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There on that steel table. your friend dana. my friend dana. i miss her. reporter: roxy is haunted by her memories of the night she last saw her friend. seeing dana across the dance floor, hearing her say the bouncer was giving them a lift home. so we went to go get in the car, and he said, don t forget. and i said, i know. and so we had to go through the driver s side cause the passenger side door was broke. couldn t open it. you could. oh, yeah. you could? you could. but to make it close correctly, you had to kinda lift it up and close it. was it common knowledge, roxy, that he had a car with a bum door? yep. reporter: and what roxy says happened next could be the key to the mystery. according to roxy, the bouncer stopped at her house first and dana got out to use the bathroom. then she helped dana get back into adkins car, through what she remembers as a faulty passenger door. i walked her out there and put her in the car and i closed the door and i sai ....
Pictures. very tough? right. did they tell you this is gonna be the day and you may wanna step outside? they did. and i said, no, you know? i m here from the beginning to the end every second no matter what. large area of bruising to listen to the experts testify that she had three blows, distinct, different blows you just hope she didn t suffer. reporter: but what had caused these terrible injuries? the prosecution had a theory. what we believe happened is that on the way home, he may have tried to do something to dana that she didn t want him to do it. it may have resulted in a confrontation, she s either ordered out of thear or sh gets out of the car. perhaps, more words are exchanged, but she wasalki away from that vehicle, and he came up behind her and he struck her on the back of the head and immediately dropped her to the ground and as she s laying on the ground, struck her at least two more times. and fractured her skull. reporter: and the prosecution ....
Never mattered. and if she s kicking over this rock anew again, you know, there you were gonna be with the bull s-eye again, right? i got another bull s-eye on my back. reporter: when the investigator cracked open the thin case file. this is what it told him where dana s body had been found. the file also told him who found her that young man who d been driving by in his car. but just as interesting was where dana had been partying that night that nightclub on the seamier side of town. so, what was that place all about? it was very typical stereotypical of the early 80s in a lotta the nightclubs a lotta music, a lotta lights, lotta people. reporter: and a hotspot well-known to the city vice unit, according to detective bratton. toby had a theory about the club he shared with police. dana, he said, had gotten mixed up in something and was scared. dana actually told me that somethin was gonna happen to her there were dark business going on at this nightclub. d ....
she was vivacious, gregarious personality, big personality. you know, everybody liked her. she had a lot of friends. where was her life headed? she had a lotta goals. she wanted to own a boutique. get a job, be successful, have a good life. but she never got there. never got there. reporter: it was labor day weekend, 1982. deb was camping with her family when she got word that dana had been found lying on the side of the road, about eight miles from the dance club where she d gone with a friend. and i needed to get to toledo as soon as possible. she was in critical condition at st. charles hospital, in oregon, ohio. so this is an awful drive for you? absolutely, yeah. you don t know what you re gonna find at the other end? yeah. reporter: what she found was dana hooked up to life support and friends and family gathering. and of course my mother was there, and she was in pieces. dana was her, you know, dana was the baby of the family and she was unconscious. ....
I was only eight months old when it happened, so reporter: brittany was greedy for memories of this mother she d never known. she badgered dana s older sister, aunt deb. so when the curious little girl asks you, the aunt, tell me about my mother, what do you say? i just she was a she was a beautiful woman, you know? she loved life. reporter: and adored her baby girl. she loved that little girl to death. she was just a great, great mother. reporter: dana had been so young. just eighteen when she got pregnant. did dana ever feel sorry for herself in any way? i m having a baby too young, my friends are out having a life, and i m gonna miss some of that stuff? never. it would be natural to feel that way? yeah, she never felt sorry for herself. she was she took life head on. reporter: and just like brittany, dana had loved to dance. that s what had taken her and her best friend to a club across town the south side roxy. she had died on the way home, ....