Page 2 - Ic Styles News Today

Knew c-styles and thought he saw him loitering in the area. except, all those witnesses were afraid to testify in open court. against a known gang member. all except one, the school girl. who may not have known enough to be afraid. miss hall, who was a child essentially, when she saw someone running away of the scene at crystal taylors murder. she was willing to testify? >> yes she was. >> but her family was hesitant. >> yes, her mom was really concerned about that. >> the da had his own concern...

But you didnt hear it. or it didnt sound bad enough. youre all kind of beating yourselves up for not listening to crysties warning. >> exactly. >> even though it sounds to me like you would almost have to be a mind reader to know that she was really concerned. >> yeah. >> the years started to pass. and this family thought a lock about derek smyer. we crystal had said if something happened to her it was derek. they believed he was the only one who had something to gain from her death. as they had...

Photo and floating theories about her killer, c-styles simply confessed to a different murder of a rival gang member. >> i dont do this for a living but, he was even being charged with that and you were even asking him about that. >> i didnt even know there was a murder. >> so why would he blew that out? >> you have to understand c-styles mentality. c-styles mentality is that there is no ability in killing the enemy. there is no nobility our honor in killing a lady who is pregnant. >> someone wh...

>> the back seat of detective williams police car. the woman derek saw was jana poletto, crystals friend from work, whod accompanied detective williams. derek said he saw her quite clearly. >> the look on her face was she was totally distraught, thats what he said. >> which gave detective lopez an idea. >> if he is that close to see that she is totally distraught, then she should have a pretty good look at who he was talking to. >> at the time no one had thought to show jana poletto a photo of c...

Michelle and monica couldnt resist going back to prowling the streets, looking for clues. cagney and lacey shift their focus to derek? >> we never thought he should get away with it. >> when the police said, "come in. we want to talk to you, were going to reopen the case," i have a notebook now. im like, "oh smyers." so i wrote it down, and then i go back and i found, like, businesses they had. >> reporter: they also figured out where derek lived. youre regularly driving by his house? >> no, we ...

Victims sister the day prior. the way he ran out of the place, all those things were, you know, matched what he was telling us. and we were able to corroborate. >> reporter: with all that information, lopez decided to take a chance. arrest derek, apply some pressure, and see if he would crack. so nine years and ten months after crystal taylors murder, derek smyer once again sat in a police interview room. >> he felt like he had to control everything that happened in the interview. he would answe...

The park might have been. >> and crystal is dead. c-styles is serving time for another murder and nothing is happening to derek. >> nothing was happening to derek that i could see. but im a believer of karma. either in this life or the next. youre going to pay for what youve done wrong. >> im guessing you were preferring it was this life? >> yes. >> maybe it was karma. maybe it was luck. maybe it was good police work. but whatever it was, on june 15th, 2011, l.a. sheriffs detectives richard lope...

>> manipulator. self-centered. and arrogant. >> reporter: maybe thats why derek never shied away from talking with the cops and why he never asked for a lawyer. or maybe he just wasnt guilty. >> definitely he thought he was smarter than we were, anyways. i mean, you know, what did we have? >> reporter: when derek was briefly arrested, detectives asked him who he was with at anderson park on the day crystal was murdered. remember, detective williams thought later it was probably c-styles, but cop...

Really concerned about that. >> reporter: the d.a had his own concerns. the testimony of a schoolgirl, and the sister of the victim, didnt seem enough to convict. and thats about all the evidence they had. police never found any dna, fingerprints, or forensic evidence that linked c-styles to the garage of crystal taylors apartment. and while they found a .38-caliber bullet lodged in crystals brain, they never found the gun that fired it, let alone linked that gun to c-styles or anyone else. if c...

By 2011, for the taylor family, crystals murder was an ugly scar that was never going to heal. >> we had almost stopped being as obsessed with it. >> but you still wanted answers. >> but we still wanted answer. >> reporter: then the phone rang. detectives shared the big news about their prison interview with c-styles. >> they said, "well, the shooter confessed." >> reporter: and told them it was derek smyer who put him up to it. >> reporter: in his confession, mr. styles said he saw another woma...