diane s body were badly damaged, but the bottom part was relatively intact. i didn t have the whole bullet, but at least had the entire circumference of the base i could examine. they could discern the lands and grooves on the bottom of the fatal bullets. the bullets test fired from diane s gun were the same as those that killed her. you re looking for these matching scratches. they have to have the same type of character, in other words, depth or the width of them and the spacing between them. despite the amount of decomposition, scientists recovered a biological sample from diane s body which matched ronnie neal s dna profile, proof of sexual assault. eventually, pearl told investigators the entire story of what happened to diane tilly.
so you reach for something better. fewer calories. fewer carbs. more to experience. michelob ultra. the superior light beer. after finding diane tilly s body, police arrested 33-year-old ronnie neal and his
something s not right. the prime suspects in diane tilly s disappearance were the middle aged man and young girl last seen driving a white pickup truck. every plam in the area was on the look out. it wasn t long before they stopped two people who fit that description. they were identified as 15-year-old pearl cruz and her 33-year-old father ronnie neal. both denied any involvement in diane tilly s disappearance, but they admitted stealing her car. you said, i was at a car wash and i found diane tilly s car. he said, you re not going to believe this, but the car was running and the door was open and there was all this stuff in it and i just couldn t resist it.
15-year-old daughter pearl cruz and charged them both with kidnapping and murder. investigators discovered that ronnie neal had done some landscaping work for diane and she even gave him a swing set she se no longer needed. diane took a little bit of care to engage pearl. she mentioned something to pearl about, you know, i like your nail polish. it s pretty. and i think she asked pearl where she went to school. pearl cruz told investigators that she and her father planned almost from the start to rob diane. well, it s a very disturbing story. it s disturbing on many levels. it s not an easy story to digest at all. on the night of the murder, pearl knocked on diane s door
despite this evidence, ronnie neal refused to cooperate. so police focused on his father pearl. she too refused to cooperate, at least initially. i recall being very angry with pearl over what happened. with diane tilly and telling her that there wasn t a day that was going to go by that she wasn t going to think about this. and after ten days in custody, pearl led police to diane s body. it was the area where ronnie neal made his cell phone call. a deserted field under a pile of brush 15 miles from diane s home. although the body was badly decomposed, it was clear that she d been shot several times. her hands were bound with a dark blue polyester shoe lace that looked like the missing shoe