i cannot go outside. it hurts me. and it hits me all the time that i miss christina so bad. up next, a woman goes missing. >> an obvious possibility was an abduction. >> police find hints of a secret life inside the victim's computer. >> the internet opens up a whole new superhighway of suspects. >> and disturbing evidence in an unexpected location. >> something happened in that basement. >> they almost looked like chainsaw marks. >> scientists provide answers that no one wanted to accept. >> when they introduce you to a chaplain, you know the news you're going to receive is not good. ♪ it was a february morning in sioux falls, south dakota. a routine work day for jds

industries, a company that makes trophies for sports teams. routine except one of their most dependable employees, darlene vandergiesen didn't report to work for a second straight day. >> on friday when she did not show up for work, her boss called her parents, dee and gene. >> darlene's parents immediately drove to darlene's apartment since they had their own key. >> went to her apartment and we saw her cell phone. we knew something was wrong because she never traveled anywhere, never did anything without having that cell phone so people could get ahold of her if they needed to. >> darlene's cell phone was especially important to her since she was deaf. >> deaf people rely heavily on cell phones and text messaging, instant messaging. that's their lifeline with the hearing world. >> darlene's cell phone records indicated that she hadn't used

her phone for the past two days. police found nothing inside the apartment to indicate foul play. >> there was no sign of a forced entry. there was no sign of a struggle. there was no overturned furniture. there were no broken items in her apartment. >> later that day a restaurant employee called police reporting an abandoned truck in their parking lot. the truck was darlene's. >> the police were hoping that that would be a clue as to who was with darlene that night. but no one in the pizza hut store remembered seeing darlene. >> darlene's parents told police they were concerned she was using the internet to meet men. >> my reaction was, oh, darlene, be careful. there are so many, excuse the expression, weirdos out there. >> investigators take darlene's computer to the forensic lab where they used a piece of software called m-case. >> using m-case, we can run an internet search, instant

messaging search, e-mail search, we can look at internet history to see what pages were visited and when. >> the search revealed several troubling e-mails darlene had received ten days before her disappearance. >> the e-mails were threatening, but it was almost -- it was kind of in a childish way. kind of very poor english. >> they were from a woman identified online as wendy smith. >> hello, darlene. you are troublemaker. you are ugly and stupid. bitch. i hate you. >> according to darlene's friends, she didn't know anyone by the name of wendy smith. >> you kind of assume that they're possibly written by a deaf person. my understanding is that deaf people don't necessarily speak conversational english like hearing people do. they speak more in blocky unstructured sentences just to get the subject across. >> having a deaf acquaintance

wouldn't have been unusual since darlene, too, was hearing impaired. >> we then sent a subpoena to yahoo! asking for any and all information regarding that account that was created. >> the computer analysis also revealed darlene met a local man online, jeff flynn, and the two had been dating. flynn worked as a field hand on a farm about a 90-minute drive away. but when police got to his apartment, he, too, was missing. >> the most recently that anyone had seen him was thursday. but no one knew where he had went. his friends down there were saying that was unusual for him to leave town for an extended period of time. >> unusual indeed. a dry mouth can be a common side effect. that's why there's biotene. it comes in oral rinse, spray or gel, so there's moisturizing relief for everyone. biotene, for people who suffer from a dry mouth.

esurwhich means fewer costs, which saves money. their customer experience is virtually paperless, which saves paper, which saves money. they have smart online tools, so you only pay

for what's right for you, which saves money. they settle claims quickly, which saves time, which saves money. they drive an all-hybrid claims fleet, which saves gas, which saves money. they were born online, and built to save money, which means when they save, you save. because that's how it should work in the modern world. esurance. backed by allstate. click or call.

in the days following darlene vandergiesen's disappearance, her casual boyfriend jeff flynn was nowhere to be found. >> when they suspected that darlene might have just taken off for a weekend with this gentleman, i insisted over and

over this is not darlene. it just didn't ring true with her personality. >> four days later jeff returned. he said he was visiting friends out of town. >> he was nervous. most people are nervous when they speak to the police. he was nervous and concerned. concerned for darlene. >> inside the trunk of jeff's car, evidence technicians found what looked like dried blood. >> law enforcement's antenna really went up when they saw the blood in the trunk. >> but forensic testing quickly proves the blood was not darlene's. it was deer blood. >> when they found out that the blood was deer blood, huge relief. a huge relief, because then the hope came back that possibly she was still alive somewhere. >> meanwhile investigators were able to trace the source of the threatening e-mails darlene received shortly before her disappearance.

>> when we did receive the e-mails that darlene had received from wendy smith, that gave us the ability to send a subpoena to yahoo! to find out who may have created that yahoo! account. >> the e-mails came from this home in downtown sioux falls. the occupant was a deaf woman named daphne wright. >> daphne said that she had met darlene several times at the deaf apartments, that she had met her at the deaf club. >> 42-year-old daphne wright had no criminal record. during police questioning, wright denied any involvement. >> i didn't send any e-mails. it could have been a hacker. >> i don't believe the hacker story. i believe you sent the e-mails to her. you created an account with a different name and sent her the e-mails on those days, telling her to stay away from the deaf apartments. >> yeah, yeah, i did that. >> you created the name wendy

smith? >> yes, i did that. >> a background check revealed daphne wright had been involved in a public altercation with darlene vandergiesen just five days before she disappeared. darlene was having dinner with sally ford, who was daphne wright's former lover. >> they had had an argument that the police had to be called to and she had to be escorted off the property. >> daphne wright told the police that she was jealous. she told police that she thought darlene was destroying her relationship with her lover. >> but by all accounts darlene and sally ford were nothing more than casual friends. >> darlene and this woman did not have a lesbian relationship. and, in fact, darlene was not a lesbian. >> darlene told friends she had patched things up with daphne wright after this incident. >> she said, oh, mom, she says,

we're friends now. we're all made up and we're comfortable with each other. it's all okay now. >> but when daphne wright was questioned about darlene's disappearance, the jealousy was still apparent. >> we've had a lot of problems, sally and i. >> did you think sally was cheating on you with darlene? >> yes. i thought so. and sometimes she lied. >> who lied? >> sally. >> okay. >> was darlene the victim of a love triangle gone wrong? daphne wright's whereabouts on the night darlene disappeared could provide the answer. this allergy season, will you be a sound sleeper, or a mouth breather. well, put on a breathe right strip and instantly open your nose up to 38% more than allergy medicines alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and sleep right. breathe right.

time for a new routine.eartburn flare-ups? try nexium® 24hr. the latest choice for frequent heartburn. get complete protection. nexium level protection.

bold isn't just a word. it's how we approach everything. hurry in for our new wood-fire grilled flat iron steak. or victoria's filet portabella. starting at just $13.99 for a limited time. we let the bold flavors of the outback. speak for themselves. outback steakhouse. done right.

after sending threatening e-mails to darlene vandergiesen, daphne wright became the prime suspect in her disappearance. police got a search warrant for daphne's house. and what they found inside was troubling. >> i remember the smell of paint and the smell of cleaning products. especially when we got down towards the basement. >> they look in the kitchen garbage. and there's a half full bottle of chainsaw oil and we looked a little further and found a receipt from ace hardware for a chain saw purchase just a few days ago.

>> this is a time of year in south dakota where chainsaws are not in huge demand. >> but there was no chainsaw in daphne's house or anywhere on her property. downstairs the basement had been painted with blue paint. >> there would be a spot painted here and then a spot painted there. they would be different sizes and things like that. >> parts of the wall, not a whole wall. a three or four-foot section of the floor, but not the whole floor. parts of the steps but not all the steps. >> a few feet away was a small room that once had been used to store coal. >> the floor was completely repainted in this blue paint that was still tacky and soft to the touch. indicating that it had been freshly painted. >> police also noticed seven distinct symmetrical cuts in the concrete floor. >> several of us made the comment that they almost look

like chainsaw marks. >> law enforcement began the investigation by going to the ace hardware stores in town. >> once there investigators showed store clerks a photo lineup, which included daphne's picture. >> one of the clerks was able to say, yes, i sold the chainsaw to a woman, and she was deaf. that matches the description of daphne wright to a "t." >> she came in with a note that said, tree-cutting machine. and he took her to the wrong section at first because he misunderstood. and then he took her to the chainsaw section. she was very worried about the price and she picked out the cheapest chainsaw available at the store. >> once scientists got into daphne wright's basement, they had no difficulty finding even more incriminating evidence from the wooden walls of the coal storage room.

>> we were able to see small tiny pieces of bone and what appeared to be tissue. >> investigators collected the tissue and bone samples for analysis. and compared those samples to the dna they obtained from darlene's tooth and hair brushes. >> that day, we were met by a couple of detectives and we were escorted upstairs, and when we opened the room -- when they introduce you to the chaplain and the chief of police and all the detectives are in the room and ask you to sit down, you know the news you're going to receive is not good, and it wasn't. >> darlene's dna matched the blood and tissue found in daphne's basement. >> she felt that darlene was coming in between her and sally. and the only way that she could take care of it was to eliminate

her from the picture. >> but investigators still had a problem. they didn't have darlene's body. >> a jury likes a body. a jury likes a murder weapon, and you just never know. you get that one skeptical juror who doesn't see the body and there's maybe enough doubt for someone to say not guilty in a case like that. >> in their search police first checked the dumpster where daphne and her neighbors disposed of their trash. >> by the time the officers got there, the dumpsters had already been dumped into the garbage truck and taken out to the city landfill. >> police went to the sioux falls landfill, a 470-acre property that serviced five counties and almost a quarter of a million people. >> it was estimated that there was probably some 200 tons to 300 tons of garbage brought out

there in the days that we had been looking for darlene. >> it's below zero with the frigid windchill. and all the police were volunteering out there searching. they had pitch forks and picks and they were picking through the trash one foot at a time. >> for the three dozen searchers, the job was difficult and frustrating. it went on for days with no guarantee the body was even in the landfill. when cigarette cravings hit, all i can think about is getting relief. only nicorette mini has a patented fast-dissolving formula. it starts to relieve sudden cravings fast. i never know when i'll need relief. that's why i only choose nicorette mini.

[announcer]when we make beyond natural dry dog and cat foods. we start with real meat as the first ingredient. we leave out corn,wheat and soy. and we own where our dry food is made-100 percent! can other brands say all that? for nutrition you can trust and your pet will enjoy... does your food go beyond? learn more at purinabeyond.com.

she wanted to bring that little morsel of joy into your life. and every time a saw a photo, i saw a smile. and a big smile. >> three weeks after darlene vandergiesen went missing, her friends, family, and the deaf community gathered for a memorial service, even though investigators hadn't yet found her body. >> we knew we were going to have a challenge ahead of us to locate her body. >> after five days of searching at the landfill, investigators got a break. they found the legs and lower torso of an adult female. they also found bloody pieces of carpet and a blood-stained sweatshirt. >> it was a sweatshirt that had

graphics on it of sign language. we knew right there there was a tie to the deaf community. >> testing proved it was darlene's blood on the sweatshirt, but someone else's dna was found inside the sweatshirt. >> i took cuttings from the inside of the sweatshirt hoping that one of them had transferred enough dna or enough skin cells inside to get a full profile. and i was fortunate and did get a profile, and that matched daphne wright. >> by being able to put daphne wright's dna inside a sweatshirt that had darlene vandergiesen's blood and tissue on the front of it was extremely important. >> the sweatshirt was a critical item in this case because it was one of the few pieces that tied both victim and suspect together. >> 25 miles away, across the border in minnesota, a highway

worker found darlene's torso and her severed head encased in plastic. the medical examiner found darlene suffered blunt force trauma to her head. >> it had been tied, cinched around her throat with a piece of cord that was matched by one of our forensic people in pierre, to a spool of cord hanging on the garage wall in the house that was occupied by daphne wright. >> the medical examiner had two theories as to how darlene was murdered. >> cause of death was either this blunt force trauma, the seven-inch skull fracture. or suffocation from this bag being placed over her head. or a combination of the two. >> prosecutors say daphne was convinced darlene was trying to steal her ex-girlfriend and wanted to prevent it.

she asked darlene to meet her at the pizza restaurant. but once there, she changed her mind and asked darlene to come to her house instead. once there, daphne hit darlene with a heavy object. pushed her down the stairs. then tied a thick plastic bag around her head with cord from her home. she later bought a chainsaw to dismember darlene's body. she left behind the sales receipt, store witnesses, and plenty of forensic evidence. daphne disposed of the body parts in nearby dumpsters and in a ditch 25 miles away. later, she tried to hide the evidence with paint.

but it wasn't nearly enough. >> there was this virtual mountain of evidence of the defendant's guilt. >> those e-mails and what the e-mails showed us pointed us right to daphne wright. >> daphne's motivation was one that has been throughout the ages in a homicide, is jealousy. >> the tragedy is that darlene had no romantic interest in daphne's ex-girlfriend, sally ford. >> darlene was not interested in that. darlene was not a lesbian person. darlene and sally did not have that kind of relationship. >> daphne wright was charged with first-degree murder and became the first woman in south dakota history to face a possible death sentence. >> i would have to describe daphne wright as just a cold-blooded murderer. to be able to dismember a human body with a chainsaw takes a lot of gall. takes a lot of spite.

in my opinion you really have to dislike somebody to do that to them. >> daphne wright was convicted, but the jury spared her life. instead, she'll spend the rest of her life in prison with no possibility of parole. >> one thing that kept coming back was what do we get out of sentencing her to the death penalty? what does she get out of it, what does society get out of it, what do we get out of it? and really, we didn't see anything good that came from it. >> this is a completely senseless murder. it didn't have to happen. darlene was never a threat to the relationship between sally and daphne. >> it taught me a lesson not to assume anything when you're talking to somebody. that the person you're sitting across from in the interview room is probably capable of doing pretty much anything even though the evidence might not show it up front.

>> this was about as textbook of a forensic case as you can think of. there was no smoking gun in this case. it was all the little bits of forensic evidence that connected the dots. and it all led detectives in one direction, and that was toward daphne wright. up next, a music teacher is found dead. is it an accident or murder? >> there were forensic teams going in and out of the house for days on end. >> luminol provides some answers. >> it just lit up like a christmas tree. it was phenomenal. >> she didn't have any enemies. that's why it was thought to be an intruder case. >> but sometimes, friends are more dangerous than enemies. >> secrets kept for years finally caused the whole thing to explode. ♪ music played an integral part in the lives of ken fitzhugh and his wife, christine. he