tell me where's the evidence, all of that. it wasn't well received at all. >> finally, the break they needed. >> we got the match. >> leading to one of the greatest twists of all time. >> you could not have shocked me more. >> what really happened in the middle of the night. thanks for joining us, i'm lester holt. in some of the most difficult murder cases there just aren't any suspects. in this story, there were plenty, but it would be years before technology and one determined woman would help reveal who the killer really was. and in a case that started out with so many possibilities, no one would believe how it ended. here's josh mankowitz. >> reporter: it was a saturday morning in october, 1984, when sheila's phone rang. >> it was a girlfriend. she said that there's been an accident. >> reporter: an accident involving sheila's good friend, freshman roommate and fellow student at southern methodist university, angela samoda. >> i initially thought that angie had been in a car accident. and of course i went through the is she in the hospital, where is she? and i wasn't getting any information from her. and my girlfriend was crying. >> reporter: that's because it wasn't an accident. that same morning, angie's sorority sister, evelyn sandy, was given the news straight out by two friends. >> they told me that angie had been murdered. she had been found naked with a lot of stab wounds. it was -- it was absolute shock. >> reporter: angie had not only been killed, but butchered. repeatedly stabbed in her own bedroom. it was a bloody end to a life that had so much promise. >> she was the most amazing person. she was full of life. she could light up a room. she was a very hard worker, and she knew where she was going. she was very, very driven. >> reporter: angie had grown up in amarillo, texas, and attended the all-girl school in dallas. she just bought a condo near the smu campus. >> angie was this amazing, shining star to so many people that she knew. she was absolutely brilliant before her time. she was a double major in engineering and computer science at smu. at a time when girls were not doing that. she had this amazing absolute love of life. was really the life of the party. >> reporter: beautiful, intelligent, single, and 20 years old. it's a combination that attracts men of all kinds. >> she used to get notes on her car. she'd get flowers. she'd come in and show me who wrote her that day. she had a lot of attention, absolutely a lot of attention. >> am i right in thinking that she didn't always have the best taste in guys? >> like any other 18 to 20-year-old, she didn't choose wisely at that point in her life. >> reporter: some of those choices and some of those men would figure prominently in the interlocking stories of angie's life and of her death. there was lance, whom angie had dated back home in amarillo and through her freshman year in dallas. according to her friends, angie said she was afraid of lance, because he had a temper and had once pulled a knife on her. there was ben, angie's boyfriend at the time of her death. older and already out of school, he was a construction supervisor in dallas. >> sounds like he was kind of the opposite of lance. >> i would say he's the opposite of lance. >> reporter: and there was russell, a new friend of angie's who had gone out that evening with her and her friend, anita, another female engineering student at smu. >> you saw her that last night? >> yes. >> how was she? >> she was angie. i mean she was fine. >> reporter: that night anita accompanied angie and russell on an expedition to a series of bars and clubs. angie's boyfriend, ben, was not present. >> ben was aware of fact that angie, russell and i were all going out together. >> reporter: at least to angie's friend, evelyn, ben didn't seem like the type to get jealous or violent. >> you could never imagine ben hurting angie? >> i could absolutely never, ever imagine ben hurting angie. >> reporter: the evening ended at 1:00 a.m. angie dropped russell off at his apartment which was walking distance from her own and then took anita home. anita had thought about spending the night at angie's, but decided against it. >> what was the last thing you said to each other that night? >> see you tomorrow at the football game. she doesn't meet me there. very strange because she was a woman of her word. i remember saying i wonder where angie is. i came home and the roommate said there's something i need to tell you. she said -- but you might want to sit down. she goes angie was murdered last night, and the police are wanting you to call them back. >> what did you think? >> i didn't want to believe it at first. beyond that, i started with the whole woulda, coulda, shoulda. would i have prevented it, could i have prevented it, should i have spent the night, would things have been different? >> reporter: but she was not the last person to see angie alive. it turns out angie's boyfriend, ben, was that person. she had stopped by his place on her way home, after dropping off anita. later that night, it was ben who called police to angie's condo. and what got their attention was not just what ben said, but how he sounded when he said it. >> her car is here and she won't answer the door or can't answer the door. >> reporter: does he sound panicked? investigators didn't think so. coming up, police start focusing on ben, but soon the list of suspects gets longer. in the fall of 1984, smu college student angie samota had been found murdered. arriving officers walked in on a blood bath. >> they found one shoe in the den, another shoe somewhere else and then all her clothes stacked up all in one neat pile and then angie laying on the bed covered in blood. her chest area was pretty caved in with stab wounds. >> so this was a vicious assault. >> there were 18 stab wounds, ten of which punctured the heart, breaking the breastbone and going through the body. >> josh heely and patrick curland are assistant district attorneys in dallas. they say whoever stabbed angie was intent on killing her. >> that many wounds can certainly suggest rage, anger, at the victim. >> absolutely. >> from what you could tell, did angie samota have any enemies? >> it seemed like maybe she had broken some hearts. but enemies, she was not the type person that had enemies. everyone seemed to like her a lot. the only people that seemed to be mad at her were ex-boyfriends or people that wanted to be her boyfriend. >> reporter: police immediately focused on the man in angie's life, starting with ben, her then boyfriend. ben told police a story that sounded a bit suspicious. he said that after dropping off anita after their night out, angie had stopped by his place, waking him up for a brief visit and that she then drove home. within minutes of reaching her condo, ben said angie called him around 1:45 a.m. in that phone call, ben says angie told him she had let a man she didn't know into her home in the middle of the night, a man who had asked to use her phone and bathroom. ben says angie then hung up, promising to call him back a few minutes later, but she never did, ben said, and she didn't answer his calls. concerned, ben told police he drove to her condo, but angie wasn't answering her door either and now ben was locked outside, calling police on the early generation mobile phone in his truck. and sounding to them oddly calm. >> my girlfriend called me, said there was a man in her apartment using the bathroom and the phone and now i cannot get her to answer the phone. her car is here and she won't answer the door or can't answer the door. >> he broke in? >> no, no. >> he didn't break in? she let him in? >> i'm not sure, i believe so. >> does she know this man? >> i don't believe so. >> and she won't answer the phone? >> no. >> reporter: police weren't sure what to make of ben and his version of events. >> so there was no way to tell whether the story that ben had told police on the 911 tape actually happened? >> the only thing we had was ben's word. >> no cell phone records back then and no records of local phone calls, so that call that ben talked about, that may never have happened. >> that is correct. >> i would expect someone to be i can't find her, i don't know where she is, she's not answering. it was a very mellow, a very feelingless phone call. somebody who didn't seem too concerned. >> ben waited for the living room while police went into angie's bedroom. they came out and told him angie was dead. >> the first responding officer, what he remembered most was even after he had discovered the body and said so, ben didn't even ask what condition, how she was or anything like that. >> and sometimes people who don't ask that question, don't ask it because they already know the answer. >> exactly. >> he didn't ask how she was killed, whether it was gunshot, whether it was stab wounds. >> that's unusual. >> very. >> and there was something else. ben's story may have been suspicious, but ben himself was squeaky clean. >> this was approximately 2:00 in the morning. he had been awakened from sleep and he arrived at the location in a clean, pressed shirt and he smelled of soap as if he had just cleaned up. that tended to raise some suspicions with the first responding officers that something just didn't seem right. >> while police were trying to process the story ben was telling, they widened their investigation to include angie's ex-boyfriend, lance, the boy next door in amarillo. the boy angie had trouble with. it was something angie's friend, sheila, knew all about. >> she was very obsessed with angie. he was so obsessed with her he would come down all the time to school to see her. >> reporter: they had dated through angie's freshman year. >> one night i got a call from angie. she was crying. and she said that lance had gone crazy, and i needed to get over there. she was screaming. lance had taken a knife and shredded all of her clothes. >> did he threaten her? >> yes. yes, he did. >> physically, verbally? >> verbally. and you have a weapon. whether it's a knife, scissors, he threatened her. he was a pretty scary guy. he was creepy. >> reporter: suddenly lance was at the top of the investigators' list. >> prime suspect, absolutely. >> especially when we have an 18-wound stabbing. >> there was no forced entry? >> that's right. >> suggesting that whoever had got nten in her apartment had either figured out some way of getting in undetected or angie knew them and let them in. >> yes. >> reporter: and all of that pointed either to the ex-boyfriend, lance, or to angie's current boyfriend, ben, or maybe to a new man in her life, the man she had been out with the last night of her life, russell. soon, police would ask sheila, then a college student, to help narrow down that list of suspects and solve the crime. >> he killed her. he needed to pay for it. coming up, sheila's nerve-racking night with a suspected so... 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[ male announcer ] fiber one. fiber beyond recognition. who wanted angie samota dead? an autopsy determined she had also been sexually assaulted just before she was stabbed to death. her friend, sheila. >> i find out she had been raped, and i can't think of anything else. it was overwhelming emotionally. >> reporter: it was hard for angie's friends to hear, but the rain did help law enforcement because they now had the perpetrator's dna profile. but back in the mid-'80s, that wasn't the help it would be today. >> back in 1984, they could at least do a type of blood testing where they can determine whether or not an individual is a secretor or non-secretor and basically narrow is down to 20% of the population. >> reporter: roughly 80% of the population are secretors meaning their bodily fluids contain markers for blood type. the other 20% don't have those markers. >> the killer was a non-secretor. >> correct. >> reporter: and that meant it couldn't be lance, the ex-boyfriend. angie's friends say lance had tlented her with a knife. blood tests showed lance was a secretor. in addition, he had an alibi, putting him 370 miles away on the night of the murder. >> he was staying with his parents in amarillo working at the local gym and so they were satisfied that he was not in town when this took place. >> so he was eliminated based on that. >> reporter: and what about ben, angie's oddly, unemotional boyfriend, who officers thought acted strangely the night of the murder? >> the police checked to see whether there were scratches or bruises on him? >> they checked that, they checked his vehicle, they checked his apartment for any type of blood, bloody clothes, anything like that. >> nothing? >> nothing. >> reporter: and tests showed ben was also a secretor. whoever had raped and killed angie was not. so cross ben off the list. >> which leaves russell? >> and he was a non-secretor so he could not be eliminated. >> his alibi that he was home in bed, not exactly the strongest. >> there was no witness that could confirm where he was after he was dropped off by angie and anita. >> no one can confirm he went to bed, no one can confirm where he was after that. >> did he ever move off that story? >> no. >> and, russell said, there was nothing romantic about the evening, it was just a night out for three young people. >> he continued to insist that he didn't have any feelings for angie, that he didn't perceive that evening as a date and that he wasn't romantically interested in her? >> correct. >> and nobody believed that? >> no. >> things weren't adding up. >> soon police were questioning sheila about russell buchanan. >> did i think he was romantically interested in angie was the question. i think they were piecing up we went out that night, he had some romantic interest in her and she rebuffed her and since he lived in walking distance that he had committed the crime. >> the day after the crime russell left town about 24 hours. it seemed suspicious. when he returned, police paid him a visit. he told them he didn't know anything about angie's murder, even though it was in the headlines and all over local news. it seemed hard to believe. police saw both motive and opportunity. and while there was no witness placing russell at the crime scene, there was also no one to back up his alibi. angie's friend, sheila, met with the lead detective who laid out for her the police theory. >> russell snapped, is the word he used. and then he grabbed a knife, took her into the room and proceeded to rape her. this is probably the one and only murder he will do. that it was just a passionate moment and he snapped and he's going to be back to his old, calm self. >> reporter: investigators asked sheila to have dinner with russell and ask him about his whereabouts the night of the murder. she agreed. >> it was so uncomfortable. here i am sitting across from this man thinking i'm eating dinner with a murderer. i'm getting into a car with a murderer. this guy murdered my roommate. >> reporter: but even to sheila, russell stuck to his story just as he had a couple of weeks after the murder when police asked him to take a lie detector test. in fact, russell was found to be truthful when he was asked questions about angie's murder. but about three months later, dallas police took a second look. >> and they looked at the polygraph again and came to a consensus that he was deceptive on those questions. >> that's a big difference from the way his original polygraph results were perceived. >> huge. they had their guy now. >> i did not want to believe that it was somebody close to her. it was more than i could handle. >> did you think police were going to charge russell? >> ole, yes. absolutely. >> reporter: but they didn't. russell hired an attorney and stopped talking with police. >> they told me that he had lawyered up and they couldn't touch him. they also said that russell was leaving the country, so of course he was leaving the country, he lawyered up, he is hiding. it's done. he's going to get away with murder. >> reporter: not so fast. russell buchanan is about to tell us a story that will make you re-evaluate everything you've just heard. coming up, russell answers the tough questions. >> the police theory was that you attacked her, you had sex with her and then you stabbed her to death. and then, will investigators finally have a way to know if he's telling the truth? >> they did have a sample that in today's technology could be tested to try and find a dna standard. >> when "in the middle of the night" continues. 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[ chef ] ma'am [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. of green giant vegetables it's easy to eat like a giant... ♪ and feel like a green giant. ♪ ho ho ho ♪ green giant several months after angie samota was savagely raped and murdered, the prime suspect, russell buchanan, hired an attorney and refused to speak with police. several months after that, he left the country. it seemed suspicious, but without enough evidence to arrest russell, police could not stop him. russell was not arrested or charged with angie's murder. he went on to become a successful architect. now 28 years after angie samota was murdered, russell is talking once again about what happened that night. and about angie. >> her friends describe her as the kind of girl that guys get crushes on. >> maybe so. >> possible that you had a crush on her? >> oh, no. no, not at all. i hardly knew her. >> reporter: but after questioning angie's friend, anita, about that shared night out, investigators wrote that she told them that the evening centered around russell and angie. and that anita felt like she were along for appearances sake only. >> it didn't occur to me it was an angie and russ event. it was the three of us. i remember anita and i sitting at the table visiting while angie was out on the dance floor dancing. >> russell had told police angie and anita had dropped him off around 1:00 a.m. and he then went to sleep. for him that was the end of the night. >> your alibi was you were at home in bed. >> yeah. and there was no way to prove it, unfortunately. >> the police theory was you -- after you were dropped off walked back to angie's house, knocked on the door, she let you in because she knew you. you already had a thing for her. something went wrong. you attacked her. you had sex with her, you raped her. and since she knew you and she could identify you, you stabbed her to death. >> that's what they thought. >> and so in the days after the murder, police started picking up russell after work and bringing him down to the station for questioning. >> it seemed like two or three times a month for six months. as they got toward the five to six month time period, there was a significant shift in the tone and tenor of the interviews. >> more accusatory. >> outright accusatory. i recall in detail the detective leaning back in his chair with an envelope, photographs of the crime scene. they were absolutely horrific. he would hold them up in front of me and his questions were russell, this looks familiar, doesn't it? you remember this, don't you? because you did this. >> we think you did this. >> no. it wasn't we think. it is you did this. you had sex with her. you killed her. you stabbed her 18 times. >> reporter: but russell continued to deny it. that steady drum beat of accusation and denial ended only when russell hired the attorney and refused any further free trips downtown. and the murder of angie samota then went cold. for years. then in 2004, 20 years after the crime, angie's friend, sheila, by then living in nashville, decided to act on something she'd thought about for a while. >> i actually had felt angie around me for awhile. and then i was doing homework for a bible study class and all of a sudden i looked up and as you're sitting there, there was angie. and then i thought it's time. and i called the police. >> and said? >> i wanted to know about the angela samota case, who was working on it, if they were working on it, and if they weren't, would they reopen it. and at that point told me nobody in 20 years had called, not one single phone call. >> reporter: that prompted sheila to take a big step. she decided to get a private investigator's license to see if she could learn enough about crime and criminals to actually help solve angie's murder. at the very least, she wanted dallas police to take her seriously. she earned her license in 2006 and called the police again. >> i said i'm a private investigator, you need to send me all the information on angela samota's case. and i need to talk to the detective and i need you to tell me, you know, what has been done, what hasn't been done, where's the information, where's the evidence. all of that. wasn't well received at all. >> but they met with you to talk about the case. >> no. >> they gave you the evidence. >> no, no. >> they gave you regular updates. >> no, no, no, no, no. none of it. >> doesn't sound like it helped to be a private eye. >> it did not. so after finding out they were not going to welcome me into the investigation, i started making phone calls to them. and the first 50 phone calls went to the lead detective who had been moved to traffic. got nowhere with him. and finally one day six months into it i talked to a receptionist who said he's in retirement. he's not even working traffic. >> you left 50 messages in one month? >> yes. i'm a little obsessive. >> reporter: sheila's persistence paid off. she eventually was put in touch with the investigator looking at cold cases. a woman who'd dusted off the old angie samota files, took a look inside, and found some promising evidence. >> in '06 when she decided to reopen the case, she went over to the lab and realized that they did have a rape kit. they did have a sample that in today's technology could be tested to try and find a dna standard. >> by 2006, of course, dna testing had evolved. some of angie's other friends also approached police about reopening the investigation, but it was sheila who eventually made more than 700 phone calls over the years. trying to move angie's case forward. she even offered to pay for the dna testing herself. >> and i said, okay, i'll send you a check. i'll overnight it. who do i make it out to? she said we can't do that. >> can't do that. that's something police departments pay for, not the pis. >> right. >> finally in 2008, the dna sample from angie samota's cold case was entered into the national data base. to sheila wysocki, the frightened coed turned mom turned private eye, the pieces were about to finally fall into place. >> you still focused on the theory that russell buchanan did it and got away with murder? >> oh, absolutely. absolutely. found out he was in dallas and he was actually a professional. i kept thinking why is this man having a good life after he had murdered angie. it was going to be solved and russell was going to go to jail. >> reporter: well, just a minute. if it were that easy, do you think this story would be on "dateline"? coming up, the case is cracked. >> the detective said we got him. my mind immediately went to russell. who else could have done it? >> good question. but the last thing she was good morning! wow. want to start the day with something heart healthy and delicious? you're a talking bee... honey nut cheerios has whole grain oats that can help lower cholesterol. and it tastes good? sure does! right... ♪ wow. delicious, right? yeah. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... ♪ well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy. blog as much as you like, but if you really want to make an impact, vote. then, what matters to you and the people you care about will really count. you'll want to vote the more you know. march 2008, the dna from angie samota's killer was entered into the national dna database and finally police had the answer that had eluded them for 23 1/2 years. >> we got the break we were looking for. we got the match. >> i received a call, and it was the detective. she said we got him. my mind immediately went to russell. who else could have done it? >> and then she says to you -- >> it's not russell. >> it's not russell? >> it's not russell. you could not have shocked me any more. everything i had known my whole life was just gone. this whole time i thought this guy had done it and it wasn't him. it wasn't him. >> dna as we now know does not lie. the sample taken from angie samota's body did not match russell buchanan. >> did you feel guilty for having done everything -- >> to put somebody behind bars? well, yeah. >> -- done everything you could to convict russell and send him to death row? >> yes, absolutely. of course i did. i thought this guy was it and absolutely i was going to get him. and he wasn't the guy. so everything that i thought was truth was not truth anymore. and yes, i felt very guilty. still do. >> she felt guilty. russell felt anything but. all those years he'd been unaware of how hard sheila had worked to convict him. all he'd known was the intense heat police had applied. but even now russell just can't seem to get the words "i told you so" out of his mouth. >> it doesn't change anything. angie's life hasn't been resurrected, but my role or lack of role in this case was put to rest. i no longer had to wonder anymore about who perpetrated this horrible crime. i no longer had to live with the idea that there were people in the police department that thought i had perpetrated this crime. >> the dallas police called him on the phone to apologize. >> the police sergeant was very thoughtful. he said on behalf of the dallas police department, i want to tell you that we apologize for anything that we may have done to have accused you of a crime in this case, and we wish you well. >> wait a minute. >> it didn't hurt my feelings at all. it made me feel great. >> and you were okay with that? >> sure. >> that's all it took? >> you bet. >> how many interrogations? >> i have no idea. >> holding up the crime scene photos in front of you. >> yeah. not a happy experience. >> then they apologized and you're like, well, all right, fine. >> yeah, that's fine. i refuse to allow this incident to define who i am. i have moved on. i harbor no ill feelings towards the dallas police department. never have. i happen to be an innocent bystander falsely accused, but life goes on. in fact, i was thrilled that they called me to offer an apology. >> reporter: but he does think about what might have happened. >> what if i had said i could not go out that friday evening? i wouldn't be here. i would not have even been considered a suspect. so the fate of that one decision to go out one evening cast a very long shadow not only for angie but for everyone else involved. >> reporter: and there's an even bigger question for russell. what if he hadn't been able to hire a lawyer? he was, prosecutors say, an eyelash away from being arrested for angie's rape and murder. >> did you believe he was attracted to angie, he had motive and opportunity. he didn't have an alibi. now you add failing a polygraph. >> all the evidence pointed towards him. >> it was all circumstantial. >> correct. >> in the mid-'80s, that was the kind of thing that got you locked up. >> got a lot of people locked up. >> so who was the man behind the dna match? and what story would he tell? coming up, a killer revealed. >> i remember the air being sucked out of the room and the feeling that i'm in the presence of pure evil. >> but ah. fire bad! just have to fire roast these tomatoes. do you churn your own butter what? too? this is going to give you a head start on your dinner. that seems easier sure does who are you? [ female announcer ] new progresso recipe starters. five delicious cooking sauces you combine with fresh ingredients to make amazing home-cooked meals. ♪ ambiance [ female announcer ] new progresso recipe starters. your head-start to home cooked. more than 23 years after the rape and murder of angie samota, the man behind that dna was finally identified. it was not as we now know russell buchanan. it was not lance, the ex-boyfriend. and it was not ben, the boyfriend who never asked police how angie died. the man whose dna was found in angie samota's body is donald andrew bess. >> not a man you had heard before. >> never. never had hit the radar of the dallas police department. >> not someone she knew. >> never crossed paths. >> why was mr. bess' dna on file in the national database? >> he had previously been arrested and convicted of two different rapes. >> reporter: donald bess had been out on parole only seven months on a rape charge when angie was raped and killed. prosecutors say she clearly had no idea of his history when he came knocking on her door. >> angie let him in the house. why would she do that? >> a different time, a little more innocent. 1984. when they said would you give me directions, can i use the bathrooms, she wouldn't have thought twice about it. >> hasn't admitted to it. >> has not. >> he has yet to admit he had sexual relations with her. >> reporter: in may, 2008, donald bess was charged with angie's rape and murder. the trial took place two years later. the dna hit was fresh, but everything else in the case was more than 20 years old. and the murder weapon was never found. by now donald bess was 61. angie would have been 45. her college friend, sheila, walked in the courtroom on the first day of trial. >> and i just remember feeling shaky all over. >> reporter: she got a close look for the first time at the man accused of robbing angie of most of her life. >> and he walks in the door and i remember the air being sucked out of the room and the feeling that i'm in the presence of pure evil. >> anita and russell, the friends with whom angie spent her last night both testified. both found it emotional. >> just keep reliving the situation is just difficult. it was just a flood of emotion of how could you do something like that. >> it was tough. it was very tough. >> did you look at the defendant while you were there? >> yeah. yeah, that was scary. >> and think to yourself you're the reason that i was under suspicion for so long. >> no, that was not what was going through my mind at all. what was going through my mind was, dude, do not come after me. >> reporter: prosecutors had dna on their side, which sounds like a slam dunk. but nothing ever is in a jury trial. >> the mere fact that his dna is found in her doesn't necessarily put him at the crime scene. it doesn't necessarily make him her murderer. >> reporter: the defense team went on the attack. >> all you can assume from dna is that he had sex with her. it's up to the facts and the evidence to determine whether or not it was consensual or unconsensual. >> you're going to tell me angie samota chose to have sex with convicted rapist donald bess? >> i can't tell you. no one can tell you. no one was there besides angie samota and donald bess. >> reporter: and the defense did the same thing the police did, make her boyfriend, ben, a suspect. >> who would assume that a very intelligent young lady is going to throw the door open to some stranger to come into her apartment to use the bathroom but then is so afraid of this person that she picks up the phone and calls her boyfriend. and then hangs up the phone willingly and yet this is supposed to be the assailant that kills her? it doesn't make sense. >> you find ben's actions suspicious? >> extremely suspicious. >> reporter: she and the others on the defense team didn't only point their fingers only at ben, but also at ex-boyfriend lance and russell. and at any other man who could have been invited by angie into her home. >> it almost seems as if she were overcome by someone she knew. in close proximity. >> or someone holding a knife and she was terrified. >> it still could be someone she knew and someone other than donald bess. >> someone like ben the defense suggested. and they put the blame on angie herself for making him jealous. >> a bouncer they club where she had been that night talked about the way she was dressed, the way she was acting, that she was extremely flirtatious with him and that's how she got in the club and just the general tenor of her behavior. >> you're kind of making her out to be -- >> i know. it sounds that way, doesn't it? >> -- sort of trampy. >> trampy seems to be a harsh word. what i say is things weren't exactly as they seemed. that there maybe had been some reckless behavior. maybe a little bit more fun and flirtatious than certain people would have liked. and that maybe someone found out about it. >> you think ben was angrier than he let on. >> oh, much angrier. >> even though he appeared calm. >> there are a lot of suspects out there that can appear calm when they need to be calm. >> they put on a defense of anything that they could that would stick. and the best way to do that is to attack the victim and the victim's reputation and credibility. and she wasn't there because he had murdered her to defend herself. so that's what they did. and shame on them. >> and it didn't work. >> it didn't work. >> reporter: despite the defense's attack on angie and its suggestions about the men in her life, the jury deliberated for less than an hour. the verdict was guilty. the same jury sentenced donald bess to the death penalty. he has appealed his conviction and his sentence. for angie's friends, this was the end of a very long and very sad trail. >> i can only guess that angie would have been probably overwhelmed to know that so many of you were still thinking of her all those years later. >> angie was really special, and she never left our hearts and minds. >> you still think about her. >> i do. >> you fought pretty hard to find out who killed her. >> i did. i did. >> you should feel some accomplishment at that. >> i feel that maybe she can rest in peace. she died such a horrific death that she deserved to rest in pe