I never gave her a color. i simply asked her about a g-35. alexis said, no. after he was done asking the questions, i walked outside and sat down on the brick. and i believe it was chris that was there. reporter: that would be chris cravey, ashlea s boss at american eagle. alexis told him that police were asking about an infiniti sedan. and chris made a beeline for detective cedillo. i approached him. and i said, i know whose car y all are asking about. and he says, i just wanna make you aware that i have a former employee that did drive a infiniti g35. reporter: her name, he said, was carter. carter cervantez, that businesslike assistant manager who worked with ashlea so then i ask him, you know, what color is the g35 that she drove? and he mentions that it s a black one. reporter: what was that like, to hear that? well, it beats hearing the color red or white.
Before the killing and ashlea s dna found in carter s infiniti. carter would take the stand to tell her side of the story and she was about to point the finger in an unexpected direction. now with the conclusion of our story, here is keith morrison. reporter: when people talk about the trial of carter cervantes this is what they remember. state your name for the record, please. my name is carter carol cervantes. reporter: carter cervantes took the stand. gone was that criminal mastermind. here sat a helpless victim. she gets up on the stand and it was insane. reporter: carter said it was all her boyfriend, david mallory, controlling every aspect of her life. i was very afraid of david. how frayed of him were you? i thought he was going to kill she. reporter: this is where
Insisting police had it all wrong? a security video was about to clear things up, and reveal a potential motive. here again is keith morrison. reporter: it was late saturday morning, the day after black friday. 25-year-old carter cervantez was talking to detectives and lying though her teeth. i know what i did this morning. i know where i was. i know where i went. reporter: detective cedillo certainly knew where she went the hulen mall. but she kept insisting she d been at home all morning. you re about to make the biggest mistake of your life. do you understand me? reporter: and she still wouldn t confess to it? she wouldn t budge. i got up, i went and put the laundry in, and i went and checked my e-mail. that s all. you found me in my apartment complex. reporter: then when the detectives stepped out of the room, she did something interesting maybe incriminating. she took a drink, puts the bottle down. she picks it up again and before
That camera app, so useful. well, we learned that they had conducted surveillance at ashlea s apartment weeks before that. they had a picture of her apartment. her actual door to her apartment, and they had pictures of her vehicle, the white dodge ram pickup. reporter: in early december, 2014, carter cervantez and david mallory were arrested and charged with the murder of ashlea harris. cold comfort for ashlea s sister. it s just such a loss and it s so pointless. i just don t understand how people could do that. reporter: they were tried separately, but the cases against them were virtually identical. assistant d.a. kevin rousseau led the prosecution. on state s exhibit 1
i can t imagine god giving me this child and living with her and raising her, that he would want me to stop loving her. wouldn t make any sense at all. yet, for a long while, monica wasn t comfortable with ashlea s new relationship. laura said she and ashlea were good together. she was always very giving and very what else can i do for you to make you happy. the romance losted more than three years, and then it was over. and they remained friends. and laura remembers how happy ashlea was when she started working at american eagle outfitters at the mall in ft. worth. ashlea loved it. she was an assistant manager and good at it said her boss chris cravy. just her personal, caring, loving, compassionate. she just loved life. yeah. and she loved taking videos