they said yeah, they're telling him about eight weeks, so maybe it's not as soours erious as mo injury, with that timeline. >> tom: between hunter pence and david wright. you can probably hear jacob barnes' family, he picked up two strikeouts. gomez will come out and try to get the save for the phillies. >> tom: retro night has taken us to the top of the ninth inning at jerry park in montreal. we are watching games and seeing that ballpark around thinking, it doesn't look like a major league park. they eventually went on to an olympic stadium. look at the smiles on larry -- and his teammates. >> ben: it is so cold up there. >> tom: it is. gomez is on to try to get his 18th save. it did not go well last night for gomez. one ball, no strikes. >> tom: one ball and no strikes to hill. that's in there, 1 and 1. >> ben: i can't imagine them being out there in april. we played a series there in april. i got up, went to mass and walking back it started to snow a little bit. well we're in montreal snow is normal. but then we take this underground rail, we leave the ballpa ballpark, go outside and time telling you there's a foot and a half of snow on the ground. >> tom: but you didn't know it because of the dome. >> ben: exactly. >> tom: the cover wasn't part of it when it was first open, so it was really chillily. i think a lot of people still wish that baseball found its way back to montreal. 2 and 2. >> tom: hasn't been easy for pete. over to third, that will go foul. the count remains two balls, two strikes. >> tom: update from the boston toronto game, bogarts is walked in the eighth inning. he does not have a hit yet. so his hit streak might come to a close at 26, but it's okay they have got another guy, ortiz is hitting 11 straight. two balls two strikes to hill. he just barely stays alive. >> tom: he is now tied for the national league lead with ramos of miami and with the mets and again they have replaced his picture as the leader. >> tom: fly ball right field. peter bourjos is out there. he waits. one gone here in the top of the ninth inning. the phillies have lost seven straight, also lost eight administrate to the brewers here at citizens bank park which i think is even stranger than losing seven straight overall, it is the longest since the park opened in 2004. >> tom: domingo santana is 1 for 3. one ball and no strikes. >> tom: teams on that list with the brewers, yankees won eight administrate over at seattle and the angels and pirates took one over the colorado rockies. it is even 2 and 2. so much of that has to do with le krkron lekron. >> ben: it really does. >> tom: you're right. >> tom: and a strike three called. two outs here in the ninth inning. consumer complaint harry henderson of the nbc response team, call 610-688-7300. count on it. tomorrow on comcast sports net at 3:00 baseball tomorrow, day baseball on sunday. weekends with schmidt presented by ackley markets. >> ben: good extension. yanking that ball towards the philly's dugout. >> tom: hitting .310 with three home runs. checking his swing. he went around says manny gonzalez. >> tom: phillies will try to turn back the game from seven days ago, the 0-2 and he got him. the losing streak is over. it ends after seven consecutive losses, gomez finishes this ball game off with a 1, 2, 3, at the top of the ninth inning. he picks up his 18th game. it turned out to be the difference. it was set up by the sprawling double by cameron rupp. and here are the deliveries of the game. >> it has been a while but cameron rupp gets it started here a beautiful swing at the bottom of the third inning put the phillies up on top then a hanging breaking ball for a three-run homer. you love to see balls flying out of the yard. and they are your wd mason deliveries of the game. >> tom: the last time of two-run home runs was last year. including a nice slide. >> gregg: you scored some runs, of course had your third home run of the year, just the fact that you guys were able to put six runs on the board is so important. >> yeah, feels like we hadn't scored for a while. i left the pitch up and drove it out of the ballpark. >> gregg: the team had been riding pretty high and then have your test of the season talk a little bit about the clubhouse and where you can go from here. >> we haven't lost a step, we still have energy and come out and play hard, we played two first-place team, when a young team faces a lot of veterans, it is tough for us but we battled and were able to overcome and got a nice run for it. >> gregg: a lot of pitches and obviously showed a lot of frustration when he was leaving, what's your take on vince? >> he got through the fist four innings then hit a little bump in the road an wasn't able to get out of the fifth. he's got a little bit of adjustments and he'll do it and get back on track. >> gregg: goodw win for the phils. >> tom: ending the seven - game losing streak. win it 6-3, we'll be back at the concert at the ballpark to wrap things up after this. >> tom: final score is phillies 6 and brewers 3. velasquez gets -- 1, 2, 3, innings. cameron rupp a two-run home run score. back on the mound at comcast sports net. pregame live at 2:30 tomorrow. tonight's director was jr aquill aquil aquillo. i'm tom mccarthy, the postgame can be seen live over on comcast sports net. stay tuned now for live at 10. it's not an antiaging face cream. it's realizing beauty doesn't stop at my chin. roc®'s formula adapts to delicate skin areas. my fine lines here? visibly reduced in 4 weeks. chest, neck & face cream from roc®. methods, not miracles.™ this was low-key jacksonville beach, florida, where the main concern of the day was how high the waves were riding. a young, single woman attacked in the night in her bed just didn't happen here. >> i think this case illustrates every woman's nightmare that as hard as corey parker tried to be safe and she had all her doors locked, she still was the most vulnerable in the sanctity of her own home. >> women who lived alone were scared. >> reporter: melissa nelson, then an assistant prosecutor who joined the case, recalls the fear. >> neighbors were scared, people she worked with were alarmed. it was a very scary time for that community. >> reporter: tiffany zienta raised in jacksonville beach couldn't believe this had happened to someone she knew. >> i mean, they kept calling it the bloodiest crime scene in jacksonville beach in 25 years. that's not really comforting to feel or to hear. >> reporter: ashley burg was also frightened, for another reason. detectives thought her brother joe had been too vague about where he'd been in the hours surrounding corey's death. did he have a solid alibi? >> not really, no. >> reporter: what was he doing? >> well, you know, he was at the apartment just hanging around. and he comes and goes. so we couldn't really establish a solid alibi at the time of the crime. >> reporter: their interest grew when they found a hair on a sock in corey's bedroom. the hair looked like it could have come from joe. >> i know we did a microscopic comparison. and that the microscopic comparison developed that likeness. >> reporter: the test they used back then wasn't definitive, but it was enough to make police suspicious and for joe to worry. >> so they would ask, well, why is your hair on her sock. he couldn't answer that. he was petrified. petrified. he didn't know, you know, what they were going to do next. >> reporter: what police did was take a sample of joe's dna for testing and press on. meanwhile, there was another young man they were interested in. a dishwasher named eric eely. >> he was a co-worker that worked with corey at ragtime tavern. >> reporter: and everyone knew he really liked corey. >> had come on to her on multiple occasions and had also done that to several of the other waitresses up there. they just thought he was a creepy guy. >> reporter: who had grown stranger by the day. police found out he'd been pestering corey to have thanksgiving dinner with him alone. each time she turned him down. detectives brought the young man in for questioning. >> did you ask corey out for thanksgiving dinner prior to calling on -- >> i may have mentioned it, but i don't i didn't ask her a direct question. >> reporter: but to the detectives, what the dishwasher did next was a move straight out of a norman bates' playbook. >> he made this really nice thanksgiving dinner in hopes that he could call her and say, i've made thanksgiving dinner. i'd like for you to come over and enjoy thanksgiving dinner with me. >> reporter: so he made the dinner first? >> yes. >> reporter: and then called? >> right. >> reporter: that's a tiny bit on the creepy side. >> yeah. it was a little strange. >> reporter: it was clear he was infatuated. >> do you think that you were obsessed with her? >> i was slightly obsess. >> you were greatly obsessed, eric. jesus. admit it. my god. >> i was. i was obsessed. >> reporter: from there, the interview took an even darker turn. the young man admitted to violent fantasies. >> tell me the thinks that you think about doing with women that you wouldn't do because you know it's not the right thing to do. >> you like take them into a bedroom and just rape them? >> yeah. >> reporter: he's talking about rape. that's scary stuff right there. >> exactly. >> reporter: that paled in comparison to what he said next. he described how he thought corey had been killed. >> how would you contain her? >> taking her down until she was tired. and just poked her, you know, whatever, stabbed her. >> reporter: in fact, that's how corey was kill ed. did you think about the scenario that he might have felt really rejected by corey and he snapped? >> anything is possible, yes. that comes into your mind that he asked her multiple times to go out with him. although she was cordial to him, she never went there. >> you sound like you know a little bit more of what happened to corey. how would you -- >> how would i know? because maybe -- maybe i would share the same thoughts as this person that did it. >> reporter: he sounded like an obvious suspect. >> i would like to have fantasized myself doing it instead of him doing it. but i didn't do it. >> reporter: despite all his incriminating descriptions, the dishwasher was adamant he hadn't killed corey. and police didn't have any hard evidence that put him inside her bedroom. >> he's got a denial. and you got nothing to put him there. >> reporter: for the time being, police had to let the man go. just when it seemed their case couldn't get more complicated, it did. corey's friend had been talking around town about the murder, and she was saying all the things that catch a detective's attention. coming up -- are you ready for another potential suspect? this close girlfriend of corey's. was she a little too close? >> tiffany was infatuated with corey? >> yes. her statements about how much she loved corey piqued our interest. ♪ walgreens has all the beauty products you need for whatever makes you feel beautiful. walgreens. at the corner of happy and healthy. 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[deep breath] finger lickin', finger lickin', finger lickin'... gooooood!!! real milk vs. almond milk ingredient spelling bee lecithin lecithin. l-e-s (buzzer sound) your word is milk. m-i-l-k milk wins. ingredients you can spell. >> to that end, everybody who presented as a potential suspect, they were running that to ground. could it be this person? is it this person? >> reporter: amy lavin found herself looking around at corey's other friends and wondering could it be one of them. >> everybody was an actual suspect. so that became a little bit scary to me. >> reporter: her killer could have been right under your nose? >> yeah. >> reporter: tiffany zienta remembers just wanting to be helpful like most of corey's friends, she met with the detectives. they want to talk to you, detectives? >> we all made a statement. >> reporter: well, they wanted to talk to you? >> absolutely. >> reporter: tiffany told the detectives she'd been with corey at the ritz bar wednesday night into the early morning hours of thanksgiving. she said they left the bar at the same time, around 1:30 a.m. tiffany hitched a ride with another friend to go bar hopping. corey, she noted, got into her own car and headed home. later, tiffany said, she called corey's home phone. >> it was like 2:15. it was right after we left the original bar. >> reporter: detectives followed up on what tiffany had told them. carlyle says they quickly noticed a wrinkle in her story. >> her phone call was not on the phone records of corey parker's home residence phone. >> reporter: so she's starting to make some inconsistent statements. >> exactly. inconsistent statements. >> reporter: more troubling to police was what they were hearing from corey's friends. they were saying tiffany had been describing the murder, the stab wounds to the body, details that hadn't been made public. they also believed she harbored deep feelings for corey that weren't mutual. tiffany was infatuated with corey? >> yes. >> reporter: what were you told? >> we were basically told that it was bordering on a little strange, you know, with what we heard about her stramts about how much she carry cared about corey and how much she loved corey, it piqued our curiosity and interest. >> reporter: now detectives wanted to sit down again with tiffany, but by then more than five months had passed since corey's murder, and tiffany had left town. for new orleans. the move only made her look worse to police. so they tracked her down hoping to confront her, but tiffany wasn't having it. >> she at some point decided she wasn't going to cooperate further and referred us to her lawyer. >> reporter: so detectives decided to get a warrant for tiffany's dna. >> we had to get a court order to get her standards, her hair, and her blood. >> reporter: are you starting to think she could be corey's killer? >> well, you just have to follow that lead. we felt like, based on what we knew to that point, that she was a person of interest definitely. maybe a viable suspect. >> i'm not the person that's going to kill somebody. >> reporter: looking back, tiffany is convinced detectives set their sights on her from the moment she first talked to them. the fact that she was the last friend to see corey alive, she says, shaped everything that followed. >> i never knew that saying i was the last one with her was going to come back to haunt me. you know? police were like, well, the killer was the last one. until you think about it that way, you don't think about it that way. >> reporter: first of all, she says, she never lied about that call to corey. no matter what the phone records said. how do you explain that? >> according to my attorney, he had had other clients that had called people that didn't show up on phone records either. i don't know. i don't know why it didn't show up. i have no idea. >> reporter: as for being in love with corey, is there any truth to that? >> no. because i'm not gay. i thought she was beautiful. i thought she was a great person. have i been infatuated with corey? no. >> reporter: everything else she did in this case, she says, was out of innocence or panic. she learned about the bloody crime scene from a friend, a paramedic who had been there. she went to new orleans to rest, not escape. she found a lawyer out of fear, not guilt. how are you feeling as this is getting more intense? i mean, this is a murder investigation. >> helpless. bullied. helpless. like there were going to be no answers. and this was going to hang over me for the rest of my life. >> reporter: but before they could make an arrest, detectives needed to link her dna to the crime scene. that's when things got really interesting. coming up -- yet another person of interest. this one lurking in the shadows. >> it wouldn't take much if she had her lights on for him to sit up there in the dark and be able to watch her. >> and then detectives get their hands on the one thing that might solve this case. >> we were jumping for joy. g and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage, and clear skin in many adults. humira is the number #1 prescribed biologic for psoriatic arthritis. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. want more proof? 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(party music) (splashing/destruction) (splashing/destruction) (burke) and we covered it, october twenty-seventh, 2014. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ jacksonville beach had been home to tiffany zienta. now it seemed home had turned on her. did you think there's a chance i could get arrested? >> yes. for something i didn't do. >> reporter: but she wasn't arrested and neither was anyone else in the months following corey parker's murder. a year went by. state attorney angela corey. so this wasn't solved after the commercial break? >> oh, no. no, no. we went into this knowing we were in for the long haul. with that phrase we knew it was going to be a marathon, not a sprint. >> reporter: they had their list of possible suspects, but they didn't have the evidence or the science yet to definitively link anyone to the crime. >> dna testing was actually in the middle of evolving at that time. >> reporter: eventually the science and the evidence came together. investigators recovered a strand of foreign hair from corey's underwear. they believed that single strand was rich in dna. >> it had been clearly ripped out of a head. >> reporter: likely, they believed, the killer's head. now they had to test it against their possible suspects. you essentially had your killer in your test. >> locked in a tube. >> reporter: didn't know his name? >> hairs on slides, that's right. >> reporter: that's when the case took its most dramatic turn yet. thanks to this man. would you call yourself a bounty hunter? >> i've been called bounty hunter before, but i'd prefer fugitive specialist. >> reporter: fugitive specialist. okay. william rensler knew about corey's murder and he knew there was a reward posted for information leading to her killer. so kind of like, hey, why not take a look? >> yeah. >> reporter: so on his own he started talking to corey's old neighbors to see if officers had missed anything. >> when i came across the one individual, something struck me as odd. >> reporter: the individual was a young man named robert denney. he was 17 years old living in a nearby building when corey was killed. he'd been questioned and dismissed by detectives early on in part because he was so young. what seemed odd to william was that the teen disappeared not long after the murder. as memorial day weekend rolled around, william found himself on a dock with two friends. >> we were fishing and then having a couple of beers. and i was going over my notes. >> reporter: suddenly, he remembered that robert denney had worked at the same restaurant as his friends. they recognized the name instantly. >> they felt that he was an offbeat individual. >> reporter: about two months after the murder, they said denney seemed distraught saying he had to go home to texas, that his child had just been killed. they quickly found out that he'd made it all up. so he's a liar? >> correct. >> reporter: he lived near the victim. >> correct. >> reporter: he moved out of town shortly after the murder. >> correct. >> reporter: what does your gut telling you as you're sitting on that dock? >> it's highly unusual and we're probably on to something. >> reporter: william shared his suspicions with detective katie kingston. she then went over to check out denney's old apartment for herself. >> you can see how close it is. >> reporter: it was apartment number 4 and its back balcony was less than three feet from corey's old kitchen. when police met with denney's co-workers, they said he had talked about watching a young woman from his balcony. do you think he'd been watching her for a while. >> yeah. >> absolutely. no question about it. >> reporter: something straight out of hitchcock. rear window, a vulnerable young woman, a man watching, seeing but unseen. denney didn't match the description they'd gotten earlier of the case of the peeping tom, but that didn't mean he hadn't been spying on corey, said detectives. >> it wouldn't take much if she had her lights on to sit up there in the dark and be able to watch her as much as he wanted to. >> reporter: kingston didn't know where the man lived now, but she found out he had a sister in the area. what the woman told the detective about her brother was unsettling, to say the least. >> she called him the night creeper. she said that he would creep around the house at night. she had woken up before and he was staring at her. >> reporter: the sister said kingsston could find her brother in eeston, maryland. he'd moved there to be with a woman he met online. kingston and carlyle immediately headed north. they needed to compare their suspect to that hair sample from the crime scene. you need his dna? >> absolutely. >> reporter: with the help of easton police, they called up their suspect and flat-out lied. they made up a story about a recent assault. could he come in for questioning. >> so he agreed to come in and he sat down with us. >> reporter: what followed was vintage cat and mouse. police tried to get denney's dna off a cigarette. denney went for the smoke but when he was finished -- >> haddy took the cigarette butt and put it behind his ear. wouldn't put it in the cigarette ashtray. >> reporter: so they moved on to plan b. they offered him a bottle of water. >> he takes the water, but he doesn't take the top off of it. he sat there the whole time never drank from the water bottle. so now you're on to plan c. >> reporter: which was this. they asked denney to fill out some forms. police procedural stuff, they said. >> and what we were going to do is have him sign those forms and then put them in an envelope and then seal the envelope. there was three different envelopes. >> reporter: denney filled out the forms but didn't lick the envelopes. >> and he looks at us and says, you guys have tried three separate times to get my dna sample. he says, you can seal them yourself. is there anything else? >> reporter: the best laid plans. >> the best laid plans of mice and men. he didn't fall for it. >> reporter: denney was done, but carlyle wasn't. >> i wasn't going anywhere without a dna sample. >> reporter: so they staked him out at the computer store where he worked. and snapped these photos as their prey came outside for his cigarette breaks. once again, their mouse was a step ahead. >> he was smoking a cigarette and when he was finished with it, he would take it and put it behind his ear. >> reporter: do you think he knew that maybe you were watching him? >> i'm sure. >> reporter: but on the second day, denney did something he had probably done a thousand times before. >> he starts spitting on the ground out of the clear blue. >> reporter: spit has dna in it. >> and we were like -- we were jumping for joy at that point. >> reporter: so you've never been so happy in your life to see someone -- >> never so happy to see that. >> reporter: -- spit. when denney was finished carlyle raced over, took a sample and went straight to the fbi's dna lab. all there was left to do now was wait just a little bit longer. coming up -- no matter how the tests come back, detectives will have to explain a lot of other evidence at the scene. >> there's unidentified fingerprints and there's unidentified hairs in the victim's hands. >> had someone else been at corey's? then we sit down with robert denney. >> did you murder corey parker? >> the reason denney says police have it all wrong. ♪ buy an eligible galaxy device and get a free gear vr virtual reality headset. school lunch can be difficult. cafeteria chaos. one little struggle... can lead to one monumental mishap. not with ziploc easy open tabs. because life needs ziploc. sc johnson. which one'the one in white. introducing new all powercore pacs. just one pac delivers an astonishing clean. and keeps clothes up to 3 shades whiter. give us your worst, we'll give it our all. on your favorite spaghetti!ts only at olive garden. like a deep dish spaghetti pie topped with chicken alfredo starting at $12.99 with unlimited salad and breadsticks. it's a spaghet-together! at olive garden. it had been a year and a half since corey parker's murder when police discovered or rediscovered robert denney, her old neighbor. >> we went full bore on robert denney at that point. >> reporter: here's why. denney lived right behind the victim. he disappeared soon after her murder. and detectives learned this. denney had an older brother in prison for murder. you're starting to think this might run in the family? >> you can't help but think that. >> reporter: denney's brother had been convicted years earlier in texas. and his crime was eerily similar to this case. >> the interesting thing about the brother was that, in his case in el paso, he stabbed that woman 96 times. and we're dealing with a homicide where our victim's been stabbed 101 times. so the similarity was just too much to overlook. >> reporter: the detectives had to wonder if denney had killed corey in a twisted attempt to outdo his sibling. one thing detectives were sure of, he had become fixated on her. a co-worker recalled being in robert denney's apartment. >> robert pointed down to corey's window and said, i watch that girl down there. >> reporter: they were convinced denney was her killer, but they needed proof. so they waited for tests to compare denney's saliva sample to that strand of hair found at the scene. and wouldn't you know, denney's dna was a match. not just to that hair but also to a tiny speck of blood recovered near her kitchen sink. all the other possible suspects, the next-door neighbor, dishwasher and tiffany, were cleared in the case. >> we were jumping up and the down. >> we wanted to go get him then. >> reporter: and prosecutor angela corey said no. >> he can come up with a story to explain that dna away. i carried her groceries in for her and i cut my finger. kaunt give anybody a chance to explain it away. >> reporter: the prosecutor wanted him on the record denying he'd ever set foot in the victim's apartment. then they'd hit him with the dna proof trapping him. so they sent katie kingston back to maryland to robert denney's house. >> well, i was going to play like i didn't know anything. >> reporter: you were acting. >> just acting kind of dumb. >> reporter: she told denney they had found the man who killed his old neighbor corey parker. the detective was just here to tie up loose ends. he seemed willing to help. what he didn't know the detective was wearing a wire. >> dna of corey parker? or ever talk to her? >> no. >> okay. no. >> reporter: then the detective asked the crucial question. had he ever been in corey's apartment? you all didn't go back and forth to each other's apartments? >> i knew the guy next to that. >> reporter: so you all didn't go back and forth. >> reporter: that was all the detective needed. the cat it seemed had finally gotten its mouse. >> when i heard the recording, i had the arrest warrant ready to go and i finished plugging in what they told me over the phone, and we were ecstatic. we knew we had him. >> reporter: corey parker had been dead almost two years to the day when police slipped the handcuffs on robert denney. at the police station right after his arrest, he protested his innocence. >> you can't have any evidence. it's impossible. because i didn't do it. >> reporter: and when carlyle mentioned denney's brother he again told detectives he had it all wrong. >> that's my brother. >> i understand that. >> that's my brother. >> i understand that. >> that's not me. >> reporter: they had enough to put robert denney weigh away for life. it took fine years to come to trial. it was a complicated investigation. denney's dna was found at the crime scene but there was also evidence they couldn't link to him. >> we had alternative suspects. we had a lot to explain in the form of the science. >> reporter: the defense seized the opportunity noting there were any number of people who might have killed corey. >> there's still unidentified pieces of evidence at this crime scene. >> reporter: robert denney's attorney, rick sitka. >> there's unidentified semen stains and fingerprints and hairs in the victim's hands. so it's a question of who done it. >> reporter: not a case of denney did it, he said. to underscore that, denney even took the stand to show jurors he was just a boy next door, not a monster at the door. only it didn't work. after a three-week trial, the jury needed less than an hour to render a verdict, guilty of first degree murder. denney was sentenced to life in prison. which is where we met for this interview. did you murder corey parker? >> no, i did not. >> reporter: he believes the sins of his brother made police quick to zero in on him. there has been a connection made as far as the theories of the police, the prosecutors that this was some twisted brotherly bond or rivalry. is there any truth to that? >> none at all. simply because my brother is convicted of murder does not make me a murderer. >> reporter: he says the way police later got his dna shows they were determined to link him to corey's murder. >> when i first heard that my spit was what they collected to match to any dna at the crime scene, it was just unreal. i'm thinking to myself, how could this be? >> reporter: he's also convinced that the labs, including the one at the fbi, didn't follow protocol when they tested his dna from the crime scene. >> there was evidence to suggest that they may have mixed up samples. >> reporter: the hardest part to mix your head around is there can be contamination on both the blood and the hair. >> right. i can understand why you would feel that way and maybe that goes to explaining what the police might have done with the evidence. we don't know. if i knew, i wouldn't be here. >> reporter: it just seems a little far-fetched that the police would randomly pluck you out of obscurity years later and decide to frame you. >> i understand. and i thought about this for years, and it happened. police do frame people. we see it all the time now in america. >> reporter: the police have framed you and two separate crime labs have contaminated the evidence? >> yes. >> reporter: you can see how that -- >> i can see how that is -- >> reporter: very far-fetched. >> far-fetched. yeah, i can understand that. >> reporter: the detective in this case says he is 1,000% certain he has the right person. >> he's wrong. he does not have the right person. >> reporter: so who did it then? >> if i knew, i wouldn't be here now. i wish i knew. >> reporter: yet the people who arrested and prosecuted denney insist two independent labs did follow protocol linking his dna to evidence from the crime scene. still, denney is hoping a recent post-conviction motion arguing in part that the dna testing was flawed will result in a new trial. his family and supporters are even blogging about his case. that infuriates corey's friends. >> i hope he rots in hell. i hate robert denney. >> reporter: as for tiffany zienta, she says it took a long time to get over what he and the police did to her. how did you deal with it? >> drink. more. more. tr didn't like myself very much. it's taken me a while to get back to who i need to be. >> reporter: amy lavin has also struggled with the past. >> i go to that day. why didn't i invite her to thanksgiving with me. maybe she would have gone. even to this day, there's a lot of guilt with that. >> reporter: but there's also gratitude to investigators who never gave up, to three strangers on a dock playing arm chair detective and, most of all, to a best friend. >> i definitely feel blessed to have known her for the amount of time i did. i can't imagine what she would have accomplished by now. >> reporter: whatever it was, amy feels certain it would have been like the woman herself, as vibrant as a northern sky, as unforgettable as a southern night. that's all for this edition of "dateline." we'll see you tomorrow at 8:00, 7:00 central for the dateline saturday night mystery, then again sunday at 7:00, 6:00 central for on assignment. i'm lester holt. s r all of u nbc 10 news starts now. >> worst action i've had in my lifetime. >> an nbc 10 exclusive. a farmer spends hours trapped i

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