r. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

>> and i said no, i'm with someone, like obviously i don't need a ride because i'm not alone. he hadn't seen dusty right away. >> dusty walked over to investigate. he made a statement to the effect of, hey, that's my girlfriend. what's going on here? dusty went around to the driver's side, words were exchanged, there was an altercation. by the time it was all over, the car sped away, leaving dusty lying on the ground, bleeding to death. >> i didn't know there was a weapon involved until then. and i mean, obviously when i saw the wound, things started coming together. i was hysterical. why did you do this to dusty?

>> when paramedics arrived, dusty had bled to death. >> i just was in total disbelief. i didn't want to hear what he was telling me. i didn't want to believe it. i didn't want to hear it. i was like, you're lying to me. and i was hitting the wall and freaking out. and he had to take me outside. i was being way too loud. >> sky was able to provide the assailant's license plate number. 2uca167. the car was registered to barbara genzler. she told police that her son, david, was using the car but she didn't know where he was. 25-year-old david genzler was a finance student at san diego state university. he matched the general description sky had given to police, about six-feet tall, thin with glasses.

three days later, genzler turned himself in. >> obviously he knew he stabbed someone. but didn't know the extent of that wound. when he had learned that this person had died, that is when he contacted an attorney. >> genzler refused to tell >> genzler refused to tell police where the car was and he refused to give hem the clothes he wore that night and the knife. >> what his story is, i don't know. he has never given us a statement. >> genzler looked very studios. he had the little glasses, tall, lanky guy. he did not look like someone you would expect to get in a street brawl, much less kill someone. >> but several eyewitnesss disagreed. ♪ and there's nothing good around ♪ ♪ turn around, barry ♪ i finally found the right snack ♪ [ female announcer ] fiber one.

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>> hundreds of friends turned out for dusty hollis' funeral. >> love you, dusty. >> he was a former wrestling champion, and a world-class wake boarder. his friends went out into the pacific near his home and dropped wreathes of flowers into

the water in his memory. >> he knew so many people in san diego, different groups of people in different areas. and he had a lot of friends. like a lot of people loved him. if you knew dusty, you were touched and you were lucky. >> the autopsy revealed the cause of dusty's death was a single stab wound to his aorta, the largest artery in the body. >> just one stab wound and it went in four inches into the body and sliced the aorta. >> dusty's girlfriend, sky flanders, did not see everything that happened. but she was certain that david genzler was a killer. >> he looked kind of crazed. he looked like a wild animal.

really. he had like a crazy look in his eyes and got in his car and left. so?-- yeah, he didn't say anything. >> eventually, an eyewitness came forward. his name was scott davis. he said he was driving by and saw two men fighting and stopped to try to break it up. >> scott davis was a first class petty officer with the navy who was moonlighting as a bouncer at a local bar. and he drove up just as this was beginning. and what he said is as he drove up, he saw the beginning of the confrontation and he saw the defendant take a hard swing and hit dusty on the left side of his head and that dusty went down on his back, that the defendant jumped on top of him, straddled him, pulled out a knife with his right hand and stabbed him once in the chest. >> davis said he fled the scene because genzler had threatened him, too, but david genzler's

version of events was significantly different. he said dusty harless instigated the fight by pulling him out of his car and wrestling him face down to the ground. he also said that scott davis, the so-called witness, was in fact an active participant. genzler insisted is that davis kicked him repeatedly, while dusty had him pinned down, but managed to get a knife out of his pocket to defend himself. >> he was thinking he was getting his ass kicked and he was in fear of his life and he blindly reaches back and stabs him. is it likely or unlikely? i really can't say. and that is what made the one stab wound into pretty much the center of the chest of dusty. >> a week after dusty's death, police found genzler's car parked on the other side of the city. >> we were able to get dna from the steering wheel, from the gear shift and the turn signal, and that dna, that blood came back and matched that of the victim, dusty harless.

>> this tied genzler to the killing. a short time later, after hearing about the incident in the media, one of genzler's friends turned over a knife that was to belong to genzler. >> it was consistent with the depth of the wound and other dimensions of the wound. and the friend also turned over a bloody shirt. tests revealed the blood on the shirt was that of the victim, dusty harless. the blood was on the front of the shirt inconsistent with genzler's version of the incident. had genzler been underneath dusty, on his stomach when he stabbed him, dusty's blood would have been on the back of genzler's shirt, not the front. >> the fact that the majority of the blood was on the front, it seems a more likely theory that

it was a front, face-to-face confrontation. >> based on the facts and the case, based on the eyewitnesses, based on the periphery witnesses after the fact, i felt we had a murder case here. >> i can't believe i took another man's life. i thought i got the guy in the shoulder. i didn't know he was going to die. >> david genzler was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of dusty harless. he was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. >> which in california means life. people don't get parole when they have indeterminate life sentences like that. >> while in prison, genzler continued to maintain he had acted in self-defense and he hoped that one day he would get a second chance to prove his innocence. aflac. ♪

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>> david genzler couldn't understand how a jury concluded he beat a national wrestling champion, then stabbed him in the chest without provocation. genzler appealed his conviction, arguing that he was denied his choice of council. >> the defendant's initial attorney, jerry black, was ruled not to be able to represent him

because of some technical issues. the court of appeals said that that denied genzler his right to the counsel of his choice and reversed it on that ground. >> in preparing for the second trial, genzler's new defense team made the claim of self defense more believable. numerous witnesses came forward to say dusty harless had a reputation for starting fights. >> they brought people in that said my son was a street brawler. i don't know how they found them, but they found some people that were not really a dusty fan. >> in addition, toxicology tests showed dusty was legally intoxicated at the time of his death with a?.12 blood alcohol level. there were also traces of marijuana in his system.

and the defense team discovered that sky flanders originally gave police a completely different version of events from what she testified to at trial. >> sky flanders is interesting. she told police that she saw dusty in a wrestling hold, holding genzler and throwing him. later she changed that story on the stand in the first trial and testified that it was genzler, who was the complete aggressor, coming after him. >> sky did admit that dusty started fights. >> sky did admit that she committed perjury that she had seen dusty in one brawl after being insulted in a bar, he took a guy out and beat him bad in the alley and she had heard of several other fights where he was always pretty much the

winner. he's a good fighter, apparently. >> it was now coming out that i had not been completely truthful in my original testimonies. and the reason i had said that is because i didn't want to feed the defense any information that they would use against dusty in the case. >> from the beginning, david genzler described in specific detail how dusty held him to the ground. to see if this was possible, the defense consulted ned blass, a two-time national collegiate wrestling champion. and in the hall of fame. he said it was classic technique that every wrestler is taught. >> and i'm taking the position

of mr. genzler, mr. harless over here. i probably don't want to fight. i would back up, he would back me up. grab my arm and turn me up and drive my head down into a position i cannot get up. he pulls my head back, i realize i have a knife in my belt, and i take it out, plenty of room to stab whoever i want to stab. >> the prosecutors scoffed at this notion as did dusty's family. >> david genzler would have us believe that he was laying face down on the ground and dusty was sitting on his back and that david actually stabbed dusty like this up over the back of his head and stabbed him in the chest while he was sitting on his back. i mean, there are just so many things that don't wash here. >> but if genzler was telling the truth, why was the blood all over the front of his shirt and not the back?

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>> david genzler spent six years in prison for the murder of wrestler dusty harless, but he eagerly awaited his new trial. his hopes were raised when dusty's girlfriend, sky

flanders, changed her story and now admitted that dusty had been in several previous fights with others while they were out. as both sides prepared for the second trial, they each had very different explanations for how dusty's blood got on genzler's shirt. >> we have a blood spatter interpretation expert look at it from our crime lab. the defense hires a blood spatter interpretation expert to look at it from their end. and not surprising at all, their opinions are opposed. >> the shirt had a large stain on the right front shoulder. since dusty's aorta had been severed, both defense and prosecution experts agreed the blood would have been spurting from the wound in the same cadence as his heart beat. this meant the blood flow wasn't continuous. >> with an aortic wound, the

blood doesn't generally spill out. it spurts out or sprays out because of the pressure of the aorta. >> defense experts believe this would have given genzler enough time to rotate his torso to face dusty as the blood spurted from the wound. but genzler's attorney had to find some way to show the jury how this could have happened. and, for that, he turned to the new field of forensic animation. >> forensic animation has a specific application within the court system and those animations have to be conformed to the rules of the court and

what are expected in terms of rules of evidence. >> the computer takes several key frames and then calculates the most likely way the bodies would move from one key position to another. >> it's called post to post animation, which was developed in the '30s by disney where they would make a pose and then you draw the next major pose and then you fill in in-between later. >> a layer called a texture map was then created to show the movement of the blood to genzler's shirt. >> we wanted the eye to focus on this almost in a clinical frame of mind rather than an emotional frame of mind. >> a frame-by-frame sequence was created corroborating genzler's story by showing how the blood got on his shirt. in august of 2000, six years

after dusty harless' death, david genzler went on trial a second time for murder. the defense presented a much different account of the incident than the prosecution did. the defense said genzler innocently offered sky flanders a ride because he thought she was alone. and the toxicology reports proved dusty harless was intoxicated. genzler said dusty pulled him out of the car and, in short order, pinned him to the ground. and that the witness, scott davis, helped dusty by kicking genzler while he was pinned. genzler says the fight was two against one and that he pulled the knife from his pocket, stabbed blindly behind him and quickly turned around, so that the blood hit the front of his shirt. scott davis admitted leaving the scene of the incident and strongly denies attacking genzler. this interpretation of the forensic evidence, the forensic animation, and testimony of the hall of fame wrestling coach resulted in a very different conclusion.

david genzler was found guilty of the much lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. his sentence was reduced to time served and he was released from prison. >> his life could have been ruined. now he's a free man. i don't know what he is doing now but i understand he wanted to become a lawyer. >> the case shows the limits of what answers science can provide. questions about exactly what happened the night of dusty harless' death remain. >> most likely the main reason why there was more forensic evidence the second trial is because there was literally years in between to prepare and to really go through everything with a fine tooth comb and to present all evidence that you possibly could. >> i've learned that in a fight, in a physical fight, things don't go always according to plan. the guy who is supposed to win the fight ends up losing. anything can happen.

i think that is what happened in this case. >> exactly what happened i don't think anybody will really know. except possibly the defendant. homicide investigators faced a difficult question -- was the death of a young woman in a deserted park suicide, or was it murder? an alert homicide detective found a tiny clue in a suspect's trash can, and it was a discarded bandage, a dental expert and the colossal blunder that revealed a loved quadrangle with enough intrigue to go around. 19-year-old devon guzman left her apartment one night and never returned home.