I knew she would never leave her kids in the middle of a hurricane. I always knew it was not going to be good. Crystal was gone and there were lots of reasons to worry. She had numerous lovers, men and women. She had a husband and boyfriend failing the polygraph. What the hell is going on. Hurricane harvey was moving in this direction. We were stuck in the house and we immediately went to social media. Someone knew where she was. Someone who liked to play games. He thought he was smarter than we were. Willing to trade one night of freedom. Let me go home and i will tell you everything. In exchange for the terrible truth. If he couldnt have her, nobody could. Hello, and welcome to dateline. Crystal mcdowell was a divorced mom, itching to start a new life when she vanished. Then, Hurricane Harvey decimated her texas town of brought the search for crystal to a halt. And the lead investigator forged ahead, covering a series of clues. As the floodwaters receded, he discovered the same deadl
License plate. Someone knew where she was, someone that liked to play games. He thought he was smarter than we were. Willing to trade one night of freedom. He said im ready to talk. Let me go home and tomorrow morning ill tell you everything. In exchange for the terrible truth. If he couldnt have her, nobody could. Crystal was a young mom and brought the search for crystal to a halt, but an investigatior brought a series of clues and as flood waters receded, he discovered the same deadly storm that slowed the investigation had also flushed out crystals killer. Here is Dennis Murphy with before the storm. The woman captured on Security Camera moving ghost like from one room to the next is 37yearold Crystal Mcdowell, a real else state agent from baytown, texas, its thursday, august 25th, 2017. At 7 35 a. M. , crystal gets into her black Mercedes Coupe and backs out of the driveway. Looks like shes on her way to work, but crystal never makes it to the office that day. Texts, phone calls a
That led to her death. the dna could have evidence of the type of kill, even though you would exclude traditional touch dna between the two. i mean, isn t it just such a twisted truth that, you know, a defense attorney could say, well, you know, they did have that fight. that was on tape, and you know that they did fight and they were scratching each other, and maybe that s how the dna got under her finger nails. it s like because there was domestic violence in the past that could be used as an exoneration somehow. strangely, alisyn, you re right. they re going to be able to say, again, it happened before, so there s that heat of passion argument. it wasn t some premeditation. it was in the throes of yet another fight, yet another argument. even the fact that she had mentioned that she was the one to first strike at a previous domestic violence event. you can expect that to come up. the prosecutors are going to have that difficult time as they
When you get a case like this where you have the perpetrator who can convince even some members of law enforcement that he might have been the victim in all of this, then you worry about what the jury s going to think, you know. how do you straddle this thing? forgive the thought, but it s like how do you not get seen as a hard-ass woman? i don t know. you could be judged. right, absolutely. and i think i m seen like that with a lot of jurors. there s nothing i can do about it. i mean, if i try to be anything different than i am, it would come across as insincere. that authenticity apparently resonated with the jury in crystal s case. they rejected the sudden passion argument and found that crystal s murder was premeditated. they sentenced steven mcdowell to 50 years in prison, and cindy wasn t in court that day.
Why would conrad truman want to kill his wife? under the circumstances, i d say the motive was just based on this heat of passion argument that they were having. alcohol, a fight and guns, that s where we got murder. reporter: at the same time johnson was still reluctant to press charges. remember, the state s own medical examiner couldn t say whether heidy s death was a homicide. and johnson knew that would be a huge hurdle in court. based on my experience in courts with juries, a medical examiner carries a lot of weight. reporter: so johnson and wallace showed the m.e. a 96-page power point presentation of all their evidence including those measurements, hoping something would sway him. the presentation worked. the medical examiner changed his ruling to homicide. it sounds like one of the things that got the medical examiner to move from inconclusive to homicide was the measurements of