Page 2 - Inspector Ritchie News Today

And months in which the family had been searching for a living woman, a police murder investigation had been very active indeed. and now, in the last days of august, the hayward county inspector at the time, fraser ritchie, was in fact closing in on a very hot target. but to understand how he got there, we need to go back almost to the beginning. it was minutes before midnight, may 28, 2011-- 29 hours after michelle le disappeared. ritchie had gone to pay a midnight visit to michelles old high s...

Of persons of interest. lester holt: coming up-- the strange video trail of giselle esteban the day before michelle disappeared. fraser ritchie: it shows giselle walking around with a lab coat on pretending to be an instructor. keith morrison: weird. yeah. lester holt: what was she up to? when "dateline" continues. [music playing] whos already won three cars, two motorcycles, a boat, and an r.v. i would not want to pay that insurance bill. [ ding ] -oh, i have progressive, so i just bundled ever...

But they didnt know how she did it, or when she did, or where she is-- or, more important, what she did with the body. if you dont have a body, it makes the case more difficult. keith morrison: and so, ritchie and the other investigators with the hayward pd continue the tedious work of building a murder case without a body. they ran fingerprints, they sent dna out for testing, they interviewed witnesses-- all quietly, out of sight of the family and press. they tested a strand of hair found in mi...

Yes. keith morrison: the eavesdropping electronics was closing in. here was surveillance video showing giselle trying to access the nursing schools computers the night before michelles disappearance. and here, the scene of the apple store the day after michelle vanished. esteban, getting michelles iphone unlocked. and later, using it have the chuck e. cheese. but still, it wasnt enough-- until the lab results finally came back, from evidence seized that very first night in giselle estebans apart...

Keith morrison: strong feelings. but giselle esteban, herself, was not so strong-- tiny and pregnant. hardly seemed physically capable of overpowering and murdering the larger michelle le, let alone finding a way of disposing her body. so they sent her home, and later that afternoon finally got a look inside michelles car-- as we did much later, when the detective showed it to us. nothing had changed, nothing was touched. here, the morbid sense we were somehow violating a sad and very personal s...

Believe the police? no. they simply wouldnt accept what the cops had to say. >> it was horrible. we were really angry. because, okay. you want to make it homicide. youre not going to tell us why. >> reporter: ritchie understood the familys anger. but as far as he was concerned, he had a murder investigation on his hands and that meant the family had to be kept in the dark. >> theres certain procedural things that we have to keep close to us, that we cant put out there. because we have to maintai...

>> the same sort of response received by michelles friends and family, who had now decided based on those weird text messages that michelle had been kidnapped. but as far as inspector ritchie was concerned, just about anything was possible. >> i kept an open mind. i didnt know whether michelle voluntarily went missing for whatever personal reasons she had or if this was a stranger abduction or if this was an abduction from somebody that she knew or she just left with a friend. >> did anybody say...

Who had abducted michelle, and so their mission was now clear. michelle didnt just need to be found. michelle needed to be rescued. >> its a time-critical situation. every second you that waste is a second that shes hurting. we had to find her. >> reporter: saturday afternoon, 18 hours after michelle vanished, michael and a group of michelles friends met with inspector fraser richie at the hayward police department. >> we had about 10 or 15 family members and classmates and friends at the police...

Keith morrison: strong feelings. but giselle esteban, herself, was not so strong-- tiny and pregnant. hardly seemed physically capable of overpowering and murdering the larger michelle le, let alone finding a way of disposing her body. so they sent her home, and later that afternoon finally got a look inside michelles car-- as we did much later, when the detective showed it to us. nothing had changed, nothing was touched. here, the morbid sense we were somehow violating a sad and very personal s...

This is what inspector ritchie found-- a crime scene. once we get the car opened, you can see theres blood wiped across here in the plastic-- a little bit on the floor mats. and then, as you can see, theres more droplets-- or blood dropping down, going in a straight down pattern. keith morrison: police also found some blood smeared on the floor of the garage where michelles car had been parked. were you able to make a judgment about what would have happened when she got to her car? she was attac...