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Window into one of the empty bedrooms. he most likely wore gloves, but when he had difficulty removing the screen, he took them off and inadvertently left three prints behind. prosecutors believe heather heard the noise and went to investigate. when brown saw her, he realized heather could identify him, so he struck her in the head with a blunt object, killing her instantly. he carried heather's body out through the front door, which he left unlocked, loaded her into his vehicle and drove to the mountains where he dumped her body in a ravine. to avoid the death penalty, brown pleaded guilty to...

And she said oh, mom i let him stay up a little bit. i'll put him to bed. >> diane and the two boys returned home around 10:00. the house was dark, and for some reason, the front door was unlocked. she assumed heather and sage were asleep. sage was in bed, but heather was not. >> she was so little, and she had such a big fluffy comforter that i just figured she was under her comforter, so i said, go look again. so, he goes and looks again and comes back and goes, no, she's not in there. so i went and looked and she wasn't in there. and then that's when it all fell apart. >> diane and her child...

Measures with your children and making sure they understood, you know, stranger danger concerns and things like that. >> diane church and her family lived in a sparsely populated area, which meant the kidnapper could have abducted heather without drawing much attention. >> it was this 13-year-old girl who was home, and yet, her brother was left behind. she disappeared and her brother was just still sleeping in his bed. it all was a very suspicious situation right off the bat. >> an fbi profiler agreed. since there was nothing missing from the home and no signs of violence, the profiler suggest...

42-year-old robert brown, who had been arrested in both louisiana and california and served time in prison for car theft. >> he had a criminal history in both of those states. nothing for murder, but we knew he was a felon. >> brown's fingerprints didn't make it into the fbi's database, because his offense was comparatively minor. >> when louisiana notified us that they had matched the prints to a subject named robert brown, we immediately went into our files and our databases to find out where robert brown lived and we found that he lived just a quarter mile away from heather church. >> brown...

Bedroom window was ascrew. evidence technicians found three fingerprints on the outside of the screen's frame. >> the prints themselves were very fresh. in this particular case on that particular screen, they were very distinct prints. >> but these fingerprints could have been left by anyone. dozens of people had been in and around the house. >> this was a busy household just like many of our households. there were hundreds of prints throughout the house. >> it was a process that would take day, perhaps weeks. and they were no closer to finding heather. >> what happened to heather dawn church ...