like, she s dead, she s dead! and i was so confused. i was like, what s going on? what happened? a small texas town, two super close friends, and a summer night in the park. they have this lookout, and you could see the harbor bridge lit up. it s really pretty when the stars are out. it was the next morning that they found them. i could see two girls laying there. it was horrifying. there was duct tape on their mouths, on their hands. a mystifying scene. the only thing we have are cigarette butts and suspicion. dna would point one way. he s like, serge, you ve got to take a look at this. a bombshell message would point another. i read the letter and immediately knew this was something very important. a twisted trail leading to a sinister suspect. it takes a special kind of mind that wants to do something like that. to crack a case this convoluted, it might just take a miracle. that was extraordinary. i just couldn t believe it. welcome to dateli
found. he said he was never on the deck. well, we ve got dna on the cigarette butts that prove otherwise. why lie about that unless you re involved in the crime? sure. so i mean, that definitely raised more suspicion. chavez then told spellman police found his dna just 30 feet from where the girls were shot. that s when he says spellman s demeanor changed. he asked me, you know, what are the consequences? and i said, well in texas, you know, this is a death penalty kind of case. and then dylan spellman asked about a deal. normally, any person that s innocent isn t going to ask for a deal. you re going to profess your innocence. and he wasn t. now i m thinking, this is my guy. so, chavez asked spellman to take a polygraph, and spellman agreed. and how does he do? he fails. time for handcuffs, you re thinking? not quite yet. chavez could put dylan spellman at the crime scene, but still had no way of tying him directly to
at gunpoint by a man she had never met. she remembered her assailant was wearing under armour gloves. was this a detail that could help investigators unlock the mystery? here again is josh mankiewicz with a texas twist. day by day, inch by inch, kristene chapa walked a steady, if uneven, road to recovery. i couldn t move my left side. i couldn t move my hand or my arm, my legs. i had to relearn to swallow. you don t give up, do you? i don t. i try to stay motivated. so did detective roland chavez. he, too, was making progress. the cigarette butts and drink can collected from the crime scene had just given him his first major break in the case. what did the dna show? the dna showed that it returned to dylan spellman. who was dylan spellman? police learned he lived just three blocks from the crime scene, and chavez also noticed a striking resemblance to that
used to cover the girls eyes, chavez thought maybe that was itself a clue. sometimes that can suggest somebody who knows the victim, didn t want to see them? yes, mm-hmm. as far as you know, either of them have any enemies? no. that s what was so confusing. everyone loved them, you know? and that s probably why they were also discrete when it came to kristene and mollie. now as a murder investigation began, friends revealed something that not many knew. they began to tell us they were in a relationship. these weren t just two friends. they were dating? yes. that had many here wondering if a romance that was hidden from many might have in some way been a motive for the attack. conceivable that this was some kind of hate crime? i mean, i d be lying if i said that thought didn t cross through my mind. three days later came news from the hospital, kristene chapa had regained consciousness.
i just remember, like, she s dead, she s dead! and everyone was like, who s dead? and i said, mollie. over the next few days, neighbors here began asking the same question who had pulled the trigger, and why? finding those answers fell to portland, texas, police detective roland chavez. mollie can t give us any information and kristene s in the hospital and she can t give us any information. at that point, it s not even clear whether kristene s going to survive, right. tips were coming in. someone said they saw a white car speeding from the park the night of the shootings. that led nowhere, so chavez and his team focused on the crime scene. there was no murder weapon. they did find two spe spent. 45-caliber casings. and near an observation deck just 30 feet away from where mollie and kristene were discovered, police found an empty monster energy drink can and five cigarette butts. and the girls didn t smoke? the girls did not smoke. chavez sent all that for dna test