state s new abortion law. it allows anyone to sue a provider accused of violating the law. now back to dateline. for sgt. liz thomson and detective jodi gonterman, calling brittani s case cold was an admission of defeat. but 8 years after the attack, the investigation had clearly stalled. so this new name from brittani justin hansen didn t look to be any kind of case-changer. she gave me so many names of people, but nothing was really significant to her, and all along, justin s name never came up. did she have any reason why his name, of all people, was popping into her head? she she didn t know. it just popped into her head one day. hansen didn t match the description brittani gave while under hypnosis. he s hurting me.
it wasn t like a hanging out, regular basis type thing. because she cause brittani actually remembers you coming in and visiting her and hanging out and talking with her, like twice a week. no, no. after a few minutes of this, gonterman told hansen what she was really after. a dna sample. just to compare with the dna at the scene just so we can exclude everyone because that narrows down the field. expecting, or hoping, hansen would agree, gonterman put on a pair of latex gloves as she continued to talk. not that you re a suspect at all anyway, because you re not. but hansen hesitated. can i can i think about this then come back and see you? just because it seems kind of what s your concerns? i don t know. me and my wife watch a bunch of a bunch of shows, and we hear people, you know, oh, i ve been in trouble or i got in trouble for something i never did.
and had come over to my kiosk and would talk and all. it was what i thought a mutual relationship. did he seem interested in you? i don t remember that at all. flirty? flirty. brittani called detective gonterman with this latest memory. she says a name popped into my head, i don t know where this guy was justin hanson, he would come in and visit me. it was nothing bad. i remember him hanging out with me an hour at a time. it happened maybe three month before the attack, he would come by and just talk to me. gonterman knew that while under hypnosis, brittani said she may have met her attacker at the sunglasses kiosk. did i see him at my work? i don t know. did you see him at your work, you said? yeah. maybe he bought glasses, maybe. over the previous nine years, the marcells had asked police to
to brittany, treating each visit like it was the last. she didn t have a lot of memory. it was talking to a little girl a sweet little girl trying to remember. by 2014, six years after the assault on brittani marcell, the detective was out of leads, suspects. gonterman and thomson believed if they were ever going to solve this case, they had to do something radical, possibly even traumatic, find a way to let brittani relive the attack that nearly killed her. there was no doubt brittani was improving dramatically, but she still had no recollection of the attack. nobody knew if her memory of that day was gone forever, or would eventually emerge from the haze, and they
want to get my hopes up because i didn t want to get disappointed again. still not convinced this man was the guy she d spent years hunting, gonterman, along with a fellow detective wearing a body cam, paid justin a visit. hi, how are you? are you justin? i am justin. okay, cool. i m jodi. we re detectives with the apd. okay. right from the start justin was calm and cooperative. i m investigating a case. it s an older case. and i m just going back and talking with friends who knew brittani marcell. okay. it s from 08. okay. hansen invited the detectives into his home, where gonterman started off with the basics. do you remember hanging out with her at her sunglass place ever? not hanging out with her. i walked by, maybe and kind a just, hey, how you doing? what s new? how s your family? how s your sisters? that kind of stuff. on a like, on a regular basis or do you just remember like no, no, no. just when i when i think when i was working at the mal