crime. it will catch up with you sooner or later. up next, a young aspiring singer disappears. >> a telltale sign of somebody running from something. >> she had a history of running away. she had always come back. >> surveillance cameras tell at least part of the story. >> when i saw the video, i started feeling very confident that we were focusing on the right guy. >> all they had to do now was to find him. >> 16-year-old joshan ashbrook had dreams of stardom. >> her sister and shan used to

write songs, different little lyrics and things and they wrote one song called "wanna." ♪ i wanna love you but could you love me too i feel so safe when i'm with you i want to love you ♪ >> and joshan sang this song and they really wanted to get it recorded and to do something nice with it. and she just didn't get the chance to finish that. >> and if a singing career didn't work out, she had a backup plan. >> joshan wanted to be an entertainment lawyer so she

normally she would run away, spend the night somewhere else and come home the following day or maybe two days later.

as police search for joshan ashbrook's killer, the medical examiner learned that the knife wound to her throat was not the cause of death. >> the medical examiner explained that the suspect may have put her in some type of wrestling move, like a half nelson, and turned or put extreme pressure on her, which dislocated -- which broke her neck. >> an autopsy found no evidence of sexual assault. in a search for suspects, joshan's family suggested police interview john hansen, a 60-year-old family friend who lived nearby. >> john was an older gentleman who hung out at the house all the time with us. in my opinion, he seemed after a while to get too close to the

children. he always wanted to be their friend, more so than the friends of an adult. >> within 24 hours of finding joshan's body, investigators went to hansen's trailer to question him, but he was gone. >> we talked to the park manager and some of the neighbors and they said they hadn't seen him in a day or two. >> a background check revealed hansen, a day laborer, estranged from his wife, had no history of violence. >> a 60-year-old man, having teens hang around his house does lead to suspicion as to what is going on. >> while police searched for hansen, criminalists measured for tire impressions found near joshan's body. those measurements and tread patterns were entered into a computer database that showed 20 different tires manufactured around the world. >> there were then several different manufacture models that could have made that tire

impression at the crime scene. different manufacturers sometimes sell their mold to other manufacturers, so therefore, you would have the same mold but yet under different manufacturer model names. >> all seven of these tire models were for larger vehicles, which meant joshan's killer was driving either a truck or an suv. then police got an important lead from a woman who saw joshan the day she ran away. >> hi, it's joshan. >> she received a phone call from joshan about 8:30 in the morning on july 31st. >> joshan asked if she could come by and drop off a letter. >> within minutes, a red ford pickup pulls up, joshan gets out, runs to the door. >> the note was for the woman's son, max, who was joshan's boyfriend. >> it was, "hi. i miss you. i love you. i'll call you later." that type of note. >> she just appeared to be in a

hurry and wanted to leave. >> the woman said the driver was a middle-aged white male, but she didn't get a good look at his face. she did, however, provide a valuable piece of information. >> max's mother provided us with the cell phone number on her caller i.d. >> when investigators called the number, a man answered the phone. >> we're able to get the person on the phone. he said his name was phillup thompson. and he was asked if he knew anybody by the name of joshan ashbrook, and if he had picked up anybody or knew this female. >> phillup thompson confirmed he and his daughter had picked up joshan when she was hitchhiking. >> hey, can i borrow your phone real quick? >> took her to her boyfriend's house to leave the note. and then they dropped her off at the local walmart. >> and that is the last that he had seen of her. >> phillup thompson agreed to meet police later that day, but

he failed to show up for his appointment. >> investigators looked at that as possibly you know, a telltale sign of somebody, you know, who was running away from something. >> but police received some troubling news. the cell phone was not registered to phillup thompson. it was registered to phillup partin, a convicted killer. >> phillup partin was convicted of a murder that he committed in 1987 in which he strangled a man with a phone cord or some kind of cord. >> short version was that phillup partin was what they call a hustler, a male prostitute. he had picked up this gay math teacher at a local club. they went back to the teacher's place. something happened. partin beat him, strangled him to death with the telephone cord. once he killed him, he took his wallet, credit card, money and got into the car and drove off. >> partin was convicted of

second degree murder, served six years in prison and was released in 1995. police believed that it was partin they had been speaking to about joshan. partin said he and his daughter dropped joshan off at this walmart the morning she disappeared. but that's not what store surveillance video showed. >> the walmart surveillance video shows them pulling in at around 8:48. you see the suspect, you see joshan, and you see the suspect's little girl. they spend five, ten minutes, purchase a couple of fishing items. and then they leave, get back in the vehicle and drive off. >> the videotape left no doubt joshan was with partin, a convicted murderer, just hours before her body was found. >> when i saw the video, i started feeling very confident that we were focusing on the right guy.

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♪ mattress discounters police searched nationwide for phillup partin, a convicted killer, who had already admitted to police during a phone call that he had picked up joshan ashbrook while she was

hitchhiking. investigators learned that partin and his daughter were living in newport richey, florida, with a friend he had met in prison. when questioned, partin's roommate said he hadn't seen partin or his daughter since joshan's murder was covered in the local news. he also said he had never seen joshan ashbrook at his house either. with a search warrant, police examined the room partin and his daughter had been using, and initially found nothing suspicious. >> we lifted up a throw rug that was in between the two beds, and when we pulled the throw rug back, there was a huge, discolored stain. >> the stain was about four feet long and smelled of bleach. it looked like someone had recently tried to clean it, so criminalists lifted the carpet and found traces of blood underneath, which they collected

for dna testing. forensic analysts also went over every inch of the room. >> they started searching, and on the wall they found a speck of blood that looked like it might have been a cast-off, a little tear drop. >> the blood on the wall and underneath the carpet yielded a genetic profile and it matched joshan's dna. >> we can say that joshan was killed in that bedroom. >> partin's roommate insisted he had nothing to do with joshan's murder, but wouldn't cooperate further. >> he did not want to cooperate with investigators nor the state's attorney's office, just hated authority. despised us. >> meanwhile, the search for phillup partin wasn't going well, even though he was in constant contact with police, via his cell phone.

>> phillup liked to talk. he would question detectives as to what do you have on me? why do you think i'm the one who did this? he was seeking answers. >> the problem was, partin would make a call and then drive away. so, it was impossible to pin down his location. one call came from across the country in washington state. >> this was just another way of mr. partin taunting the detectives. >> finally, the phone calls stopped completely. but then, two months after joshan's murder, police found an abandoned red pickup truck in a walmart parking lot, 50 miles away from where joshan's body was discovered. the license plate showed it was partin's truck. but on the truck were four bald tires. that didn't match the tire impressions at the crime scene. was partin trying to show he wasn't the killer by using decoy

tires? >> he's got to know we're going to take tire casts and we're going to know what kind of vehicle he was driving. he's pretty smart. >> but if that were the case, partin made a colossal mistake. in the glove compartment, investigators found three rolls of film. when developed, one picture showed his truck with different tires. one of them was a wild country brand tire. >> i was able to determine that the tire impressions made at the crime scene was made by one of seven. and one of them being the cooper wild country tire. >> this became a crucial piece of evidence for us in this case. >> with the help of an informant, police found partin's 7-year-old daughter. partin had dropped her off at a friend's home after the murder and never came back.

>> partin tells her, you don't know where i'm at, you don't know where i'm going, and don't tell anybody. take care of my child. i'll get back to you later on. he is never seen again. >> partin's daughter confirmed joshan's whereabouts on the night of the murder and said joshan never left the bedroom. >> she remembered that they went back to the house where they lived. went into the bedroom, and that she and joshan played the video games and watched tv. >> partin's daughter said she was asleep in the living room while her father and joshan were in the bedroom. when she awoke, joshan was gone. >> we asked her what time did joshan leave, and she didn't remember, probably after she went to bed. she had no knowledge of when they left. >> and she couldn't tell investigators where her father was hiding. >> this guy is pissing me off.

all the evidence in the joshan ashbrook murder pointed to one man. phillup partin, he was the last known person to see joshan alive. his truck once had the same brand of tires that left tracks just feet from her body. his own daughter put him with the victim the night of the murder. and perhaps, most tellingly of all, when police went to

question him, he went on the run. but he couldn't control his curiosity about the case and called detectives from all over the country. >> he ultimately thought he could beat the system. well, in doing that, we were able to trace his phone calls. >> with a warrant, investigators tapped his roommate's phone, just to see if partin would eventually call him. and that's what he did. when partin called his roommate, the police were listening in. they traced the call to a pay phone in fayetteville, north carolina. >> we knew that mr. partin was involved in the air conditioning business. we had a general area where the phone call came from.

so we concentrated the search in that area. >> and that is exactly where they found him. >> mr. partin was quite shocked to see detectives. he was taken into custody on a warrant. upon questioning by detectives, he refused most of the questions. he didn't confess. >> but dna finally told the tale. partin's dna matched dna on the hair found on joshan's body. >> this dna just sealed the deal. >> to see whether partin's roommate was involved, investigators searched his suv, and on the front seat found a blood stain. but a test on the blood stain didn't match joshan ashbrook. it was dna from the man's son. the roommate also claimed he was at work in tampa on the night joshan was murdered.

an alibi corroborated by his employer. prosecutors believed partin picked up joshan while she was hitchhiking. >> hey, there. >> partin gained joshan's trust by having his daughter with him. and by helping her with her errands. the security tapes show the three of them went shopping later that morning, bought some fishing gear, and according to partin's daughter, went fishing later that afternoon. partin's daughter said they returned to their rented room sometime late in the day. after dark, partin's daughter fell asleep on the sofa. partin may have made a sexual advance towards joshan, which she rebuffed. there was a fight. joshan grabbed some of his hair. and partin used a knife to cut her throat. blood spatter got onto the wall.

but it was a broken neck that caused joshan's death. partin took joshan's body to the woods 15 miles from her home. she had in her hand his dna. partin left his tire impression in the sand. later, partin attempted unsuccessfully to clean the blood from the bedroom. >> phillup partin is an opportunist who preys on young victims and vulnerable victims. i would consider him a sick individual. >> phillup partin went on trial for first-degree murder. he was found guilty and sentenced to death. >> the forensics evidence was the case. it was the case. her dna in the bedroom, and his dna, his hair found in her finger.

that's the case. everything else was circumstantial. >> mr. partin had a tattoo on his body that said "live free or die" and that was his motto that he went by, either let me live free or kill me. and, ultimately, i think it speaks for itself. up next, two brutal murders put a city on edge. >> we're all bothered by it. it's hard to sleep at night. >> was this the work of a serial killer? >> there were multiple similarities between the two scenes. >> police have few clues. >> these crime scenes were all debris basically. >> but plenty of motive. >> he has obviously a hatred towards women. >> the case went cold until a lover's quarrel flew out of control. in the early 1990s, seattle, washington was one of the fastest growing cities in the