crystal was gone, and there were lots of reasons to worry. she had numerous lovers, me and women. you had the husband and boyfriend failing polys. on the same day the answer would have t wait hurricane harvey is movin in this direction and high water rescues. we re stuck in the house an immediately went to social media. what kind of things pictures of her and her 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 nigh of freedom he said i m ready to talk let me go home and tomorrow morning i ll tell yo everything in exchange for the terribl truth. if he couldn t have her nobody could. crystal was young mom and brought th search for crystal to a halt - then hurricane harvey decimate her texas town and brought the search for krystal to a halt but in a lead investigator forged ahead, uncovering a series of clues and as the floodwaters receded, h discovered the
know as an ex-wife. i said hey let s take a lie detector test mcdowell said sure, he d be happy to and he failed how badly did he flunk th poly you couldn t fail any worse which naturally would hav made him the prime suspect except it didn t jive with everything else jeter wa hearing about him. from the family members tha he had been talking to, yo know, they were all in steve s corner. they all thought tha steve treated crystal right an was a good person for crystal. and all agreed that steve was an involved and loving dad according to jeter, crystal boyfriend paul hargrave was th one the family pointed fingers at they didn t know anything about him so he was the boogie man. the boyfriend cooperated, handed over videos, cell phone and agreed to be strapped to the polygraph. and failed miserably. he did, too yes, sir. the husband and boyfriend failing the same polys all in the same day what the hell is going on?
without his help flat not going to happen. it not going to happen. thi isn t a forensic case or dna case. this is a who done it, w now know who done it now tak me to where she s at district attorney leak wa on the same page. and with jeter as her go between, she agreed to forgo the deat penalty. as long as you take us to the body we won t seek the death penalty. shortly thereafter he agree i ll take you to crystal s location they retraced mcdowell route that led to the shor narrow strip of black to needle road. heavily wooded. ranger, would you have ever gone down a road no, that place was four t five foot under water two week earlier. at a seemingly random spot, mcdowell said stop, this is th place. jeter and holland set off on foot. within a short period o time we found what we believed to be the remains of crystal mcdowell. there wasn t muc left of her. she was prett much decomposed. steven mcdowell had not onl confessed but given up the body. case closed, r
what do you do? ground zero. went back in like nothing had been done before on day one of thi investigation, jeter had ex-husband mcdowell sitting in a chair for his first formal interview. i told him, hey, look you re ex-husband. we re going to take your story and i got t rule you out as a suspect. so he s a co-rporative guy? oh, yeah, once you reache out to him very corporative. mcdowell told jeter the sam story he told sheriff deputies a week earlier. h hadn t seen crystal sinc thursday night when she left for the date according to him, that wa the last time he saw her last. you under estimate a texa ranger if you see an elite gun slinger in hat and boots. jete has gone through extensive training how best to interview a suspect by reading behavio and body language. so tell m about his demeanor and wha you re seeing as much as wha he s saying to you, ranger probably lack of concern or sincere concern for what w
innocent man that had nothin to do with crystal s disappear ranls. d. a. leak by then ha enough evidence to charg mcdowell with murder but she believed she needed one more piece of evidence to ensure conviction i wanted that body. why is that important well, it s important for lot of reasons. it s easier to try a murder trial when you ve got a dead body. it just is. but, you know, she deserved to be found. you know? sh deserved to be found. her kids deserved for her body to b found. her family deserved for her to be found. investigators all believe mcdowell knew where the body was but he staed fastly denied any involvement in crystal s disappearance. after an hour o getting nowhere, mcdowell wa allowed to go home to hi children but now, district attorney leak and ranger jeter had a whole new problem on their hands. i had found some folks that i had interviewed throughout the week that had said he actually talked about murder