in the investigation. it was probably within a week, i quit my job and left up to. i was scared. reporter: she now regrets that decision. her attack happened first. months before jamie was murdered. i feel like if i would have stayed and fought him through the police department that possibly he wouldn t have been able to go on to hurt anyone else. reporter: and kristin, is left with the memory of an assault, that, according to the law, never really happened. i was so angry that two people had to die in order for someone to believe me. reporter: did the system fail? it failed me. it failed carolyn. it failed jamie. reporter: you think about them a lot? they were total strangers to you. but they re my alternative future. i mean, they re what could ve happened to me. i mean, they re what could ve happened to any of us. reporter: a jury convicted ynobe matthews of carolyn s murder and sentenced him to
this was a cowboy town. that was considered to be weird and unusual. as for those bad things he told the detective he d done he explained to us he was referring to a petty argument they d had just days before jamie s murder and the guilt he felt from not being with her the night she died. reporter: do you remember what you were arguing about? a loaf of bread the grocery sacker had put a cantaloupe on a loaf of bread. [ laughs ] and she was upset that the sacker had squished the bread. and i told her it wasn t that big of a deal. and we had picked our sides and we argued about something as stupid as a loaf of bread. smiem and. and now he says he could hardly grieve with police breathing down his neck. reporter: what s it like waking up every morning and knowing that you re under a cloud of suspicion? incredibly depressing. he left college station
provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it s the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. reporter: 21-year-old jamie hart had been sexually assaulted and left to die on the side of a busy roadway. i could barely function. i i all i could think about was loss, that she s gone from my life forever. reporter: jamie s boyfriend, chuck cruz, then 24, says right after the murder he took off to baytown texas, jamie s hometown. about the only thing i remember her father asking me is, when are you coming down?
so i got some stuff together and drove down as soon as i could. and i spent most of the next week with them, mourning with the family. and then acting as a pallbearer for her funeral. reporter: back in college station, detective kenny elliott was working the case. anytime you have a killer out on the run it s frustrating. you want to catch the person responsible. reporter: one possible suspect that male friend jamie visited the night of her murder. he d refused to give police a dna sample for testing. reporter: that s kind of odd, if he had nothing to hide. a lot of people will not give up dna. too much tv. reporter: but the detective had snagged a sample from a beer mug and when the dna finally came back, he was not a match. reporter: you felt confident that you could rule him out, based on yes. yes. reporter: the dna not matching?
death of a loved one. it hurts. it hurts a lot. reporter: it s it s like a scar? very much so. very much so. reporter: do you feel bad about that at all, that he was put through that? i m sorry that he had to go through that, yes. but if i had to do the investigation over, i wouldn t change anything. i m sorry he lost the love of his life. but we had a job to do, and we had to either arrest him for murder, or clear him. we cleared him. reporter: but before jamie, before kristin, before carolyn, there was another victim who soon learned she was also connected to this horrifying series of events. her name is misty johnson. if i didn t let him rape me, he would have killed me. reporter: like kristin, misty reported her attack to the bryan police department. but ynobe denied it, claiming it was consensual, and misty was too traumatized to help police