into the room where monica was. and she was consoling me. and she shouldn t be consoling me. reporter: the brutality of the murder was never far from the prosecutors minds. i think i just thought how painful and how awful the last few minutes of her life would ve been on this earth reporter: how terrifying. and absolutely terrifying. absolutely terrifying. reporter: even that, they said even that appeared to be part of the plan. this wasn t just about robbery, or even revenge, said prosecutor rousseau. it was discussions that carter cervantez had had with people where she expressed certain i guess you would call them fantasies involving killing people. reporter: liza schoenthal remembers one such discussion at work. it was just us. and we were folding clothes, and she mentioned that she had thought about killing someone before and whether or not she could watch them die. reporter: as if the murder wasn t shocking enough,
carter cervantez did not work for him and he doesn t even know who she is. well, so much for that story. yes, sir. reporter: cedillo turned his attention to finding carter cervantez. no luck. you didn t see her at all in there? no, sir. reporter: did anybody see her? no, sir. reporter: so, cedillo had a disgruntled employee coming back to the mall where she d been fired. her boyfriend was telling lies about a job she didn t have, and a car that looked like hers had been spotted at the scene of a murder. detective pate still had david mallory out in the parking lot and was looking for a reason to hold him. he said that he had a driver s license. but he didn t have his driver s license with him. reporter: reason enough. he arrested mallory and brought him in for questioning. but carter? seemed to have vanished. wasn t anywhere in the mall. but then police went to her apartment complex, and there she was. where was she in the apartment complex? well, she initially wa
woman dressed in darkish clothes, headed inside. she fit the description he d been given of 25-year-old carter cervantez, a former co-worker of ashlea harris. the male driver stayed in the car. cedillo called his partner, ernie pate asked him to check up on the guy. when i approached the car, then the person identified themself as david mallory. reporter: david mallory was carter s live-in boyfriend. he too was a former employee of american eagle. i asked him, what are you doing here at the mall? he said that he had dropped his girlfriend off to pick up some papers at aeropostale where she was a manager. reporter: so perhaps it was just that. david giving carter a ride to pick up some paperwork at her new job at aeropostale. cedillo decided to go inside. the mall was open but the stores were still closed. and i happened to go up to aeropostale and there is a manager that s actually in there working. and i was able to confirm that
interesting maybe incriminating. she took a drink, puts the bottle down. she picks it up again and before she can take the second drink, she stops mid-air, spills water on herself. puts the bottle down and just stares at it for about 10 to 15 seconds. she then reaches over and grabs a tissue from the table and starts wipin down the bottle and then wipes down the mouthpiece. reporter: what did that say to you? well, that she was afraid that we were gonna obtain her dna from the bottle. reporter: after that police let her go. david mallory, too. but detectives had a theory cooking that carter and david killed ashlea, out of revenge for being fired for the burglary. but they also wanted ashlea s keys to the american eagle. because they were planning to rob the store again. those keys were the only thing missing from the murder scene. and when store manager chris cravey looked at his surveillance video from earlier that morning, he told police what they wanted to hear. repor