Here. Tough questions for her boyfriend. Where was i the night before . What was i doing . When did i last seen her . I thought he would be our killer. But while police tried to prove it, another attack. He has me by the throat and hes shaking me and yelling at me not to say a word. Youre a prisoner in this apartment now. Yes. Her body had been propped up on to the bed. Even Law Enforcement thought, what do we have on our hands here . There was growing danger. Police are looking if the wrong place. I lived to tell and nobody believed me. This monster is walking free while they are wasting their time. Can the killer be caught before he kills again . It makes you realize how fragile your life is. And that anybody can take it. Welcome to dateline, a killer was on the loose in a Texas College town leaving students and parents terrified. With the shocking discovery of jamie harts body, investigators were desperately trying to piece together clues. Was the young woman connected to her killer or did police have an active predator on their hands . Heres Andrea Canning with The Face Of Evil. Looking back now, this woman almost didnt make it. I said, if you keep doing this, youre going to kill me. He said, do you think i care about that . Is that when you feel like youre looking in The Face Of Evil . I knew completely that he intended on killing me. Little did she know, in this college town, she wasnt the only one. He said he would go to jail for murder before he would go to jail for rape. What was going through your mind . I wish i told the people that i loved them. What is going on in this community . It had people asking, what is going to happen next . More women connected by tragedy and by questions. Could a killer have been stopped sooner . I was so angry that two people had to die in order for someone to believe me. The story begins in a small texas town. But its not just any town. This is College Station, home to texas a m. And in 1999, home to 21year old student, jamie hart. I was immediately struck with her beauty. Chuck cruz was her boyfriend at the time. He says jamie was the light of his life. He remembers when he first layed eyes on her. I could barely speak when i saw her, she was so pretty. It was like, when the color came on in the wizard of oz. Ive been living in a dark world and she showed me a world full of color. She was a loyal friend, funny, out spoken. She would tell you exactly what was on her mind at all times. It it was early one morning in may, jamies roommates couldnt find her, they called chuck. I got a call asking where she was. I said no, she didnt come over here last night, i dont know where she was. I hadnt talked to her the night before and i went to work. That same morning, Detective Kenny Elliot of the Sheriffs Office was summoned to the scene of a disturbing discovery. There was a young female, appeared to be in her early 20s. She was nude. Had extensive road rash, and obviously deceased. A jogger spotted the victim in a ditch nine feet from the side of the road. I arrived there was a half a dozen officers here and they taped off the area, blocked traffic. At that point, we started conducting a search of the area. We figured she had been sexually assaulted and dumped here. Less than a mile away, deputies discovered what was presumed to be the womans clothing strewn across the entrance to an oil field. Another nine miles from there, an abandoned vehicle. Its engine still running. There was blood on the car and that raised suspicion. We sent a team over there to process the car. Inside the car, a drivers license that belonged to jamie hart. When detectives showed up at chucks workplace that afternoon, he said his heart sank. When they told me she had been found dead, it felt like i had been hit by a truck. Wow. So your sense of dread was coming true. Yup. Realized, fully realized. Did fear spread throughout the campus . Oh yes. I mean, it was front page news. Kristen lancaster was a 19 yearold freshman. My brother actually worked with jamie at the time. Ill never forget him coming home, devastated. A killer in a college town is terrifying. Very much so, yes. This is something that happens in chicago. Its something that happens in houston. Its not something that happens in College Station, in aggieland. Kelly brown is the editor of the local newspaper. I think at the time, people were hoping this is a drifter that kept on going. Because the location of her body. Sheriff deputies canvassed the crime scene. Searched jamies car, and looked for eyewitnesses. Talked to several hundred people and no one has seen anything. Turns out, there were no fingerprints inside the car. During an autopsy, the Medical Examiner did recover dna from jamies body. Dna, which likely came from her rapist and killer. Did you put the dna into a data base . We put it in codus. Any hits . None. No eyewitnesses, no fingerprints, no dna matches. The investigation wasnt off to a good start. Thats when we started contacting people, her place of employment, friends, roommates. Did she have any enemies . Everybody seemed to love her. Detective elliot began to retrace jamies steps on the night of the murder. She was working at a pizza parlor. Her shift had ended around midnight. We contacted everybody she delivered pizzas to. After work, she headed over to a friends house. He said they were there watching movies and she left his house around 4 30 in the morning. What time did you think she was killed . We got the call at 7 15 a. M. So, between 4 30 a. M. And 7 00. The male friend, a college student, was the last known person to see jamie alive. The detective paid him a visit. He was upset, obviously. They were friends and had been for some time. The friends grief seemed genuine, but something was peculiar. When investigators asked for a dna sample. He said no. No . Of course we wanted to know why. Was he the killer or was he not . The detective was determined to answer that question. So, he put the young man under surveillance, followed him to a local restaurant. And are you hidden somewhere in the restaurant . Im back there a corner, yeah. He watched the student have a few drinks and when he left, the detective snagged the dirty beer mugs and sent them out for dna testing. The results would take weeks, leaving a town of young ones on edge. Go with people when you go out. Dont be alone. Thats a frightening order to give anybody. Frightening, but sound advice. In this case, connecting the dots wouldnt be so easy. Detectives have a second possible suspect in their sight. Jamies boyfriend, is invited so sit down for a polygraph test. Coming up. Failed the test. Thats a bad sign for you. Bad sign for him. When dateline continues. O. Manage your diabetes with more confidence and lower your a1c. Try it for free at freestylelibre. Us. 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Thats nice, but shingles doesnt care 99 of adults 50 years or older already have the virus that causes shingles inside them, and it can reactivate at any time. A perfect day for a Family Outing guess what . Shingles doesnt care. But shingrix protects. Only shingrix is proven over 90 effective. Shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. Shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. An increased risk of guillainbarre syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. Fainting can also happen. The most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. Shingles doesnt care. But shingrix protects. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. Andrea canning 21yearold jamie hart but shingrix protects. Had been sexually assaulted and left to die on the side of a busy roadway. Nc21yearold jamie hart ha been sexually assaulted and left to die on the side of a busy roadway. I could barely function. All i could think about was loss. That she is gone from my life for ever. Jamies boyfriend, chuck cruz, then 24, says right after the murder, he took off to baytown, texas. Jamies hometown. About the only thing i remember her father asking me is, when are you coming down . So, i got some stuff together and drove down as soon as i could and i spent most of the next week with them, mourning with the family and then acting as a pallbearer for her funeral. Detective kenny elliot was walking the case. Any time you have a killer out on the run, it is frustrating. One possible suspect, that male friend jamie visited the night of her murder. He refused to give police a dna sample for testing. Thats kind of odd, if he had nothing to hide. A lot of people will not give up dna. Too much tv. The detective had snagged a sample from a beer mug and when the dna finally came back, he was not a match. You felt confident that you could rule him out based on the dna not matching . Yes. But even before the dna test cleared jamies friend, the detective was already looking for other suspects. And his attention quickly landed on someone very close to the victim. Her boyfriend. The questions that they asked focused on where was i the night before, what have i been doing . Looking at you as a possible suspect . It didnt really occur to me that is what they were doing. I just thought they were asking for information. Chuck told the detective that before jamie was killed, he hadnt seen her for two days. On the night of the murder, he said he was at home. I was playing Computer Games like a good nerd. Did you have anyone there to corroborate your alibi . I think my roommates were there, but they were both asleep. I had nobody sitting there with me. So the boyfriends alibi wasnt solid. And as they spoke, the detective was looking carefully for signs he might be hiding something. He is cooperative. Apprehensive. He said everything was fine in their relationship. The detective asked chuck for dna and he said yes. And when they asked him for a polygraph, he agreed to that, too, but heres the thing with the last part. The polygraph. He failed the test. Thats a bad sign for him, yes. Doesnt tell you that he is guilty, but he was a very strong person of interest. Whats more, the detective had been speaking with jamies friends who said the relationship wasnt fine. In fact, the couple had a fight and were on the verge of a breakup. All of which just led to more questions. He went over every aspect of their relationship. Question him on his where abouts, try to get him to confess. And if a failed polygraph wasnt suspicious enough, then listen to what the detective says chuck told him next. He said he had done some bad things, and wouldnt tell us what. Did you look him in the eyes and say is one of those bad things killing jamie hart . I did. He denied it. I thought he could be our killer. The more you started to think he was the killer, how does he react to that . He is very nervous. He acted guilty. Chuck was free to go, but as authorities waited for his dna to be processed, the detective developed a theory of the crime that made sense to him. He was in love with her. He didnt want to lose her. They were having issues in their relationship. So the boyfriend, a likely suspect, was in the cross hairs, but when the dna results came back. The dna was not a match. Were you able to rule out chuck cruz then once you got that dna . I didnt rule him out completely. That was enough with you with the friend who she was with the night before. You ruled him out after you got the dna. The other guy hadnt flunked polygraphs. He wasnt in a bad relationship with her. Chuck was. But they didnt arrest chuck. Months went by, and the detective kept investigating him. Authorities seized his computer, searched his car, all the while chuck was saying they were looking at the wrong guy. Theres a lot of people that wont confess to a murder, for obvious reasons. At that point, he was a strong person of interest, but i still didnt know if he was my killer, so we continued the search. The information dragged on. Life for the students on campus began to go back to normal. When police were called to the scene of one house party, it wasnt because of noise or under age drinking. Another woman was in a fight for her life. Coming up, a student at party ends up a prisoner in a strangers apartment. Immediately, he grabs me and starts choking me again. When dateline continues. Andrea canning when chuck crewss girlfriend was murdered, he was immediately considered a person of interest. When chuck cruzs girlfriend was murdered, he was immediately considered a person of interest. They said that you were acting nervous. That you were acting like you had something to hide. They interpreted all these things as signs of my guilt. Rather than a distraught boyfriend. At the time, i had long hair and this was a cowboy town. That was considered to be weird and unusual. As for those bad things, he told the detective he had done. He explained to us he was referring to a petty argument they had days before jamies murder, and the guilty felt from not being with her the night she died. Do you remember what you were arguing about . A loaf of bread. The Grocery Sacker put a cantaloupe on the loaf of bread. She was upset the sacker had squished the bread, and i told her it wasnt that big of a deal, and we had picked our sides and we argued about something as stupid as a loaf of bread. Now he could hardly grieve with Police Breathing down his neck. Whats it like waking up every morning and knowing youre under a cloud of suspicion . Incredibly depressing. He moved home to be by his family in thats, who spent money to buy a defense attorney. The biggest thing going through my head the whole time was that i didnt do it. They dont know who did it. And the guy who did it is out Walking Around and likely to prey on more victims. This monster is walking free while they are wasting their time on me. Kelly brown of the Eagle Newspaper was writing front page stories about the unsolved crime in the college town. It really shook the community. This is an area that isnt used to seeing this type of crime. And kelly was hearing talk that the police had a suspect. But there was no arrest and that is what kept everybody saying well then okay, was it the boyfriend . Was it, you know, someone that is still out there . Is he going to strike again . It was scary, of course, and students like Kristen Lancaster followed the investigation. Did people change their Behavior Patterns because of this crime . To a certain degree, but i think it was short lived. People went back to their classes and their business. You start rationalizing that she trusted the wrong person. This doesnt happen to you. Exactly. Yeah. It was late october, half a year since the murder of jamie hart. Kristen didnt know it yet, she was about to become part of a chain of events that only deepened the mystery. I think maybe i went to classes that day. The evening time rolled around. I think it was a friday. A friend invited kristen to a party. And she said, well, im having a little get together at my house. Why dont you come by. Kristen drove over to the Apartment Complex in brian, texas. Thats the town next to College Station. The doors open. Theres a few people inside. Theres some Music Playing and people having some drinks. She struck up a conversation with her Friends Upstairs neighbor. He was 24, hadnt been to college, but mixed in easily with the students. Was he a likable guy . Yeah, very likable. He was personable, seemed very nice. In fact, he had no problem sharing intimate details with kristen about his personal life. He had been married and he had found god and i made a lot of mistake, i wasnt a great husband. You guys got into the personal conversation for having just met. I was young and i think that was normal and he was drunk. Not long after the party started, it abruptly ended. Kristens friend got into a fight with her boyfriend. There was alcohol involved, so worrying it would get out of hand. Everyone left, but not kristen. She was concerned about her friend and stuck around talking to the upstairs neighbor. So you were feeling protective. He said to me, youre worried about your friend . I said yes, i am. He said we can go to my apartment and you can be close to a phone and call. She and the neighbor walked up the staircase to her apartment. It was directly above her apartment. He opens the door and i was barely a step into the door and he just sort of pushes me in, slams the door shut. He locks the door, immediately, grabs a remote that was right there and turns the stereo to this deafening volume. He pushes me back, and thats when he starts making demands. All of a sudden, its serious and aggressive. I almost thought he was joking. He was serious, demanded she undress. I kept arguing with him. Im not going to do that. Hes like, youre going to do it. Thats when he runs over and he grabs me by the throat. Hes choking me and choking me. I scream as loud as i can. Immediately he grabs me and starts choking me again. This time he picks me up and pulls me back into the bedroom. Youre a prisoner in this apartment now. Yes. He puts me on the mattress. This is the first time i black out. I wondered if this was it. I could die . He started shaking me. Kristen couldnt fight him off physically, so she tried to talk her way out of a Sexual Assault. I said you dont want do this. He stops and he looks at me and he says, why dont want to do thi