>> you have to include all possibilities. >> create a picture of this person, actually based on the dna in the case. >> trace minute evidence preserved and analyze. >> there's something there. >> she saw it coming. she saw who her killer was. >> shocking. absolutely shocking. ♪ bring me to life on this episode of "death row stories" -- >> when she didn't show up, i

knew something was not right. >> a young coed goes missing. >> when he wanted something, these women said they would be harmed. >> and clues lead to a prime suspect. >> there's a young man staring at me. larry swearingen is a predator. >> but when dna points elsewhere -- >> evidence is built on false testimony. >> the whole purpose of dna testing is to identify people. >> an execution hangs in the balance. >> i was on the phone to tell larry swearingen goodbye. >> you're scared to death because you don't know what's gonna happen. >> there's a body in the water. >> he was butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaim their innocence. >> in this case, there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorseless. >> he needs to pay for it with his life. >> the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. >> get a conviction at all costs. let the truth fall where it may.

>> family and friends of a missing montgomery county student are turning to each other for strength tonight. >> my kingdom come, thy will be done. >> bring my granddaughter back safe and sound. >> on the evening of december 8, 1998, 19-year-old melissa trotter went missing from a small town outside of houston, texas. >> our son had just got in from germany. he was in the army at the time. melissa was very glad to have him coming home, and we were planning on meeting up for dinner. but i hadn't heard from her. so i called one of her friends to go to the college campus, and her car was still there, and her phone was in the car. i knew something was not right.

>> on the morning of december 9, i received a missing-person case. i reviewed the report and traveled to the family's residence to find out as much as i could about melissa. >> melissa was very outgoing, very personable, and very caring. if she was going out somewhere, she would call and "hey, i'm going out with friends. i'll be home in a couple hours." when she didn't show up, it was very unusual for her. >> i started trying to find clues. in my search, it led me to her room. >> they found a piece of paper on her bedside table that said "larry" and his number. >> a few of my partners had

gotten a tip that melissa was seen at a marina a few days before her disappearance. she was speaking with a man in a red dually pickup truck with a damaged rear fender. so, i made my way to north shore marina to obtain surveillance video. as i pulled into the driveway, there sat a red dually with a damaged rear fender. when i look up into the window, there's a young man staring at me. he quickly gets into his truck, never takes eye contact off of me, and quickly leaves the parking lot. so i followed him. he took a route through a neighborhood with trails through woods. i'm led to a highway, and speeds got over 90 miles an hour.

he jumped out of his vehicle aggressively and asked what i was doing chasing him. he could clearly see my badge, my gun. a check was performed. his name was larry swearingen. and it was confirmed that he was, indeed, wanted for outstanding warrants. so he was arrested. >> 27-year-old larry swearingen was arrested on december 11, 1998. despite multiple run-ins with the law, there was no concrete evidence tying larry to melissa's disappearance. detective davis and his team questioned larry about how well he knew melissa. >> how long had it been since you'd seen her before sunday? >> i don't even know the girl. up to that point, i never knew the girl even existed. >> why would she have your pager number? >> she asked me was there a way to get a hold of my sister. when i walked up to the marina, she asked me, "hey, aren't you

becky's brother?" and i said yes. >> you had never talked to her before that, ever? >> no, never. >> i started interviewing people that knew larry. a lot of women told me that he would often take them to the national forest. so i decided to focus my search for melissa trotter in the national forest. we received help from houston police department, the fbi, volunteers. >> what we're gonna do is work that side. >> over days, the search team scoured thousands of acres of forest. >> melissa, if you can hear me, i love you. i just pray for you to come home. >> you think you're gonna wake up and it'll all be over. but it's not over. >> days of searching turn to weeks while police held larry swearingen on other charges. >> they want to come in today? do they want to volunteer today?

>> there were so many people involved from church and family, hundreds of people out looking. >> this is not like melissa. this is not like her. >> we ended up with this at the college, and, um, just to look at her, you can tell what kind of person that she was. she touched a lot of lives. >> 911. what is your emergency? >> i'm at the national forest, and we just found a dead body. >> okay, can you give me a little bit better direction? >> i'm sorry. we're also at the end of the road where it dips into the lake. >> okay. >> it was very upsetting to hear that her body had been in the

woods for all those, you know, weeks. we're all grieving, not only as a family but as a community. my peace is knowing that the angels took her. >> melissa trotter's body was discovered 25 days after she went missing. the autopsy revealed the cause of death was strangulation. the weapon -- a section of pantyhose tied around melissa's neck. there were also signs of sexual assault. judy shields was the prosecutor assigned to the case. >> we did a search warrant for the trailer. this is where larry was living with his wife, terry swearingen, but terry had left. with larry in jail, she didn't have the money to pay the rent. so, the landlords, when they were cleaning, they found this pair of pantyhose that was missing the leg. thankfully, before trash pickup, one of the detectives went by

again just to see is there anything, and they said, "well, we did find this pair of weird pantyhose." "uh, can we have that?" and so, i do remember the phone call. "we found the pantyhose!" and everybody's like, "what?" so that was a pretty big moment in the case. >> the state charged larry swearingen with capital murder. >> the hole in their case you could drive a mack truck through. i don't have nothing to hide. when i meet my maker, i'll be -- that's fine. i'll pay my debts to what i have to, but murder is not gonna be one of them i have to worry about. (vo) morning, noon, night;

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>> in 1999, while larry swearingen was awaiting his death-penalty trial for the murder of melissa trotter, his stepfather received a mysterious letter in the mail. >> larry's stepfather came up to the willis police department, saying, "hey, we received this letter from larry. he says it was mailed to him in jail, and we don't know what it says because it's in spanish." it was from this woman robin, and it claimed that her boyfriend was actually the one who murdered melissa trotter. and the letter kind of went through details of what had happened and how she had died. >> law enforcement decided to search larry's jail cell. >> we were able to verify that a spanish-to-english dictionary had been in his cell.

he still did have a sheet of paper, which had the spanish and the english for each word. we also eventually found the inmate who he had been convinced by larry to write the letter because his handwriting was so bad. >> i was scared. so i was desperate. i know it doesn't look good, but when you're put in a position where all you see when you turn the tv on and when you read the papers, "we're gonna kill him. we're gonna kill him." it puts you in a desperate mode. it puts you in a mode of survival. >> one year after he was charged, larry swearingen was put on trial for the murder of melissa trotter. >> there were many items of evidence that tied melissa trotter to mr. swearingen's truck and his residence. >> there were carpet fibers on her clothing, and melissa's hair was found in the truck.

>> finally, the state presented the pair of pantyhose with a missing leg found near larry's trailer. >> so they had the ligature and they had the remaining part of pantyhose. it's like puzzle pieces. they just link up. and the stories he had told, that he had not spent hardly any time with her and she was never in his home, now he had to come up with reasons why she would be in his truck, why she would be in his house. >> melissa and i were friends. but i was married and doing things i shouldn't have been doing. but it's one of those things where you find the peace at one thing because you're missing from home, i guess, and that's what it was. it was filling a gap that i didn't have. and we were young. you know, early 20s, late teens, you know, those were the times that you explore and start branching away. we enjoyed being with one another.

>> he told so many lies. he couldn't remember which lie he had told. i have no doubt that he murdered melissa. >> i believe it took the jury about three hours to conclude that larry was guilty. >> the jury now had to decide on a punishment. one by one, women who knew larry took the stand to testify. >> he had an extensive history of violence against women. he was a predator. >> these women would be harmed when he wanted something, especially sex, and they said no. his ex said she had been abducted by him and violently raped. we had a woman from florida. she said he taped her up and he raped her. >> larry was given the death penalty, and an execution date was set for january 24, 2007.

>> i was relieved. finally, some closure. but it's not complete because i still don't have my daughter. >> in 2003, attorney james rytting was brought in to work on larry's appeal. >> i've been defending capital sentences for 20 years on the button. when it comes to larry's case, he was not tried for the allegations made against him by his ex-wife. and there was never any complaints by miss trotter to anyone about larry swearingen. the circumstantial evidence was built largely on false and misleading scientific testimony, starting with the pantyhose that was found in larry swearingen's trailer. the police searched larry's trailer twice. it was only after the body was found and it was known that

there was a ligature around the victim's neck that they went back and, by chance, saw a length of pantyhose. >> i can't give you an explanation for the pantyhose. when i was arrested that morning, they wasn't there. four days after they find melissa's body, the detective comes back and "oh, look what i find." so, yeah, there are some problems, not only with the pantyhose, but with the forensics as well. >> the autopsy had revealed blood found under melissa trotter's fingernails, but the dna profile did not match larry. >> they started coming up with theories of contamination. at trial, a detective was asked, was he shaving that morning. he says yes. was you bleeding that morning? yes. well, could it have floated off your chin and landed on the body? he said, "well, it has to go somewhere." >> the dna analyst told us, because it was bright red and

not degraded, really, at all, that somebody in the handling of it, you know, on their hands, and it just contaminated in there. >> well, why didn't you do some investigation in this? y report? nobody wants to be murdered for a crime they didn't commit. >> the death penalty is a part of our law. i think it's a legitimate penalty. it's constitutional, and we will do our duty even in those circumstances that require the imposition of the death penalty. >> the culture of the death penalty in texas is it's something that i think most texans are very comfortable with, shall we say. >> i authored many opinions which affirm the conviction and sentence of death, and many of those defendants have, in fact, been executed. >> the rate of executions in texas far exceeds any other comparable area in the united states. >> it's a question of values. some crimes are so heinous.

i believe we need it. >> it has a lot to do with the history of that state. avenging crimes has been an important value. >> i was sworn to uphold the laws of my state. you can't let public persuasion sway you. >> it has led to it being the death penalty capital of the united states, certainly. >> when you're sitting on death watch, they isolate you from everybody. the only human contact is when they put the cuffs on us or take the cuffs off of us. i mean, this is about the most desolate environment you can live in. there's no tv. there's no internet. there's no telephones. i was suicidal a lot of times. a couple times, you know, "screw it. kill me. be done with it."

the only thing that's kept me going is my stubbornness, i guess, and to just roll over and die gives the state what they want. >> in addition to dna that did not match larry, his attorney would soon discover evidence suggesting melissa had been killed after larry was taken into custody. san pellegrino. tastefully italian. add a twist of flavor. san pellegrino essenza. (paul) do you get confused byi don't blame you.claims? the most reliable. the most awarded. the best, the fastest, the best and the fastest. it's too much. sprint's doing things differently. they're offering a 100% total satisfaction guarantee. i mean i think sprint's network and savings are great. but don't just take my word for it.

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>> in 2002, larry swearingen's attorney discovered evidence that placed larry in jail at the time melissa trotter was killed. >> initially, the state claimed that miss trotter was dead for 25 days. but entomological testing had been done, which is the use of insects to estimate dates of death. >> time of death can be determined by how many insects are on a body. the warmer the temperature, the more insects, and the longer a body has been deceased. >> initially the results were not all that favorable to mr. swearingen. and he looked at the temperature data and found that it was not accurate. >> i started going through old newspaper articles, and on there, it showed the weather. i got to looking at it, and it was off.

>> larry found that the average temperature was higher than originally reported. >> so i started doing the calculations with a calculator and added it up. i go, "hey, look. this doesn't match that." >> based on his findings, if melissa's body had been in the woods for 25 days, there would've been far more insect activity than was found. >> this shows that he could not have killed the victim. melissa trotter was either alive while he was sitting in jail or that someone else took her body and threw it in the woods after he was incarcerated. larry's own diligence, his own dogged determination to show that he didn't kill the victim saved him. >> i worked just as hard as what the attorneys do. i didn't know anything about the law, but my grandmother paid for a paralegal course, where she passed away, and i learned it out of a necessity, not because i enjoy it. the way i look at it is i have

to bring my intelligence level up to some, so when james is here, if we have a phone call, i'm able to have a meaningful n i can.tion. i've got some lawyers that are just as stubborn as i am. i don't like to lose. >> in june 2000, larry was granted a hearing to present evidence about melissa's time of death. >> the original medical examiner, joye carter, had estimated that the postmortem interval in this case was 25 days. then the medical examiner who took over reviewed dr. carter's autopsy report, and in the 2007 hearing, he testified that the postmortem interval in this case was 14 days. >> warren diepraam represented the state in larry's appeals. >> well, of course, the defense shortened the time of death that melissa was out in the woods because that's obviously very helpful to them.

if melissa had been in the woods for a shorter amount of time, swearingen couldn't have been the murderer because he was in jail for evading arrest. >> when a body is left in the woods, particularly in temperate climates, it will begin to liquefy, and that had not happened in the case. >> our weather in late december, early january, can be surprisingly cold. we get arctic fronts that come down basically like the siberian express, that's gonna result in preservation of her body and her organs. >> in the south texas woods, the average temperature was around 60 degrees. in many days, it went over 70. this is not minnesota. this is texas. >> the same judge that had overseen larry's conviction, judge fred edwards, also presided over his appeals. >> judge edwards advertised that he did not have capital cases overturned. he was convinced that larry

swearingen was guilty, and he was gonna make sure that larry swearingen was going to be put to death. >> judge edwards rejected larry's appeal and set a new execution date for january 27, 2009. with just weeks remaining, james rytting called the medical examiner's office on a quest for new evidence. >> they said all that was left in this case was a single histology slide, which is the way that tissue is sampled in an autopsy case. i said, "we need to review that slide." >> meanwhile, the countdown to larry's execution had begun. >> defense attorneys tried to appeal and overturn his murder conviction, but a judge has finally set a date for his execution. >> it's time that the punishment phase be carried out. >> i will be there. i owe it to my daughter to see it to completion.

>> the morning i was to be executed is the first time in my adult life i prayed. i made a promise not only to god but to myself i would not be the same person i was 20 years ago. >> it got so close that i was on the phone essentially to tell larry swearingen goodbye when the court calls. >> he clicked over and he came back. he says, "you got your stay." you're relieved, but at the same time you're scared to death because you don't know what's gonna happen. >> i was elated. i was thrilled that he was not going to die, but a certain sadness overcomes you as well, that someone has been brought that close to death. >> in 2012, larry was given another hearing to review the tissue evidence.

>> at this hearing, the pathologist determined that the tissue on the slide looked like it was almost fresh. that means the body of melissa trotter could not have been in the woods for more than a few days at the most. >> the defense came up with, to put it nicely, would be a novel scientific theory that histological slides can be used to determine time of death. but a histological slide is used for medical purposes to determine disease and things of that nature. their theory was so outlandish i don't even think the defense attorneys believed it. >> anticipating the state's objections, james had resent the case to original medical examiner joye carter, whose initial estimation of melissa's time of death was 25 days.

>> she reviewed the autopsy report again and reversed her opinion. she had provided an affidavit in which she said that the postmortem interval in this case was 14 days or less. but then, at the evidentiary hearing, dr. carter went on to say that she felt pressured by me to issue the affidavit, and i asked her how could i do that. i didn't put the affidavit under her nose and say, "sign here on the dotted line." i mailed it to her. she signed it and sent it back. >> are you retracting your testimony that ms. trotter's body was dead 25 days or so? >> no. i have never retracted that opinion. this affidavit is based on one portion of the examination. that's the internal organs. you have to look at the entire body. it is a process. >> it made no sense. it was, in my view, just

kowtowing to the prosecution in this case. >> once again, judge edwards denied larry's appeal. after 10 years on death row, larry was down to his last hope -- to identify the dna found under melissa's fingernails. at kay we've learned the most important one... will always be your own. every yes. oh my gosh, yes begins with kay. now, get twenty to forty percent off all bridal. only at kay.

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>> larry swearingen had been on texas death row for 10 years. all his appeals had been denied. now his team turned to the dna evidence found under melissa trotter's fingernails. bryce benjet of the innocence project was brought on board to help. >> it is not common at all to have foreign dna under your fingernails, especially from blood, so that was a significant piece of evidence. dna testing showed it was a male profile, but it was not mr. swearingen's. the scientists employed by the state glossed over it, suggesting that it was contamination. >> since then, they said other individuals at the crime scene were bleeding and bled on the body, and the helicopters from the news media were so close to the ground that winds from the turbine blowed blood off somebody and it landed under the fingernails. that's how they justified denying me dna testing.

>> in texas, the trial judge is automatically assigned to consider post-conviction challenges, and the rulings that judge edwards had made indicated that his mind was made up. he routinely and uniformly denied relief throughout post-conviction challenges and requests for dna testing. >> the state of texas brought in kelly blackburn to argue the dna appeals. >> anybody that looked at this case and looked at the mountain of evidence that was brought against larry swearingen knows that we have the right killer, but for the defense, it becomes more of a cause as opposed to a search for the truth. they just want to stop him from being put to death, and they'll do whatever they can to stop that. >> then, in early 2013, judge edwards had lost his election,

and a new judge, kelly case, had been elected and had taken office. judge case was open to the idea that there was real questions about guilt or innocence. >> judge kelly case just had a different view about the death penalty, and so he granted the dna testing. every time he would grant it, we would appeal it to the court of criminal appeals, and they would reverse judge case. >> the arguments over whether to test for dna revolved around antiquated texas evidence laws. >> back when these laws were created, the notion was that you needed a large blood sample or a big semen stain. but when it came to things like skin cells, things like saliva, things that are not visible to the naked eye, the court said, "well, you have to prove it exists and you don't get to test it unless you can show it's there," which is a catch-22. it's impossible to show that something is there until you test it. so we went back to the texas legislature. we tinkered with the law. we fixed it. the courts resisted.

we went back and fixed it again, and the legislature created a new definition of biology that included things like skin cells and other materials that are invisible, so based on that new law, we went back to court, and they said, "we will not consider results that actually identify a third party." it really doesn't make sense. the whole purpose of dna testing is to identify people. >> well, the evidence in this case, it's literally been handled and touched and manipulated by different individuals, so we were pretty sure that if we did this testing, we were gonna get some unknown profiles. but we were never going to agree that those unknown profiles were gonna be exculpatory. >> the next possibility for relief is through the federal courts. we were saying that mr. swearingen's civil rights were violated through the denial of

of that litigation, the state set another execution date. >> larry's fifth execution date was set for november 16, 2017. >> we were preparing our last-minute appeals. we were continuing with this dna litigation, and then suddenly, we get this notice from the district attorney's office that a serial killer has made this statement confessing to the trotter murder. (vo) morning, noon, night; indulgent, delicious, irresistible. fancy feast makes delighting your cat delightfully easy. every recipe, every last detail; another fancy way to show your love. fancy feast. introducing savory centers. paté with a center of gravy!

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>> in the summer of 2017, the court issued another execution date for larry swearingen. >> when an execution date is set, it's like a ticking clock. you have to start planning to get appeals filed. it creates a level of chaos that no lawyer enjoys.

but we were proceeding, and then suddenly we get this information that a convicted serial killer had made statements admitting to the murder. >> breaking news -- one of houston's most notorious criminals, anthony allen shore, confessed to the murders of at least three girls and one woman. he was scheduled to be put to death tonight, but this afternoon it was delayed. >> anthony shore was set to die at about 6:00 tonight, in just two hours. he'll now get another 90 days to live. >> anthony shore said he told two women who had befriended him on death row that he was responsible for the melissa trotter murder. >> i just wasn't totally sure when it first came up what i believe. and shore knew i questioned it. he says, "no, believe me. this is mine. there's 8 to 10, and that includes melissa trotter." shore was adamant. >> anthony's mode of operation

was to find young girls, strangle them, and engage in sexual relations with them. that fits the m.o. that larry swearingen was accused of in this case. >> the parallels between these cases -- shore was nicknamed the "tourniquet murderer," and the victim in this case was strangled with a tourniquet. >> surely, for the defense, in their mind, they found what they've always wanted, which is another suspect. it's another arrow in their quiver to shoot at this case. and here he is, sitting on death row, and here he is, someone who's not just a serial killer, but he rapes and kills young women. so, yeah, why not jump on him and make him the other suspect? >> after anthony shore's confession, police searched his cell and found crime-scene photos, court exhibits, and a hand-drawn map of where melissa was found. >> here you have somebody who's made this confession, and if he

is executed, that confession is going to be the record. and, in fact, it could be a dying declaration, which would be admissible. so there was a lot of effort by the montgomery county district attorney to postpone shore's execution beyond the date of larry swearingen's execution. interestingly, they did not seek to postpone larry swearingen's execution date. >> in the weeks leading up to larry's execution, a forensics team analyzed the materials found in anthony shore's cell. >> we sent that map, and they compared it to the writing of anthony shore and to larry swearingen, and it was consistent with the writing of larry swearingen. he's the one that drew that map. he's the one that wrote the directions to the body of melissa trotter. it was all a big hoax. it was all a plot to have anthony shore, on his death bed, take credit for the murder of melissa trotter.

>> the d.a.'s office confronted shore with their findings. >> did he approach you or did you approach him with this idea? >> he approached me. >> he thought you would be -- >> amenable to it, yes, because it's no skin off my back. i'm a serial killer, and i'm gonna die. and he had tears in his eyes, and he begged me. "please, i'm innocent of this crime. you're a serial killer. you've got all these other cases. they're so similar." and i got to thinking, well, you know, i could do this. i have it within me to save another man's life. but somehow word got out. i'm not going to crucify larry, though, because truth is what you want. truth is he says he's innocent. >> larry's execution date remained in place for november 16, 2017. >> we were really evaluating

every possible avenue, and by, frankly, dumb luck, we discovered that the district attorney had made an error in the way that they set the date, which made that particular date invalid. it's not what i expected, but it's certainly a relief. >> you feel like you're reliving this again and again every time you have to come here? >> oh, for sure, but i have to know there's gonna be justice for melissa. (paul) i'm going to keep this short and sweet. now you can switch to sprint and get both an unlimited plan and the samsung galaxy s10 plus included for just $35 a month. yup. short and sweet. for people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay.com.

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17 years after larry swearingen was sent to death row, both sides finally agree to move forward with dna testing. >> the items that are being tested are additional fingernail scrapings and the ligature pantyhose that was used to strangle the victim. there's also hairs that were discovered. if a profile is obtained, we would test it against shore. we would test it against other suspects. the whole point of this is to

identify the murderer. >> they're grasping at straws. dna is a natural substance. it degrades over time. because the evidence is so old, because it's been handled by so many people, the samples aren't strong enough. >> the state believes the request for dna is just another stalling tactic. >> we know what the end result is gonna be, and it's gonna be that larry swearingen is gonna be put to death. >> if you are starting out with the presumption that a person is guilty, then any claim of innocence is gonna be viewed as a stalling tactic. and if the state was concerned about stalling, their opposition to dna testing has created over a decade of delay. >> since december 8th of 1998, sandy and charles trotter have been struggling to move forward. >> there's something not right with this judicial system. all these delays of execution,

all the evidence hearings, it's very upsetting 'cause then you know we're not done. >> no matter how long it takes, no matter how many hoops we got to jump through, larry is gonna receive the sentence that he was given. i am happy that we were able to get this man off the streets. i have no doubt that we prevented other women from being victimized by this man. i don't know that it's even appropriate for me to say my views on capital punishment, but i will tell you i believe in it, so. >> the death penalty is too unreliable to be administered in any sort of rational or fair way. larry swearingen was saved often by fortuitous developments in his case. it had nothing to do with reason. it had nothing to do with justice.

this is not a reliable system, and it's not a fair system. things go terribly wrong. >> we took great steps to make sure that we were convicting larry of melissa's death based on good evidence, on solid evidence. you could take out a piece or two, but how do you take away enough pieces? there's a host of things that have to not be true for larry swearingen not to be guilty. >> there's no going back when somebody is executed. that creates a dynamic that the justice system is not well-suited for. we have these instances where new evidence comes out after many years. ultimately, it's not a very good process for determining the truth, and unfortunately, one of the many reasons why our death-penalty system is broken. >> it's been a long 20 years.

we look at life a lot different. it can just change in a moment. so i have to hang on to the good times with melissa. i miss her a lot. >> being here, it makes you realize the importance of life. i've lost 20 years of my life for something that they know i didn't do. i did not commit this crime, but i lied. i lied with the spanish letter. i lied with little things. and, you know, as smart as i thought i was, i wasn't. you know, they know when you're slinging horse crap, and that's what i was doing.

hello and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the united states and from all around the world. i'm rosemary church. >> and i'm george howell. this is cnn newsroom. and ahead this hour. >> stocks sink in china as the markets open for the first time in more than a week amid coronavirus fears. as the first death outside china is reported. >> the u.s. presidential election season kicks off monday with the iowa caucuses. democrats running for president will set the tone for the race,