How far would you go . How long would you wait to get justice for a friend . He killed her. He needed to pay for it. They had been college roommates, super close. Until that terrible night. The wounds could suggest rage at the victim. Absolutely. Who could have done it, her boyfriend . Her ex . He was very obsessed with angie. The trail went cold for more than two decades. But she was sure she knew who the killer was, even got a private Detective License to help prove it. I said, im a private investigator, and i need you to tell me where is the evidence, all of that. It wasnt well received at all. Finally, the break they needed. We got the match. Leading to one of the greatest twists of all time. It could not have shocked me more. Hello and welcome to dateline. When angie samota walked into a room, people noticed. Pretty, vivacious, and outgoing. The College Student had her choice of dates. Then late one friday night, angie was murdered. A crucial clue pointed to one man, but in this case, nothing was as it seemed. It would take decades, and a tenacious friend to uncover the truth. Heres Josh Mankiewicz with in the middle of the night. It was a saturday morning in october, 1984 when sheila wysockis phone rang. It was a girlfriend, and she said theres been an accident. An accident involving sheilas good friend, Freshman Roommate and fellow student at Southern Methodist university, Angela Samota. I initially thought that angie had been in a car accident. And of course, i went through the, is she in the hospital, where is she . And i wasnt getting any information from her. And my girlfriend was crying. Thats because it wasnt an accident. That same morning, angies sorority sister, evelyn sandy, was given the news straight out by 2 friends. They told me angie had been murdered. She had been found naked with a lot of stab wounds. It was it was absolutely a shock. Angie samota had not only been killed, but butchered, repeatedly stabbed in her own bedroom. It was a bloody end to a life that had so much promise. She was the most amazing person. She was full of life. She could light up a room. She was a very hard worker, and she knew where she was going. She was very, very driven. Angie had grown up in amarillo, texas, and attended the exclusive allgirl Hockaday School in dallas. She had just bought a condo near the smu campus. Angie was this amazing, shining star to so many people that she knew. She was absolutely brilliant before her time. She was a double major in engineering and Computer Science at smu. At a time when girls were not doing that. She had this amazing joie de vivre, this joy, this absolute love of life. Was really the life of the party. Beautiful, intelligent, single, and 20 years old. Its a combination that attracts men of all kinds. She used to get notes on her car. She would get flowers. She would come in and show me who wrote her that day. She had a lot of attention, absolutely a lot of attention. Am i right thinking she didnt have the best taste in guys . Like any 18 to 20yearold, she didnt choose wisely at that point in her life. Some of those choices and some of those men would figure predominantly in angie samotas life, and of her death. There was lance, whom angie dated back home in amarillo and through her freshman year in dallas. According to her friends, angie said she was afraid of lance because he had a temper, and had once pulled a knife on her. There was ben, angies boyfriend at the time of her death. Older and already out of school, he was a Construction Supervisor in dallas. Sounds like he was kind of the opposite of lance. I would say he was the opposite of lance. And there was russell, a new friend of angies who had gone out that evening with her and her friend, anita, another female engineering student at smu. You saw her that last night . Yes. How was she . She was angie. I mean, she was fine. That night, anita accompanied angie and russell on an expedition to a series of bars and clubs. Angies boyfriend, ben, was not present. Ben was aware of the fact that angie, russell, and i were all going out together. At least angies friend, evelyn. Ben didnt seem like the type to get jealous or violent. You could never imagine ben hurting angie . I could never imagine that. The evening ended at 1 00 a. M. Angie dropped russell off from his apartment, which was Walking Distance from her own. And then took anita home. Anita had thought about spending the night at angies but decided against it. What was the last thing you said to each other . See you tomorrow at the football game. She doesnt meet me there, very strange. Because she was a woman of her word. I remember saying, i wonder why angie is. I came home, and my roommate said, theres something i need to tell you. She said, umm, you might want to sit down. She goes, angie was murdered last night and the police want you to call them back. What did you think . I didnt want to believe it at first. Beyond that, i started with the whole would have, could have, should have. Could i have prevented it, should i have spent the night . Would things have been different . But she was not the last person to see angie alive. It turns out angies boyfriend, ben, was that person. She had stopped by his place on her way home after dropping off anita. Later that night, it was ben who called police to angies condo. And what got their attention was not just what ben said, but how he sounded when he said it. She cant answer the door. Does he sound frantic, panicked . Investigators didnt think so. Coming up police start focusing on ben, but soon the list of suspects gets longer. He was a pretty scary guy. He was creepy. When dateline continues. Dancing is my passion. But with my moderatetosevere eczema, it hasnt been easy. Now, im staying ahead of it. 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But im protected with arexvy. Arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower Respiratory Disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. Rsv can be serious for those over 60, including those with asthma, diabetes, copd, and certain other conditions. But im protected. Arexvy is proven to be over 82 effective in preventing lower Respiratory Disease from rsv and over 94 effective in those with these health conditions. Arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. Those with weakened Immune Systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. The most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. I chose arexvy. Rsv . Make it arexvy. In the fall of 1984, smu College Student angie samota had been found murdered. Arriving officers walked in on a blood bath. They found one shoe in the den, another shoe somewhere else. Then all her clothes stacked up all in one neat pile. And then angie laying on the bed, covered in blood. Her chest area was pretty caved in with stab wounds. So this was a vicious assault . 18 stab wounds, 10 punctured the heart, breaking the breast bone and going through the body. Josh healey and Patrick Kerwin were assistant district attorneys in dallas at the time. They say whoever stabbed angie was intent on killing her. That many wounds could certainly suggest rage, anger at the victim. Absolutely. From what you could tell, did angie samota have any enemies . It seemed like she had broken some hearts. But she was the type of person that did not have enemies. Everyone seemed to like her a lot. The only people that seemed to be mad at her were exboyfriends or people that wanted to be her boyfriend. Police immediately focused on the man in angies life, starting with ben, her then boyfriend. Ben told police a story that sounded a bit suspicious. He said that after dropping off anita after their night out, angie had stopped by his place, waking up him for a brief visit, and that she then drove home. Within minutes of reaching her condo, ben says angie called him at around 1 45 a. M. In that phone call, ben says angie told him she had let a man she didnt know into her home in the middle of the night. A man who had asked to use her phone and bathroom. Ben said angie then hung up, promising to call him back a few minutes later. But she never did, ben said, and she didnt answer his calls. Concerned, ben told police he drove to her condo. But angie wasnt answering her door either. And now ben was locked outside, calling police on the early Generation Mobile phone in his truck. And sounding to them, oddly calm. My girlfriend called me and said there was a man asking to use her bathroom and her phone. Police werent sure what to make of ben and his version of events. So there was no way to tell whether this story that ben had told police on the 911 tape actually happened . The only thing we had was bens words. No Cell Phone Records back then and no records of local phone calls, so that phone call may have never happened . That is correct. I would expect someone to be, i cant find her, i dont know where she is, shes not answering. It was a very mellow, it was a very feelingless phone call. It was somebody who didnt seem too concerned. Ben waited in The Living Room while they went into angies bedroom. They came out and told him angie was dead. The first responding officer, what he remembered most was even after he had discovered the body and said so, ben didnt even ask what condition, how she was or anything like that. And sometimes people who dont ask that question dont ask it because they already know the answer. Exactly. He didnt ask how she was killed, whether it was gun shot, stab wounds. Thats unusual. Very. And there was something else. Bens story may have been suspicious, but ben himself was squeaky clean. This was approximately 2 00 in the morning. He had been awakened from sleep, and he arrived at the location in a clean, pressed shirt and he smelled of soap as if he had just cleaned up. That tended to raise some suspicions with the first responding officers that something just didnt seem right. While police were trying to process the story ben was telling, they widened their investigation to include angies exboyfriend, lance, The Boy Next Door in amarillo. The boy angie had trouble with. It was something angies friend, sheila, knew all about. He was very obsessed with angie. He was so obsessed with her, he would come down all the time to school to see her. They had dated through angies freshman year. One night i got a call from angie. She was crying and said that lance had gone crazy and i needed to get over there. She was screaming. Lance had take a knife and shredded all of her clothes. Did he threaten her . Yes. Yes, he did. Physically, verbally . Verbally. And you have a weapon, whether its a knife, scissors, he threatened her. He was a pretty scary guy. He was creepy. Suddenly, lance was at the top of the investigators list. Prime suspect. Absolutely. Especially when we have an 18wound stabbing. There was no forced entry . Thats right. Suggesting whoever had gotten into her apartment had either figured out some way of getting in undetected or angie knew them and let them in . Yes. And all of that pointed either to the exboyfriend, lance. Or to angies current boyfriend, ben. Or maybe to a new man in her life, the man she had been out with the last night of her life, russell. Soon, police would ask sheila, then a College Student, to help narrow down that list of suspects, and solve the crime. He killed her. He needed to pay for it. Coming up sheilas nerveracking night with suspect number one. Here i am sitting across from this man thinking, im eating dinner with a murderer. And then investigators get a break. They had their guy now. When dateline continues. Who wanted angie samota dead . An autopsy determined she had also been sexually assaulted just before she was stabbed to death. Her friend, sheila. I find out she had been raped, and i cant think of anything else. It was overwhelming emotionally. It was hard for angies friends to hear, but the rape did help law enforcement, because they now had the perpetrators dna profile. But back in the mid80s, that wasnt the help it would be today. Back in 1984, they could at least do a type of Blood Testing to determine whether or not an individual is a secreter or a nonsecreter. Basically narrow it down to a portion of the population. Roughly 80 of americans are secreter, meaning they have markers for their blood type. The killer was a nonsecreter . Thats correct. Blood tests revealed lance was a secreter. In addition, lance had an alibi, putting him 370 miles away. On the night of the murder. He was staying with his parents in amarillo, working at the local gym there. So he was eliminated based on that. What about ben, angies oddly unemotional boyfriend, who officers thought acted strangely the night of the murder . The police checked to see if there was scratches or bruises on him . They checked that, his vehicle, they checked his apartment for any type of blood, bloody clothes, anything like that. Nothing . Nothing. And tests showed ben was also a secreter. Whoever had raped and killed angie was not. So cross ben off the list. Which leaves russell. And he was a nonsecreter. His alibi, he was at home in bed, not the strongest. There was no witness that could confirm where he was after he was dropped off by angie and anita. No one could confirm he went to bed, nobody can confirm where he was after that. Did he ever move off that story . No. And russell said, there was nothing romantic about the evening. It was just a night out for three young people. He continued to insist that he didnt have any feelings for angie, that he didnt perceive that evening as a date and he wasnt romantically interested in her. Correct. And i get the feeling no one believed that. Nobody did. A lot of things werent adding up. Soon, police were questioning angies friend anita about Russell Buchanan. Was there some specific thing they wanted to know. Was he romantically interested in angie . Had she rebuffed him . Since he lived within Walking Distance, that he had committed the crime. What anita didnt know is the day after the crime, russell left town for about 24 hours. It seemed suspicious. When he returned, police paid him a visit. He said he didnt know anything about angies murder, even though it was in the headlines and all over the news. It seemed hard to believe. Police saw motive and opportunity. And while there was no witness placing russell at the crime scene, there was also no one to back up his alibi. Angies friend, sheila, met with the Lead Detective who laid out for her the theory. Russell snapped is the word he used. And then he grabbed a knife, took her into the room and proceeded to rape her. This is probably The One And Only murder he will do, that it was just a passionate moment, and he snapped and hes going to be back to his old calm self. Investigators asked sheila to have dinner with russell and ask him about his whereabouts the night of the murder. She agreed. Youre so uncomfortable. Here i am sitting across from this man eating dinner with a murderer. Im getting into a car with a murderer. This guy murdered my roommate. But even to sheila, russell stuck to his story, just as he had a couple of weeks after the murder when police asked him to take a lie detector test. In fact, russell was found to be truthful when he was asked questions about angies murder. But about three months later, Dallas Police took a second look. They looked at the polygraph again and came to the conclusion he was deceptive. Thats a big difference from the original way his polygraph results were perceived . Huge. They had their guy now. I did not want to believe it was somebody close to her. It was more than i could handle. Did you think police were going to charge russell . Oh, yes, absolutely. But they didnt. Russell hired an attorney and stopped talking with police. They told me that he had lawyered up and they couldnt touch him. They also said that russell was leaving the country. So, of course, he was leaving the country, he lawyered up. Hes hiding. Its done. Hes going to get away with murder. Not so fast. Russell buchanan is about to tell us a story that will make you reevaluate everything you just heard. Coming up russell answers the tough questions. The Police Theory was that you attacked her, you had sex with her, and then you stabbed her to death. And then, will investigators finally have a way to know if hes telling the truth . They did have a sample that in todays technology could be tested to try and find a dna standard. When dateline continues. And it could strike at any time. Think youre not at risk . Wake up. Because shingles could wake up in you. If youre over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist about shingles prevention. Teeth sensitivity is so common. It immediately feels like somebodys poking directly on the nerve. I recommend sensodyne. Sensodyne toothpaste goes inside the tooth and calms the nerve down. And my patents say you know doc, it really works. Its the most wonderful time of the year nondrowsy claritin knocks out symptoms from over 200 allergens. Without knocking you out. Feel the clarity and make today the most wonderful time of the year. Live claritin clear. Only the new sleep number smart beds let you both thesleep at your ideale level of comfort. Your sleep number setting. 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