybe they were seein the same guy. i also because you have to explore the fact that maybe they were romantically involved, shelley and ashley, because the degree of injury that that poor girl suffered, as i stated, it s personal, which is a lot of pent up rage. reporter: somethin like a lover would do. a spurned lover absolutely. yes, sir. that s correct. reporter: and she could well have been that spurned lover? oh yes. yes. she sure could have. without a doubt. reporter: ashley told the detective she discovered the murder after the school sent her home to check on shelley. said she knocked on shelley s closed bedroom door