of murder in the first degree as charged in count one of the indictment. praise god. it was like the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders. he s guilty. amazing, amazing. ken dion did not kill bonnie craig and did not rape her. reporter: are you telling me that you believe your client is innocent? i am. reporter: you don t think he committed this crime? i don t. we re asking for the maximum sentence. reporter: at the sentencing this past october, as the prosecutor argued for 124 years, the maximum sentence and no chance at parole because dion hadn t shown any sign of remorse mr. dion, as the family has pointed out, has never taken responsibility for what he s done. and i never will because i dn t do it! a that answers your question, judge. nothing further. reporter: kenneth dion, as if on cue, denied it all. the judge gave him the maximum but also the chance at parole when he s about 80.
reporter: and when you did. we the jury find the defendant, kenneth dion, guilty of murder in the first degree as charged in count one of the indictment. praise god. sweet victory. it was like the weight of the world was lifted off our shoulders. he s guilty. amazing, amazing. ken dion did not kill bonnie craig and did not rape her. reporter: are you telling me that you believe your clnt is innocent? i am. reporter: you don t think he committed this crime? i don t. we re asking for the maximum sentence. reporr: at the ntencing this past october, as the prosecutor argued for 124 years, the maximum sentence and no chance at parole because dion hadn t shown any sign of remorse mr. dion, as the family has pointed out, has never taken responsibility for what he s done. and i never will because i didn t do it! and that answers your question, judge. nothing further. reporter: kenneth dion, as if on cue, denied it all. the judge gave him the maximum but also
not one person could place kenneth dion with bonnie or at the creek that day. there s no witnesses to say that they saw ken and bonnie together that day. reporter: yeah. there were no witnesses placing him near her, along her route. reporter: the case went to the jury in mid-june. it was not for long. karen and the family were on their way to do a tv interview and as i m pulling up to the interview, i see the cameraman and the reporter taking off. and they circle around. they said, the jury s back! reporter: the jury deliberated so fast, just several hours, they thought it had to be guilty. it was incredibly exciting because we knew that it was going to happen. we just were dying to hear the words.
bonnie s mother continues her own crusade. then after more than a decade of searching, a phone call. they got information there was a match. can we get a conviction on just the dna? and there was something else, something about bonnie herself. it was almost like she knew something. keith morrison with justice for bonnie. good evening and welcome to dateline. i m lester holt. we often see headlines about dna evidence exonerating the innocent. it seems we hear less about how dna is used to track down the guilty. in a story you re about to see, a sample found on a murdered young woman was sent to the national database. 12 years after she was killed, it turned up a match. one profile out of 5 million matching a man thousands of miles away, but in this case, prosecutors would need more than dna to convict a killer. here s keith morrison. captions paid for by nbc-universal television reporter: many years ago late on a september night, a family in anchorage, al