Transcripts For MSNBCW Dateline 20240704 : vimarsana.com

MSNBCW Dateline July 4, 2024

Nobody knows where the bullet comes from. Nothings making it any easier. If you dont have a motive, its hard to know which direction to go. We were just never going to know. But someone knew. She called me and she said, i think i know something about a murder. We never could find out why trent was killed because it was something this weird. She became the key. Would she also become the next victim . She was scared to death to confront him. Let me ask you a question, youre not setting me up, are you . She knew what he was capable of. And thus she was terrified. And thus she was terrified. Hello and welcome to dateline. Trent digiuro was a force on the football field, popular and fiercely loyal to his wide circle of friends. Then late one night, the charming athlete was shot dead. His killer left few clues, and the Case Sat Cold until someone came forward with a stunning secret. What police asked the tipster to do next would make her a target. How much would she risk to right a wrong . Heres Keith Morrison with the motive. Her heart was on fire. Lost to her. The canned music, the hum of other voices in the bar. There was only him. They were in the deep end now. And as lovers in the flush of new commitment sometimes do, they confessed their sins of the abandoned past. The worst things theyd ever done. Words, just words. Best forgotten until they could no longer be ignored. Lexington, kentucky. One year before that night in the bar. A house where students lived. And the music and laughter and chatter of a Birthday Party swelled and ebbed and drifted in and out of the evening air. It wasnt a huge party. It was just a lowkey party with some good friends. They were about to be seniors, the young men whod rented the place, whod hosted the party. We had a group of guys, four guys that got along extremely well. They were big men on campus. They played football. The University Of Kentuckys beloved wildcats. Antonio oferral was a quarterback. In lexington, kentucky if you play for the cats, youre pretty much a wellknown entity. The birthday boy, 21 years old, was a true rarity, a wildcats walkon. He had no scholarship, no invitation, hed just showed up and tried out for the team. And over three years of hard work he had earned a starting position. Here we go Trent Digiuro, gentle giant. You know, everybody called him a big teddy bear. He was the great protector of all of our friends. The party was sweet, informal. Friends snapped pictures and evening dawdled into night. It was after midnight when the party wound down. I think we turned in somewhere between 12 30, 1 00. Antonio and his girlfriend went to bed. Outside, trent and some of the others settled under the light on the front porch. Out there, beyond the streetlights, was impenetrable dark. Inside we were already in a faint sleep, and we heard a loud bang. One of them must have slammed the screen door. But no. Well, within ten seconds you started to hear the chaos outside. The screaming, the yelling, the crying. And there was trent. Slumped to one side in his chair under the light. Trent was bleeding out of his ears and his eyes and his nose and his mouth. And it was a horrific scene. Horrific and confusing. That loud bang had been a gunshot. But from where . Somewhere out there in the dark . Had someone intentionally fired a gun at their gentle giant, their teddy bear . In their panic and distress, they did not understand. How could they . The nature of the mystery launched here. Or who, in a haze of love, may have learned the answer. It was just so senseless. Once you found out why, it was even worse. Just who was Trent Digiuro, the target . We all started hanging out from first grade, 6 years old. Its pretty neat. Peyton turner and sharalea bollinger were his life long friends. If you were his friend, you were his friend and thats all that mattered. There wasnt a group for him. There was no group. Everybody got treated just the same. Trent was in fourth grade when he started playing football in his hometown of goshen, kentucky, just outside louisville. By high school he was captain of the team, had lots of friends. So popular, trent was homecoming king, with sharalea his queen. It was pretty special. I mean, just to oh my gosh, yeah. To be part of that and to be voted as that, especially with trent. When it came time for college, trent set his sights high. He turned down Football Scholarships to smaller schools. At one point he says, you know what, i just got to know if i can play in the bigtime. In a division i school. Mike digiuro is trents dad. So he walked onto University Of Kentucky, which is in the southeast conference, which is about as big as they come. Sure. And he worked real hard to get to where he was. And trents teammates saw that hard work. Trent had the ability to perform. So, while he might have been a walkon, his performance allowed him to endear himself to others very quickly. That july, as trent practiced football and prepared for his senior year, his parents went to lexington to see him and to talk about his future. He was trying to decide what he wanted to do with his life. He was talking about maybe going to law school or business school. Did he talk about his Birthday Celebration . We knew he was gonna have some kind of a thing and that he was supposed to come home that next day to celebrate his birthday with us, and he never made it. No. And a creeping fear washed over the University Of Kentucky Football Team. Was a killer targeting them . And if so, who would be next . Coming up i couldnt even believe it. I couldnt understand it. Who would murder somebody so wonderful . The investigation begins. Everyone talked. But they didnt see anything. And was there more terror to come . 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As long as theyre the best. Egglands best. Keith morrison chaos is what there was on trentt. Digiuros front porch. Chaos this what there was on Trent Digiuros front porch. His friends stood over the body and stared out into the dark with a kind of anticipating horror. Youre concerned that theres more to come, you know . That was that was one shot. Is there someone whos gonna shoot again . Trent was officially pronounced dead at 3 00 a. M. Just about the time don evans arrived. Evans has retired now, but was a Rookie Detective back then. This was his first homicide case. Whatd you find when you got here . There were three young men in this very yard, and they just looked distraught, and they were consoling each other. On the porch, trents chair was turned over and evans could see blood and debris left by the ambulance crew. What was your first idea of what appeared to have happened here . You know, when i first walked up, i went with what appeared to be the obvious. That someone had simply walked from the side of the house, fired the shot, and then exited back toward the rear of the house. So this is almost like an alley here. So it would provide concealment. Take advantage of surprise. Yeah. If someone was gonna take a shot, that made the most sense. Believing the shot came from a handgun, police looked for shell casings. And yet for all they looked, there were none, nor any other evidence. Still, Detective Evans figured there was a party that night, so there were bound to be people who saw something. My thought was, as soon as i getem to headquarters and getem separated, someones gonna tell me what happened. Did they talk . Everyone talked. But with each and every person that i talked to, they didnt see anything. 80 miles away, at 5 00 a. M, the digiurosphone rang. Its numbing. Its hard to imagine the feeling. Suddenly your life doesnt make sense anymore. It absolutely stops and pivots in an instant. And then it was kinda, you know, now what . And soon everybody knew. I couldnt even believe it, couldnt understand it. Who would murder somebody so wonderful . It was about then that the first really useful evidence came back from the medical examiner. Bullet fragments were recovered in the autopsy, and the ballistics showed it wasnt a handgun at all that killed trent. It was a rifle, which turned Detective Evans first theory upside down. Well, the theory about walking up the side of the house and firing a shot that goes out the window. Thats probably out the window. A rifles not designed for a closerange shot. Officers canvassed the neighborhood. A woman who lived across the street said she awoke to a loud noise and it sounded like it was right outside her house. So based on that, we actually took one of our marksmen from the Police Department and ask him, could this shot be made from here, from this angle . And we literally reenacted that possibility. Did it make sense, the location you found . It did make sense. We didnt eliminate the possibility that Something Else could occur. But this looked pretty strong to us. So, a working theory, that trent was shot from across the street. Ballistics suggested it was a rifle with a particular and uncommon type of barrel. But who owned it . And why did he or she shoot trent . No idea. The Football Team entered a world of dread. Was some hater targeting the team . Was one of them next . Nothing happened. But days and weeks and months went by and nothing happened. And over time the fear eroded, but the investigation went nowhere. Did you ever get to the place where you thought, well just have to live with this uncertainty for the rest of our lives . I would say four years into it, its like doesnt make any difference. Yeah, not gonna bring him back. It is not gonna bring trent back. But still its why did this happen . Youre four years in, five years in, and really no closer to solving it. Your first case and it day one. That will make you doubt yourself. And then one day a particular woman happened to see an anniversary story about the unsolved murder of the Football Player back in kentucky. A woman whod once h sat in a b in a fog of love. And who now was quite terrified. A break in the case from out of the blue. An exlover reveals all, including a motive for murder almost too absurd to believe. Coming up this could be the reason that we never could find out why trent was killed, is because it was something this weird. When dateline continues. Her uncles unhappy. Im sensing an underlying issue. Its tmobile. It started when we got him under a new plan. But then they unexpectedly unraveled their price lock guarantee. Which has made him, a bit. Unruly. You called yourself the uncarrier. You sing about price lock on those commercials. The price lock, the price lock. So, if you could change the price, change the name its not a lock, i know a lock. So how can we undo the damage . We could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. Their connection is unreal. And we could all unexperience this whole session. Okay, thats uncalled for. Po, you have never faced anything like this. The chameleon has the power of all my old nemesis. [ chuckling ] nemecee. Nemesi . We have to get an army of the best crooks and criminals. Oh, youre adorable. Violence makes our tummies tingle its disturbing. But its awesome. We can take down the chameleon together. Oh. Keith morrison it wasnt as if a successful investigation it wasnt as if a successful investigation could somehow undo what happened to Trent Digiuro. And yet, the lack of any answer, year after year, seemed somehow to be an insult to all that was good. And they just had to accept it. I think wed all kind of resigned ourselves as every year passed, we were just never gonna know. Then it was about five years after the shooting. A local attorney Named Tom Bullock heard from an old friend, a woman. She was nervous, tentative. Asked him on the phone, could she reveal what she knew about a crime without saying who she was . She was extremely evasive. She didnt really wanna tell me really anything. But she kept calling. Finally she revealed it. She was calling about a murder. Did she tell you what murder . She eventually came around to say it was a very high profile murder. Whered your mind go when you heard that . I knew which one it was. And then she told him a very strange story. Happened in a bar, she said. Almost a year after Trent Digiuro was killed. She was falling hard for a guy. They talked about how much they loved each other. Toward the end of the evening, they decided to say, okay, what is the worst thing that youve done . Like, lets get this out of the way. Lets just get to it, you know, that sort of point in the relationship where you say, let me hear the worst. And her boyfriend said, i killed Trent Digiuro. And at first she sort of sloughed it off, you know . Eh, sure you did. Didnt believe him . No, of course not. But then he started describing it. You know, exactly how he did it. But she still didnt want to believe it. After all, shed fallen in love with the guy. So she said she kind of buried it. Stayed with him for another year. But now, years later and single again, she had seen a story in the newspaper about the fifth anniversary of trents murder, in which trents dad was quoted, somebody knows what happened. She started really thinking about it, and it touched her. But she was so frightened of him, she said. She was determined to remain anonymous. They know each other intimately. She knows how he would react to certain situations. Yep. And she was terrified. He certainly wouldve remembered his conversations with her. If you told someone that you committed a murder, you would certainly remember having told them that. Yes. So, tom bullock went to Detective Evans. We agreed that whatever information i would give him would be anonymous, because for all we know, the whole thing couldve been hogwash. Thats sort of tricky, isnt it . I mean, when youve got somebody making an accusation, you have to be able to talk to that person. Well, yeah. But at that point, beggars cant be choosers. So he gave you a name. So he gave me a name. He gave me the name of Shane Ragland. Shane ragland. The womans exboyfriend. But who was he . Didnt take long to find out. Shane was the son of a wealthy businessman. Just so happened, shane attended the University Of Kentucky at the very same time as Trent Digiuro. But after college, he didnt do so well. He ran up at least a dozen convictions, drug charges, multiple duis, and so on. So Detective Evans went back to attorney bullock. Is there any more . Can you get me any more . And ultimately he started talking about a motive. And thats when the whole story took a turn into the twilight zone. He told me that it was concerning Shane Ragland being blackballed from a fraternity. Whatd you think when you heard that . Thats a stupid reason to kill somebody. The fraternity in question was sigma alpha epsilon, sae. Detective evans looked through saes records, and there it was, a pledge list with shanes name crossed off. And then it hit. This could be the reason that we never could find out why trent was killed, is because it was something this weird. Evans went to one of trents closest friends and asked, had he heard of this guy Shane Ragland . And he said, Shane Ragland. And then i could just sort of see it at that point on his face, you know . And i let him tell the story. A story about an unpleasant little incident. Shane was among the freshmen pledging the sae fraternity. And one day, as they were getting to know the campus they went into trents dorm and trent was there and on the wall was a calendar of some sorority girls. When shane saw that calendar, right away he pointed to one of the girlspictures and he bragged that hed had sex with her. What shane didnt know is that girl was the girlfriend of the president of the fraternity. Trent did not like that one bit. Got word to the sae president , and thats when shane was blackballed. So, at that point, shanes opportunity to be in that fraternity is pretty much over. The motives for murder are many and varied. But this seemed absurd. It was three years after that slight when trent was murdered in cold blood. Could it really have festered so long . And if it had, if that was true, they had another problem. The more that

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