Page 22 - Robert Beatty News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Eight, ten. the case faded from the public spotlight. and so around thanksgiving, 2006, 12 years after the murder when trooper hunyor answered the phone one day -- >> couldn't believe it. the director of the state crime lab contacted me and said that they just got information that there was a match through the codis system for the sample on bonnie craig. >> reporter: they got him. or the system did. codis is short for combined dna index system. it's a national database of dna profiles provided by federal, state and local crime labs. and codis got a hit. >> everybody was happy. >> reporter: the...

I'm dara brown with the hour was top stories. pete buttigieg holding a tense town hall after a police shooting in southbend, indiana. he faced tough questions and jeers from residents after the fatal shooting of a black man by a police officer. >> southwest missouri dealt with flood waters on sunday. they won't be able to assess total flood damage until water levels recede. now back to "dateline." welcome back to dateline extra. i'm craig melvin. investigators had spent four years trying to find bonnie craig's killer. then finally a break. the dna her attacker left behind

>> reporter: but initially it did look like an accidental fall to one of the troopers, the one who happened to be the first to talk to karen. but the others saw the evidence and thought, murder. one trooper at the crime scene was tim hunier, now retired. >> one thing strange to us, we did find one drop of blood on a leaf at the top of the cliff. >> reporter: one drop of blood. >> one drop of blood. >> reporter: which was found by this man, trooper robert beatty, also now retired. >> i was on my hands and knees and was looking and came across that drop of blood. >> reporter: how big was this dr...

A violent man. so i remember just straight up asking him, dad, did you kill bonnie? >> reporter: do you remember the look on his face when you asked him? >> he was completely devastated. but i just needed to hear it from him because there was so much uncertainty in my life at that point. there was so much confusion that to be able to have him tell me when he was tucking me in bed was all i needed. >> reporter: the dna spoke, too. he was eliminated. but someone did it. troopers set about collecting dna from every man who might have crossed bonnie's path the day she was murdered including some m...

With each other. >> reporter: all these 17 years later, even here in court, cameron was grieving still. >> i loved her. >> reporter: so deep in love. but also far too busy, said the prosecutors, to sneak off for some secret tryst. >> she was working, she was in school, she didn't have time. >> reporter: and why kenneth dion? he was a married man with a newborn, a cocaine problem and a vastly different life. >> they came from two completely different worlds, and there was no reason for the two of them to have mixed together. >> reporter: anyway, said the prosecutors, there was physical evidence...