he had told us in this phone call that l.j. had driven by the house, was threatening chris. reporter: so here s more information that this l.j. is a very real and threatening person? yes. you know, i never wanted to reporter: detectives also spoke to chris and annie s friend spencer riddle. spencer said he was at the gym with his brother the night annie was killed. did she have an interest in gangs or i m just maybe she does because of some person named l.j. that i have no idea who it is. all i know is she told me he was in a gang. i don t know for sure. reporter: before he left the interview, spencer shared one more thing with police. she said that l.j. has killed someone before. she never gave me the name, but she said that, she knows that or something like that. that s why she was scared when apparently l.j. threatened chris to come kill him. reporter: you thought l.j. was your killer? we thought l.j. was involved. reporter: did boy-crazy annie fall for a g
reporter: chris attorney said chris wanted to take responsibility for what he had done. all right. then as to count one, murder, a first-degree felony, how do you plead? guilty, your honor. reporter: a guilty plea, confirming what jaclyn had pieced together over the years of her investigation. and she had a theory about how it all went down. so march 10th, annie is discussing over the phone what her options are for her baby with chris. and chris is telling her he s come up with a plan and they can run away and be together. reporter: jaclyn thinks chris really believed annie was pregnant. so he persuaded her to meet him at the river. but chris has no intent on running away. chris only reason for being there is to kill her. so he just starts beating her until she dies. reporter: turns out to be a very sloppy crime. the amount of blood.
reporter: which only intensified when annie entered her teen years. she was about as boy crazy as i could imagine. she always had a boy that she liked or that liked her. and it was never a, here, let me see. it s a, oh, i m so in love with you. this is forever. i couldn t imagine anybody being more amazing. she was very all in. reporter: but annie was also into her education and her future. she wanted to be a therapist just like veronica. she even wanted her new family to adopt more kids. well, what about this other girl, mom? she s there. and she s really having a hard time. i think we should bring her home. it was reporter: she was really becoming your daughter in a way, huh? yeah. reporter: veronica eventually divorced and remarried. she and her new husband james settled here, in riverton, utah, a quiet suburb of salt lake city. annie had james wrapped around her finger. i took her with me to help me pick out her mother s valentine s day gift.
yeah. reporter: they continued to investigate ferry. months went by. lead detective derek johnson was promoted to sergeant. which meant former hairdresser jaclyn moore s dream of making detective finally came true. maybe a case of beware what you wish for. one of her first assignments was the annie kasprzak murder. how did you feel about it? that this was now going to be your case? i cried for two hours. reporter: jaclyn decided she needed to start again from the beginning, following the chain of evidence that led her colleagues to daniel ferry. she thought she might link ferry to annie through his phone calls. but when she checked all of his cell phone records showed he was in the middle to northern part of salt lake county. he had never gone south close enough to where annie was killed. not even near her house. reporter: and she well knew the physical evidence wasn t there either. none of the dna came back saying annie was ever a friend or ever at his house.
found the carpet in ferry s house had been ripped up and the walls were freshly painted. you ve got signs of a cover-up? yeah, it s looking more and more like this is actually true, all this information that we re receiving. reporter: did you find blood-like splotches on the wall? we found indications that there would be blood on the wall. reporter: they swabbed those areas and then went looking for daniel. they found him at an apartment complex, arrested him and brought him in. do you want to talk to us without counsel? yeah, whatever. but what s it about? let me ask you that. what do you think? i got no clue. reporter: it was, detectives thought, the typical bad guy response. they were sure daniel knew something. they asked him about l.j. who the hell s l.j.? that s what i m asking you. dude, i don t know no l.j. reporter: and then about annie. tell me about annie. tell me about annie. annie who? annie. who the [ bleep ] is annie? annie is a girl t