this is "nightline." >> tonight, an almost-perfect murder. a teenage girl gone missing, her suspected killer covering his tracks. >> he bleached his knife. >> until the victim's brother sets a secret trap. >> where is she? you know what happened. >> the shocking twist. if you talk like this- >> fired up, son. >> but think like this -- >> they're a bunch of ignorant bigots. you might an liberal redneck. this left-leaning southerner is rabbling up youtube views and enjoying a view of the other side of the south. ? it was the perfect illusion ? going gaga, it's not a perfect illusion. we spoke to lady gaga about her new album and mother monster explains why of course she is

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good evening. thank you for joining us. it's a gut-wrenching fear for every parent. a child goes missing. the sudden disappearance of a 19-year-old colorado girl

search. but a vigilante investigation leads to a shock discovery. here's abc's jim avila. >> reporter: young and pretty. lost and nowhere to be found. lee porter, a 19-year-old colorado waif who vanished in june 2014. >> she was small but she was feisty. >> reporter: police launch a massive search in the denver suburbs. >> they're still looking for lee porter. >> friends and family desperately >> reporter: now more than two years later, lee still not found. her motor renee jackson follows her own leads with search dogs. >> my mama heart can't accept the fact that i don't know where my daughter is. i can't live with that. >> reporter: lee grew up in a small town but had a big personality. >> she was an amazing young woman. a joker. she loved her brother like crazy. >> reporter: after high school, lee goes to college two hours away from home.

man. 38-year-old jesse mine, a tattoo artist who one of lee's friends says has a taste for tender young women and hard drugs. >> it got bad right away. she said, i did heroin for the first time and i am hooked on it. >> reporter: the trouble in lee's life is about to get worse. jesse breaks up with her, packs his truck, moves east. leaving lee with no place to live. she heads north to denver with no real plans. drops off the grid. >> i knew there was something wrong right away. i couldn't get ahold of her. >> reporter: the family goes to police who immediately turn to boyfriend jesse. his trip to the east coast cut short. he admits to rough times. >> screaming at each other, we'd fight about cheating on each other. >> reporter: jesse tells the cops he last saw lee when they parted ways at this motel parking lot. back home her mother is running down another lead.

up, christopher wade. i had never heard that name before. >> reporter: christopher wade, a tall and slender 23-year-old. he too is from the same town and went to high school with lee. renee learns he's been lee's self-appointed accountability partner to help her stay off drugs. christopher tells renee lee was with him at his apartment the night she disappeared. but that she left abruptly. this is another man the cops need to talk to. payi >> he wanted to help find lee, he was really concerned about her. >> reporter: even pleading for her safe return online and on the local news. >> tried texting her, tried calling her, left her some messages on facebook. and haven't heard anything back from her. >> reporter: with christopher's permission police search his tiny two-bedroom apartment. >> filthy. two-liter jugs of chew spit, clothes and dishes on the floor.

>> disarray. mattress on the floor, no sheets, no pillow case. >> reporter: a blade. >> you can see the bleach spots on it. that's when we asked him to come in for a formal interview. >> you didn't get rid of the sheets? >> no. >> intentionally get rid of the sheets because maybe they had her blood on them? >> no, sir. >> the worst thing you can do is lie to us. >> yeah, i did get rid of them. >> i asked, where's the body at? did you kill lee porter? >> i maintain my innocence, but i would like a l >> reporter: the detectives get a search warrant for christopher's apartment. then police hit pay dirt. when they find buried in the mess on the floor this receipt from 7-eleven. it's for bleach and rubber gloves. thank heaven for 7-eleven. stocked, as they all are, with slim jims, slurpees, and security cameras. >> here you'll see chris coming from his apartment, buy the

housekeeper but grabs the bleach. after speaking with the clerk, rubber gloves. now police are watching his every move. and they see christopher meet with someone new. >> we had detectives watching him and watching this whole thing go down. >> reporter: it's lee's brother, maxx, setting a trap, luring christopher with friendly text messages like these. >> i don't think you did anything but other people do. i'll let people know to stop harassing you." >> reporter: all a ruse to bait maxx brings a friend and secretly records the conversation on his phone. abc news has obtained the audio. >> chris, look me right in my eyes. dude, where is she? >> i do not know. >> it went back and forth. like 10, 20 times. >> look, okay, you need to tell us right now, dude. i need my sister back. dude, i'm going to kill myself without my sister. chris. >> yeah, i know. >> where is she? >> eventually he cracked.

you have every right to be angry with me. >> reporter: christopher admits that he killed the teenager in trouble. claiming he did it in self-defense. >> i turned, grabbed her, stepped forward and twists her around so that her body was in between me and the knife. she -- then i placed my hand at her throat. i didn't start squeezing until after she kept going. i told her -- >> how long did y s >> i thought that -- her muscles would relax when she went unconscious. and that i could gradually move the knife away. and let her go and let her regain consciousness. but -- that didn't happen. >> what are you thinking as this is going on? >> i flipped out. >> think i'm going to let you walk away and drive away?

heard was maxx pouncing on wade. >> i made sure maxx got at least one got shot in before i grabbed and pulled him off. >> reporter: they call nip 11 making him repeat the story on tape for a second time. >> yes, i'd like to confess to a murder. >> okay. what happened? >> the case is for the disappearance of lee porter. >> it was an amazing scenario, a family member confronts a suspect and essentially gets a his lawyer and the cops, wade tells them his story of a struggle. >> i asked her to stop struggling. >> reporter: a knife and lee's death. >> i was the only witness, as well as the person that -- not murdered her but was responsible for her death. >> reporter: but what he did afterwards convinces police this was no accident. >> i reclothed her.

and then i took a duffel bag from my closet -- >> reporter: wade forced the 98-pound lee into the duffle. covered her with trash bags. >> i took her out to the dumpster and i put her inside it. >> reporter: police lock him up. but even with a confession, a body is critical. under colorado law, for a first-degree murder charge. detectives track the the location where lee's phone last pinged. but they don't find her body. frustrated, the prosecution tries a long shot. offering wade a plea deal. second-degree murder in return for that critical piece of information. >> i called a defense attorney saying, i want to know where that body is. >> reporter: but after the paperwork is signed, wade simply repeats what he said during interrogation. lee's mother renee says he's

receiving 48 years in prison instead of life. for two years renee jackson has not given up, looking for her lost lee. >> i look forward to the day that i get to meet my daughter but in the meantime, i'm going to try and find her. >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm jim avila in westminster, colorado. next, he's all southern and no charm. >> [ bleep ] donald trump. >> the foul-mouth the dixie democrat changing how the world and later, why these little monsters are swarming like paparazzi at a lady gaga appearance. ? paparazzi ? ?

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the self-proclaimed liberal redneck you're about to meet has always felt a little out of place. growing up a political progressive in small town tennessee. but his ability to straddle these two conflicting worlds has made him a viral sensati election. here's abc's david wright in our election countdown series "inside the final 30." >> what's up, y'all? liberal redneck, we going to do it again, fired up, son. >> reporter: the accent says hee-haw. the point of view npr, national public radio. >> wiggers are not about to let trivial [ bleep ] facts get in the way of how they feel about

liberal redneck, a youtube phenom phenomenon. donald trump's demographic spouting hillary clinton's message. >> hope he dies in a tragic hairspray accident. >> i didn't think there was such a thing as a liberal redneck. >> i get that all the time, on the internet in person. you're like a unicorn! ? just good ol' boys ? >> reporter: pop culture would have us believe a ride-along with the good ol' boys and general lee as they try to outrun the l lot more like that scene from "deliverance." trey crowder insists those tired cliches don't even begin to describe the south he knows. and that makes his youtube channel more than just a novelty act. >> what does it mean to be a liberal redneck? >> you just embrace the good parts about being from the south, which is just having a good time, you know, raising hell, football, all that stuff.

inbred hick person. >> i'm a poor white trash redneck from the admit of nowhere in did that. in tennessee. i am also a well-educated, well-traveled, godless liberal. >> reporter: a rebel yell across the partisan divide. >> the south cooks better chicken, plays better football, and sings sweeter songs. to act like we bring nothing to the table culturally is fake liberal hypocritical [ bleep ]. >> reporter: with millions of views he seems to be on to something. >> this election day, 40%-odd of the people in mississippi will vote for frirk, 40%-odd of the people in california will vote for donald trump. please stop acting like we're in a north/south korea situation. >> reporter: listen to part of his rant about black lives matter. >> rednecks unanimously have been against black lives matter, which is funny, rednecks help me out here. when did we start liking cops? >> reporter: different perspective, and definitely food

plantation? >> yeah. >> no slave quarters. >> reporter: salina, tennessee, a small town in clay county near the kentucky border that's fallen on hard times. >> this used to be an oshkosh factory. clothing factory. they made overalls and stuff like that. it moved to mexico. and took how many hundreds of jobs with it. and that was it. >> reporter: most of the shops on salina's main street are gone >> what did this used to be? >> this used to be a barbershop. >> reporter: the few shops still open are consignment stores. people selling off treasures to pay the bills. and there are storefront churches. the townspeople here clearly praying for a savior. >> jobs, jobs, jobs. >> reporter: you see lots of trump signs in salina. during the primaries, donald trump got a higher percent of

>> is it your sense that the folks here just want to roll the dice with donald trump? or do they dislike hillary clinton because her fingerprints are on nafta through bill clinton? >> i sincerely think it's both of those. >> reporter: even though bill clinton, from arkansas, is one of their own. >> you know, i'm basically your standard redneck. >> is donald trump a redneck? >> no. >> no. >> is it possible to be a new york redneck? >> no. >> new york city. >> upstate new carpet bagger? >> during this election, yeah, i think so. because of the way he's going down there and doing his damnedest to exploit the south and the people in it. >> reporter: it's partly to reclaim the term and the region trey and his friends have gone out on the comedy circuit. corey forester -- >> gay people got married and we're confused and need to be upset about something. >> reporter: drew morgan. >> elvis was the bieber of his generation. >> reporter: and trey.

facts. >> reporter: we caught up with them in san francisco where the audience was receptive. >> i forgot everybody in san francisco already knows everything. >> reporter: they're promoting a new book too, "the liberal redneck manifesto: the election creating an entree." >> preaching to the choir. >> yes. >> is it safe to perform in the south? >> we're preaching in the choir in politics but they still -- they still find it odd coming from us. >> reporter: trey admits an outsider. no matter where he happens to be. >> i've always felt like -- kind of like a man without a country, because growing up here a lot of times i was the weirdo. weirdo smart kid who thinks all these weird things about things. >> walking around salina here today, you get a sense of what's been lost. >> salina's a fairly rough example. but not at all unique. they feel like nobody cares. and they're bitter about it.

>> reporter: and if trump should lose? >> that did not work out so well for us last time. people won't be happy if and when she wins but they'll go back to this. i'd like to think it would get better but i don't know if i believe that, no matter which one of them wins. >> reporter: like many americans trey crowder feels he'll be choosing the lesser of two evils. an important choice but he's not getting his hopes up too high. >> run to guys, we got to go, thank you so much. >> reporter: i'm david wright for "nightline" in san francisco. >> maybe we're not all as different as we think we are. when we come back, we go face to poker face with lady gaga and hear about her new album. ? show him what i got no one can read my poker face ?

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finally tonight, the fame monster is back in the limelight

>> reporter: it's no perfect illusion. lady gaga's fifth studio album "joe" released today. >> it's pop, it's funk -- >> reporter: announcing the release live on gma explaining joann is named after her father's sister. >> i wanted to make a record about family, friendship, togetherness -- >> reporter: in new york city little monsters lining up at her album sni >> ten minutes after she tweeted it, i dropped everything, i have to get her right now. >> i owe everything to this woman. >> she fights for equality for the races, for the sexes. >> reporter: she's a six-time grammy award winner. but lady gaga is no material girl. ? we are living in a material world ? >> reporter: shutting down comparisons to madonna. saying in an interview with beeps 1 radio -- >> i play a lot of instruments.

i spend hours and hours a day in the studio. i'm a producer. i'm a writer. what i do is different. >> reporter: lady gaga on the edge of glory. ? i'm on the edge of glory ? >> perhaps we all could use a little more music after this dark week in american politics. it was a 19th century german writer jean paul who said, music is the moonlight in the gloomy night of life. thank you for watching abc news. as always, we're abcnews.com and our "the insider," tracking the biggest stories making news today. >> number one, brad and angie's divorce gets uglier. >> brad pitt is between a rock and a hard spot. >> nancy grace sounds off on the drama. does she believe angie leaked the story?