Yes. A College Campus gripped by fear. A growing list of suspects. A growing list of victims, too. Her body had kind of been propped up on to the bed. Even Law Enforcement said, what do we have on our hands here. Theres growing danger because police are looking in the wrong place. I have lived to tell and nobody believed me. This monster is walking free while theyre wasting their time on me. Can the killer be caught before he kills again . It makes you realize how fragile life is and that anybody can take it. Im lester holt, and this is dateline. Heres Andrea Canning with the face of evil. Reporter looking back now, this woman almost didnt make it. I said if you keep doing this, youre going to kill me. And he said, do you think i really care about that . Reporter is that when you knew you were looking into the face of evil . I knew he was intent on killing me. Reporter little did she know that in this college town she wasnt the only one. He said he would go to jail for murder before he ever went to jail for rape. What was going through their mind . I wish i had told all the people i loved that i loved them. But was their private horror connected to a very public mystery . Everyone said what is going on in this community. People wondered whats going to happen next. People connected by tragedy and by questions. Could a killer have been stopped sooner . I was so angry that two people had to die in order for someone to believe me. The story begins in a small texas town, but its not just any town. This is College Station, home to texas a m. And in 1999, home to 21yearold student jamie hart. I was immediately struck with her beauty. Chuck crews was her boyfriend at the time. He said 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. And she was a loyal friend, funny, outspoken. She would tell you exactly what was on her mind at all times. It was early one morning in may. Jamies roommates couldnt find her. They called chuck. I got a call asking me if i knew where she was. And i said, no, she didnt come over here last night. I dont know where she is. I hadnt talked to her the night before, and i went to work. That same morning, detective Kenny Elliott of the Brazos County Sheriffs Office was summoned to the scene of a disturbing discovery. There was a young female, appeared to be in her early 20s. She was nude. She had extensive road rash on her entire body and she was obviously deceased. A jogger spotted the victim in a ditch nine feet from the side of the road. When i arrived there was probably half a dozen officers here and they had taped off the area, blocked traffic. At that point we started conducting a search of the area. We figured that she had been sexually assaulted and dumped here. Less than a mile away, deputies discovered what was presumed to be the womans clothing, strewn across the entrance to an oil field. Another nine miles from there, an abandoned vehicle, its engine still running. There was blood on the car, and that raised suspicion. We sent a team over there to process the car. And inside the car, a drivers license that belonged to jamie hart. When detectives showed up at chucks workplace that afternoon, he said his heart sank. There was this building sense that something was wrong, and the appearance of Police Officers is never a good sign. And when they told me that she had been found dead, it felt like i had been hit by a truck. Wow. So your sense of dread was right. Coming true . Yep. Realized. Fully realized. Did fear spread throughout the campus . Oh, yes. I mean, it was frontpage news. Kristin lancaster was a 19yearold freshman. My brother actually worked with jamie at the time, and ill never forget him coming home devastated. A killer in a college town is terrifying. Very much so, yes. This is something that happens in chicago. Its something that happens in houston. Its not something that happens in College Station in aggieland. The editor of the local newspaper. People just hope this is a drifter and moved on because of the location of the body. The detectives searched the crime scene, searched jamies car and talked to several witnesses. Talked to several people and no one saw anything. Turns out, there were no fingerprints inside the car, but during an autopsy, the medical examiner did recover dna from jamies body, dna which likely came from her rapist and killer. Did you put the dna into a database . We put it in codis. Any hits . None. No fingerprints, no dna matches. The investigation wasnt off to a good start. Thats when we started contacting people at her place of employment, friends, roommates. Did she have any enemies . Everybody seemed to love her. Detective elliott began to retrace jamies steps on the night of the murder. Jamie was taking time off from her studies at texas a m and was working at a pizza parlor. Her shift ended at midnight. We contacted everyone she delivered pizzas to and nothing out of the ordinary. Afterward she headed to a friends house. She watched movies and left the house at 11 30. What time do you think she was killed . We got the call at 7 15 a. M. So between 4 30 a. M. And 7 00 a. M. The friend was supposed to be the last one that saw her alive. The detective paid him a visit. He was upset, obviously. They were friends and had been for some time. The friends grief seemed genuine, but something wasnt peculiar. When investigators asked for a dna sample he said no. No . Of course, we wanted to know why. Was he the killer or was he not . The detective was determined to answer that question. So he put the young man under surveillance, followed him to a local restaurant. And are you hidden somewhere in the restaurant . Im kind of back in a corner, yeah. He watched the student have a few drinks. 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 collegeaged kids, be alert everywhere you go. Go with people when you go out. Dont be alone. And thats a frightening order to give anyone. Frightening, but sound advice because in this case, connecting the dots wouldnt be so easy. Detectives have a second possible suspect in their sights. Jamies boyfriend is invited to sit down for a polygraph test. When we return failed the test. Thats a bad sign for you, right . Bad sign for him. We certainly are lucky because our inlaws moved in with us. So great. Those are moms. Yes, they are. And our adult children, theyre here too. 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About the only thing that 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. Back in College Station, detective Kenny Elliott was working the case. Anytime you have a killer out on the run, its frustrating. You want to catch the person responsible. One possible suspect, that male friend jamie visited the night of her murder. Hed refused to give police a dna sample for testing. Thats kind of odd if he had nothing to hide. A lot of people will not give up dna. Too much tv. But the detective had snagged a 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 yes. The dna not matching . Yes. But even before the dna test cleared jamies 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 didnt really occur to me that that was what they were doing. I just thought they were asking for information. Chuck told the detective that before jamie was killed, he hadnt 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 there, but they were both asleep. I had nobody right there sitting there with me. So the boyfriends alibi wasnt solid. And as they spoke, the detective was looking carefully for signs he might be hiding something. He was cooperative. Apprehensive. He said everything was fine in their relationship. The detective asked chuck for dna, and he said yes. And when they asked him for a polygraph, he agreed to that, too. But heres the thing with that last part, the polygraph. Failed the test. Thats a bad sign for you, right . A bad sign for him, yes. Doesnt tell you that hes guilty, but he was a very strong person of interest. And whats more, the detective had been speaking with jamies friends who said the relationship wasnt fine. In fact, the couple had a fight and were on the verge of a breakup. All of which just led to more questions. Basically, he went over every aspect of the relationship. Just questioned him on his whereabouts. Tried to get him to confess. And if a failed polygraph wasnt suspicious enough, then listen to what the detective says chuck told him next. He said he had done some bad things and wouldnt tell us what. Did you look him in the eyes and say, is one of those bad things killing jamie hart . I did. He denied it. At that point in time, i really thought he could be our killer. And the more you started to think he was the killer, how does he react to that . Hes very nervous. He just acted like as if he was guilty. Chuck was free to go, but as authorities waited for his dna to be processed, the detective developed a theory of the crime that made sense to him. He was in love with her. He didnt want to lose her. And they were having some issues in their relationship. So the boyfriend, a likely suspect, was in the crosshairs, but when the dna results came back the dna was not a match. So were you able to rule out chuck crews then once you got that dna checked . I didnt rule him out completely, no. That was enough for you with the friend who she was with the night before, you ruled him out after you got the dna, correct . I did. The other guy wasnt her boyfriend. He hadnt flunked polygraphs. He wasnt in a bad relationship with her. Chuck was. But they didnt arrest chuck. Months went by, and the detective kept investigating him. Authorities seized his computer, searched his car. All the while chuck was saying they were looking at the wrong guy. Theres a lot of people that wont confess to a murder, for obvious reasons. And at that point, he was a person, strong person of interest, but i still didnt know if he was my killer, so we continued the search. The investigation dragged on. Life for the students on campus began to go back to normal. Parties every weekend. But when police were called to the scene of one house party, it wasnt because of noise or underage drinking. Another woman was in a fight for her life. Coming up a student at a party ends up a prisoner in a strangers apartment. I scream as loud as i can, and then immediately he grabs me and starts choking me again. When chuck crews girlfriend was murdered, he was immediately considered a person of interest. They said that you were acting nervous, that you were acting like you had something to hide. They interpreted all these things as signs of my guilt rather than a distraught boyfriend. At the time i had long hair, and this was a cowboy town. That was considered to be weird and unusual. As for those bad things he told the detective hed done, he explained to us he was referring to a petty argument theyd had just days before jamies murder and the guilt he felt from not being with her the night she died. Do you remember what you were arguing about . A loaf of bread. The grocery sacker had put a cantaloupe on a loaf of bread. And she was upset that the grocery sacker had squished the loaf of bread. And i told her it wasnt that big of a deal. And we had picked our sides and we argued about something as stupid as a loaf of bread. And now he says he could hardly grieve with police breathing down his neck. Whats it like waking up every morning and knowing that youre under a cloud of suspicion . Incredibly depressing. He left College Station, moved home to be with his family near dallas, to spent money to hire a defense attorney. The biggest thing that was going through my mind the whole time was that i didnt do it. They dont know who did it. And the guy who did it is out Walking Around and likely to prey on more victims. This monster is walking free while theyre wasting their time on me. Kelly brown of the eagle newspaper was writing front page stories about the unsolved crime in the college town. And it really shook the community because this is an area that isnt used to seeing this type of crime. And kelly was hearing talk that the police had a suspect. But there was no arrest, and thats what kept everybody saying, well, then, okay. Was it the boyfriend . Was it, you know, someone thats still out there . Is he going to strike again . It was scary, of course, and students like Kristin Lancaster followed the investigation. Did people change their behavior patterns because of this crime . To a certain degree, but i think it was shortlived. I mean, people went back to their classes and their business, yeah. You start rationalizing that maybe, you know, she trusted the wrong person. This doesnt happen to you. Exactly, yeah. And then it was late october, half a year since the murder of jamie hart. Kristin didnt know it yet, but she was about to become part of a chain of events that only deepened the mystery. I think maybe i went to classes that day. Im not exactly sure. I know that the evening time rolled around. I think, was it a friday . A friend invited kristin to a party. And she said, well, you know, im having a little gettogether at my house. Why dont you come by . Kristin drove over to the apartment complex in bryan, texas. Thats the town next to College Station. The door is open. Theres a few people inside. Theres some music playing and people having some drinks. She struck up a conversation with her friends upstairs neighbor. He was 24, hadnt been to college, but mixed in easily with the students. Was he kind of a likable guy . He seemed, yeah, very likable, yeah. He was very approachable. Seemed very nice. In fact, he had no problem sharing intimate details with kristin about his personal life. He had been married. And somehow the conversation, you know, goes into him telling me how he had found god. I made a lot of mistakes. I wasnt a great husband. You guys got into quite the personal conversation for having just met. Well, i was young and i think that was normal, and he was drunk. Not long after the party started, it abruptly ended. Kristins friend hosting the party got into a fight with her boyfriend. There was alcohol involved and so i was worried that it would get out of hand. Everyone left. But not kristin. She was concerned about her friend and stuck around talking to the upstairs neighbor. So you were feeling protective . Yeah. He said to me, you know, are you worried about your friend . I said, yes, i am. And he said we can go to my apartment so you can be close to a phone to call. She and the neighbor walked up the staircase to his apartment. Its directly above her apartment. And he opens the door. I was barely a step into the door and he just sort of kind of pushes me in, slams the door shut. He locks the door and immediately grabs a remote that was right there and turns the stereo up to this deafening volume. Just deafening. Kristin reached for the door to leave. And he pushes me back. And thats when he starts making some demands. All of a sudden its very serious and aggressive. And i almost to the point where i thought he was joking. But he was serious. Demanded she undress. And i kept arguing, im not going to do that. I kept saying, im not going to do it. He said, youre going to do it. Thats when he runs over and he grabs me by the throat. Hes choking me and choking me. And then the second he lets up i scream as loud as i can. And then immediately he grabs me and starts choking me again. And this time he picks me up almost by the throat and sort of, like, pulls me back into the bedroom thats in the back. Youre a prisoner in this apartment now . Yes. And he puts me on the mattress. And this is the first time i black out. I wondered if for a second this was it. I could die . Yeah. He has his hand still on my throat and hes sort of shaking me. Kristin couldnt fight him off physically, so she tried to talk her way out of a Sexual Assault. I said, you dont want to do this. And he stops. And he said, why dont i want the do this . And i said, well, because i have hiv. You can tell hes thinking about it for a second. He says