Page 12 - Dylan Spellman News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> we start trying to get background on dylan spellman. >> reporter: some quick computer searches revealed spellman had a criminal past. >> dylan spellman had just been convicted of a violent crime. >> yes. >> on an armed robbery in in nevada. >> yeah. >> reporter: that nevada armed robbery occurred in 2010, a year and a half before the shootings. spellman and some accomplices broke into a home in a las vegas suburb and held a family hostage before robbing them and taking off. >> anybody get killed? >> no. >> reporter: and at the time of the shootings in 2012,

Dylan spellman was in the corpus christi area, awaiting sentencing for the nevada armed robbery. >> he had been sent here to -- to stay with a friend. >> reporter: what intrigued chavez were some unusual similarities between the nevada crime and the shootings in texas. >> as we started going through that case file, we started seeing more and more things that 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. ...

Who had the last word. dylan spellman, he told the jury, might have been under suspicion but ultimately had nothing to do with this crime. david strickland, he said, was the man holding the gun. >> shooting both of these girls for no identifiable reason at all. he certainly is a psychopath. >> reporter: prosecutor smith never offered the jury a possible motive. kristene says she's sure it was about her sexual orientation. >> what's the reason for thinking it's a hate crime? >> in the letter that he supposedly tried to send to my dad said something in the letter like those f'ing lesbians. >> re...

Surviving victim in this case, kristene chapa. >> reporter: in the letter, the hitman even named the person who had hired him. if you're wondering, the letter does not mention dylan spellman. all of it was a twist as big as texas. coming up -- the misstirhouse letter. could this be the smoking gun police were looking for. when "dateline" continues. [laughs] ah... ahem... show me the carfax. start your used car search at the all-new carfax.com. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day

>> 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 chavez and his team regrouped. >> we began getting cell phone records for him, getting hair samples ...