Page 28 - Robert Beatty News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Step-father, karen's ex-husband, samantha's dad. >> and i remember that being a really unsure, scary feeling. in my mind it didn't make sense. my dad is not and never has been a violent man. so i remember just straight up asking him, dad, did y kil >> reporter:o you remember the look on his face when you asked him? >> he was devastated. 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 ...

And so told her little about what they knew and what they were learning. but they eventually let her see the autopsy report. that's when karen saw a dozen or so brutal head wound. that's also when the medical examiner told her about one extremely important piece of news, horrifying, but potentially useful. bonnie had been raped as well. and as awful as that was, it left one sliver of hope. the killer left behind his dna. match it and they'd solve the case. so who was it? it couldn't have been the boyfriend, cameron. >> he was down in california going to college. >> reporter: troopers said they...

Evidently this individual got bonnie's phone number off the sam's club computer and would call her. >> reporter: he was doing a little stalking. >> that put a red flag up right away. >> reporter: dna cleared him. they moved on to a second young man at sam's club whose behavior seemed suspicious. >> they had a meeting at sam's club that morning that she was murdered, and this individual, he did not sign in to the meeting. >> reporter: you went and checked him out. >> we come to find out he was at the meeting, he didn't sign in. others saw him there. we still got his dna and he was cleared. >> r...

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 drop? >> about the size of an eraser head really. the interesting part about that was that it was a drop that had fallen straight down. >> reporter: indicating to the troopers that she'd been hurt ...

Is it possible he actually didn't remember doing it? >> i struggle with that. is it possible that his protestations are sincere in that he had an episode in his life that he's either blocked out or for some reason can't recall based on what was happening in his life at that time. >> reporter: cocaine puts holes in your brain, they say. >> it does. >> reporter: amazing, this is a man who got away with murder for a long time and would have completely, scot free if it hadn't been somebody put the dna into codis. >> that's really remarkable. >> reporter: which is, it turns out, the subject of kare...