mollie s death had reached her family. i was in shock. i remember crying really hard, and i was throwing stuff in my room, because it just didn t seem real to me. how were your parents? really emotional. i d never seen my dad cry. they took it really hard. so did mollie s friends, stephanie and brooke. i just remember, like, she s dead, she s dead! and everyone was like, who s dead? and i said, mollie. over the next few days, neighbors here began asking the same question who had pulled the trigger, and why? finding those answers fell to portland, texas, police detective roland chavez. mollie can t give us any information and kristene s in the hospital and she can t give us any information. at that point, it s not even clear whether kristene s going to survive, right.
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friends revealed something that not many knew. they began to tell us they were in a relationship. these weren t just two friends. they were dating? yes. that had many here wondering if a romance that was hidden from many might have in some way been a motive for the attack. conceivable that this was some kind of hate crime? i mean, i d be lying if i said that thought didn t cross through my mind. three days later came news from the hospital, kristene chapa had regained consciousness. we re hoping now we re going to be able to really get the ball rolling. the story kristene eventually shared with police provided intriguing clues about the identity of her attacker, and it s a story kristene will also share with you. coming up, kristene s harrowing account. the first thing we asked her, of course, is did you know the person that did this?
point out their client had no history of violence at all. david strickland did not do this. it was sam smith who had the last word. dylan spellman, he told the jury, might have been under suspicion but ultimately had nothing to do with this crime. david strickland, he said, was the man holding the gun. shooting both of these girls for no identifiable reason at all, he s certainly a psycho path. prosecutor smith never offered the jury a possible motive. kristene says she is should have it is about her sexual orientation. what is the reason for thinking it is a hate crime? the letter he supposedly tried to send to my dad said something about those [bleep] lesbians. in his interrogation strickland said he had no issues with the gay community. whether or not that was the truth, prosecutors decided not to charge him with a hate crime. after five days of testimony, the jury began deliberations. it took six
to return to? it s not painful. i guess i just kind of feel closer to her, i guess, because it s the last place i saw her at. rehab helped distract kristene from her sadness. so did working with police to find mollie s killer. kristene was kind of our inspiration. seeing how hard she was working just made us continue to work even that much harder for her. it wasn t for lack of hard work, but police had to face the truth. the investigation had stalled. at this point, sounds like you re kind of nowhere. yeah. and then the dna tests of the cigarette butts and the drink can came back from the lab. and that changes everything? yes. coming up a mysterious message rocks the case. the letter is written from the perspective of the hit man who has been hired to kill the surviving victim in this case, kristene chapa. kristene chapa. when dateline continues.