moldy oldie, huh? we can get rid of that. reporter: investigators reported back to this man, wood county prosecutor paul dobson telling him what they had to work with and what they didn t. somewhere along the line, you had to greenlight this and commit budget money to it. you had to roll the dice a little. we had to find out whether there was justice to be done. reporter: the prosecutor s investigator teamed up with the northwood police department to rebuild what had been lost. to track down people and interview them again. that included paramedic ron billings. she was laying on her right side in the semi-fetal position. reporter: billings had been one of the first on the scene that night. what he found has haunted him, he says, for thirty years. i see her laying on the side of the road in between the pavement and the sidewalk. i put my hands behind her head and we roll her over and my hands come out and they re full of blood and at that point i just shake my h
reporter: and so it came pass that 33 years and four months after her mother was found by the side of that road, brittany stork was entering the marble hallways of the wood county courthouse. she d spent so much of her life trying to find out what had happened to her mother and now the moment of truth had arrived. the defendant russell adkins did purposely cause the death of dana rosendale. reporter: the prosecution s opening statement was simple common sense and science would prove russell adkins was a liar and a killer who had created a story about a tragic car accident to cover his tracks. deb, are you familiar with dana rosendale? i am. reporter: dana s sister deb took the stand to talk about her little sister forever 19 years old. she loved life, she loved people, she loved her family, she loved her little girl. reporter: deb told the jury it was obvious to her that dana
if it was murder, how would they ever prove it? there wasn t a murder weapon. they just had her body. just had stories and a victim on the side of the road. right. reporter: when dateline continues.
reporter: but as hard as he said it was to remember that night, adkins offered the investigator a brand new detail when confronted with evidence in the case. as you well know, dana s body was exhumed. right. okay, and then they did another autopsy and that led us to believe that she was hit over the head not from falling out of the car. so then that comes to me as asking you now how did she get the trauma on her head, then? from that pole that was there where the mailbox was at where she was leaned up against when the the officer came. he claims that he found her leaning up against a mailbox post. so she not only goes out the door, tumbles in the road. her head presumably hits a mailbox? that s what he says. which could account for the injuries. right. but we knew there was nothing there except for three very large trees kind of spread along the roadway. reporter: investigator kinder finally leveled with the bouncer. russ, with all due respect, i m not buying
and told her something that got her attention. he said, anything that ever happens can be found on microfiche at the library. this is a light bulb moment for you? uh-huh. i was like, well, what is that? and he said, all the newspaper articles, all the police reports. anything you ve ever done that s on a record or that s happened is going to be on an archive. reporter: that night brittany scored a lift to the library and headed straight for the archives. and i just started scanning all the newspapers they had on file. after i found her obituary, i found another article and the headline was 19-year-old found on road, dead. so i read through that one, and then thereas another one. and this is your mom, this is not a uh-huh. right. paper for school or an historic figure. this is your mom you re researching. yeah. and so i think it was more of a shock, you know, and i just every article that was on there. reporter: shocking to read about her mother s death i