the dead. i've made that my motto over the last 20 years. recognizing that that crime scene is now the voice for the dead. a high school teacher mysteriously disappeared. did she go on vacation without telling anyone or was she taken against her will? could forensic science find the answer? not all students do well in traditional schools. for teenagers in san antonio, texas,s robins academy is an alternative for high school students who need extra help. >> they take two kinds of students. students who just don't do well

in the sort of traditional high school environment and also students who have failed out of disciplinary issues, attendance issues, behavioral issues. >> 58-year-old diane tilly was one of the school's founders. her success with troubled students earned her the nickname the miracle worker. >> diane was the kind of teacher who really believed in her students and saw potential in them and they responded to that. >> and she had something about her that she was able to work with these individuals and get the most out of them, motivate them, raise their self-esteem. >> the day before thanks giving in 2004, diane wasn't at school at her usual time. >> we knocked on the door. no one there.

so they looked in the window. they saw the state was in a state of disarray and became alarmed. >> police were called to the scene and they knew immediately there had been a robbery. >> it's ransacked. things scattered all over the place. >> the house looked like it had been turned inside out. even the linen closet had been gone through. >> i started thinking to myself, okay, what could have happened here. >> electronic equipment was missing from the home. as was diane's .357 magnum pistol she kept for protection. >> the most ominous clie in the beginning was the bullet hole through the couch that had lodged in the floor in the front room. so there was a threat of violence from the very begin . >> police technicians found no foreign fingerprints in diane's home and her car was missing. the lack of blood evidence raised the possibility that diane might not have been home when the crime occurred.

>> i was kind of maybe waiting to see maybe she would come through the door and say, you know, what happened to my house. >> but there were other includes that signalled trouble. detectives found an empty condom wrapper on the floor and a pair of tennis shoes with the laces missing. diane's purse was still in the home, but her atm card was gone. on the kitchen table, investigators found three atm withdrawal receipts time stamped around 8:00 p.m. from the night before. interestingly, all three withdrawals were unsuccessful. >> but who would forget their pin number three times and still have a transaction receipt come out. there's something -- something's not right with this. >> so investigators decided to set a trap. they asked diane's bank to keep

her account open. >> and so i was like, please use that card. please use that card so that we can zero in on you and we can find you and hopefully we can find diane tilly as well. he thought it was the endn for his dof the conversation.d... she didn't tell him that her college expenses were going up. or that she maxed out her card during spring break. when the satellite provider checked his credit, he found out his daughter didn't pay her bills. but he's not worried. now he checks his credit report and score at experian.com, allowing him to keep track of his credit and take a break of his own. experian. live credit confident.

the disappearance of diane tilly made headlines in san antonio, texas. she had helped many students with learning problems and in the process, made many friends. >> most students don't talk to their teachers about their personal problems, but almost all the students talked to her. >> she lived alone, which explained why no one seemed to know where she was. investigators spoke to her boyfriend. a municipal court judge who lived in dallas 300 miles away. he told police he was in dallas the previous night and he'd spoken with diane at 6:00 p.m. phone records confirmed his story. >> this was a serious relationship. this was not someone who was, you know, vindictive or out to

harm her in any form or fashion. he was overly concerned for her welfare. >> police checked the airlines and found no evidence that diane took a flight to dallas or anywhere else, for that matter. and they had to consider whether any of diane's students might have wanted to harm her. >> that was something that we really looked at carefully. her students were troubled kids. troubles youths. like i said, some of them with backgrounds -- gang member backgrounds and things like that. >> while investigators looked into that possibility, they had only one sure lead to follow. the atm receipts found on diane's kitchen counter. a code number on the receipts identified the atm that rejected diane's card. it was inside a shell gas station just a mile from diane's home.

fortunately, there were high quality security cameras. >> we were able to actually see an individual walk up to the atm, attempt to use the atm card and then leave the store with the three declined transaction receipts in his hand. >> the man was black or his panic. tall and thin. 20 minutes later, a young girl used diane's atm card at another location. on this attempt, the girl used the correct pin number and successfully withdrew $400 from diane's account. and the two were driving what appeared to be a fleetwood cadillac which looked like diane's car. a few hours later, a motorist found diane's car on fire in a deserted field. >> when i got to the scene and saw them extinguishing her car, i remember thinking, god, please don't let her be in the trunk of that car.

>> fortunately, she wasn't. another witness saw a white pickup truck leave the scene, but he didn't get the license plate number. >> they gave the same descriptions of the suspects that we had in the surveillance videos. >> back in diane tilly's home, investigators were able to find a partial fingerprint on a liquor bottle. >> i think that they wore gloves through most of what was going on in diane tilly's house. he apparently took the gloves off long enough to enjoy a drink of some scotch in the kitchen, thus leaving the fingerprint on the bottom of the bottle. >> investigators desperately wanted to find the man and young girl using diane's atm card. they knew that diane tilly's life might depend on it.

we're just all holding our breath. there are many prayers going up, i can assure you, today for her. >> i'm angry and i want to know where she's at and i just miss her. >> afraid to go outside. >> we have not found a body. we have not found substantial amounts of blood.

>> something's not right. >> the prime suspects in diane tilly's disappearance were the middle aged man and young girl last seen driving a white pickup truck. every plam in the area was on the look out. it wasn't long before they stopped two people who fit that description. they were identified as 15-year-old pearl cruz and her 33-year-old father ronnie neal. both denied any involvement in diane tilly's disappearance, but they admitted stealing her car. >> you said, i was at a car wash and i found diane tilly's car. he said, you're not going to believe this, but the car was running and the door was open and there was all this stuff in it and i just couldn't resist it.

>> and how did he get diane tilly's atm card? >> what he said was in the glove box of this car, he found her atm card. with a little piece of paper just below it with the pin number. >> i knew he was lying. you could tell by his body language that just everything that came out of his mouth was a lie. >> neal said he was following diane's ace eye peerns in the news and didn't want to be lipged to it, so he got rid of diane's car. >> this was a man who was just grasping at straw. >> a background check revealed he had multiple convictions for robbery and had recently been released from prison for a weapons violation. and police discovered a link between diane and ronnie. >> ronnie met diane first through his lawn mowing business. diane had apparently hired him to do some work in her yard.

>> ronnie neal's fingerprint matched the partial print found on the liquor bottle in diane's home. and the check of his cell phone records indicate he called his ex-wife on the night of diane's abduction. >> he gets on his cell phone and we actually have this cell phone bouncing off a tower. >> the area was about 15 miles from diane tilly's home, an area encompasses hundreds if not thousands of acres. it did however lead to speculation. >> i believe he was standing over the body of diane tilly when he called his ex-wife. >> when questioned, she confirmed the call, but claimed she knew nothing about diane's abduction. according to ms. stanley, neal told her he came into some money and asked her to go shopping.

despite this evidence, ronnie neal refused to cooperate. so police focused on his father pearl. she too refused to cooperate, at least initially. >> i recall being very angry with pearl over what happened. with diane tilly and telling her that there wasn't a day that was going to go by that she wasn't going to think about this. >> and after ten days in custody, pearl led police to diane's body. it was the area where ronnie neal made his cell phone call. a deserted field under a pile of brush 15 miles from diane's home. although the body was badly decomposed, it was clear that she'd been shot several times. her hands were bound with a dark blue polyester shoe lace that looked like the missing shoe

lace from diane's tennis shoes. both laces had the same tiny specs. and there were other similarities. >> the plastic pieces on the end of the shoelaces. they were the same size and the same color on both shoelaces. >> dental records confirmed the body was diane tilly. >> everybody had a tremendous emotional reaction. it was very, very depressing. it really was. it was very sad. there seemed to be no good at all to take out of this story, no good that could come out of it. >> inside neal's motel room, investigators found diane's .357 handgun, her luggage and electronic equipment. the bullets recovered from

diane's body were badly damaged, but the bottom part was relatively intact. >> i didn't have the whole bullet, but at least had the entire circumference of the base i could examine. >> they could discern the lands and grooves on the bottom of the fatal bullets. the bullets test fired from diane's gun were the same as those that killed her. >> you're looking for these matching scratches. they have to have the same type of character, in other words, depth or the width of them and the spacing between them. >> despite the amount of decomposition, scientists recovered a biological sample from diane's body which matched ronnie neal's dna profile, proof of sexual assault. eventually, pearl told investigators the entire story of what happened to diane tilly.

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so you reach for something better. fewer calories. fewer carbs. more to experience. michelob ultra. the superior light beer. after finding diane tilly's body, police arrested 33-year-old ronnie neal and his

15-year-old daughter pearl cruz and charged them both with kidnapping and murder. investigators discovered that ronnie neal had done some landscaping work for diane and she even gave him a swing set she se no longer needed. >> diane took a little bit of care to engage pearl. she mentioned something to pearl about, you know, i like your nail polish. it's pretty. and i think she asked pearl where she went to school. >> pearl cruz told investigators that she and her father planned almost from the start to rob diane. >> well, it's a very disturbing story. it's disturbing on many levels. it's not an easy story to digest at all. >> on the night of the murder, pearl knocked on diane's door

and told her their truck broke down a few blocks away and asked to use the telephone. once inside, pearl pulled a gun. then opened the size door for her father. neal tied diane's hands with a shoe lace from one of her tennis shoes, then stole her gun and atm card. neal took a drink of scotch, leaving his partial print on the bottom of the bottle. then asked diane for the pin number for her atm card. while pearl guarded diane, neal went to the atm to withdraw money from diane's account. that's when he discovered diane had given him the wrong number. so he returned to the house and threatened to kill diane's cat unless she gave him the correct pin number.

at some point, neal fired a warning shot into the sofa. diane gave him the correct pin number and the cat was unharmed. neal left the rejected atm receipts on the dining room table, packed diane's car with stolen belongings and sexually assaulted her. then all three people, ronnie, pearl, and diane, drove away in her car. they found a different atm machine and this time, pearl successfully withdraw $400 from diane's account. from there, they took diane to the deserted field. and diane's final words were about forgiveness.

>> the last thing pearl said she heard diane say was bless this child. >> according to cell phone records, neal stood over diane's body and called pearl's mother telling her he had recently come into some money and suggested they all go shopping. later, neal ditched diane's car and set it on fire thinking they had destroyed all the forensic evidence. but they still left plenty behind. >> neal was not executed by the state, then it would really be a travesty. >> we the jury find the defendant guilty -- >> in april of 2006, ronnie neal was tried and convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection. pearl's life was spared in

exchange for her testimony. she was sentenced to 30 years in prison. >> if you're looking for a teenager who's going to get right while incarcerated, i'm afraid you're going to have to wait in pearl's case. she's a deeply disturbed and abused individual. >> psycho paths are not born, they're created. pearl cruz was certainly created. >> people who knew diane tilly are struck by the irony. pearl was exactly the type of child diane devoted her life to. >> diane would have connected with her. and she could have turned her around. >> in the end, pearl cruz's eyewitness testimony helped, by investigators say they could have gotten the conviction without it. >> we didn't have to rely on anybody's independent testimony to convict ronnie neal. we wouldn't have to put one

person except for the scientists on the stabbed to convict this guy. >> not knowing the science the way we know science, you know, these criminals just don't think. and that's -- that kind of vantage for us. a woman's suicide raised questions about why she did it. was it depression, anger, revenge? until a forensic pathologist questioned whether it was a suicide at all. her dream was to marry a successful man, have children, live comfortably and have lots of friends. 33-year-old jennifer corbin got all that and more when she married dr. bart corbin. >> they had a houseboat.