>> it was a great reminder that things aren't always as what they seem. they're not always what people try to portray them to be. up next, it looked like a joyride, but was something much worse. >> she was going to jump out of the back of the truck while it was moving. >> we just thought it was a crazy drunk person, you know, just partying. >> the evidence suggests foul play. >> all we knew was there was a woman who was in distress in this truck. >> but was this an accident or murder? >> this story was inconsistent with reality. >> the bull pen bar in the northern california town of guerneville was becoming a hangout for 32-year-old michelle johnson. the one-time aspiring model had fallen on tough times.

after the breakup of her ten-year marriage, michelle and her two young children were forced to live with her parents, and that wasn't working out. >> there was some strain between michelle and her mom and the stepfather, paul. they didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. >> so, michelle moved out and got her own apartment. to celebrate, michelle went to the bull pen bar, where she was supposed to meet her friends. michelle stayed for about 25 minutes, talked briefly to some bar patrons, and had three drinks. >> we could see that she seemed to be acting appropriately, she seemed to be having a good time. >> then she left by herself at 12:54 a.m. michelle's friends who were in michelle's apartment building left to meet her at the bar. but as they walked outside, they saw something unusual.

it was a red pickup truck with a woman in the back of the truck flailing her arms. >> all we knew was there was a woman who was in distress in this truck. >> michelle's friends went to the bar, learned that michelle had already left and went back to michelle's apartment. that's when they saw the red truck again, this time with no one in the back. further down the road, they found michelle's jacket, some jewelry, a blood stain, and the tooth. >> there was a watch found that had been broken and had stopped alt at like 1:24 in the morning, which matched up with the witness statements they saw this woman screaming in the back of the truck after 1:00. >> we were hoping for the best, but i mean, when you hear something like that, then you can't help but think the worst. >> her friends now wondered whether it might have been michelle in the back of that truck.

>> straddling the tailgate flailing her arms, like, screaming. and at the time we didn't -- we just thought it was a crazy drunk person, you know, partying. >> she was trying to get out of the truck to the point she was going to jump out of the back of the truck while it was moving. >> unfortunately, michelle's friends couldn't remember anything about the truck except that it was red. police canvassed area hospitals. no one matching michelle's description had been admitted. law enforcement volunteers and family members searched the area looking for michelle but were unsuccessful. >> as time progressed and we realized that we weren't finding her, she wasn't showing up at the hospitals, that this was more likely a kidnapping scenario. >> tests showed the blood on the highway was the same blood type as michelle's, but dna testing would take several weeks. >> there was a pool of blood and leading away from that pool of

blood were drag marks in blood, which indicates that whoever was bleeding was drug away. >> we got an opinion that if she didn't get immediate medical attention based on what we saw at the crime scene, that she was probably going to die. >> now it was a race against time, and police soon found a likely suspect very close to home. hey guys! sorry we're late. did you run into traffic? no, just had to stop by the house to grab a few things. you stopped by the house? uh-huh. yea. alright, whenever you get your stuff, run upstairs, get cleaned up for dinner. you leave the house in good shape? yea. yea, of course. ♪ [ sportscaster talking on tv ] last-second field go-- yea, sure ya did. [ male announcer ] introducing at&t digital life. personalized home security and automation. get professionally monitored security for just $29.99 a month. with limited availability in select markets. ♪ morning because my back hurt so badly.

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>> mister was very bright and bubbly and lit up a room when she walked in it. she was always smiling. she always wanted to be friends with everyone, be around everyone, make everyone happy. >> as police searched for michelle johnson, they worked under the theory that she'd been kidnapped. michelle's friends told police they saw a red truck drive by with a woman in the back, and they now assumed it was michelle. >> it never ceases to amaze me when you get a car and description and a color, and then you start looking for it and you realize, wow, they're everywhere.

>> but one was close by. michelle's stepfather, paul doyle, often drove a red truck. >> one of paul's friends had a red truck. so, they came to talk to paul about his friend and about him and about where they were that night. >> the owner of the truck, shaun phillips, told police that paul often used his truck and that he had his own set of keys. and paul had a possible motive. michelle's mother had once taken out a restraining order against him. michelle hated him and she wasn't shy about letting him know it. >> we knew there were some type of dynamics, you know, some negativity involved in the relationship between michelle and paul. >> during his interrogation, paul told investigators something they found strange. he said he was shopping at a supermarket near the bull pen bar the night michelle went missing and that he'd seen her.

>> he said that he was with michelle's mom at about midnight, 12:30, and they actually saw michelle walking through the parking lot, and because of the strained relationship, they didn't make contact with her or try to talk to her. >> this took place less than an hour before her leather jacket and tooth were found on the side of the road. >> paul could have dropped mom off and come back to do something to her. any number of things could have happened. >> paul denied any involvement and passed a polygraph. the owner of the truck, shawn phillips, also had an alibi for the night of michelle's disappearance. he was 70 miles away in san francisco. >> we were later able to identify him in some surveillance footage down there in the city at the time of the murder. >> after four days of searching, police found michelle's nude body in a nearby river covered

in mud. >> she had extensive blunt force injury of the head. it was both external bruises and abrasions and internal bleeding around the brain and within the brain. she also had a number of fractures involving the jaws, both the upper jaw and the lower jaw. >> despite the severe head trauma, the autopsy showed it was not the cause of death. >> it was multiple blunt force injuries to the head complicated by a drowning. she had been placed in the water still living. >> strangest of all, michelle's killer had cut off almost all her hair. >> it was pretty hacked. when you see her in the surveillance video in the bar, she had beautiful, waist-length hair, and when we found her, it had been essentially hacked off. >> this raised disturbing possibilities about the killer and his motivations. >> people, especially men that kill women, have been known to do that to retain a souvenir, for example. >> that type of behavior is

often exhibited by serial killers. if that were the case, there was no connection between michelle and her killer. ♪

what is this place? where are we? this is where we bring together the fastest internet and the best in entertainment. we call it the x1 entertainment operating system. it looks like the future! we must have encountered a temporal vortex. further analytics are necessary. beam us up. ♪ that's my phone. hey. [ female announcer ] the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. tv and internet together like never before. during michelle johnson's autopsy, the medical examiner

discovered something else that could have been a factor in her death. >> she had substantial amounts of both alcohol and methamphetamine in her system. she had substantial enough amounts so that if she had been found, say deceased in her apartment with no injury, then those would have been considered the cause of death. >> but michelle was murdered before the drugs could kill her. she'd been savagely beaten, and her tooth and blood on highway 116 made it clear her killer hit her at least once while she was on or near the highway. >> she'd suffered severe trauma to her face. this was no vehicular manslaughter case at all. >> i found no evidence of sexual assault. i was looking for semen, spermatozoa, foreign hair, foreign fibers. i found nothing. >> shortly after michelle johnson's body was found, police checked the motor vehicle

records of people living in the immediate area. they were looking for any males who drove a red pickup truck. besides michelle's stepfather, who had use of a friend's red truck, there was another man, luke hasler, whose apartment was within walking distance of where michelle's body was found. >> detectives went to his house to talk to him and take a look at his truck. they thought he was a little nervous but, quite frankly, that can be very normal when homicide detectives show up at your house and want to talk to you. >> luke hasler, a butcher, was 34 years old, never married, and had no children. a background check revealed a restraining order had been filed by a former girlfriend two years earlier, but what stood out most to police was his membership in a private club called the odd fellows club.

it was only a block away from the bull pen bar, and he was there the night of michelle's murder. >> one of the witnesses said he left about 12:30, quarter to midnight. they saw him walk across the street to the bull pen bar to get his truck. >> this was about the same time michelle left the bull pen bar. investigators asked managers at the odd fellows club if they remembered anything unusual about that night or about luke hasler. >> they said that mr. hasler was very intoxicated. he had done things that some people characterized as strange. he was on purpose spilling his drink. and then when the waitress would come over to mop up the floor, that he was peering down their tops. >> hasler was shown michelle's picture. he said she didn't know who she was and he'd never seen her. investigators looked in the bed of hasler's truck and could find

no blood, although it looked like someone had recently washed it. so, investigators concocted a reduce, just to see how hasler would react. >> another detective took a napkin and a little bottle of water and kind of rubbed it along the back of the truck bed, kind of simulating a dna test. >> at the time, hasler showed no reaction, but later, he called friends to express his concerns. >> he started making a few phone calls to his girlfriend and two other friends at that point and mentioned that one of the conversationed, you know, hey, they took a swap out of the back of my truck. so, that's really what i think kind of spun him out at that point. >> this was hardly enough even for a search warrant. but then police got a call from a woman who refused to identify herself. >> she was very distraught. she only could tell me that she knew that a person that she knew

as luke hasler was involved. >> she just had a feeling this person was involved in the crime. >> the woman wouldn't say how she knew this man or why she suspected he was involved in michelle johnson's murder. >> so that was kind of the breaking point of the case is that we knew luke was involved. >> police with nothing to lose told hasler about the call, and now he changed his story. >> luke's story was that he had accidentally hit her with his truck, that she was in the middle of the road when he came around the corner or something. >> hasler said he put michelle in the back of the truck to take her to the hospital, but michelle regained consciousness and fled when he stopped at a traffic light. >> luke said she then jumped out of the back of the truck and that was the last he knew. >> this story was consistent with the eyewitness accounts. they claimed they saw someone who looked like michelle in the back of his truck, but later,

she was gone. >> luke's story could have made sense. i hit somebody with the car and there's blood, and that's prelate normal. >> but investigators needed more evidence if they were going to bring luke hasler to justice. ♪

what is this place? where are we? this is where we bring together the fastest internet and the best in entertainment. we call it the x1 entertainment operating system. it looks like the future! we must have encountered a temporal vortex. further analytics are necessary. beam us up. ♪ that's my phone. hey. [ female announcer ] the x1 entertainment operating system, only from xfinity. tv and internet together like never before. there were lots of unanswered questions about what

happened to michelle johnson. luke hasler said he'd accidentally hit her with his truck, but the autopsy didn't support his story. >> one would expect to find fractures -- fractures of the arms, legs, maybe pelvis. she had none of those. the second type of injury would be abrasion. a convenient term for that is road rash. think about friction as somebody slides down the road unprotected. she had no abrasions. >> the massive amount of injury that could occur when you're hit by a vehicle is totally different than what we see here. >> michelle's autopsy did show a massive blow to the mouth, either with a fist or some foreign object. but hasler had no marks on his hands. with a warrant, investigators searched inside hasler's house, but found no traces of blood, no traces of michelle's hair or her clothing. they also searched inside his

truck. >> we spent essentially three days ripping the inside of that truck out to look at it more closely, to try to find any kind of forensic evidence we could to tie michelle with being in that truck. >> it was beginning to look like either michelle was never inside hasler's truck or hasler had washed the truck so well that there was no forensic evidence. but investigators kept looking, and after several days found something significant. a tiny stain on the bottom of the seat belt buckle almost invisible to the naked eye. tests showed it was human blood. they also found blood on another item under the front seat. >> on the jumper cables. this was a set of 12-foot-long jumper cables.

i found traces of blood along the entire length of the jumper cables, including the clamps on the end. >> dna tests identified where the blood came from. >> all genetic markers that we tested for the evidence samples, the blood samples from the car and from michelle johnson all matched. >> this left only one explanation. michelle was inside hasler's truck and bleeding. >> it totally contradicted luke's story. she was inside the truck with luke and that it was her in luke's truck. and he had said that he only put her in the back of the truck. >> police believe michelle, high on methamphetamine and legally drunk, was walking home from the bull pen bar. luke hasler, also drunk, was driving home at the exact same time and saw her. it appears he stopped his truck

and probably made a sexual proposition. >> why don't you leave me alone, you jerk. >> an altercation ensued. hasler, who outweighed michelle by more than 100 pounds, simply threw her in the back of the truck and took off. a few minutes later, michelle's friends saw her in the back of the truck, although they didn't recognize her. two miles down the road, hasler stopped the truck and got out. michelle jumped out of the truck bed and, preparing for a fight, tore off her jacket. but she was no match for hasler. he hit her in the mouth, knocked her tooth out, and she lost consciousness. he bundled her into the front seat, where she bled over the seat belt, the floorboards and the jumper cables. hasler then made a u-turn and headed to his house. on his way there, michelle's friends saw hasler's truck

again, but this time, michelle was in the cab of the truck, and they didn't see her. in an attempt to conceal her identity, hasler stripped off her clothes, cut off her hair, and then threw her into the river, where she drowned. the next day, hasler washed the truck, both inside and out, but still left some crucial evidence behind. >> just keep reseeing that image in my head of her going down screaming and us not realizing that was her. that was when she was alive. we could have done something then, but we didn't know. >> at his trial, hasler again changed his story. he said he was so drunk he might have put michelle inside his truck. he also explained why he cut her hair. >> mr. hasler said at his trial the reason he cut off michelle's hair was because he vomited in it and he didn't want his dna to be detected on her body. >> but the jury didn't believe

michelle's death was an accident, and luke hasler was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. his version of what happened almost seemed plausible until the evidence showed it was all a lie. >> a lot of people are either killed or seriously injured in car accidents, so there's a lot of data about what type of injuries those cause. those were nowhere like michelle's injuries. so the medical examiner's report was critical to say, no, this was not a car accident. >> we knew they had him, but without evidence, they couldn't have put him away, they couldn't have found him guilty. >> a lot of what forensics does is to corroborate or disprove stories. we answer questions by looking at physical evidence, and we're able to say that story fits or that story doesn't fit with what we're seeing here.

>> the forensic evidence gave us the cause of death, and it also told us some things that couldn't have happened. the defendant, on the other hand, insisted on an injury pattern that was not reflected on the body. and his story was inconsistent with reality, so that made it with reality, so that made it pretty straightforward. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com major developments overnight on flight 370. debris spotted and now, more information on just who had those passports. talks in crimea hit a diplomatic road block. the state department and vladimir putin now battling over even needing to discuss the future of ukraine. and with a referendum now just five days away, ukraine's ousted president speaking out. physically ill. oscar pistorius breaks down in court, even covers his ears as a doctor describes the injuries that ended his