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that's the killer? >> he's a better match than my boy. >> he had just failed a polygraph exam and then started trying to plea bargain. >> this is a guy that kicked in a door with a group of people wearing masks, went in and held a family hostage, terrorized a family. it takes a special kind of mind that wants to do something like that. >> and strickland's attorneys point out their client had no history of violence at all. >> david strickland did not do this. >> it was sam smith 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's certainly a psycho path. >> prosecutor smith never offered the jury a possible motive. kristene says she is should have it is about her sexual orientation. >> what is the reason for thinking it is a hate crime? >> the letter he supposedly tried to send to my dad said something about those [bleep] lesbians.

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assault and capital murder. while in custody, david strickland agreed to sit down for a police interview. >> just have a seat more fe. >> the county prosecutor sam smith watched the interview through a one way mirror. >> he would claim to have committed the murder. >> you're saying you did this? >> sure, i did it, everything you said i did. >> and in the next sentence with a smile on his face saying, but that's what you wanted me to say, isn't it? >> whatever you want to hear, boss. >> so it is like a game? >> very much so a game. he was enjoying this interview. >> four years after kristene chapa was raped and shot, four years after mollie ogene was murdered next to her, david strickland faced a jury of 12. >> were you confident, worried. >> of course i was worried. i

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>> in his interrogation strickland said he had no issues with the gay community. whether or not that was the truth, prosecutors decided not to charge him with a hate crime. after five days of testimony, the jury began deliberations. it took six hours to reach a verdict. guilty. david strickland is appealing that conviction based on the fact, his lawyer says, the evidence presented was legally insufficient to convict him. strickland was sentenced to life in prison. for mollie's family and friends, that guilty verdict, as it often does, provided hollow satisfaction. >> we're waiting for justice, and then now it's here but we don't get her back. >> we have had so many huge, major life moments and she hasn't been there. >> what would have been our anniversary, her birthday, the anniversary of us getting shot, those days are the hardest. >> kristene still wonders how she escaped death and sometimes why. >> i do have survivor's guilt. i mean hopefully it will go away in time. >> kristene would tell me, why

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and an underarmor glove and you could see very clearly the white under armour logo. >> a glock. 45, the type of gun the crime lab suspected was used to shoot the girls. always for the black glove, kristine was absolutely certain that the shooter wore a pair exactly like that. >> i know that because i played softball and that stuck out to me right away. >> detective volaman immediately sent strickland's gun to be tested to see if it fire those two spent shell casings fired at the crime scene. he didn't have to wait long for the results. >> what that report said was that the two shell casings found at the scene and the two shell casings from the test fire were linked to the same weapon. >> for detective volaman that report was the missing piece of the puzzle, which he believed now directly linked david strickland to the shootings. >> the day i looked at that ballistics report is the day we arrested david strickland. >> the charges, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual

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could strickland have written that letter as some kind of elaborate payback for melchor having strickland arrested? >> i know there was bad blood between david strickland and cristobal melchor, but to accuse someone of murder? >> if you think that letter was written by david strickland and you think the letter includes things that only the killer would know -- >> well, i think the logical inference was that strickland had something to do with the murder. >> finding david strickland was now volaman's priority. according to melchor, strickland left utah after his arrest and returned to texas, so detective volaman did the same, hoping this man would turn out to be the investigation's third and final person of interest. coming up -- a suspect not acting at all like you might expect. >> he was enjoying this interview. >> maybe police have the wrong guy again.

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felt horrible. i didn't know how it was going to end upcoming out. >> when you saw mr. strickland for the first time? >> i didn't know what the think to be honest. i was just thinking, he did this. >> he wasn't the monster you imagined? >> no, he wasn't. sometimes those are the scariest people though. >> prosecutor swift laid out his evidence, from gunshot to snapshot to mug shot. the gun, the shell casings and the gloves. as for the letter, smith told the jury police had found remnants of it on david strickland's computer. >> you can delete the letter off of your computer, but if you have used the spell check/grammar check function, that information is still stored in the computer. >> and that's what you found? >> and that's what we found. >> why do you think mr.

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california at the time of the muferd. >> not only was he not in texas, he was on the other side of the country. >> he was. >> was there anything to suggest that he had some kind of vendetta against the chapa family? >> we were not able to find any connection between cristobal melchor and the chapa family or the olgin family. >> he then showed melchor the letter, and melchor was stunned. >> but he was even more surprised when he saw his picture on the last page of the letter. >> that was because melchor immediately recognized the photo. he knew when and where it was taken. plus, he said, the original photograph was of two people. the missing man, he said, was his former roommate, david strickland. if the snapshot was a surprise to melchor, the name david strickland was an even bigger one for detective volaman. turns out, he had crossed paths with david strickland before. >> i had interviewed david strickland in 2012, just days

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they turn their attention to his former roommate, david strickland. police wanted to hear what he had to say. and they were not the only ones. here is josh michael went with the conclusion of a texas twist. >> first came dillon spellman, cleared by police by his height then melchor also cleared of suspicion by geography. now detective was on the trail of another man, david strickland. the detective learned strickland was a hometown boy. he served briefly in the military and was now newly married. then volaman saw photographs of david strickland's possessions which had been seized at the time of his arrest on the gun theft charge. >> i will never forget the first photograph that popped up. it was a glock. 45 pistol

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after the murder. >> remember that tip about a white car seen speeding from the park the night of the murder? the tipster was david strickland. >> he came in as a good samaritan wanting to provide information. >> back then, david strickland lived just blocks from the park where the shootings took place. >> and now here he is being mentioned in connection with a guy who's been mysteriously fingered for the murder. >> that's right. >> so, just like that, basically, mr. melchor is no longer the focus of this. it's now david strickland. >> that's right. >> chris melchor went on to explain that he and strickland were no longer on good terms. melchor believed strickland had stolen several of his guns, so he had strickland arrested. >> yeah, the gun robbery put a damper on their relationship. >> strickland pleaded not guilty to the gun sheft charge and was released soon after, but the charges were still pending, and volaman wondered,

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strickland wrote that letter. he had to know suspicion would eventually boomerang back on him. >> that's what most people would think. >> it is a foolish thing to do. >> it is a very foolish thing to do. >> before prosecutor smith rested, he called kristene to the stand, putting her face-to-face with david strickland. >> i wanted him to see me and see what he had done but he would not look at me. >> defense attorneys john gilmour and jimmie grandbury don't dispute she was a sympathetic witness but in court she was unreliable. >> she doesn't know who shot her. she has no recollection. she wasn't able to pick our client out of a photo line-up. >> she wasn't able to point at him in court and say, that's the guy that did it. >> what's more, she initially told police that the gun was silver. >> david's gun is a glock which is black. >> they went after

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