you put yourself in harm s way? oh, absolutely. i remember going to a place, and the lady said, you need to leave before somebody hurts you. that s how the days and weeks passed. i had a gun put to my head one night. in a frenzy of new leads that never panned out, with carol often ending up parked outside the apartment where angie was murdered. i would just stare at that house and stare at the windows and try and figure out how scared she must have been. something else carol couldn t stop doing reading police reports, practically memorizing them. i don t sleep when i get up, and i just go, what part of this don t i understand? it didn t make sense? none of it made sense. and in one of those reports, carol found a phrase, which the more she read it sounded out of place in the dna world. it was about pubic hairs, which in addition to the semen, had been found on angie s body. it was written in this lab report as similar or same as the victim. and i said to mysel
i know that i m facing prison time. there will be severe penalty for what i do. i don t want to be ripped away from my little boy. i have everything to lose. a year after daker s conviction, the hearing began on the motion for a new trial. daker again representing himself, called the dna expert to the stand. a man sleeps in a blanket, can his hair transfer to the blanket? yes. if a man has sex on the blanket can his hair transfer got blanket? yes. daker s chances really hinged on lottie. loretta spencer blatz. a nervous lottie made her way to the stand and swore to tell the truth. just prior to carmen smith s murder, i gave her two blankets. blankets that i knew you used in my roswell apartment.
documents that were printed the day of the murder and found slipped inside a magazine sitting on carol s kitchen counter? and how did knapp s dna get mixed with carol s blood in a sample taken from a doorknob, leaving the house? that was evidence item #805. they called a dna expert. so you can see that all the way across that top line the numbers are the same as james knapp and there are many points of difference with steve democker. your point was that on each of these analyses, james knapp matches each one of these, and steve democker doesn t. that s right. reporter: in fact, neither steve democker s dna, nor his fingerprints, were ever found at the crime scene. so, had police focused on the wrong man all along? and because steve democker knew that, did he make a foolish mistake like a frightened man would? the anonymous e-mail, the voice in the vent, all of that occurs
recognized dna expert? it s fun. i did fruit flies. nobody invited me to talk on television! reporter: this is the expert, a fruit fly geneticist. his work is not all done in the classroom. in fact, his own path changed in 2004 when he was asked to test some dan that led to an innocent man being freed from prison in georgia. he and another doctor wrote a book together and like the doctor found a new calling. he is now in high demand. in 2011, he was part of the team credited with free ago man an american college student freed in italy, amanda knox. he is the founder and director of idaho s innocent project. it s an unfortunate name our
i would stair at that house and stare at the window and try to figure out how scared she must have been. reporter: something else carol couldn t stop doing. reading police reports. practically memorizing them. it never made sense. reporter: in one of those reports carol found a phrase the more she read it found out of place in a dna world. it was about pubic hairs, which in addition to the simon, had been found on angie s body. it was written in this lab report that it was the same as the victim. i said to myself, it s either angie s or it s not angie s. it can t be either/or. reporter: then carol remembered reading an article about an internationally known dna expert who just so happened to live and work right in idaho. how does it feel to be a