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>> i never saw remorse. not one time. the only time i saw remorse was when he came to court and he pled guilty, and a judge sentenced him to life. he didn't care about diane. >> diane maxwell's father lived long enough to see her killer brought to justice. >> this database has been such a boost to law enforcement, to be able to help solve these crimes that otherwise would go unsolved. and now with the dna database, and that's doing the same thing, i mean, it's just been a tremendous boost to those of us in law enforcement who work these kind of cases. >> investigators believe the conviction was the result of hard work, cooperation, and perhaps something else. >> i really think it's divine intervention, because i mean, look at it yourself. look at the odds that we had going into this thing. we didn't have a million to 1 chance we'd clear this thing. and i don't know, maybe because of the unselfish life that
an inch in width. >> diane was just 25 years old, a single mother of a 4-year-old son. >> well, i will tell you that it was the most devastating thing i had ever experienced. my first reaction was denial, that there's no way that, you know, diane could be dead. >> in a search for evidence, police scoured the wooden shack. among the debris, they found a rumpled pink blanket and a man's gray suit coat. >> it had been used as a storeroom for a service station. and everything imaginable was in there from service manuals to old oil cans. >> the only witness was the homeless man, willie bell. >> and that the only physical description was that it was a description was it was a black male with an afro haircut. >> there was no money in diane's purse. her car keys were missing. and her car, a new red mustang, was gone. police found it nine hours later, a mile away.
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attacked and murdered. and i really never asked for any other details, just because i didn't think i could really deal with it. >> the last thanksgiving we spent together, diane had gotten me off to the side and said, you know, david, if something happens to me, i want you to raise my son. and i said, okay, well, i will. and that was less than a month before she was killed. >> more than 20 of diane's co-workers at the phone company quit their jobs. many of those who remained armed themselves with ice picks and knives. >> it was very, very hard. the news carried quite a bit of information about it. and you're seeing it on tv. and you're reading about it in the paper. and i'm getting phone calls, even phone calls from people i don't know. >> but the killer had stolen diane's red mustang and abandoned it, leaving it a mile from the crime scene. >> i printed the steering wheel, inside the driver's door, and
committed after her murder. police also questioned the people who loitered in the downtown area. >> they were looking for a black male. they knew that from willie bell told them it was a black male that had been seen raping diane. >> they did get a few leads, but they didn't pan out. nothing pointed to the person that actually committed the offense. >> since the fatal wound was made with surgical precision, police also focused on health care workers as possible suspects. >> they just started dragging everyone, all the black males, downtown and had them fingerprinted. and they were doing some things that would not be accepted today. >> i thought that, honestly, that the person just slipped through the cracks. >> diane maxwell's murder started to look like a random homicide, the hardest kind to solve. >> everyone assigned to the homicide division at the time, they were like 30 detectives,
they all worked the case. but as time goes on, as you know, and the leads diminish, there just comes a point in time where there's just -- there's no more trails left. >> each week, as more and more fingerprints were added to the houston files, examiners would compare those to the prints from diane maxwell's mustang, with no success. >> we were confused. we thought -- we expected that it would be resolved. you know, and you had had the funeral and everything. then you did begin to think about the resolution. and so it was very, you know, upsetting and hurtful that there was no resolution. >> eventually, the trail of diane maxwell's killer turned cold. and for 17 years, there was virtually no progress. nevertheless, diane's father never lost hope. >> every time i would see him, he'd say, son, i want you to solve this case before i die. i want to know who killed diane.
through all of the case files, someone finally found them. >> they just put it in the wrong file. you know, it was just a clerical error. >> of all the evidence lost, at least the fingerprints had been recovered. by this time, the year was 2003, and sophisticated, computerized fingerprint systems were everywhere. jim ramsey had the prints from diane maxwell's car compared to those in the texas statewide database. unfortunately, there were no hits. undeterred, ramsey ran the prints through the fbi's national database. this time, there were 20 potential hits. all 20 were then examined visually, and one stood out. >> when this print came up, it was like, oh, my gosh, this looks awfully good. this looks like we're going to have a hit. >> the print belonged to
>> the real clincher was the shoe print that left a piece of evidence that you cannot deny. it's there in black and white. up next, he promises to avenge his sister's murder. >> i prayed to god that i would be led to be in the right place at the right time. >> for years, he tracks her killer without success. >> every day was another blow to the stomach. >> somewhere deep in the houston crime files are the secrets to solve the case. he just had to find them. >> houston had 500,000 prints. everybody has ten fingers. that's 5 million prints. >> 34 years later, investigators find the answer. >> i want to know who killed diane. in december of 1969, diane maxwell pulled into the company parking lot in houston, texas.
58-year-old james davis, a career criminal. >> i identified him four different times. i identified them, i think, fingers -- right index, right middle, right ring, and then the right palm. >> it's hard to really describe how i felt, but i was absolutely elated about it. >> james ray davis spent the majority of his adult life incarcerated, auto theft, forgery, assaults. >> davis was living in a housing project on the texas/arkansas border. he had been out of prison for about ten years following a conviction for abducting a young girl. detective ramsey knocked on his door. >> i said, "mr. davis, i'm from the houston police department." and you could tell his demeanor changed drastically. he just stared at me. >> ramsey pulled out a photo of diane's car. davis didn't want to look at it. >> he said, "i've never, ever
police policy, someone had sold them to the british crime magazine "master detective" in 1971. when contacted, the publisher no longer had the pictures or negatives. all they had left was a single copy of the magazine. >> i asked them to send it to me because i didn't have any pictures of the crime scene. and they were hesitant to do that because that was their only copy. so i asked them to please, you know, make copies of the photographs. >> the photocopies of the magazine pages were virtually useless. and then jim ramsey and david maxwell got even more bad news. the killer's fingerprints found in diane maxwell's car that were supposed to be in her police case file were also missing. >> it was just like every day was another blow to the stomach. >> i knew they existed. and now they're gone. so, yeah, i was pretty upset about it.