reporter: that s kind of odd, if he had nothing to hide. a lot of people will not give up dna. too much tv. reporter: but the detective had snagged a sample from a beer mug and when the dna finally came back, he was not a match. reporter: you felt confident that you could rule him out, based on yes. yes. reporter: the dna not matching? yes. reporter: but even before the dna test cleared jamie s friend, the detective was already looking for other suspects. and his attention quickly landed on someone very close to the victim. her boyfriend. the questions that they asked, focused on where was i the night before, what had i been doing. reporter: looking at you as a possible suspect? it didn t really occur to me that that was what they were doing. i just thought they were asking for information. reporter: chuck told the detective that before jamie was killed he hadn t seen her for two days. on the night of murder, he said he was at home. i was playing computer game
jamie hart was sexually assaulted. did you start to think that these could be connected? i didn t think they were connected. and that was primarily because, with jamie there was a boyfriend that may have been involved. it was a romantic relationship that went wrong. it wasn t some random occurrence by a stranger. reporter: kristin was now living with overwhelming anxiety and dread, which she says manifested into dangerous behavior. instead of being afraid of everything i became afraid of nothing. i, you know, i just became completely risk seeking. reporter: what kind of things would you do? i think i started drinking heavily for a while after that. you know, i d hop on the back of a stranger s motorcycle after he d had three beers and it took a long time to really get out of that hole. reporter: just as kristin was
had something to hide they interpreted all these things as signs of my guilt rather than a distraught boyfriend. at the time i had long hair and this was a cowboy town. that was considered to be weird and unusual. as for those bad things he told the detective he d done he explained to us he was referring to a petty argument they d had just days before jamie s murder and the guilt he felt from not being with her the night she died. reporter: do you remember what you were arguing about? a loaf of bread the grocery sacker had put a cantaloupe on a loaf of bread. [ laughs ] and she was upset that the sacker had squished the bread. and i told her it wasn t that big of a deal. and we had picked our sides and we argued about something as stupid as a loaf of bread. smiem and. and now he says he could
jamie s murder. kristin faced him in court during the penalty phase. it was terrifying. i had to testify and i met carolyn s family and and jamie s family. they all came out afterwards and gave me a hug. it helped me realize that their families didn t hold any grudge against me, you know. it s not her fault that my sister died. and kristin should have no guilt over that. with the casey family as witnesses, ynobe matthews was executed three years later. if there is a lesson to take from this story, it is one that comes directly from a survivor herself. someone who has learned the hard way to cherish life s moments each and every one. it makes you realize how fragile your life is, you know, and that anybody can take it, you know, in a moment s notice. this story, you know, for them
the story begins in a small texas town. but it s not just any town. this is college station, home to texas a&m and in 1999 the home to 21 year old student jamie hart. i was immediately struck with her beauty. chuck crews was her boyfriend at the time. he says jamie was the light of his life. he remembers when he first laid eyes on her. i could barely speak when i saw her, she was so pretty. it was like when the color came on in the wizard of oz. i had been living in a dark world and she showed me a world full of color. and she was a loyal friend, funny, outspoken. she would tell you exactly what was on her mind at all times. it was early one morning in may. jamie s roommates couldn t find her. they called chuck. i got a call asking me if i knew where she was. and i said, no, she didn t come over here last night. i didn t know where she was. i hadn t talked to her the night