Page 10 - Dylan Spellman News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> reporter: 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 leg. i had to relearn to swallow. >> you don't give up, do you? >> i don't. i try to stay motivated. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: who was dylan spellman? police learned ...

Are lining up with what we're looking at. >> for example? >> the use of numbers. >> reporter: remember, kristene had said the shooter referred to her and mollie as "girl one" and "girl two." >> he used numbers in that other crime? >> yes. >> they referred to each other by number in that particular crime. >> reporter: the similarities between the two crimes didn't end there. >> in the nevada home invasion, were the victims bound? >> yes, they were. >> he's gotta be number one on the list at this point. >> he -- he definitely jumped to the -- to the top. >> reporter: by that time, dylan spellman...

This. >> it was sam smith who had the last word. spellman might have been under suspicion, but ultimately had nothing to do with this crime. david strickland, he said, was the man holding the gun. >> shoot both of these girls for no identifiable reason at all. he's certainly a psychopath. >> prosecutor smith never offered the jury a possible motive. kristene says she is sure it was about her sexualorianation. >> what is the reason for thinking it is a hate crime? >> in the letter that he supposedly tried to send to my dad said something in the letter like those [ bleep ]. >> strickland made a ...

Arrested. as for the confidential details in the letter -- >> this is small town texas. any number of places this information could have come from. >> what about the lab reporting showing strickland's gun matching the shell casings that scene? >> we had our expert who said it is inconclusive. there is no way you can say for sure. >> police, they say, should have never taken their sights off the real shooter. >> they had the right guy. >> spellman, you think that is the killer? >> he is a better match than my boy. >> he failed a polygraph exam and started to plea bargain. >> he kicked in a door...

We have no usable prints. the only thing we have are cigarette butts, monster can, and suspicion. >> reporter: it didn't help that chavez's one eyewitness to the shootings could not identify spellman from a photo lineup. >> it was very hard because the suspects all looked the same. >> reporter: and then there was the matter of mr. spellman's height. >> he's big. >> he's, what, 6'8"? >> 6'8". >> reporter: remember, kristene said the shooter was quite a bit shorter than that. 5'8", maybe 5'9". >> for me, it -- it was always the -- the difficulty of -- of getting over the size. >> reporter: so ch...