that will do it for me. thanks for watching. to in tomorrow for the sunday show. former hillary clinton spokesperson philippe reines joins us beauty played donald trump in clinton's 2016 debate prep. plus, i will speak with senator tina smith from minnesota, looking to repeal an archaic 19th-century law that could be used to justify a national abortion ban. that is tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. follow us on social media using the handle @weekendcapehart. diane marcell (911 recording) : i just walked in.

i saw blood everywhere. jodi gonterman : her daughter's laying there. >> terrified. a yo >> terrified. attacked. jason morales : blood on the floor, shovel, duct tape, also a knife. unidentified woman : i truly thought brittani would die. andrea canning : you wake up from your coma. brittani marcell : i'm just, like, trying to communicate. dr. lori wright : she didn't give up. brittani marcell : it was a struggle. andrea canning : you're not you're the witness. brittani marcell : it's almost like a nightmare. andrea canning : the detective wanted you to do hypnosis? brittani marcell : mm-hm. your mind is in a completely different phase. dr. leon morris (psychologist; recording) : tell me what's happening. brittani marcell (recording) : he-- he's hurting me. he's hurting me. jodi gonterman : the details that she gave. it was unbelievable. brittani marcell : she goes, you did it. i said, no, you did.

andrea canning : route 66 once stretched across the southwest from one horizon to the next. going from what america was to what it wanted to be. cities like albuquerque, new mexico were celebrated stops along the journey. today, buildings that once lined this part of the iconic highway have faded and closed as the cottonwood mall became the new downtown. andrea canning: the mall was kind of the big hangout? unidentified woman : we hangout. unidentified woman : yeah. i met my husband at the mall, so absolutely yes. unidentified woman : so did i. andrea canning: (laughter) alicia marcell : it's played a pivotal part in our lives. andrea canning : for the marcell sisters--all six of them-- along with brother jonathan, the cottonwood mall in albuquerque was the center of their social lives. unidentified woman : and it was people that we went to school with. and so everybody kind of knew everybody. andrea canning : sister number five, seventeen-year-old brittani, worked at a sunglasses kiosk in the atrium. jennifer marcell : and she's this beautiful, blonde girl with striking blue eyes and a big smile.

it-- unidentified woman : you were just drawn to her. andrea canning : life was simple, good. until wednesday, september 11, 2008. brittani, just starting her senior year of high school, made plans to meet her mom, a credit union teller, at home for lunch. diane marcell : i open the door, and i walk in. and i saw her favorite pair of red sunglasses down on the floor. andrea canning : did that mean anything to you? diane marcell : i-- i thought that was really weird. andrea canning : a seemingly trivial detail now burned into diane's memory because of what she saw next. diane marcell : i see her laying there on the floor. andrea canning : lying on the floor? diane marcell : on the floor. and she's just bleeding profusely. andrea canning : then, what do you see? diane marcell : i see a person who i've never seen before in my house. and he's holding a shovel. and he walks through my living room, drops the shovel, and walks through the dining room and around to the kitchen. and i'm looking at him. and he tells me i'm next, while he's reaching for a butcher knife. andrea canning : he's going to kill you?

diane marcell : yes. andrea canning : what do you do? diane marcell : i ran out. i'm screaming and yelling. andrea canning : diane's screams got the attention of a passerby who was brave enough to help. diane marcell : he ran into the house. and he yelled back. and he said, you need to get those paramedics here real quick. she's going to die. andrea canning : diane called 911 but stayed outside. certain the attacker was still in her home. diane marcell (911 recording) : i just walked in and i saw blood everywhere. i'm afraid to go in. i walked in, and he had-- he was coming after me. he ran to the kitchen. andrea canning : police and the paramedics were there in minutes. brittani was taken to the hospital as diane called her other children. jennifer marcell : someone was calling me, saying, brittani got stabbed. kat had thought she was in a car accident. alicia marcell : yeah, i thought she got stabbed. unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : we didn't realize what had happened. unidentified woman : yeah, and so i rushed home to my mom. she told me what happened. and i truly thought brittani would die. andrea canning : the sisters rushed to the hospital. but once there were met with confused looks. unidentified woman : they were like, we don't have

a brittani marcell here. unidentified woman : yeah. andrea canning : minutes later, detectives arrived. and told the marcell family, for her safety brittani was admitted under an assumed name. jennifer marcell : we still hadn't understood what happened. unidentified woman : right. jennifer marcell : i mean, she's under an alias. the police officers rush us into this private room in the hospital. andrea canning : putting brittani under an assumed name may have been a smart move. because the family was later told about a mysterious visitor, who was trying to get in to see brittani. diane marcell : while we were in the waiting room, one of the nurses came out and said, do you know that some man just came in to see her? andrea canning : who was it? diane marcell : we don't know who it was. andrea canning : you never-- diane marcell : we don't know. andrea canning : the man left before he could be identified. diane had a terrifying thought. maybe it was brittani's attacker. diane marcell : i didn't know if this person was watching us from afar. did he follow the ambulance? i went into the restroom. i would look at every stall on the back of the doors to make sure that nobody was in there or standing on the-- on the actual commode.

andrea canning : fear took over? diane marcell : fear. andrea canning : as brittani teetered on the edge of death, her family could only guess as to who attacked her and why. jennifer marcell : we started looking, like, who's in our lives? what strange person? unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : is it any of the boyfriends?" unidentified woman : everybody in our family is a natural problem-solver. and so everybody's trying to formulate ideas of who, how-- unidentified woman : who it was. right. unidentified woman : --what, when. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : the marcells were raised to be close and self-sufficient. their dad, a truck driver, was often away. when he and diane divorced, she had to go to work. the children looked out for each other. andrea canning: how do you think it shaped brittani being number five in this big family? jennifer marcell : she looked up to kathlein and kristen and alicia. andrea canning : remind me again who's the oldest? jennifer marcell : i am. i think i was kind of like her mom too. i mean, that's the way it goes in a big family, right? you-- the littlest one has the most moms. andrea canning : like her older sisters, brittani was disciplined and hard working. alicia marcell : she was an excellent student. she had a good circle of friends.

unidentified woman : i think she kind of set herself apart from the popular crowd-- unidentified woman : that's right. mm-hm. unidentified woman : --rather than was inside it. and i think most of that is because she's very genuine in everything that she does. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : brittani was headed for college and hoped one day to become a local tv reporter covering albuquerque. alicia marcell : very, very driven. she was scheduled to graduate high school early. she wanted to study journalism. andrea canning : but her mom, diane, said brittani hit a rough patch during her junior year in high school. andrea canning: how was brittani acting? diane marcell : just rebellious, normal seventeen-year-old, how they, you know, get confrontational if you ask them something. andrea canning : things got so tense for a while, brittani moved in with her dad. diane marcell : and he wasn't there all the time, so it was perfect for her. andrea canning : this was her sort of mild way of running away from home? diane marcell : a little bit. right. andrea canning : but by the start of her senior year, brittani wanted to come back. that's why she and her mom were meeting for lunch. to discuss brittani's return. instead, brittani was attacked.

andrea canning: what did the doctors tell you when brittani was brought to the hospital? diane marcell : they didn't think she would survive. andrea canning : are you able to see her? diane marcell : we can see her, but she doesn't know we're there. unidentified woman : the moment we all walked into the room, everything stopped. unidentified woman : right. unidentified woman : brittani's head was the size-- alicia marcell : huge. unidentified woman : --of a basketball, if not bigger. unidentified woman : mm-hm. mm-hm. unidentified woman : and i don't think any of us really thought that's brittani. andrea canning : what goes through your mind when you realize you may not-- never have any moments with your sister again? unidentified woman : i think-- andrea canning : like, this could be it. alicia marcell : all the moments you missed. unidentified woman : i think-- alicia marcell : you know, like brittani had a couple nights before asked me to go to maroon 5 concert. and i was like, "no, i'm busy."// and it's like all those moments, i should've done all those things. i didn't tell her i loved her enough. unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : i didn't hold her enough. she didn't know how much she meant to me. i didn't tell her i appreciated her. my son's not going to get to see her again. alicia marcell : you're having a dress rehearsal for a death that hasn't happened. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning: coming up andrea canning : who was brittani's attacker? jason morales : this just seemed so personal. andrea canning : this person seemed like they were full of rage. jason morales : who was brittani hanging around with?

who might be a suspect? andrea canning : and would he return? diane marcell : the alarm was set constantly. alicia marcell : we just never experienced that kind of imminent danger. andrea canning : when dateline continues. icy hot. ice works fast. ♪♪ heat makes it last. feel the power of contrast therapy. ♪♪ so you can rise from pain. icy hot.

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vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ [laughing] ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful, all day and night. because breathing andrea canning : while the marcells tried to grasp what happened to brittani (brit-nee), the police were trying to find out who did it. albuquerque police detective jason morales, since retired, was the lead investigator. andrea canning: you've seen a lot of murders in your career. how-- how brutal was this attack in this house? jason morales : it was very brutal. andrea canning : morales said brittani had been hit repeatedly with a shovel, so hard it crushed the left part of her skull. jason morales : so when i got here, the crime vans already parked out front. they had been here for a little while. they're waiting on the condition of the victim, brittani, to see if she was going to survive or if she's going to die. andrea canning : morales said the fact that brittani's purse and sunglasses were found right in the entryway led him

to believe the attacker came up behind her as she entered the house. andrea canning: did you get the sense that maybe this was a burglary in progress and brittani just happened to come home? or do you-- did you feel like the perpetrator was someone that brittani knew? jason morales : this just seemed so personal. it seemed to me at the time that we're looking at somebody that either knew brittani or knew somebody in the family, or there's something-- there's more of a connection to their. andrea canning : the brutal nature of the attack, did that tell you anything? i mean, this person seemed like they were full of rage. jason morales : it does. we started to trying to figure out who was brittani hanging around with, who might be a suspect. because it-- really, at this point, we had no suspect at all, so everybody is. andrea canning : morales believed the attack had just started when brittani's mom arrived. jason morales : i don't think he was anticipating diane showing up. andrea canning : the pattern of blood at the scene indicated the attacker actually chased diane when she fled the house, but stopped for some reason. maybe, morales thought, when diane started screaming.

jason morales : and he panicked. so instead of going out a sliding glass door whether it was locked or unlocked, he jumps out of a dining room window, i mean, not through the screen, he jumps through the glass to get out. andrea canning : inside the house, morales found a room full of evidence jason morales : so once we were able to go inside, you could see it was pretty violent. there was blood on the floor. a shovel. there was duct tape. and then there was also a knife. andrea canning : a lot of clues. jason morales : yes, absolutely. andrea canning : enough, morales thought, to solve the case. that is, until he got the lab results. the fingerprints found on the shovel, knife and tape were incomplete. dna from a male was found on the shovel and the knife, but it was so intermingled with brittani's blood, it was impossible to develop an individual profile. but on a shard of broken glass, police found a drop of blood that looked promising, because it was pristine. jason morales : when he jumped out of the window, he cut himself. andrea canning : the blood drop was analyzed and a complete,

male, dna profile was generated, which morales uploaded to the national criminal database, called codis. jason morales : to see if it would match anybody that's already in the database. andrea canning : did you get a match? jason morales : no. andrea canning : no match? morales couldn't believe it. he was convinced brittani's attacker had to be a repeat offender. jason morales : you'd have to figure that somebody that's done something that-- in that extreme has done-- done something like that before. andrea canning : brittani's attacker, basically, vanished into thin air. jason morales : yes. andrea canning : so now morales' investigation went from the lab to the street. he'd heard brittani was seeing someone, kind of a boyfriend. andrea canning: was he a potential suspect? jason morales : absolutely. andrea canning : did you do a dna test on her sort of boyfriend? jason morales : yes. he was cleared. his dna did not match that. andrea canning : police didn't have to rely on just hard evidence, though. they had an eyewitness to the attack. diane marcell : i could see his height. andrea canning : brittani's mom had actually seen the guy.

diane marcell : i saw he had jeans on. he had a long-sleeved shirt on. andrea canning : and what does he look like? diane marcell : either a dark caucasian man or a light hispanic with brown hair, kind of spiky. andrea canning : police created a composite sketch and spread the word across the rio grande valley. jason morales : there was both billboards, of rewards, crime-stoppers rewards. names just start pouring in. so we were talking to a bunch of people. andrea canning : but to no avail. the billboard campaign didn't produce any workable suspects, witnesses or leads. meanwhile, the marcell family was on edge. in the days following the attack, brittani remained on life support, close to death. unidentified woman : we really didn't know what to do when they said she's probably not going to make it. andrea canning : their home, once a safe and sacred place, was now marred by evil. kathlein guinn : walking in was like someone died there. jennifer marcell : yeah. kathlein guinn : like, it was just morbid. unidentified woman : hard. unidentified woman : it was just dark. alicia marcell : mm-hm. kathlein guinn : yeah. unidentified woman : very dark. kristin marcell: living there or staying there or having game nights, holidays.

we all can say we have a fond memory of that house. and going back there, it's that dark feeling you get on the inside of this isn't okay. and you just wanna get what you have to get to survive, and leave andrea canning : brittani's mom soon found a rental house, but changing addresses didn't help with the lingering unease. diane marcell : whenever we're in the house, the alarm was set constantly. no open windows. no open doors until we go out. our whole lifestyle changed. andrea canning : the marcells were terrified brittani had been attacked by someone who knew them and their routines, someone who might strike again. alicia marcell : we just never experienced that kind of imminent danger. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning: did you worry about them that they could be targets, that he-- he could go after one of them? or he could try to finish off brittani. jason morales : right, just because we don't know if brittani was, actually, the in-- the initial target. and the fact that he hadn't been identified-- i think it was unsettling for everybody. and i think they had every reason to be worried.

andrea canning : they worked out a schedule, taking turns standing vigil at the hospital with brittani. they tried to be hopeful, but they also knew the doctors and the police all thought brittani was going to die. alicia marcell : and all the reports at the hospital were looking-- like, the trajectory was for brittani to pass. andrea canning : but, somehow, brittani held on, and six weeks after the attack, against all odds, she finally opened her eyes. alicia marcell : when brittani came to and she woke up, her eyes were blue like the ocean before. unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : mm-hm. alicia marcell : and they-- they were gray. unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : and i kept thinking, he took your light-- unidentified woman : yup. alicia marcell : --oh, my god-- unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : --he took your light. andrea canning : and in brittani's new, gray eyes, her family saw something else, fear. andrea canning : coming up dr. lori wright: who is this guy that hurt me? why did he hurt me? andrea canning : brittani and her family still haunted. alicia marcell : your friends, your teachers, your boyfriend.

andrea canning : everybody's a possible suspect? jennifer marcell : it sounds crazy but it could be anybody. andrea canning : when dateline continues.

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created sketches of her time in the icu rather than show you the actual photos. part of her brain was removed. then, she contracted meningitis which nearly killed her. one surgery after another, but brittani held on. and by christmas, three months after the attack, the family was told brittani would survive, but what would her new life be like? diane marcell : we talked to her and she'd blink her eyes and smile, but we knew at that point her-- there was a lot of paralysis. and that's when they told us her ear canal is crushed, she's going to deaf. they also told us that her optic nerve is probably atrophied which it severed, just from the--

the hitting of the head, the jolting of it. andrea canning : despite her extensive injuries, brittani's family started taking her on short outings. alicia marcell : and we put her in the wheelchair and she still couldn't hold her head up and she's drooling. and i was like, please, don't let this be it. andrea canning : the family knew this might be all they could hope for. alicia marcell : and there was so much dead tissue in the front temporal lobe-- unidentified woman : yup. unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : --they removed pieces of that. unidentified woman : mm-hm. unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : and they-- with the brain they were saying it's so unpredictable, they-- that could be any-- unidentified woman : short-term-- alicia marcell : --that could be your speech, that could be short-term, it could regenerate. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning: when i hear all the wonderful things about her and all the things she wanted to accomplish. and then now you're describing her like this. were you angry? voices: yeah. oh, yeah. absolutely. andrea canning : as they tended to brittani, her sisters continue to wonder who could have done this to her. alicia marcell : it's violating because she start questioning relationship you trust. unidentified man : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : exactly. unidentified woman : yes. alicia marcell : at school, your friends-- unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : --your teachers, your boyfriend-- unidentified woman : mm-hm. alicia marcell : --your circle of influence, your-- like,

well, it maybe it was you. unidentified woman : right. andrea canning : so everybody is a possible suspect? unidentified woman : everybody. unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : even going to the gym, going to the grocery store, you know, standing at the gas station, watching people-- unidentified woman : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : --i mean, it's-- it sounds crazy, but when you don't know who it is, it could be anybody. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : it was all so personal. the attacker had been in their home, possibly stalked them. maybe brittani wasn't even his intended target. maybe it was one of the other sisters. no one could say for sure. but the family had to put their fears aside when caring for brittani, who now needed all of their help. unidentified woman : it's really taking your baby and raising her all over again. unidentified woman : mm-hm. mm-hm. unidentified woman : so you're raising a child that you already raised. jennifer marcell : and that, i think, was the hardest part, watching mom have to go through that again. and you just-- kathlein guinn : mm-hm. jennifer marcell : --you wanted to cry for them. andrea canning : five months after the attack, her condition had stabilized to the point brittani could be released from the hospital. but she was far from healed.

diane marcell : she didn't realize why she couldn't walk, why she couldn't eat, why she had to learn all these things over again. andrea canning : as helpless as a child, which meant if the attacker returned, the marcell family was more vulnerable now than ever. so diane fled albuquerque, taking brittani along with the two youngest children to neighboring texas. she found a new home, a new job, and most important a rehabilitation clinic for brittani. dr. lori wright : her mom was very, very anxious because we didn't know who the assailant was, and that they were still very concerned for her safety. andrea canning : doctor lori wright was one of brittani's therapists. andrea canning: what was your first impression of brittani when you met her? dr. lori wright : she just didn't know much beyond where she was. and she was very, very confused. crying a lot. she had to have somebody shower her. she had to have somebody take her to the bathroom. she had to have all those things done for her all over again. andrea canning : doctor wright, a neuropsychologist,

practices what's known as cognitive behavioral therapy. dr. lori wright : we believe with practice, practice, practice, the brain can heal. andrea canning : which means teaching a head trauma patient to do one simple task over and over again until it becomes reflexive. dr. lori wright : because their brain is just not the same brain that that used to be. it's- andrea canning : is it like rewiring the brain? dr. lori wright : absolutely. it is rewiring the brain. and so what do you do? you sit down and you-- you do it with her until she's able to do it herself. andrea canning : brittani's brain injury was so severe much of her therapy was almost like a pre-school class. diane marcell : she would read her doctor seuss books to me. and that was a rehab. and she would have to read. and i'd read, and she'd read. it's like reading to a toddler all over and teaching a child to read. andrea canning : but the attack on brittani was so brutal, doctor wright wasn't sure how far she'd get in her recovery. dr. lori wright : there was twenty-five percent of the brain she wasn't able to access that

she used to be able to access. andrea canning : did you think she'd ever get her memory back? dr. lori wright : getting that memory back, most people don't ever. especially if it's a traumatic brain injury, if you're-- you don't usually remember. andrea canning : if brittani's memory did return, her account of the attack could later be used as evidence. so doctor wright didn't give brittani any of the details out of concern it could create false memories. dr. lori wright : when people come out of this kind of trauma, they're not sure if this is a memory that they're remembering, or this is something that somebody's told them. if her memory were to come back, we wanted it to just be her memory. andrea canning : as she slowly learned to talk again, brittani seemed stuck in a loop of fear. dr. lori wright : she would-- just on repeat, you know, i'm afraid, i'm afraid. who is this guy that hurt me? why did he hurt me? and, you know, what am i going to do if he comes to get me?

andrea canning : after months of constant, repetitive therapy brittani's brain did start to rewire itself. and in such a dramatic way it still brings tears to doctor wrights' eyes. dr. lori wright : it took a year. a year of intense therapy. and she didn't give up. and it's really hard to explain. brittani's special. she is definitely special. andrea canning : she is, indeed. as you're about to see for yourself. andrea canning : coming up britanni speaks out at last. andrea canning: you wake up from your coma. what's the first thing that happens? brittani marcell : i'm just, like, trying to communicate. andrea canning : and she speaks to investigators, too. brittani marcell : i put that big x through that one picture. i thought it was this guy. i really did. andrea canning : when dateline continues. dupixent can help people with asthma breathe better in as little as 2 weeks. so this is better. even this. dupixent is an add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma

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news update. injuries heat wave bringing sweltering temperatures to parts of the ohio valley and mid atlantic. more than 100 million across the country are under heat alerts with temperatures reaching triple digits in some areas. in gaza, strikes on tent camps by the idf till 25 and injure another 50, according to the health ministry in gaza. this comes weeks after an adf bombing triggered a deadly fire in a camp for displaced palestinians. for now, back to dateline. dat. through hours upon hours of hard work, brittani's mind and body began to heal. she's permanently deaf in her left ear and blind in her left eye, but these days, she no longer struggles to talk. here, at last, is brittani in her own words.

andrea canning: you wake up from your coma. brittani marcell : mm-hm. andrea canning : what's the first thing that happens that you can tell us about? brittani marcell : i'm just, like, trying to communicate. but you can't at that age. i was at that, as you say, newborn stage per se because i couldn't walk. talking was the hard thing, speech in general. i mean, after everything that happened, you're kind of like a toddler. you don't understand the language that you and i are speaking today. and then, when i went to rehab, i was more of, like, a teenager, a young teenager. and as time went on, i started becoming more like-- a better-- like, a stronger teenager, like, knowing what to do. andrea canning : so you were rapidly going through all the-- brittani marcell : mm-hm. andrea canning : --the phases you'd already done once before. brittani marcell : right. right. andrea canning : and by her side the entire time, her mom. brittani marcell : she's been there with me on every medical appointment, every surgery. it's like she's somebody who i look up to, very much so. she's like my best friend now. andrea canning : how well do you remember your high school years?

brittani marcell : like nothing. like, i don't remember that. but i remember my childhood very well. andrea canning : oh, that's interesting-- brittani marcell : yeah. andrea canning : --that you remember childhood but not high school. brittani marcell : unh-uh. or middle school, very little of middle school. i remember going to new york in middle school. but when i was in high school, not very much. andrea canning : brittani's nerve damage is so extensive, she's unable to shed a tear or control many of her facial muscles and is no longer able to smile. andrea canning: how many surgeries have you had so far? brittani marcell : gosh, i've had, i want to say, up to twenty. my mom says, i think you're done with surgeries. i'm like, no. i'm not, mom. i want my smile. that's what i want, my smile. and she's like, well, most people don't notice that. i'm like, no, but i do every day. andrea canning : the brittani you see today is not the same person she was before the attack. as her brain rewired itself, her speech patterns and even aspects of her personality changed. she became more reserved, more cautious. not as bubbly and outgoing as she once was. andrea canning: did you still have fears even though you

had moved to a new state? brittani marcell : i did. andrea canning : did you still feel like he could come find you? brittani marcell : mm-hm. that's why on my, like, social media, i don't put a location as to where i live. i mean you can put where you live on facebook now. i don't put that. andrea canning : despite her fears brittani was improving, dramatically, and police hoped she'd eventually help them find her attacker. jason morales : we asked her to look at the composite sketch. and she said it looks like somebody that she knows. but she just couldn't put all the information together. but i was hoping that she could, at least, give some information that would lead us in a direction whether it be, you know, somebody that she remembered being with at a party or somebody that showed up to work, you know, just give us another clue or a lead that we could follow up. and it didn't. andrea canning : another dead end? jason morales : yes. very frustrating. andrea canning : meanwhile the marcell sisters, still working with brittani, did what they could to help with the investigation by going over facebook and old yearbook photos. unidentified woman : and just flip through

to see if she recognized anybody or had any idea who it could be. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : and anything? were you getting anywhere? unidentified woman : she-- i mean, she would point to some pictures. unidentified woman : mm-hm. unidentified woman : but i think she was still processing what we were having her do. andrea canning : but there was one picture in what would have been her senior yearbook that got their attention. brittani marcell : this guy just looks so sketchy, like, it's kind of like you-- you get that-- that vibe, like this guy doesn't-- like he looks kind of guilty almost, like a criminal like somebody that's going to go out there and do something and harm somebody. so that's why i put that big x through that one picture. andrea canning : she did more than drawn x through it, she drew an inverted pentagram, the mark of the beast, the devil. brittani marcell : i thought it was this guy. i really did. andrea canning : but it wasn't the guy. police investigated him and found out he was just a random classmate who did nothing worse than take a bad picture. so the family kept up their armchair sleuthing.

andrea canning: were you passing along names of friends-- diane marcell : i was-- andrea canning : --co-workers, anybody that would be in brittani's world? diane marcell : right, even people in my kids' worlds and my world. i mean, i didn't-- at that point, i didn't trust anybody not to have done this. they were all suspects. i was a teller at a credit union. and i could see people walk in and walk out, and i'm thinkin', "i wonder if it's that person." jason morales : they were always calling in. you know, they'd see-- like i said, they would see somebody at the bank. and it looked like him. and they didn't know who it was. but they'd give me a license plate. and we would follow up that information. but still, it didn't lead to the identity of the suspect. andrea canning : did you feel like you started to exhaust everyone kind of in brittani's world? jason morales : yes. andrea canning : and how many names of-- of potential suspects or people of interest did the family give you? jason morales : i would say somewhere in the area of about thirty. the frustrating part is the fact that we have the key right there. it's brittani. andrea canning : coming up

andrea canning : you're not only the victim in this. you're the key witness. brittani marcell : that's the scary part. it's almost like a nightmare. andrea canning : enter a new detective brittani marce: when she got, like, her hands on the case, she would call my mom almost every day. andrea canning : you finally had hope? brittani marcell : did-- i did. andrea canning : could she find a new lead? jodi gonterman : i thought, wow, maybe this is the guy. andrea canning : when dateline continues. if you have wet amd, you never want to lose sight of the things you love. some things should stand the test of time. long lasting eylea hd could significantly improve your vision and can help you go up to 4 months between treatments. if you have an eye infection, eye pain or redness, or allergies to eylea hd, don't use. eye injections like eyla hd may cause eye infection, separation of the retina, or rare

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because breathing should be beautiful, marcell case was inside-out. police had the suspect's dna, but not his name. fingerprints, but too smeared to read. and two eyewitnesses who couldn't identify the attacker. andrea canning: you're not only the victim in this. you're the-- the key witness. brittani marcell : mm-hm. right. andrea canning : i mean, you know who did this to you. you may not know his name. but you-- you saw him. brittani marcell : mm-hm.

it's like that's-- that's, like, kind of the scary part. it's almost like a nightmare. andrea canning : ironically, for investigators, the fact that brittani didn't die posed a problem. there's no statute of limitations for murder. but attempted murder is a different story. and two years into the case, morales worried he was running out of time. jason morales : i wouldn't want something like that to be the technicality that gets this individual off in the future is the fact that the statute of limitations ran. andrea canning : for help, morales turned to cold case prosecutor david waymire. david waymire : even if the defendant was ultimately identified through dna, even if he admitted the crimes, the statute of limitations, once it hits, it's an absolute bar to prosecution. andrea canning : but waymire had an idea as to how they could get around that hard deadline. indict the dna profile as a john doe. a creative legal maneuver, but one that had never been tested in state court. david waymire : although we felt like we were on solid ground

to do it, we didn't know for sure that it would be upheld by the new mexico courts. andrea canning : with no other options, waymire went ahead with the unusual indictment. a good thing because the investigation was at a standstill. morales was afraid the only way he'd catch brittani's attacker was if he struck again. jason morales : i cannot believe that somebody that would commit a crime of this nature would not mess up again. andrea canning : brittani's sisters were afraid they might be the next victims. unidentified woman : i mean over the years, we will all sit around a table and we will go into hours of the night-- alicia marcell : mm-hm. unidentified woman : --trying to come up with possibilities-- unidentified woman : yup. unidentified woman : --of why and who. andrea canning : but the marcell family, like detective morales, had no workable leads. by the fifth anniversary of the attack, the case was no closer to being solved. liz thomson : i really hate calling cases cold. it's just that you just haven't found that right person. andrea canning : liz thomson, then a sergeant heading up the homicide unit, and detective morales' boss, was optimistic

something would break. liz thomson : you know, that one person hadn't talked or that one piece of evidence hadn't matched up. and it just took persistence. that's what it needed. andrea canning : but that optimism was lost on the marcell family. they were still living in constant fear brittani's attacker would one day return, possibly for them. diane marcell : it was a scary thought because we didn't know if we were being followed still. and we're all scared. andrea canning : and that's when, in 2012, brittani's mom placed an uncomfortable call to sergeant thomson. diane marcell : i finally said, you know what, i think we need new eyes on the case. liz thomson : and so we had to have some hard discussions about what are the next steps, how can we move this case forward. andrea canning : sergeant thomson decided the best way to accomplish that was to re-assign the case to veteran homicide detective jodi gonterman.

jodi gonterman : i read through the case. i briefed with detective morales. i spoke with the family. brittani didn't remember what happened at all. andrea canning : describe her for us. your first impression, what you thought of her? diane marcell : she's a go-getter. she's stubborn. she doesn't give up. she's just fascinating. she's cute, vivacious. she's a mom. she has kids. andrea canning: did you feel like this was a match made in heaven with-- diane marcell: i did. uh-huh andrea canning: what did she tell you that she was gonna do, that was g-- gonna be different from before-- diane marcell: she's gonna review everything. and she had a good relationship with the forensic-- team there, and she had her review all the fingerprints, all the dna. brittani marcell : when she got, like, her hands on the case, she would call my mom almost every day. andrea canning : you finally had hope? brittani marcell : did-- i did. andrea canning : that they would find your attacker? brittani marcell : mm-hm. i did. she goes out. and she goes after, like, the evidence she's got. she goes after every tip. andrea canning: brittani said that you would always show her that her case was at the top of the pile. jodi gonterman: i told her every time she called me, "i'm-- i'm looking at your case. it's right here. i'm not filing it away.

i will never put it away." andrea canning: did you have an instant connection with brittani? jodi gonterman: i-- i believe so. absolutely. andrea canning : gonterman immersed herself in brittani's world prior to the attack. jodi gonterman : who she was friends with, what those relationships were, who was in her phone, who the photos were, who she hung around with, what did she like to do? she was a very social girl. she was a very good girl. andrea canning : now, five years after the attack, gonterman worked the case like it happened yesterday, searching for new leads, new witnesses. jodi gonterman : talked to neighbors. i would look at every house to see is there anybody at this house who has a-- a criminal history that would fit this type of crime. andrea canning : because the case had been out of the public eye for so long, gonterman and thomson began drumming up local press coverage hoping it would shake loose a new lead. liz thomson : so i did a piece on local media. we reissued the sketch.

and then detective gonterman started taking in tips. andrea canning : and right off the bat, they got a good one. jodi gonterman : i thought, wow, maybe this is the guy. andrea canning : coming up.. andrea canning : one name. then two. then three. then four. alanna williams : a suspect was developed, and then another suspect would be developed and over and over, they were excluded. liz thomson : what is it that we're missing? jodi gonterman : i didn't give up. we needed to get an answer for brittani and her family to give them closure. andrea canning : when dateline continues. [coughing] copd isn't pretty. i'm out of breath, and often out of the picture. but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful. because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours

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get the fastest connection to paris with xfinity. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? wait, no, i'm always hot. sleep number does that. can i make my side softer? i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. can it help us sleep better and better? please? sleep number does that. 94 percent of smart sleepers report better sleep. shop our lowest prices of the season with free home delivery on select smart beds when you add an adjustable base. sleep number smart beds starting at $999. learn more at sleepnumber.com andrea canning : in just a couple of weeks, detective gonterman and sergeant thomson had already scared up a hot who had somehow slipped through the cracks years earlier. andrea canning: what was his criminal history? jodi gonterman : stalking his girlfriend. there was duct tape. he lived across the street behind brittani.

andrea canning : also suspicious, the suspect left new mexico after the attack. andrea canning: where was he? jodi gonterman : i think he was in colorado, if i'm not mistaken. andrea canning : so gonterman called local police who tracked him down, and surprisingly convinced the suspect to give them a dna swab. albuquerque police department forensic scientist alana williams took over from there. andrea canning: how long does it take youh? is it instant? alanna williams : no, so it takes several days to look at the item of evidence, swab the sample, extract the dna, see how much you have, and then once it's placed on the instrument, you get a dna profile. andrea canning : at the end of all that-- andrea canning: did you think it was him? jodi gonterman : i thought it was a possibility, got my hopes up. and then i was very disappointed when it wasn't. andrea canning : the dna didn't match. a big letdown. one of many to come. then, another tip. gonterman took it seriously because of who it was from.

jodi gonterman : a parent saying i think it's my son who did this. andrea canning : wow. jodi gonterman : my son would visit the house right across from brittani's home and he looks like the sketch, and this was considering this would be very difficult for a parent, i thought, wow, okay. andrea canning : but when gonterman got the man's dna sample-- jodi gonterman : he was excluded. andrea canning : another letdown? jodi gonterman : yes. andrea canning : so gonterman and thomson tried a different strategy, focusing on cases that bore some similarity to brittani's attack. they found one that was eerily similar. liz thomson : oh, my gosh, the same part of town. it was at her own home. it was a shovel. they knew her. and i just thought, how could it not be? andrea canning : but his dna didn't match, either. he wasn't john doe. the old school approach of working tips, leads and hunches just wasn't paying off for gonterman. so she went back through the case files

again and came across a report about brittani's cell phone. back in 2008, during the initial investigation police didn't have the technology to break into the phone without erasing the data. jodi gonterman : so when it was first processed, there were only so many tools to get in it. and brittani couldn't remember her pin. so years later, i took it down to the forensics laboratory for computers. andrea canning : you-- you tried it again in. jodi gonterman : tried it again. andrea canning : because there's new-- ad-- there's advancements in technology? liz thomson : new technology. jodi gonterman : yes. andrea canning : this time technicians were able to get into brittani's phone and right off the bat, gonterman found an intriguing clue. jodi gonterman : a text message from a-- a male who texted brittani the day it happened and wanted to meet her for lunch. andrea canning : wow. jodi gonterman : and i was like, wow, okay-- andrea canning : that's it-- jodi gonterman : --we didn't know about this guy and brittani didn't remember him. so-- andrea canning : and did it have a name and everything, it was like right there for you who this pers-- jodi gonterman : name, phone number. i figured out who he was. so at the time he had gone to high school with brittani.

andrea canning : so gonterman did an online search and easily found brittani's old high school friend. to her surprise, he was a police officer. andrea canning: did that kind of rattle you a little bit? jodi gonterman : of course, it did. what a better way to just not get caught and, you know, cover it up. andrea canning : gonterman contacted the officer, broke the news to him that he was a person of interest in the brittani marcell case. she also collected a sample of his dna. two weeks later, the results came back. they were negative. once again it wasn't john doe. andrea canning: somewhat relieved that it wasn't him? jodi gonterman : was i relieved that-- i was. but if it was him and he was a law enforcement officer, then, you know, good, we got him. andrea canning : about how many men approximately would you-- would you say that you got your hopes up for that it cou-- that this could be the one? jodi gonterman : i think those four were the-- were the-- the most significant. andrea canning : but many more were tested. alanna williams : a suspect was developed and then

the dna profile did not match. and then another suspect would be developed and no match. and every time it seemed like over and over, suspect by suspect, they were excluded. liz thomson : we tested and tested and tested and no matches. andrea canning : what's that like up and down, up and town? you get your hopes up and then it's not a match? liz thomson : oh, it's-- it's really hard and we have to remind each other, all the time, okay, how do we move forward? what is it that we're missing? jodi gonterman : it's-- it's an emotional rollercoaster. liz thomson : rollercoaster. andrea canning : as the years slipped by and you have all those false leads, false hope, are you starting to wonder if maybe we're never going to solve this, and this is-- you know, maybe it's all for nothing what we're doing? jodi gonterman : i didn't give up. we needed to get an answer for brittani and her family to give them closure. andrea canning : her determination gave the marcells strength. alicia marcell : she's like i will not retire-- unidentified woman : yup. unidentified woman : yeah. alicia marcell : --until this case is solved.

unidentified woman : she's very adamant. jennifer marcell : she said that to all of us. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : like detective morales before her, gonterman found herself circling back to brittani, but each visit was as frustrating as the last. jodi gonterman : she didn't have a lot of memory. you know, it was like talking to a little girl, a sweet little girl trying to ma-- trying to remember. andrea canning : by 2014, six years after the assault on brittani marcell, detective gonterman was out of leads, suspects and witnesses. the scientific way of working the case through fingerprints and dna was a bust and so was gonterman's old-school, knocking-on-doors approach. andrea canning: did you ever say to jodi, you know what, i think maybe we need to stop focusing on this case so much? it's-- liz thomson : oh, no. andrea canning : we're running in all-- all the wrong directions? liz thomson : oh. oh, good heavens no. we just hadn't found this person or this person was deceased. and we just needed to figure out who they were and get their dna and-- and solve it that way. but no, we-- yeah, we just had to keep plugging away at it.

andrea canning : there was no doubt brittani was improving dramatically, but she still had no recollection of the attack. no one knew if her memory of that day was gone forever or would eventually emerge from the haze. andrea canning : detective gonterman and sergeant thomson now believed if they were ever going to solve this case, they had to do something radical, possibly even traumatic, find a way to get brittani to relive the attack that nearly killed her. liz thomson : we didn't know if brittani had brain damage that was interfering with her ability to remember the attack or if they were repressed memories that could be recovered from using hypnosis. andrea canning : putting a witness under hypnosis is legally controversial. many states won't allow it out of concern the "recovered" memories could be nothing more than made-up stories. putting brittani, a brain-damaged crime victim, under hypnosis had its own unique set of concerns.

brittani marcell : because, then your memories start flowing back. and i'm afraid if i do get hypnotized more is going to come back than expected. andrea canning : if you had the choice to remember the entire incident, would you want to remember it? brittani marcell : i wouldn't want to remember the beating. that's something i would not want to remember. i would just want to remember the guy's face. andrea canning : just enough to say-- brittani marcell : this is him. andrea canning : coming up dr. leon morris:do i have your permission to hypnotize you? brittani marcell : yes, sir. dr. leon morris : you're sure you're ready? brittani marcell : i believe so. yes, sir. andrea canning : brittani marcell under a doctor's spell. dr. leon morris (recording) : tell me what's happening. brittani marcell (recording) : he's-- he's hurting me. he's hurting me. andrea canning : can he jog her memory and help solve this mystery? dr. leon morris (recording) : one, two, three. andrea canning : when dateline continues. if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's disease... put it in check with rinvoq... a once-daily pill. when symptoms tried to take control, i got rapid relief

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(man) every time i needed a new phone, ask your gastroenterologist about rinvoq i had to switch carriers... (roommate) i told him...at verizon, everyone can get the best deals, like that iphone 15 on them. (man) switching all the time...it wasn't easy. (lady) 35! (store customer) you're gonna be here forever. (man) i know. (employee) here is your wireless contract. (man) do i need a lawyer for this? those were hard days. representative. switch! now that i got a huge storage and battery upgrade... i'm officially done switching. (vo) new and existing customers get iphone 15 on us when they trade in any iphone, any condition. guaranteed. (man) i really wished you told me sooner. (roommate) i did. andrea canning : brittani marcell had defied the odds,

surviving a near-fatal beating that left her brain-damaged, blind in one eye, and partially deaf. now, she was about to take an extraordinary step to catch her attacker. despite her fears of reliving the trauma, on august 14, 2014 brittani agreed to go under hypnosis. dr. leon morris (recording) : i'm recording. brittani marcell (recording) : okay. andrea canning : doctor leon morris was the clinical psychologist chosen to work with brittani. it would be his first criminal case using hypnosis and he was confident there were memories to recover. dr. leon morris (recording) : have we met before? brittani marcell (recording) : i don't believe so. andrea canning : doctor morris was well aware, though, that what memories brittani did have of the attack could be wrong. dr. leon morris : there's something called confabulation, when a person doesn't remember something they kind of fill in the blanks with things that may not be accurate. andrea canning : before starting, doctor morris made sure she was still a willing subject. dr. leon morris (recording) : if you have reservations about re-experiencing what happened to you,

might be too-- too traumatic for you, i would recommend that you not do it. brittani marcell (recording) : i believe-- a-- a part of me wants to get it done. i think it might help a little bit, because maybe that little clue could solve the case. dr. leon morris : do i have your permission to hypnotize you? brittani marcell : yes, sir. dr. leon morris : you're sure you're ready? brittani marcell : i believe so. yes, sir. dr. leon morris : okay. andrea canning : at first the session seemed to be going in slow motion. dr. leon morris (recording) : first, i want you just to hold your hands out in front of you like this. andrea canning : doctor morris calmly instructs brittani to slowly bring her hands together. brittani will be fully in a trance the moment her hands touch her forehead. watch the clock in the upper left hand side of the screen. dr. leon morris (recording) : your eyes will close and relax. andrea canning : it takes brittani almost ten minutes to go under doctor morris' spell. dr. leon morris (recording) : i want you to open that door. and that's the door to your memory. andrea canning : a passage which led

to another time and place, brittani's home on september the 11, 2008. brittani recalls walking inside. it's empty. brittani marcell (recording) : no-- no one's-- no one's home. andrea canning : then she sees someone. brittani marcell (recording) : who is he? who is he? no. no. no. andrea canning : her body shakes as she relives the beating. brittani marcell : that hurt. that hurt. dr. leon morris (recording) : tell me what that-- what is happening. brittani marcell (recording) : he's-- he's hurting me. andrea canning : eerily, brittani describes this fight for her life in an almost flat monotone. dr. leon morris (recording) : tell me what's happening. brittani marcell (recording) : he-- he's hurting me. he's hurting me. i'm blee-- i'm bleeding. bad. bad. dr. leon morris : can you describe him? brittani marcell (recording) : he's-- he's tall.

hair-- like-- like-- like, spiked hair. like-- he had, like, spiked hair. mu-- muscle. light skin tone. mexican? hispanic? brown eyes. dr. leon morris : you remember seeing this man? brittani marcell : mm-hm. did i see him at-- at my work? i don't know. dr. leon morris : did you see him at your work, you said? brittani marcell : yeah. mm-hm. that may-- maybe he bought glasses. maybe. andrea canning : brittani is apparently talking about a possible customer of hers at the cottonwood mall sunglasses kiosk where she worked. dr. leon morris (recording) : so he-- he may have looked familiar to you? brittani marcell (recording) : mm-hm. he's tall. dr. leon morris : mm-hm. brittani marcell : he's tall. it's square. i think. dr. leon morris : face was square? brittani marcell : almost square. dr. leon morris : mm-hm. brittani marcell : a big nose.

and weird eyes. dr. leon morris : what about his eyes? brittani marcell : weird eyes. dr. leon morris : weird eyes? andrea canning : brittani had been in a trance for just thirty-six minutes and had apparently provided more details about the attack than had been uncovered over the last six years. according to brittani, her attacker was tall, muscular, with brown eyes, a square jaw, big nose, light-skinned. and possibly latino. and this was important: he may have been a customer of hers at the cottonwood mall sunglasses kiosk. someone she knew. and whose name she'd hopefully remember. dr. leon morris (recording) : i'm going to bring you out of hypnosis. andrea canning : once she came out of her trance-- dr. leon morris (recording) : you will remember everything that has occurred. andrea canning : would she remember the name of her attacker? dr. leon morris (recording) : one, two, three. andrea canning : coming up dr. leon morris : i knew what she told me, but i didn't know whether it was accurate or not.

andrea canning : new information from brittani and cutting-edge new technology. andrea canning: oh, wow. 06:38 if i was a suspect in a criminal case, this would give me away. dr. ellen greytak : yeah, i think so. 6:42 andrea canning : could it lead to a break in the case? andrea canning : when dateline continues. icy hot. ice works fast. ♪♪ heat makes it last. feel the power of contrast therapy. ♪♪ so you can rise from pain. icy hot.

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chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ [laughing] ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful, all day and night. three. because breathing should be beautiful, andrea canning : as soon as brittani marcell emerged from hypnosis, she had a question

for doctor leon morris. brittani marcell (recording) : who is he? who is he? andrea canning : brittani was hoping she'd blurted out her attacker's name while in a trance. but that didn't happen. the identity of her attacker was still a mystery. brittani marcell : so i was like, hmm, i was like that-- that wasn't really helpful. andrea canning : did you get upset during the session? brittani marcell : very. mm-hm. i was just, like, angry. like, the reconstruction i've had on my face, i was like you can't tell when i'm happy or sad, unfortunately. but it's like-- i was like getting that, like, mad face when i was being hypnotized just because-- it was like you're feeling the pain of what's happening. andrea canning : it wasn't totally in vain, though. brittani marcell (recording) : he had, like, spiked hair. andrea canning : brittani's mom also said the same thing. but brittani was able to provide new details of her attacker's face and physique. jodi gonterman : with those descriptors, what we did was we sent her to our sketch artist and had another sketch done with what brittani remembered

from those characteristics. andrea canning : the two sketches-- brittani's and her mom's six years earlier--had some similarities and some differences. while both said the attacker had brown eyes and light skin, the facial structure, nose and hair didn't match. doctor leon morris had a possible explanation. dr. leon morris : a lot of eyewitness identification is wrong. at the end of the hypnosis, i-- i knew what she told me, but i didn't know whether it was accurate or not. andrea canning : no one knew if what brittani said while under hypnosis was accurate or not. the composite sketch based on her description failed to produce any usable leads. once again, the job of pushing the case forward fell to detective jodi gonterman. brittani marcell: she's probably the best detective i could ever ask for. andrea canning : did you find yourself getting emotionally invested in the case with so many years going by and-- jodi gonterman : yeah. i did. yeah. andrea canning : --your-- your connection to brittani and diane?

jodi gonterman : i did. i-- i went into her office crying once before just because i was so disappointed. liz thomson : oh, yeah. yeah. jodi gonterman : it's rough. i mean, you know, you try not to get emotionally involved. but you do. andrea canning : as the investigation languished, brittani continued on with her life and in may of 2016, eight years after being nearly beaten to death, she graduated from college. brittani marcell : i didn't think i'd be graduated from college right now. i didn't think i'd be doing that. andrea canning : to go to college and to come this far, it's just incredible. i mean, how do you do it? brittani marcell : you got to be strong in yourself. you got to believe in yourself. andrea canning : and it was around the time of brittani's graduation that gonterman got another one of her out-of-the-box ideas. she heard about a new way to make a sketch not from an eyewitness account, but from a dna sample. jodi gonterman : they do a different type of s-- of testing that gives hair color, eye color, skin tone, ancestry.

andrea canning : this is an incredible tool. jodi gonterman : it's amazing. andrea canning : the company behind this new crime-fighting tool is parabon where they do something called dna phenotyping. dr. ellen greytak : it's essentially a genetic witness. andrea canning : doctor ellen greytak is parabon's director of bioinformatics. andrea canning: how does it work, in laymen's terms? how can you take dna and make a sketch? dr. ellen greytak : we focus on those traits that are passed down from parent to child. so if you think about, when you say, oh, you have your mother's eyes, well you have your mother's eyes because you have your mother's dna. and we can figure out, well, this piece of dna we see in blue-eyed people, but not in brown-eyed people. andrea canning : so all your features are connected to your dna. dr. ellen greytak : absolutely. andrea canning : parabon started off by helping the u.s. military create dna profiles from the remains of insurgent bomb makers during the iraq war. it wasn't long before cold case detectives were sending them e-mails looking for help, as well. dr. ellen greytak : these investigations that we're working on, sometimes they've been cold for decades.

in these cold cases, they're cold because there are no leads. and in a lot of cases that's because there's no witness description, and we're able to give them that just with the dna. andrea canning : from a single dna sample, parabon can make an estimation of someone's hair color, eye color and complexion. we hired parabon to test a sample of my dna. but we didn't tell them it was from me until this interview. andrea canning: i sent in my dna as a blind-- dr. ellen greytak : that was yours. andrea canning : that was mine, as a blind sample. dr. ellen greytak : okay. andrea canning : you did not know whose dna we were sending in. dr. ellen greytak : no. we did not. andrea canning : parabon built a profile of me as if i were a random criminal suspect. dr. ellen greytak : so all we received was a dna vial labeled tr19411, and so these are the predictions that we produced just from that dna. this actually was a pretty interesting eye color prediction, one that we don't see very often. it will either come from people with fairly dark

bluish green eyes, or it will come from-- from people who actually have very light eyes, but with a dark ring and a gold center. andrea canning : okay, so i have-- i have the gold center. dr. ellen greytak : i see it. i see it now. the pigment that's in your eyes is a yellowish color. so that's why, as you get more, it turns green and then brown. and so you've got that pigment, but it's only in the middle, which is pretty interesting. andrea canning : that's fascinating. dr. ellen greytak : your ancestry came out as a mix of northern european and southeast european. andrea canning : my grandparents on my mother's side are from czechoslovakia, and then my-- my father's family from london. dr. ellen greytak : that is perfectly how it came out. andrea canning : well, you nailed that. dr. ellen greytak : good. so we predicted that she would have-- wider cheekbones and wider eyes, larger eyes, and then a wider jaw and a narrower chin. a fairly petite nose, but a little bit wider at the-- at the nostrils. and so, the next page is going to include your composite. okay. andrea canning : oh, wow. the eyes look very much like mine. dr. ellen greytak : these light eyes, but with a golden center and a dark ring.

medium blonde hair. andrea canning : if i was a suspect in a criminal case, this would give me away. dr. ellen greytak : yeah, i think so. andrea canning : putting together a profile like this is labor intensive and costly. up to thirty-six hundred dollars. a lot of money for cash-strapped homicide units like albuquerque's. but after months of dogged persistence, gonterman wrangled up the funds and shipped a sample of the john doe dna to parabon and settled in to wait. the process would take several months. meanwhile, gonterman set brittani's file aside and focused on other cases. and it was at this time, in october 2016 when a name suddenly emerged from brittani's memory. diane marcell : she said the name justin kept coming up. brittani marcell : i asked my mom like, hey, did you know this person? and she goes, no. i was like, well, for some reason that name keeps coming back to mind. she's like, how often? i was like, like every day. i was like, i don't know why. andrea canning : every day?

brittani marcell : every day. andrea canning : this was the first time a name had just popped into her head. brittani called her sisters to see if they remembered a guy name justin. kathlein guinn : i'm like, oh, that's hansen. and she said, yeah, justin hansen, that keeps coming to me. andrea canning : all the sisters remembered justin hansen. he was a fixture at the cottonwood mall. andrea canning : where did he work at the mall? kathlein guinn : hollister. andrea canning : i think that was kind of a big deal, that kind-- right? was-- unidentified woman : yeah. it was. alicia marcell : yeah. unidentified woman : yeah. andrea canning : like, cute guys. alicia marcell : yeah. unidentified woman : yes. unidentified woman : oh, yeah. unidentified woman : mm-hm. unidentified woman : you know, you're going into abercrombie or hollister, like, there's definitely cute guys there. andrea canning : the question was, why was brittani suddenly remembering him now? andrea canning: were you getting an eerie feeling when you would think of justin or just his name was popping in your head? brittani marcell : just his name was popping up. andrea canning : nothing more? brittani marcell : nothing more. andrea canning : just-- just like why is-- why does this keep happening? brittani marcell : mm-hm. right. he worked at hollister and he had come down over to my kiosk and all and he'd, you know, sit there and chat and all or run outside kiosk and talk and all. and-- and it was what i thought just a mutual relationship.

andrea canning : did he seem interested in you? brittani marcell : i don't remember that at all. i was like, i'm-- andrea canning : flirty? brittani marcell : flirty. andrea canning : brittani called detective gonterman with this latest memory. jodi gonterman : and she says a name popped into my head, i don't know why, but this guy's name is justin hansen. and i worked at the sunglass kiosk and he would come and he would visit me. she's like it was nothing bad. she goes, but he would just-- i remember him hanging out with me for about an hour at a time. and it happened maybe about three months before the attack. he would come by and just talk to me. andrea canning : gonterman knew that while under hypnosis, brittani said she may have met her attacker at the sunglasses kiosk. brittani marcell (recording) : did i see him at my work? i don't know. dr. leon morris (recording) : did you see him at your work, you said? brittani marcell : yeah. mm-hm. that may-- maybe, he bought glasses. maybe. andrea canning : over the previous nine years, the marcells had asked police to investigate

seventy-five different men. none of whom turned out to be the attacker. this was the first time, though, brittani has ever come up with a name, so maybe this new memory was important. on the other hand, maybe it wasn't. andrea canning : coming up jodi gonterman (recording) : hi, how are you? are you justin? justin hansen (recording) : i am justin. andrea canning : detectives pay a visit to justin hansen, he seems helpful. but is his story truthful? justin hansen (recording) : can i think about this and then come back and see you andrea canning : when dateline continues. an alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement. what is cirkul? cirkul is the fuel you need to take flight. cirkul is the energy that gets you to the next level. cirkul is

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z thomson and detective jodi gonterman, calling brittani's case cold was an admission of defeat. but eight years after the attack, the investigation had clearly stalled. so this new name from brittani--justin hansen--didn't look to be any kind of case-changer. jodi gonterman : she gave me so many names of-- of people, but nothing was really significant to her, and all along, justin's name never came up. andrea canning : did she have any reason why his name, of all people, was popping into her head? jodi gonterman : she-- she didn't know. it just popped into her head one day. andrea canning : hansen didn't match the description brittani gave while under hypnosis. brittani marcell (recording) : he's hurting me. andrea canning : that person was tall, muscular, and had brown eyes.

hansen on the other hand is average height, thin and has green eyes. hansen was also a married father of four with no criminal convictions other than a dui. andrea canning: was this immediate for you? i have to run this down right now? or was it like, okay, i'll get to it? jodi gonterman : well, i said, okay, i'm going to set it aside, and i'm going to wait to contact him, because the more i had when i do an interview, the more information i have behind me is going to be more helpful. andrea canning : justin hansen just didn't seem like a high priority, until three months later, january 3, 2017, when detective gonterman and sergeant thomson, finally got the parabon dna report. doctor ellen greytak of parabon walked us through her dna analysis. andrea canning: this is the dna from the person who attacked brittani. dr. ellen greytak : yes, so this is from blood that was found at the crime scene, and so we find that this person, you know, has fairly fair skin. andrea canning : so this is a white male. dr. ellen greytak : it's a fair-skinned male.

fairly confident in that. and this person has sort of light brown hair. so, we say blonde to brown. it's fairly equally likely blonde to brown. andrea canning : okay. dr. ellen greytak : so, it's sort of on the-- the lighter brown side, and most likely doesn't have a lot of freckles. andrea canning : there was one detail in john doe's profile that turned out to be crucial information. the color of his eyes. remember brittani's description of john doe? brittani marcell (recording) : brown eyes. andrea canning : well, it turns out she was wrong. john doe's eyes weren't brown. dr. ellen greytak : we found that this person has green to hazel eyes. andrea canning : which is unique. dr. ellen greytak : it's fairly unusual, yes. andrea canning : green eyes. the same color as justin hansen's and the sketch itself. here it is. jodi gonterman : when we saw that composite, i was like, oh my god. andrea canning : it was that close. liz thomson : oh, yeah. jodi gonterman : it was. andrea canning : to justin. liz thomson : we think it's-- yeah. jodi gonterman : yeah. liz thomson : yeah. jodi gonterman : but i still didn't want to get my hopes up because i didn't-- liz thomson : mm-hm. jodi gonterman : --want to get disappointed again. andrea canning : still not convinced this man was the guy she'd spent years hunting, gonterman, along with a fellow detective wearing a body cam,

paid justin a visit. jodi gonterman (recording) : yeah. hi, how are you? are you justin? justin hansen (recording) : i am justin. jodi gonterman : okay, cool. i'm jodi. we're detectives with apd. justin hansen : okay. okay. andrea canning : right from the start justin was calm and cooperative. jodi gonterman (recording) : i'm investigating a case. it's an older case and i'm just going back to talk to the friends or the people that knew brittani marcell. justin hansen (recording) : okay. jodi gonterman : it's from '08. justin hansen : okay. andrea canning : hansen invited the detectives into his home, where gonterman started off with the basics. jodi gonterman (recording) : do you remember hanging out with her at her sunglass place ever? just going there and talking? justin hansen (recording) : it's not-- not hanging out with her. i walked by, maybe and-- and kind of just, hey, how are you doing? what's new? how's your family? how's your sisters? that kind of stuff. jodi gonterman : on a like-- on a regular basis or do you just remember like one time-- justin hansen : no, no, no. just when i was-- when i think-- when i was working at the mall, i'd just happen to walk by and say hi. it wasn't like a hanging out, regular basis type thing. jodi gonterman : because she-- because brittani actually remembers you coming in and visiting her and hanging out and talking with her, like twice a week. justin hansen : no, no.

jodi gonterman : no. andrea canning : after a few minutes of this, gonterman told hansen what she was really after. a dna sample. jodi gonterman : and then just to compare with the dna at the scene so we can exclude everyone because then it narrows down the field. andrea canning : expecting, or hoping, hansen would agree gonterman put on a pair of latex gloves as she continued to talk. jodi gonterman (recording) : not that you're suspect at all anyway, because you're not. andrea canning : but hansen hesitated. justin hansen (recording) : can i-- can i think about this and then come back and see you? just because it seems kind of-- unidentified man (recording) : what's your concerns? what's your concerns? jodi gonterman (recording) : yes. yeah, what's your concerns? justin hansen : i don't know. me and my wife watch a bunch of-- a bunch of shows, and we hear people, you know, oh, i've been-- i've been in trouble, or i got in trouble for something that i never did. and then ten, fifteen years later they come back and oh, it wasn't you, or that kind of thing, and then they've been in trouble for it for a long time. jodi gonterman : yeah. justin hansen : can i get your card, though, and come back, and, you know, just so i can think about everything and talk to my mom or whatever and if they're like, yeah,

this is what they normally do type thing, and then just come and see you guys? jodi gonterman : absolutely. justin hansen : is that okay? jodi gonterman : yeah. andrea canning : what did you make of his demeanor that first time when you went to-- to go see him? jodi gonterman : well, i mean, he was-- he was friendly. he was, you know-- he was acting like he was concerned, but it was almost an act. but then he wouldn't give his dna. liz thomson : and we all thought how odd for a man of that age to say they wanted to talk to their mom. his wife is right there. he's, what, in his thirties and suddenly he's wanting to talk to his mom. so we're like, is his mom a lawyer? and just-- the whole thing-- andrea canning : yeah. liz thomson : --seemed suddenly very odd and a big red flag, yeah. jodi gonterman : he seemed like a bad actor-- liz thomson : yeah. jodi gonterman : --when i spoke with him. it seemed like he was putting on an act. it wasn't genuine to me. andrea canning : before she left hansen's house, gonterman decided to rattle his cage by telling him, brittani's memory was finally starting to return. jodi gonterman (recording) : your statement doesn't match what she remembers.

she remembers very well that you used to visit her. when she was bored, you would come in about twice a week and just hang out. she remembers that you used to wear tight abercrombie shirts and your pants a little bit saggy, you know, with your underwear hanging down. justin hansen (recording) : yeah. andrea canning : hansen said he'd come by gonterman's office after speaking with his mom, but he never showed up. so, gonterman gave him a call to see what was going on. justin hansen (recording) : hello? jodi gonterman (recording) : hi, justin. justin hansen : hello. jodi gonterman : hi, it's detective jodi gonterman with the apd. how are you? justin hansen : i'm doing okay. how about yourself? jodi gonterman : good. andrea canning : the call started off well enough, but the tone quickly changed. hansen said he felt targeted and outright refused to give a dna sample. justin hansen (recording) : i felt like the way you guys were coming at me was like no matter what i said, i was the person you were looking for. and it's-- and it-- and no one wants to be that. andrea canning : hansen ended the call demanding an apology. justin hansen (recording) : i'd appreciate a call to let me know that you're-- you're sorry. jodi gonterman (recording) : i'll apologize after i get your direct dna. andrea canning : detective gonterman

had been investigating justin hansen for five months now. yet, there was still a question mark next to his name. so, time again, for gonterman to get creative. andrea canning : coming up andrea canning : an undercover mission to mcdonald's? jodi gonterman : they followed him, and they watched him eat andrea canning : a hunt for treasure in the trash. alanna williams : i said, i can't believe this. andrea canning : when dateline continues. dupixent can help people with asthma breathe better in as little as 2 weeks. so this is better. even this. dupixent is an add-on treatment for specific types of moderate-to-severe asthma that's not for sudden breathing problems. dupixent can cause allergic reactions that can be severe. tell your doctor right away if you have rash, chest pain, worsening shortness of breath, tingling or numbness in your limbs. tell your doctor about new or worsening joint aches and pain or a parasitic infection. don't change or stop asthma medicines including steroids, without talking to your doctor. ask your specialist about dupixent. nexgard® plus helps you protect

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outcry on social media. media. andrea canning : if justin hansen really was the guy who had assaulted brittani marcell, he'd done a masterful job getting away with it. over the course of a nine-year investigation, not once had police considered him a suspect. david waymire : it's pretty unique that his name had never been mentioned by any of the family, the friends. andrea canning : and now that he'd come to the attention of prosecutor david waymire and detective jodi gonterman, after brittani remembered his name, hansen was able to keep them at bay by simply refusing a dna test. jodi gonterman : so our district attorney suggested having him followed and getting his dna. david waymire : and one of the main ways that that can be done is through things that a subject throws away. andrea canning : on april 3, 2017, six months after brittani told police about hansen,

detective gonterman requested a couple of undercover officers to tail him. but by the time the request was approved, two months later, hansen had both moved and quit his job. police didn't know where he was. two more months passed before the surveillance team tracked hansen to his new job at this this body shop in north albuquerque. jodi gonterman : and they followed him to a mcdonald's. and they watched him eat. and he took the lid off of his mcdonald's cup. and he drank it directly out of the cup. and when he walked out, the trash was pretty full, like, to the top. and he wrapped his own meal, his own trash nicely in the placemat that comes on your tray. so it was all separated from everything else. and so the undercover detective just walked right behind him and picked it up. andrea canning : and the detectives took that trash straight to albuquerque police criminalist, alanna williams. alanna williams : i really did not have high hopes that this would be the individual that might

match to our unknown person. andrea canning : she'd already processed the dna of seventeen potential suspects without a match. no reason to think number eighteen would be any different. andrea canning: what was the results from this suspect, justin hansen? alanna williams : it was a complete match. andrea canning : after a nine-year investigation and eighteen dna tests, john doe had finally been identified. it was justin hansen. andrea canning: did you keep checking it over and over again, just like a lottery ticket? alanna williams : i-- i actually checked it twice. i did it once and then i went back through and i checked it again. and i said i can't believe this. andrea canning : williams wanted to deliver news this big in person. liz thomson : and alanna told her. and i wish i had it on video because jodi-- jodi gonterman : might be-- liz thomson : --i think she jumped about four feet off the ground and-- jodi gonterman : threw my keys.

liz thomson : yeah, it was very, very exciting and was such good news. jodi gonterman : and then i-- yeah. liz thomson : and then, yeah, we were all-- jodi gonterman : and then i broke down crying. liz thomson : --all just in tears. jodi gonterman : and then we all started crying. and i said i can't believe it. i can't believe it. oh, my god. i got to call diane. diane marcell : i'm at work. and she goes, diane, hey, how are you doing? i said i'm fine. and i'm thinking, great, more bad news, because every phone call had been kind of, like, yeah, it's not him. she goes, we've got a match. i'm, like, just blown over and i'm overwhelmed and i could hear the emotions in her voice. and-- and she says, yeah, we've got a match. and said, this is how it happened. and i'm going, just like on tv, huh? she goes, yeah, it does happen. andrea canning : diane then called brittani, who was in boston with sister, jennifer. diane marcell : i said jodi called, and she's got a match. brittani marcell : she's like they know who the guy is. i'm like, what? she goes, it's a dna match one hundred percent. i'm like, who is it? she goes, justin hansen who you ga-- you remember

giving that tip to her? i'm like, yeah. she says, it's a hundred percent match. i'm like, holy crap. i was like, my prayers were answered. so i called jodi. and i was like, you have no idea how thankful i am for-- for you solving this, jodi. she goes, no, you did it. i said, no, you did. she goes, you gave me the name. i was like, but you acted on it. andrea canning : hansen was arrested while out shopping. for the marcell sisters, it was hard believe the monster who'd haunted them for the past nine years may have been just a guy they knew from the mall. jennifer marcell : and i thought, this guy? this little, skinny guy? like, he is charming, but how could he have done something so horrible? kathlein guinn : this guy looks great. jennifer marcell : mm-hm. kathlein guinn : it messes with your mind. jason morales : yeah. kathlein guinn : it's so frustrating. alicia marcell : because it's not black and white. kathlein guinn : right. alicia marcell : because we want to put our criminals or our violent offenders in this and they look like this. and he doesn't look like that. unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : he's the cute guy who worked at the-- alicia marcell : yeah. unidentified woman : right. andrea canning : --the clothing store in the mall. alicia marcell : yeah. people liked him and wanted to date him. unidentified woman : mm-hm.

alicia marcell : like, you did that? unidentified woman : mm-hm. andrea canning : the next hurdle would be the trial. brittani would have to testify and re-live the emotional trauma of the attack. andrea canning: normally, people don't look forward to trials like this. are you actually looking forward to it to get it done and to see justice? brittani marcell : very much so. i can finally kind of close that chapter finally after nine years. andrea canning : what brittani didn't know at the time of this interview was that there were problems with the case. believe it or not, there were serious doubts justin hansen would ever go on trial. andrea canning : coming up andrea canning : a stunning setback. the case against justin hansen takes another dramatic turn. justin hansen : there's a lot of evidence that doesn't make sense. it's hard to try to prove your innocence after a certain amount of time andrea canning : when dateline continues. if you have wet amd, you never want to lose sight of the things you love. some things should stand the test of time.

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who's the loser now? loser loser. -loser, loser. : police found a mountain of evidence at the marcell house following the attack on brittani. there was the shovel, the knife, the duct tape, even the clothes brittani was wearing. all collected and carefully stored away. and of course, when detective gonterman started working brittani's case, she wanted to see it all first hand. jodi gonterman : when i went to pull evidence and view it myself, it wasn't there. andrea canning : where was it? jodi gonterman : it had been destroyed andrea canning : all of it gone due to a simple clerical error. jodi gonterman : when anyone retires, you get a list of evidence on cases.

there's a box. you either check dispose or retain, and the box was checked dispose for this case. andrea canning : i mean, what's that moment like when you're trying to solve this case, only to find out that physical evidence has been destroyed by your own police department? jodi gonterman : well, i was pretty upset. i was pretty mad. okay, to be honest, i was really mad. andrea canning : the most important piece of evidence, though, was that blood drop which was stored separately. the defense would want their own experts to test it. so if it was missing, too, the case against hansen might well be over. andrea canning : was that kind of a, oh, my gosh, what if this has been destroyed, too? jodi gonterman : yes. andrea canning : because then you're kind of done. jodi gonterman : i was stressed. i met with alanna williams, the forensic scientist. she went to look for it and she found it. it was in the freezer. so, thank god. andrea canning : still, prosecutor david waymire knew the case had taken a serious hit.

david waymire : proving a case beyond a reasonable doubt to unanimously to twelve jurors would be difficult when we had evidentiary problems. andrea canning : justin hansen's defense attorney could now claim the albuquerque police department had mishandled evidence. evidence that may have pointed to another suspect. david waymire : a judge and a jury might very well hold that against us and that could make it more difficult to get a conviction. andrea canning : while awaiting trial, the judge allowed hansen to be placed under house arrest. we tried for months to get him to sit down with dateline, but he put us off. he finally agreed to talk, when we dropped in on the farmhouse where he was living outside of albuquerque. overcome with emotion, justin hansen fought back tears as his family looked on. andrea canning : this case, i mean, is unreal, all the twist and turns that have happened. what do you make of everything? i mean you're at the center of it. justin hansen : it's hard. it's hard to try to take everything in. lots of nights of not sleeping.

lots of nights of trying to figure things out. andrea canning : what do you say to people who say that there is irrefutable evidence in this case that-- that-- that you did this? justin hansen : i've-- i've kind of realized who-- who counts and who matters. and those people, they don't matter. andrea canning : they're looking at the evidence that they feel points to you-- justin hansen : mm-hm. andrea canning : --and there's no way to get around that. justin hansen : i don't-- i don't have a way to convince them otherwise, that's not for me to try to do. andrea canning : do you think about what brittani's lost? justin hansen : of course. she's lost a lot. and i'm glad she has a good support system, you know, her mom, and her sisters and everybody standing by her side. that-- that's-- that's great that she has that and i'm glad that she has that. andrea canning : they see you as a monster. justin hansen : they do. they see me as what apd's put me in there to be. they see me as what the media's put me to be. andrea canning : how do you explain the drop of blood at the scene?

justin hansen : i don't. i don't. andrea canning : that's the one thing i think that people have a hard time getting around. justin hansen : they do. and there's a lot of evidence that doesn't make sense. andrea canning : did you attack brittani marcell? justin hansen : no. andrea canning : besides the missing evidence, hansen's lawyer had another plan to get the case tossed out. simply put, the statute of limitations had run out. sure prosecutor waymire filed an indictment in 2010, but the name on that indictment was john doe, not justin hansen. justin hansen : you know, they have a statute of limitations set up for a reason. it's not to let people get away with things, it's just because it's-- it's hard to try to prove your innocence after a certain amount of time. like phone records go back seven years. bank statements i think are six or seven years. so, like, you can't even try to go back to try, you know, prove your innocence or to prove things differently. and-- and that's hard.

andrea canning : hansen's lawyer argued the john doe indictment should be dismissed and the judge ruled an appellate court could hear that motion before the trial even got underway. a huge victory for justin hansen and a major setback for prosecutor david waymire who knew the john doe indictment was uncharted legal territory. david waymire : although that had been done once before in new mexico in a different case, it had never actually gone up and-- and been reviewed by the appellate courts to ensure that it was legally allowed. andrea canning : waymire had been concerned about the strength of the case all along. he'd even offered hansen a plea deal. but now, apparently emboldened by the judge's ruling, hansen rejected the plea offer, hoping instead to have the entire case against him tossed out. andrea canning : coming up jennifer marcell brittani was robbed of the life that we all have. we want him to pay dearly.

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justin hansen insisted to us he was an innocent family man, accused of a crime he didn't commit. but the marcell family wasn't buying any of it. they were certain hansen was the one who attacked brittani, and they wanted justice.

you know, brittani has to deal with this for her whole entire life. she was robbed of the life that it appears that we all have. she doesn't get that. and everything that she has today she's worked hard for with the support of my mom. they've sacrificed daily. and i think it's kind of the same way-- we want him to pay dearly. but there might not be a trial, let alone a conviction, if hansen's attorney could get the john doe indictment that was filed in 2010 tossed out. it was a tense time for both families-- the marcells and the hansens-- as they waited weeks on the appellate court's decision. just 12 days before the start of the trial, the court issued its ruling. hansen's motion was denied. the john doe indictment was upheld, and the case was going to trial. that's when prosecutor david waymire got a very unexpected phone call from hansen's attorney. they wanted to revisit plea negotiations.

wanting to spare brittani the stress and anxiety of a trial, the marcell family gave their blessing to waymire's decision to move ahead with a plea offer of no contest to attempted murder in the first degree, which hansen accepted. and just like that, it all came to an end. the alternate suspects, the john doe indictment, the hypnosis, the parabons sketch, the dna tests-- over. a case that took nine years to get to court was resolved in a matter of hours. you had a really tough decision to make in this case-- to, to go to trial, or to take this deal. how did you ultimately come up with your decision? i mean, i wanted to go to trial. i wanted to clear my name, but i just felt like the odds were against me and i, i didn't want to chance, you know, 58 to 60 years away from my kids, and that was kind of what

pushed me into the plea. so the plea was not about an admission of guilt, necessarily, but for you it was more about being there someday for your children? that's exactly what it was for. it was like 60 years, or 18 years with the chance of being out in nine or less. my youngest only be 11, and i can still be there for her and try to help guide her through stuff. it's like, like i'm dying, like i'm not, coming back. and it's hard, but i know it's a goodbye because we don't know what, what the outcome is going to be. but at the same time, it still feels like, like i'm not going to be here anymore, and you don't know what to say. the day after our interview, hansen went to court for sentencing, and the stakes were high. under the terms of the plea agreement, he could be released on probation or sent to prison for up to 18 years. prosecutor david waymire argued for the longest

possible sentence, telling the judge three other women in the past had accused hansen of assault. the alleged victim, the girlfriend was 17 at the time, and was four months pregnant. next, for two pain-filled hours, the marcell's testified about what the attack did to brittani and their family. her life is a mere flicker of what it had the potential to be. she struggles with friendships, creating social circles, reading social cues, and understanding her emotions. her life is a shell of what it had the potential to be. i want my sister back. i miss her so much, and i'm starting to forget who she was before the attack. last to speak was brittani, who, with her back to justin hansen, faced the judge and told her about the severity of her wounds, the 22 surgeries she'd endured, and of the injuries that may never heal. on september 11, my dreams and goals were beaten out of me.

for 10 years, i've been struggling to rebuild some semblance of the life i had once planned. i am fearful that i won't get married. i am, i'm worried that i won't have children. i'm worried that i'll never be able to live alone again. afterwards, it was justin hansen's turn to speak. first of all, your honor, i want to apologize to brittani and diane and their family for everything they've been through. but that was all he had to say to the marcells. he spent the rest of his time telling his children how much he loved them. then everyone waited for judge cindy leos to tell hansen just how long he'd be away from those children. i am going to impose the full 18 years in the department of corrections. i think that that is the only sentence that makes sense under the circumstances of this case. thank you. and with those words, justin hansen was handcuffed and led away to prison, while brittani, her mom and siblings hugged and wept.

detective gonterman and sergeant thompson were there as well. how did it feel, hearing justin hansen get the maximum 18 years as part of this plea deal? it feel amazing. i was so happy. i mean, i'm overwhelmed with emotion. just so relieved, so happy for the family. it was truly one of highlights of my career. did you get justice today? yes, we did. justice, 100% justice. yes. he finally got caught. he played with fire and he messed with the wrong ladies. for the siblings, there was more than anything an overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude. i looked at my sisters before it started and i said, no matter what happens today, it's over. we have to let this be over today. and this was a good way for this to be over. i feel very grateful for judge leos, and i, i feel even more immensely grateful for detective gonterman. while thompson, gonterman and the marcells got justice, what they didn't get was an explanation.

one of the biggest mysteries in this has been the motive. what is your working theory? so many people describe justin as being very friendly and social, and they think he's good looking and charming, and he's that older guy that i don't think he was ever turned down. and it's possible that maybe brittani was just the one person that said no and turned him down. brittani agrees. i think i was attacked because justin hansen had some jealousy. also because he had probably asked me out to be, like, go on a date, be his girlfriend, and i had a different boyfriend at the time and it wasn't him at all. so i think it was struck out of jealousy. and since he didn't have me, nobody else could. when we last spoke, brittani was living in rural texas and spending much of her time tending to the animals. she had one college degree, but said she would like to return to campus to get the degree she's wanted since high school.

i am definitely thinking of going back to school for journalism. i was like, it takes-- i mean, my major was communication. i can communicate quite well. however, she had one more big hurdle to get over-- another surgery, her 23rd. an operation that took hours, with a recovery period of months. brittani could have opted to not go through such torment, but for her, there was no choice. the surgery was to get her smile back. i had the biggest smile you could dream of. i was like, that's something-- that's what i want back. i'm going to go for it. she and her son were in the basement of their home when the doorbell rang. danny