i saw blood everywhere. jodi gonterman : her daughter's laying there. >> terrified. a yo >> terrified. attacked. jason morales : blood on the floor, shovel, duct tape, also a knife. unidentified woman : i truly thought brittani would die. andrea canning : you wake up from your coma. brittani marcell : i'm just, like, trying to communicate. dr. lori wright : she didn't give up. brittani marcell : it was a struggle. andrea canning : you're not you're the witness. brittani marcell : it's almost like a nightmare. andrea canning : the detective wanted you to do hypnosis? brittani marcell : mm-hm. your mind is in a completely different phase. dr. leon morris (psychologist; recording) : tell me what's happening. brittani marcell (recording) : he-- he's hurting me. he's hurting me. jodi gonterman : the details that she gave. it was unbelievable. brittani marcell : she goes, you did it. i said, no, you did. andrea canning : route 66 once stretched across the southwest from one horizon to the next. going from what america was to what it wanted to be. cities like albuquerque, new mexico were celebrated stops along the journey. today, buildings that once lined this part of the iconic highway have faded and closed as the cottonwood mall became the new downtown. andrea canning: the mall was kind of the big hangout? unidentified woman : we hangout. unidentified woman : yeah. i met my husband at the mall, so absolutely yes. unidentified woman : so did i. andrea canning: (laughter) alicia marcell : it's played a pivotal part in our lives. andrea canning : for the marcell sisters--all six of them-- along with brother jonathan, the cottonwood mall in albuquerque was the center of their social lives. unidentified woman : and it was people that we went to school with. and so everybody kind of knew everybody. andrea canning : sister number five, seventeen-year-old brittani, worked at a sunglasses kiosk in the atrium. jennifer marcell : and she's this beautiful, blonde girl with striking blue eyes and a big smile. it-- unidentified woman : you were just drawn to her. andrea canning : life was simple, good. until wednesday, september 11, 2008. brittani, just starting her senior year of high school, made plans to meet her mom, a credit union teller, at home for lunch. diane marcell : i open the door, and i walk in. and i saw her favorite pair of red sunglasses down on the floor. andrea canning : did that mean anything to you? diane marcell : i-- i thought that was really weird. andrea canning : a seemingly trivial detail now burned into diane's memory because of what she saw next. diane marcell : i see her laying there on the floor. andrea canning : lying on the floor? diane marcell : on the floor. and she's just bleeding profusely. andrea canning : then, what do you see? diane marcell : i see a person who i've never seen before in my house. and he's holding a shovel. and he walks through my living room, drops the shovel, and walks through the dining room and around to the kitchen. and i'm looking at him. and he tells me i'm next, while he's reaching for a butcher knife. andrea canning : he's going to kill you? diane marcell : yes. andrea canning : what do you do? diane marcell : i ran out. i'm screaming and yelling. andrea canning : diane's screams got the attention of a passerby who was brave enough to help. diane marcell : he ran into the house. and he yelled back. and he said, you need to get those paramedics here real quick. she's going to die. andrea canning : diane called 911 but stayed outside. certain the attacker was still in her home. diane marcell (911 recording) : i just walked in and i saw blood everywhere. i'm afraid to go in. i walked in, and he had-- he was coming after me. he ran to the kitchen. andrea canning : police and the paramedics were there in minutes. brittani was taken to the hospital as diane called her other children. jennifer marcell : someone was calling me, saying, brittani got stabbed. kat had thought she was in a car accident. alicia marcell : yeah, i thought she got stabbed. unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : we didn't realize what had happened. unidentified woman : yeah, and so i rushed home to my mom. she told me what happened. and i truly thought brittani would die. andrea canning : the sisters rushed to the hospital. but once there were met with confused looks. unidentified woman : they were like, we don't have a brittani marcell here. unidentified woman : yeah. andrea canning : minutes later, detectives arrived. and told the marcell family, for her safety brittani was admitted under an assumed name. jennifer marcell : we still hadn't understood what happened. unidentified woman : right. jennifer marcell : i mean, she's under an alias. the police officers rush us into this private room in the hospital. andrea canning : putting brittani under an assumed name may have been a smart move. because the family was later told about a mysterious visitor, who was trying to get in to see brittani. diane marcell : while we were in the waiting room, one of the nurses came out and said, do you know that some man just came in to see her? andrea canning : who was it? diane marcell : we don't know who it was. andrea canning : you never-- diane marcell : we don't know. andrea canning : the man left before he could be identified. diane had a terrifying thought. maybe it was brittani's attacker. diane marcell : i didn't know if this person was watching us from afar. did he follow the ambulance? i went into the restroom. i would look at every stall on the back of the doors to make sure that nobody was in there or standing on the-- on the actual commode. andrea canning : fear took over? diane marcell : fear. andrea canning : as brittani teetered on the edge of death, her family could only guess as to who attacked her and why. jennifer marcell : we started looking, like, who's in our lives? what strange person? unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : is it any of the boyfriends?" unidentified woman : everybody in our family is a natural problem-solver. and so everybody's trying to formulate ideas of who, how-- unidentified woman : who it was. right. unidentified woman : --what, when. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : the marcells were raised to be close and self-sufficient. their dad, a truck driver, was often away. when he and diane divorced, she had to go to work. the children looked out for each other. andrea canning: how do you think it shaped brittani being number five in this big family? jennifer marcell : she looked up to kathlein and kristen and alicia. andrea canning : remind me again who's the oldest? jennifer marcell : i am. i think i was kind of like her mom too. i mean, that's the way it goes in a big family, right? you-- the littlest one has the most moms. andrea canning : like her older sisters, brittani was disciplined and hard working. alicia marcell : she was an excellent student. she had a good circle of friends. unidentified woman : i think she kind of set herself apart from the popular crowd-- unidentified woman : that's right. mm-hm. unidentified woman : --rather than was inside it. and i think most of that is because she's very genuine in everything that she does. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : brittani was headed for college and hoped one day to become a local tv reporter covering albuquerque. alicia marcell : very, very driven. she was scheduled to graduate high school early. she wanted to study journalism. andrea canning : but her mom, diane, said brittani hit a rough patch during her junior year in high school. andrea canning: how was brittani acting? diane marcell : just rebellious, normal seventeen-year-old, how they, you know, get confrontational if you ask them something. andrea canning : things got so tense for a while, brittani moved in with her dad. diane marcell : and he wasn't there all the time, so it was perfect for her. andrea canning : this was her sort of mild way of running away from home? diane marcell : a little bit. right. andrea canning : but by the start of her senior year, brittani wanted to come back. that's why she and her mom were meeting for lunch. to discuss brittani's return. instead, brittani was attacked. andrea canning: what did the doctors tell you when brittani was brought to the hospital? diane marcell : they didn't think she would survive. andrea canning : are you able to see her? diane marcell : we can see her, but she doesn't know we're there. unidentified woman : the moment we all walked into the room, everything stopped. unidentified woman : right. unidentified woman : brittani's head was the size-- alicia marcell : huge. unidentified woman : --of a basketball, if not bigger. unidentified woman : mm-hm. mm-hm. unidentified woman : and i don't think any of us really thought that's brittani. andrea canning : what goes through your mind when you realize you may not-- never have any moments with your sister again? unidentified woman : i think-- andrea canning : like, this could be it. alicia marcell : all the moments you missed. unidentified woman : i think-- alicia marcell : you know, like brittani had a couple nights before asked me to go to maroon 5 concert. and i was like, "no, i'm busy."// and it's like all those moments, i should've done all those things. i didn't tell her i loved her enough. unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : i didn't hold her enough. she didn't know how much she meant to me. i didn't tell her i appreciated her. my son's not going to get to see her again. alicia marcell : you're having a dress rehearsal for a death that hasn't happened. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning: coming up andrea canning : who was brittani's attacker? jason morales : this just seemed so personal. andrea canning : this person seemed like they were full of rage. jason morales : who was brittani hanging around with? who might be a suspect? andrea canning : and would he return? diane marcell : the alarm was set constantly. alicia marcell : we just never experienced that kind of imminent danger. andrea canning : when dateline continues. icy hot. ice works fast. ♪♪ heat makes it last. feel the power of contrast therapy. ♪♪ so you can rise from pain. icy hot. (marci) so, how long have you lived here? (opponent) so yover forty years.pain. (marci) and how are the restaurants around here? are they good, bad, meh? what's the average household income? is there a mall? i don't know. a hair salon? where do you get your hair done? (opponent) you gonna move, or what? (marci) oh, i'm sorry. it's a lovely neighborhood. (luke) marci, we've gotta go. (marci) i'm coming! (luke) we've got seventeen thousand more parks to visit. (marci) you wanna give me a hand? (luke) we bring you the best neighborhood info. (vo) ding dong! homes-dot-com. you are bountiful. your hair can grow 590 miles over your lifetime. it's in your nature to grow. grow thicker fuller hair with one capsule a day of advanced hair complex. nature's bounty. it's in your nature. an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement. nexgard® plus helps you protect your dog from fleas, ticks, heartworm disease, and more... all in one delicious, monthly, soft chew. use with caution in dogs with a history of seizures or neurologic disorders. nexgard® plus: the one you want for one-and-done protection. [coughing] copd isn't pretty. i'm out of breath, and often out of the picture. but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ [laughing] ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful, all day and night. because breathing andrea canning : while the marcells tried to grasp what happened to brittani (brit-nee), the police were trying to find out who did it. albuquerque police detective jason morales, since retired, was the lead investigator. andrea canning: you've seen a lot of murders in your career. how-- how brutal was this attack in this house? jason morales : it was very brutal. andrea canning : morales said brittani had been hit repeatedly with a shovel, so hard it crushed the left part of her skull. jason morales : so when i got here, the crime vans already parked out front. they had been here for a little while. they're waiting on the condition of the victim, brittani, to see if she was going to survive or if she's going to die. andrea canning : morales said the fact that brittani's purse and sunglasses were found right in the entryway led him to believe the attacker came up behind her as she entered the house. andrea canning: did you get the sense that maybe this was a burglary in progress and brittani just happened to come home? or do you-- did you feel like the perpetrator was someone that brittani knew? jason morales : this just seemed so personal. it seemed to me at the time that we're looking at somebody that either knew brittani or knew somebody in the family, or there's something-- there's more of a connection to their. andrea canning : the brutal nature of the attack, did that tell you anything? i mean, this person seemed like they were full of rage. jason morales : it does. we started to trying to figure out who was brittani hanging around with, who might be a suspect. because it-- really, at this point, we had no suspect at all, so everybody is. andrea canning : morales believed the attack had just started when brittani's mom arrived. jason morales : i don't think he was anticipating diane showing up. andrea canning : the pattern of blood at the scene indicated the attacker actually chased diane when she fled the house, but stopped for some reason. maybe, morales thought, when diane started screaming. jason morales : and he panicked. so instead of going out a sliding glass door whether it was locked or unlocked, he jumps out of a dining room window, i mean, not through the screen, he jumps through the glass to get out. andrea canning : inside the house, morales found a room full of evidence jason morales : so once we were able to go inside, you could see it was pretty violent. there was blood on the floor. a shovel. there was duct tape. and then there was also a knife. andrea canning : a lot of clues. jason morales : yes, absolutely. andrea canning : enough, morales thought, to solve the case. that is, until he got the lab results. the fingerprints found on the shovel, knife and tape were incomplete. dna from a male was found on the shovel and the knife, but it was so intermingled with brittani's blood, it was impossible to develop an individual profile. but on a shard of broken glass, police found a drop of blood that looked promising, because it was pristine. jason morales : when he jumped out of the window, he cut himself. andrea canning : the blood drop was analyzed and a complete, male, dna profile was generated, which morales uploaded to the national criminal database, called codis. jason morales : to see if it would match anybody that's already in the database. andrea canning : did you get a match? jason morales : no. andrea canning : no match? morales couldn't believe it. he was convinced brittani's attacker had to be a repeat offender. jason morales : you'd have to figure that somebody that's done something that-- in that extreme has done-- done something like that before. andrea canning : brittani's attacker, basically, vanished into thin air. jason morales : yes. andrea canning : so now morales' investigation went from the lab to the street. he'd heard brittani was seeing someone, kind of a boyfriend. andrea canning: was he a potential suspect? jason morales : absolutely. andrea canning : did you do a dna test on her sort of boyfriend? jason morales : yes. he was cleared. his dna did not match that. andrea canning : police didn't have to rely on just hard evidence, though. they had an eyewitness to the attack. diane marcell : i could see his height. andrea canning : brittani's mom had actually seen the guy. diane marcell : i saw he had jeans on. he had a long-sleeved shirt on. andrea canning : and what does he look like? diane marcell : either a dark caucasian man or a light hispanic with brown hair, kind of spiky. andrea canning : police created a composite sketch and spread the word across the rio grande valley. jason morales : there was both billboards, of rewards, crime-stoppers rewards. names just start pouring in. so we were talking to a bunch of people. andrea canning : but to no avail. the billboard campaign didn't produce any workable suspects, witnesses or leads. meanwhile, the marcell family was on edge. in the days following the attack, brittani remained on life support, close to death. unidentified woman : we really didn't know what to do when they said she's probably not going to make it. andrea canning : their home, once a safe and sacred place, was now marred by evil. kathlein guinn : walking in was like someone died there. jennifer marcell : yeah. kathlein guinn : like, it was just morbid. unidentified woman : hard. unidentified woman : it was just dark. alicia marcell : mm-hm. kathlein guinn : yeah. unidentified woman : very dark. kristin marcell: living there or staying there or having game nights, holidays. we all can say we have a fond memory of that house. and going back there, it's that dark feeling you get on the inside of this isn't okay. and you just wanna get what you have to get to survive, and leave andrea canning : brittani's mom soon found a rental house, but changing addresses didn't help with the lingering unease. diane marcell : whenever we're in the house, the alarm was set constantly. no open windows. no open doors until we go out. our whole lifestyle changed. andrea canning : the marcells were terrified brittani had been attacked by someone who knew them and their routines, someone who might strike again. alicia marcell : we just never experienced that kind of imminent danger. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning: did you worry about them that they could be targets, that he-- he could go after one of them? or he could try to finish off brittani. jason morales : right, just because we don't know if brittani was, actually, the in-- the initial target. and the fact that he hadn't been identified-- i think it was unsettling for everybody. and i think they had every reason to be worried. andrea canning : they worked out a schedule, taking turns standing vigil at the hospital with brittani. they tried to be hopeful, but they also knew the doctors and the police all thought brittani was going to die. alicia marcell : and all the reports at the hospital were looking-- like, the trajectory was for brittani to pass. andrea canning : but, somehow, brittani held on, and six weeks after the attack, against all odds, she finally opened her eyes. alicia marcell : when brittani came to and she woke up, her eyes were blue like the ocean before. unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : mm-hm. alicia marcell : and they-- they were gray. unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : and i kept thinking, he took your light-- unidentified woman : yup. alicia marcell : --oh, my god-- unidentified woma