and it s like, okay, if it was her, is it gonna be me next? in fact, in short order, the art institute of dallas moved its students out of the falls and into a more se apartment complex in a safer part of town. but with the investigation just days old, they didn t know what police were thinking. that this was no random crime that it was personal, an inside job, so to speak. they were looking at people close to shelley. someone who had a key. like a boyfriend or a roommate. someone who knew she d be asleep, and then surprised her, attacked her with a knife. she was small in stature. she was a little girl. it wouldn t take much. but who? 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
same guy. i also because you have to, 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 vent 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, got no response and then entered the room. i saw her feet and she wasn t moving. so i turned on the light, and said hey, shelley, are you okay? she wasn t moving? so i went in and i shook her in her bed was she covered up? originally the blanket was on her and you shake her with her blanket on her. yes, sir. and you shake her and she don t wake
it appeared to be a fragment of a disposable glove. of course they tested it to be sure it did not come from the medical examiner or any of the officers at the crime scene. and it did not. must have been left by the otherwise careful killer. but who would want to hurt her? and so horribly? the first person detective ellzey talked to was shelley s roommate, ashley olvera, who d found shelley dead in her own bed. that s how ashley became possible suspect number one. she wasn t sexually assaulted, shelley. that was my initial opinion. it was later confirmed. reporter: yeah. why couldn t a woman do this? reporter: sure. it s her roommate. there s a lot of things happen between roommates that we don t know about. so it very well could have been. reporter: sure. what happened, if anything, between these roommates was something detective ellzey was determined to find out. even if he had to get rough. coming up.
that kinda he was that guy that a lot of people knew. and he would walk into, say, the student lounge, and other everybody would be like, hey, it s daniel, you know. reporter: hmm, nice guy? yeah, very nice guy. a nice guy who was telling detective ellzey he was troubled about nathan. and then, when the detective dug a little deeper among other people who knew nathan, he began to hear a different take on the kid who was supposedly too shy to kiss his girlfriend. some people would describe him as a little bitty, scrawny kid, kind of introverted who just lived and breathed his artwork. other people would say, the guy had a temper. ashley said she d heard the same thing. one of my friends would say just like you know, i would never want to see nathan angry. and i asked him, why? and he said, ever see him play a video game? because he just kind of pops if he doesn t get something. then the police searched nathan s bedroom and found his collection of knives
like that. tell me how you do that. i didn t do that, sir. reporter: however, by then, detectives had heard that daniel was not fond of shelley because he felt she was a bad influence on nathan s studies. which wasn t true, by the way. but that s what daniel claimed. and then his friends suggested what might be the real reason daniel disliked shelley because he was jealous. didn t like nathan spending time with a girl. detective ellzey turned up the heat even more. how can you despise a human being that bad? she didn t do nothing to you. how did you hate that girl so much? i didn t you hated her enough to kill her? over a dude? i didn t you hated her that much, that she took nathan away from you,