all of her friends because they changed a lot depending on who she was hanging out with at the moment. but it wasn t familiar at all. reporter: a police officer came and took a report. james, meanwhile, called up the gps function on annie s cell phone. it put her around or about the golf course out in riverton and within a mile of that, which is around the bridge area. reporter: the bridge at the jordan river, just a couple miles from their home, a place joggers and horseback riders frequent during the day and young lovers at night. james, veronica and the officer watched as annie s phone pinged across the computer screen in realtime. you re watching her move. yes. when it moved so fast, our immediate assumption was, okay, she s getting in a car. reporter: so this is a hot pursuit now, looking for your girl? yep. reporter: and then the signal just stopped. veronica drove to a walmart near where they d tracked annie s phone. and i have her picture on my cell phone. and
by neighboring west jordan pd. during her interview, she started telling detectives about a young girl she had seen a week prior. the cops thought some of what she said sounded eerily similar to annie s case. so they called draper pd, and detective derek johnson and his colleague came over to hear what joanna had to say. tell me what you know about this girl. it was the second time i ve seen her over there. reporter: there at the home where a man named daniel ferry used to live. danny ferry is a guy known to law enforcement? yes. reporter: as maybe a drug dealer? drug dealer. he was a member of a gang called vario loco town. and law enforcement has dealt with danny quite a few times, yeah. reporter: ferry had a long rap sheet. in fact, derek had served a search warrant on his home a year earlier. and now here was joanna telling derek that she saw a girl who sounded a lot like annie at daniel ferry s home on the night annie was killed.
veronica and james had thought the rapid pinging of annie s phone meant she was driving away. now there was no hope offer ever coming home. so there s the very worst moment of your life at that point. here they are, three people at the door. they confirmed that it was annie. i think we were in shock. we went into automatic, what do you need from us? tell us what you want. you can have it. look at anything. reporter: veronica told investigators what she learned from annie s on-again/off-again boyfriend chris bagshaw. that annie had run away with a boy named l.j. when you talked with l.j., how did you talk to him? i talked to him once. okay. actually on the phone. okay. reporter: police spoke to chris bagshaw and his father at their home. and when you talked to him on the phone, did he speak with an accent or did you notice anything distinctive about his voice? no. reporter: naturally, police also had to ask chris where he was. i was with my grandma. okay. and
private lab to see if they could test the shoes further. it appeared both shoes were soaked in blood. came back with two males and two females. again, nothing you can take to the jury. right. six months passed and more dead ends. it had now been two years since annie s murder. i was starting to think maybe we re not going to actually solve this case. but ja clip was tenacious. she enlisted the help of a cell phone expert. former homicide detective named sy. he reviewed 35,000 of chris bagshaw s calls and texts and one call stood out. an incoming call at 9:01 p.m. the night annie was killed. what really stood out is we see these 25 handles. the signal bouncing from tower to tower. the signal strength had to at
gruesome scene. reporter: by the time veronica and james saw the reports annie had been missing for nearly 20 hours. the information that it s an asian woman in her 20s, i think, was the initial report. that would seem to rule out annie, certainly. initially, we were thinking, no, that s not possible. there s no way. reporter: but then, a detail sergeant carpenter shared with salt lake city s nbc affiliate ksl tv. there was a shoe found at the crime scene, and there was one on the body. reporter: a red shoe. the same kind james had bought annie for valentine s day just weeks earlier. veronica and james tried to stay calm. we called the police. and we said, hey, our daughter s missing. i think logically i was going, they re just going to rule it out. i just need them to rule it out. reporter: but they couldn t rule it out. after i called the police, i called my parents to come and pick up our boys. and i just started sobbing. reporter: police soon determined the 20-som