the story begins in a small texas town, but it s not just any town. this is college station, home to texas a&m. and in 1999, home to 21-year-old student jamie hart. i was immediately struck by her beauty. he was her boyfriend at the time. he says jamie was the light of his life. he remembers when he first laid eyes on her. i could barely speak when i saw her. she was so pretty. it was like when the color came on in the wizard of oz. i had been living in a dark world, and she showed me a world full of color. she was a loyal friend. funny, outspoken. she would tell you what was on her mind at all times. it was early one morning in may, jamie s roommates couldn t find her. they called chuck. i got a call asking if i knew where she was? i said no, she didn t come over
carolyn would have still been here, i mean, there s no doubt. and what about the woman at the start of our story? jamie hart s case had been handled by the brazos county sheriff s department, but after ynobe had been arrested it didn t take long for the college station s office and the department to determine ynobe was also jamie s killer. i remember the feeling of wanting to feel relieved but all i could think was this is this is exactly what i knew was going to happen. he struck again, another girl is dead and another family has lost their precious daughter. chuck says to this day he misses jamie and has never gotten over being viewed as a suspect. having to spend such a long time under investigation for the
connection. you were sexually assaulted. jamie hart was sexually assaulted. did you start to think these could be connected. i didn t think they were connected and primarily with jamie there was a boyfriend that may have been involved and it was a romantic relationship that went wrong. it wasn t a random occurrence by a stranger. kristen was living with overwhelming anxiety and dread which she says manifested into dangerous behavior. instead of being afraid of everything i became afraid of nothing. i just became completely risk seeking. what kind of things would you do? i started drinking heavily, for awhile after that. you know, i d hop on the back of a stranger s motorcycle had we had three beers and it took a long time to really get out of that hole. just as kristen was starting to turn a corner, her attacker was due in court on the misdemeanor charge, but nothing came of it. he didn t even show up.
sample from a beer mug and when the dna finally came back, he was not a match. you felt confident that you could rule him out based on the dna not matching. yes. but even before the dna test cleared jamie s friend, the detective was already looking for other suspects. and his attention quickly landed on someone very close to the victim, her boyfriend. the questions that they asked focused on where was i the night before, what had i been doing. looking at you as a possible suspect. it didn t really occur to me that that s what was they were doing. i just thought they were asking for information. chuck told the detective that before jamie was killed, he hadn t seen her for two days. on the night of the murder, he said he was at home. i was playing computer games like a good nerd. did you have anyone there to corroborate your alibi? i think my roommates were
why. was he the killer or was he not? he put the young man under surveillance and followed him to a local restaurant. are you hidden somewhere in the restaurant? i m back in a corner, yeah. he watched the student had a few drinks and when he left, the detective snagged the dirty beer mugs and sent them out for dna testing. the results would take weeks, leaving a town full of young people on edge. dads and moms were telling their college-aged kids, be alert everywhere you go. go with people when you go out. don t be alone. that s a frightening order to give anybody. frightening but sound advice because in this case, connecting the dots wouldn t be so easy. detectives have a second possible suspect in their sights. jamie s boyfriend is invited to sit down for a polygraph test. coming up. failed the test. that s a bad sign for you, right? bad sign for him. when dateline continues. r hi.