that occurred. i think he told them some story about how it had been the drug deal that had gone bad, and so i was crying rape. after the attack, police charged him with unlawful restraint, a misdemeanor. the next day, kristen and her dad went to the bryan police department to find out why her attacker wasn t charged with something more serious. i was furious. because i had thought in this moment that i survived, i survived. this is it. this guy is going down. she met with a detective who asked her questions. lots of them. i had bruises all up and down my throat. i couldn t swallow. and then at one point in time, the detective asked me to place my hands on my own throat. which even psychologically, that was traumatizing. why would he want you to do that? because i did that and then he said, well, those could have been self-inflicted.
yeah. something s wrong. she didn t die. i said no, she s not dead. what was the turning point? i called her apartment. she didn t answer. detective capps did say it was homicide. i think we had a strong feeling that possibly there was some type of sexual assault that occurred, and somebody was trying to cover up some evidence. kelly brown of the eagle newspaper had another story to write. this is a community that s not used to a lot of murders. it s not used to violent crimes like this, and it certainly wasn t used to having a murder victim be set on fire. even law enforcement, they thought, what do we have on our hands here? on the night of carolyn s murder, there had been a small party in one of the apartments. and now the detective was canvassing the complex, looking for leads. so you re literally knocking on doors. yes. in one unit, two men answered.
i told him if he would page me, just say type in the words that says his dna matches. and right on cue, the detective s pager went off. and i showed it to mr. matthews and asked him to read it. it said dna matches. so what s his face like when he looks at that match? he became pretty emotional. and he said, it was an accident, but he had killed her. the detective called carolyn s parents and gave them the news of the confession. they said, i think we got him. i said well, how sure? he said, i ll bet the farm on it. it was the next morning when kristen lancaster opened up the newspaper and learned her attacker had been charged with murder. i felt overwhelming guilt. just overwhelming guilt knowing that he had killed someone, and that, you know, perhaps i hadn t tried hard enough to make people believe me. did you feel like a life could have been saved if you had been taken more seriously? oh, yes. carolyn would still be here.
how did carolyn die? her death was ruled a strangulation. so things started kind of matching up. ynobe had never been convicted of sexual assault, but in the files the detective read the account of one particularly brutal attack. the case ended up being charged as a misdemeanor, unlawful restraint. it was kristen s. ynobe was the man she says almost killed her. i was certain that he had done this before. but at the same time, i didn t think he would do it again. the detective called ynobe matthews back down to the station for another interview and decided to pull a fast one with his suspect. telling him he was about to get dna results from the crime scene. were you really about to get it that quickly? we weren t going to get it that quickly that day. but trying to get him to believe that we had that information, that we had everything that we needed. i had contacted my supervisor earlier.
i had nobody right there sitting there with me. so the boyfriend s alibi wasn t solid. and as they spoke, the detective was looking carefully for signs he might be hiding something. he was cooperative. apprehensive. he said everything was fine in their relationship. the detective asked chuck for dna, and he said yes. and when they asked him for a polygraph, he agreed to that, too. but here s the thing with that last part, the polygraph. failed the test. that s a bad sign for you, right? it s a bad sign for him, yes. didn t tell you that he s guilty, but he was a very strong person of interest. and what s more, the detective had been speaking with jamie s friends who said the relationship wasn t fine. in fact, the couple had a fight and were on the verge of a breakup. all of which just led to more questions. basically, went over every aspect of the relationship. just questioned him on his whereabouts.