Page 3 - Daphne Wright News Today

You created an account with a different name and september her the e-mails telling her to stay away from the apartments. >> yeah, yeah, i did that. >> did you create the name wendy smith? >> yeah, i did. >> a background check revealed daphne wright has been involved in a public altercation with darlene vandergiesen just five days before she disappeared. darlene was having dinner with sally forward who was daphne wrights former lover. >> they had had an argument that the police had to be called t...

And the only way that she could take care of it was to eliminate her from the picture. >> but investigators still had a problem. they didnt have darlenes body. >> a jury like as body. a jury likes a murder weapon, and you just never know. you get that one skeptical juror who doesnt see the body and theres enough doubt to say not guilty in case like that. >> in the search police checked the dumpster where daphne and her neighbors disposed of the trash. >> by the time the officers got there, the d...

Evidence with paint. but it wasnt nearly enough. >> there was this virtual mountain of evidence of the defendants guilt. >> those e-mails and what the e-mails showed us pointed us right to daphne wright. >> daphnes motivation was one that has been throughout the ages in a homicide, jealousy. >> the tragedy is, that darlene had no romantic interest in daphnes ex-girlfriend, sally ford. >> darlene was not interested in that. darlene was not a lesbian person. darlene and sally did not have that kin...

>> this is a time of year in south dakota where chainsaws are not in huge demand. >> but there was no chainsaw in daphnes house or on her property. downstairs the basement had been painted with blue paint. >> there would be a spot painted here and a spot painted there and different sizes, parts of the wall, not a whole wall, a three or four foot section of the wall but not all the wall, parts of the steps but not all the steps. >> a few feet away was a small room that once had been used to store...

Human body with a chainsaw takes a lot of gall. takes a lot of spite. in my opinion you really have to dislike somebody to do that to them. >> daphne wright was convicted, but the jury spared her life. instead, shell spend the rest of her life in prison with no possibility of parole. >> one thing that kept coming back was what do we get out of sentencing her to the death penalty. what does she get out of it, what does society get out of it, what do we get out of it? really, we didnt see anything...

Steal her ex-girlfriend and wanted to prevent it. she asked darlene to meet her at the pizza restaurant. but once there, she changed her mind and asked darlene to come to her house instead. once there, daphne hit darlene with a heavy object. pushed her down the stairs. then tied a thick plastic bag around her head with cord from her home. she later bought a chainsaw to dismember darlenes body. she left behind the sales receipt, store witnesses, and plenty of forensic evidence. daphne disposed of...

Wright after this incident. >> she said, oh, mom, were friends now, were all made up, and were comfortable with each other, its all okay now. >> but when daphne wright was questioned about darlenes disappearance, the jealousy was still apparent. >> weve had a lot of problems, sally and i. >> did you think sally was cheating on you with darlene? >> yes. i thought so. and sometimes she lied. >> who lied? >> sally. >> okay. >> was darlene the victim of a love triangle gone wrong? daphnes whereabout...

>> it was a sweatshirt that had graphics on it of sign language. we knew right there there was a tie to the deaf community. >> testing proved it was darlenes blood on the sweatshirt, but someone elses dna was found inside the sweatshirt. >> i took cuttings from the inside of the sweatshirt hoping that one of them had transferred enough dna or skin cells inside. to get a full profile. i was fortunate and did get a profile and that matched daphne wright. >> by being able to put daphne wright insid...

>> yeah, yeah, i did that. >> did you create the name wendy smith? >> yeah, i did. >> a background check revealed daphne wright has been involved in a public altercation with darlene vandergiesen just five days before she disappeared. darlene was having dinner with sally forward who was daphne wrights former lover. >> they had had an argument that the police had to be called to and she had be the escorted off the property. >> daphne wright told the police that she was jealous. she told police th...

>> when we did receive the e-mails that darlene had received from wendy smith, that gave us the ability to send a subpoena to yahoo! to find out who may have created that yahoo! account. >> the e-mails came from this home in downtown sioux falls. the occupant was a deaf woman named daphne wright. >> daphne said that she had met darlene several times at the deaf apartments, met her at the deaf club. >> 42-year-old daphne wright hat no criminal record. during police questions, wright denied any in...