this and i know for a fact that it's true. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thanks for watching. you can lose a child, without knowing it, in a second. it wasn't an if. it was a when are they going to tell us that she's not coming home.he this is not what was supposed to happen. the note was under her blanket. >> i saw it sticking out, and i grabbed it. >> their daughter was a runaway. >> i am frantic because i didn't know how to find her.au >> they called police.ca they searched. and then a jogger found a red shoe and a pool of blood. j >> here they are, three people at the door. >> i just started sobbing.

>> they had found her daughter, but not the boy she was with.d it was as if he'd never existed. >> we couldn't find anything about l.j. w >> months went by. still no trace of l.j.we and then a rookie took the case. >> how'd you feel about it, that this was now going to be your case? >> i didn't know if i was capable of doing this. i had cried for two hours. >> a teen found dead. >> we still don't have an answer.un >> a mysterious missing suspectl >> she said that l.j. has killed someone before. >> and hers to solve. i get the feeling, jaclyn, you're learning how to become a detective as you go. >> this is the case that taught me.e >> you have no surefire way to keep your children safe. hello and welcome to

"dateline." a social worker made one of her toughest cases deeply personal when she decided to adopt annie. over the years annie thrived, but it turned out she was keeping a secret that was only discovered after her disappearance. could a fake pregnancy really have been the motive for an a all-too-real murder or had annie run into a wrong crowd. here's dennis murphy in "the girl with the red shoes." >> reporter: veronica kasprzak bratcher is a determined woman. did someone ever say, you can't save them all, to you? >> my mother is probably the one that would say and still says that. but yeah, i heard that a lot.mo >> reporter: she rarely listened though. the desire to do good, to save a child was too strong. though sometimes, in the quiet hours, she wonders if she did the right thing. >> if i wouldn't have picked that house.wo if i would have not taken a shower. if i would have done something

else, she wouldn't have been in that situation. >> reporter: of course, no one could have known then that it would end up like this. >> unified police department. >> i need to report a runaway. p my daughter's missing. >> reporter: her daughter was anne grace kasprzak. though when veronica first met annie, she wasn't a kasprzak at all.he she wasn't even her daughter. she was a client, just 7 years old, with a rough childhood. >> she'd been through some abuse, and she had a hard time trusting other people. >> reporter: back in 2005, veronica was a case worker for utah's division of children and family services. her job was to find homes for kids who no longer had one. annie was one of those kids. >> annie has kind of a larger-than-life personality. whatever annie does, she never did small. if there was something she ha liked, she loved it and she was huge.he if there was something she didn't like, it was big. and there was no question about it. l >> reporter: drama came with it, huh? >> oh, yes, oh, yes. >> reporter: veronica tried for

years to find annie a stable home. but after annie had been flung back to the state nine times, veronica, young, naive and stubborn, made a surprising decision to adopt annie. did your superiors tell you, you know, we don't do that, veronica? >> oh, yes. >> reporter: don't cross that line. you have a professional yote relationship with this child. but don't bring her into your home. >> well, and that was very true. and because at the time, i also happened to be about six months pregnant. and so i'm sure the thought wasn okay, crazy pregnant lady. she doesn't know what she's doing.e az but it was very much, are you sure? you can't save everybody. >> reporter: but veronica was as determined to try. she and her then-husband dennis adopted 10-year-old annie in january 2007. annie, who had bounced around from house to house, finally had a home, parents and brothers who adored her. >> she was the immediate cool

big sister. she liked being the oldest, being in charge and teaching them all of this cool stuff. >> reporter: she was wanted, happy, making memories. opening gifts on christmas morning.ft her first trip to the beach. not that everything was perfect, mind you. >> there was still definitely a "i'm going to test you. as much as you say you love me and you're keeping me, i'm goiny to make -- i don't believe you.- >> how would she challenge you, for instance? >> just the quintessential, i'm not going to do what you say. i'm going to do whatever i want. >> reporter: so psychological m tussle going on here? >> uh-huh. >> reporter: which only intensified when annie entered her teen years. >> she was about as boy-crazy as i could imagine. she always had a boy that she liked or that liked her. and it was never a, here, let me see. it's a, oh, i'm so in love with you. this is forever.ke i couldn't imagine anybody being more amazing. she was very all in. >> reporter: but annie was also into her education and her future.ryte she wanted to be a therapist

just like veronica. she even wanted her new family to adopt more kids. >> well, what about this other m girl, mom? she's there. and she's really having a hard time. i think we should bring her home.s it was -- >> reporter: she was really becoming your daughter in a way, huh?mi >> yeah. >> reporter: veronica eventually divorced and remarried. she and her new husband james settled here, in riverton, utah, a quiet suburb of salt lake city.le annie had james wrapped around her finger. >> i took her with me to help me pick out her mother's k valentine's day gift. and there was a shoe store right across the way. she had a way with me. she could talk me into just about anything.wa and one of them was her favorite shoes that she found. and she was so excited about them.s and they were a red pair of shoes. >> reporter: just a few weeks later, march 10, 2012. w annie, now 15, was watching her brothers while veronica and james went out for dinner. >> and then when we came home, everything seemed the same. i mean, annie had changed from running around the house in shorts to jeans. and i just kind of chalked thatu up to, okay, she's gotten cold.

and i had a massive headache i couldn't get rid of. so i went to take a shower. and annie had gone downstairs tw her room to listen to music. and we just figured it was another saturday. >> reporter: but it wasn't. when veronica finished her shower, annie was gone. james searched her bedroom. >> the note was tucked underneath her blanket. and i grabbed it. and it just said, i'm sorry, gr mom, that i haven't been totally honest with you. >> reporter: annie, it turned out, was keeping a secret. in the note, she wrote, "i lied to my friends.ot i told them i was "p." "p."m veronica and james knew that stood for the word no teenager's parents want to hear, pregnant. just a few months earlier, they had learned that annie had had sex for the first time. >> she had had sex, and so to annie she had assumed that, well, because we've had sex, i could be pregnant, or i am pregnant. >> reporter: but the pregnancy test was negative, and annie was now on birth control. why would she lie about being "p"? even more alarming was where

annie said she was going. "by the time you read this note, i'll be on my way to california. please don't try and look for mn because i don't want to be found." >> the first thing we did is we called the police. and then the second person i called was chris. >> reporter: 14-year-old chris bagshaw.ep annie had brought him over to the house a few times. >> he was kind of quiet. i kind of took it as all right, i'm here with my girlfriend's parents. and i want to make sure they don't kill me.ki >> reporter: was he in and out of the picture for her as the boyfriend of the moment?or >> uh-huh. >> reporter: his stock would rise and fall? >> yep, she was crazy about him. >> reporter: chris told veronice he didn't know where annie was, but he did have some potentially significant information. chris said annie told him she was running away with a guy named l.j. >> we were shocked because, i mean, we didn't know all of her

friends because they changed a lot depending on who she was hanging out with at the moment, but it wasn't familiar at all. >> reporter: a police officer came and took a report. james, meanwhile, called up thee gps function on annie's cell phone. >> it put her around or about the golf course out in riverton and within a mile of that, which is around the bridge area. >> reporter: the bridge at the f jordan river, just a couple dg of miles from their home, a place joggers and horseback riders frequent during the day and young lovers at night.ri james, veronica, and the officer watched as annie's phone pinged across the computer screen in realtime. you're watching her move. >> yes. >> when it moved so fast, our immediate assumption was, okay, she's getting in a car. >> reporter: so this is a hot pursuit now, looking for your girl? >> yep.tt >> reporter: and then the signal just stopped. veronica drove to a walmart near where they'd tracked annie's phone. >> and i have her picture on my cell phone. and i'm showing it to the people that are sitting at the front, the greeters, going, have you seen this girl? >> reporter: are you collected? or are you a wreck while all this is going on? >> i am frantic.

>> reporter: veronica went back home. she and james watched the front door. and they kept calling annie, but her phone went straight to voicemail. in the best of worlds, she's ou. with some young boyfriend you may or may not know, off on a lark of some kind. but it'll come to an end. and you'll get her back and regroup.co >> yeah, our worst-case scenario at that point is, okay, she's going to come home pregnant. >> reporter: worst-case scenario? not even close. coming up -- >> what had happened to annie? and who was the mysterious l.j.? when we return -- >> he had told us that l.j. had driven by the house threatening chris. >> and a jogger makes a grim discovery. >> 911. what is the address of the emergency? >> i'm at the river bottom. there's a pool of blood. >> when "dateline" continues. ws the unbeatable strength and speed of advil liqui-gels. what pain?

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march 11, 2012. spring was still officially days away, but in draper, utah, its promise was clear. morning dew on the brush. the crisp air. the sun rising over the wasatch mountains. it should have been a beautiful day. but for a jogger on the jordan river parkway that morning, it was anything but. >> 911, what is the address of the emergency? >> you know, i'm not real sure. i'm at the river bottom, and there's some pools of blood. and i'm guessing it's just an animal, but in the water right

by the river there's a shoe. >> reporter: sergeant chad carpenter was one of the first on the scene. >> we called forensics out and did the presumptive test which tells that it was actually human blood. >> human blood. that changes things. >> we thought, okay, we might have a body in the water, so we called a helicopter. >> the helicopter was in the air. >> what did you find? >> she had a laceration on her forehead. her face was very swollen. we couldn't tell to what extent her injuries were. we couldn't even identify who she was.

>> their jane doe dressed in a red and white plaid shirt looked to be about 20 years old, her features possibly asian, and obviously she had been murdered. leading the investigation was a young detective named erik johnson. >> tell me about him. >> right when he came into the academy he sat next to me and started teasing me. and the rest of the class time we just harassed each other and laughed and giggled all day. >> reporter: jaclyn moore met derek at the police academy. sheed a derek hit it off immediately. >> he applied for detective and got it immediately. >> whdid you think rats, he got it? >> yeah. >> by the time she got there,

annie had been missing for nearly 20 hours. >> initially she was reported as asian. >> initially we thought, no, that's not possible, there's no way. >> reporter: but then, a detail sergeant carpenter shared with salt lake city's nbc affiliate ksl tv. >> there was a shoe found at the crime scene, and there was one on the body. >> reporter: a red shoe. the same kind james had bought annie for valentine's day just weeks earlier. veronica and james tried to stay calm. >> we called the police. and we said, hey, our daughter's missing. i think logically i was going, they're just going to rule it out. i just need them to rule it out. >> reporter: but they couldn't rule it out. >> after i called the police, i called my parents to come and pick up our boys. and i just started sobbing. >> reporter: police soon determined the 20-something asian victim was really 15-year-old annie kasprzak. she had been killed by blunt force trauma to the head. veronica and james had thought the rapid pinging of annie's phone meant she was driving

away. now there was no hope of her ever coming home. so there's the very worst moment of your life at that point. here they are, three people at the door. >> they confirmed that it was annie. i think we were in shock. we went into automatic, what do you need from us? tell us what you want. you can have it. look at anything. >> reporter: veronica told investigators what she learned from annie's on-again/off-again boyfriend chris bagshaw. that annie had run away with a boy named l.j. >> when you talked with l.j., how did you talk to him? >> i talked to him once. >> okay. >> actually on the phone. >> okay. >> reporter: police spoke to chris bagshaw and his father at their home. >> and when you talked to him on the phone, did he speak with an accent or did you notice anything distinctive about his voice? >> no. >> reporter: actually police also had to ask chris where he was. >> i was with my grandma. >> okay. >> and at one point i did walk up to see if my friend can hang out, but he wasn't home. >> okay. >> reporter: they went through the usual questions. >> when you walked to your

friend's, what did you have on? >> just regular jeans and a t-shirt and my red jacket. >> just blue jeans? >> yeah, blue jeans, nike shoes, a t-shirt underneath, and he had his red hoodie on. >> do you mind if we see your nikes? >> yeah, sure. >> reporter: chris wanted to help. he gave those nikes to investigators, as well as his clothes. he even gave a dna sample. and after his interview, chris' dad called up sergeant carpenter. >> he had told us in this phone call that l.j. had driven by the house, was threatening chris. >> reporter: so here's more information that this l.j. is a very real and threatening person. >> yes. >> reporter: detectives also spoke to chris and annie's friend spencer riddle. spencer said he was at the gym with his brother the night annie was killed. >> sometimes you just have got

>> did she have an interest in gangs or -- >> not that -- she didn't really tell me. i'm just -- maybe she does because of some person named l.j. that i have no idea who it is. all i know is she told me he was in a gang. i don't know for sure. >> reporter: before he left the interview, spencer shared one more thing with police. >> she said that l.j. has killed someone before. she never gave me the name, but she said that, she knows that or something like that. that's why she was scared when apparently l.j. threatened chris to come kill him. >> reporter: you thought l.j. was your killer? >> we thought l.j. was involved. >> reporter: did boy-crazy annie fall for a gang member? in her room, police found this poem she had written to l.j. and with it, for the first time, a name, leyton jendon. but police couldn't track him down. not showing up on social media and kid stuff? >> nothing. not even on any driver's license database. >> and he immediately tensed up, clenched his fists. his eyes got big.

he couldn't take his eyes off of me. and i thought, this kid has done something wrong. and he thinks i'm coming to arrest him because i'm approaching him in uniform. >> reporter: did you share that with derek? >> yes. he said, we've received more information now, and we think we have another suspect. >> reporter: another suspect. a new name altogether, based on information from an eyewitness who may have seen annie kasprzak the night she was killed and knew who killed her. coming up -- is this how annie was murdered? and is this the man who murdered her? when "dateline" continues. when "dateline" continues. sourced colors and flavors and are gluten & dairy free. they're all clean. all the time. even if sometimes we're not. sundown vitamins. all clean. all the time.

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annie kasprzak had been brutally murdered and dumped into the jordan river. >> we kept asking, are you sure it wasn't an accident? the idea that somebody else could do that to her was just -- even now, it's hard to imagine that that's even possible. >> reporter: and now draper police were working hard to catch her killer. >> we're trying to actively locate suspects in this case, any witnesses, so we can actually bring this case to a conclusion for the parents. >> reporter: and within a week of annie's murder, they found that witness. her name was joanna, and she had been picked up on a fraud charge

by neighboring west jordan p.d. during her interview, she started telling detectives about a young girl she had seen a week prior. the cops thought some of what she said sounded eerily similar to annie's case. so they called draper p.d., and detective derek johnson and his colleague came over to hear what joanna had to say. >> tell me what you know about this girl. >> it was the second time i've seen her over there. >> reporter: there at the home where a man named daniel ferry used to live. danny ferry is a guy known to law enforcement? >> yes. >> reporter: as maybe a drug dealer? >> drug dealer. he was a member of a gang called vario loco town. and law enforcement has dealt with danny quite a few times, yeah. >> reporter: ferry had a long rap sheet. in fact, derek had served a search warrant on his home a year earlier. and now here was joanna telling derek that she saw a girl who sounded a lot like annie at daniel ferry's home on the night annie was killed. joanna also said the girl showed up with someone police had been searching for but couldn't find. >> she came with l.j.

>> reporter: l.j., the guy annie had written that note to. the alleged gang member. the one chris bagshaw said annie had run away with. >> we had annie's entries that said l.j. we had joanna telling us about l.j. >> reporter: on that night, said joanna, l.j. and the girl disappeared into the garage. she assumed they were having sex. then when they came out, she saw daniel approach the girl. >> he asked her if she wanted to [ bleep ] and she laughed. and she was like, no. and he just kind of grabbed her head and just rammed it into the wall. >> reporter: she said the girl was knocked unconscious. l.j. and another friend named "v" tried to calm daniel down. and then the three of them carried the girl out to the garage and changed her clothes. >> tell me about the clothes they changed her into. >> there was a lot of red. that's what i remember the most. >> what parts do you remember being red?

>> pants and shoes and a shirt like a white/red. >> the shirt was white and red? >> yeah. her shoes. shoes had white laces, and we were tying them. >> reporter: then, joanna said, daniel, l.j. and "v" wrapped the unconscious girl in a blue tarp, put her in a white suburban and took off. and when they came back hours later, she said daniel was covered in blood and the girl was not with him. >> i asked daniel where she was, and he said that she went swimming. he said, she put up one hell of a fight once we got there. >> reporter: joanna's story rang true, leading derek johnson to believe the mystery girl was annie and daniel ferry was her killer. >> did you see blood on the carpet? >> yeah. >> was it carpet or hard floor? >> it was carpet. >> okay. >> i'm positive it was carpet. >> reporter: now the search team found the carpet in ferry's house had been ripped up and the walls were freshly painted.

you've got signs of a cover-up? >> yeah, it's looking more and more like this is actually true, all this information that we're receiving. >> reporter: did you find blood-like splotches on the wall? >> we found indications that there would be blood on the wall. >> reporter: they swabbed those areas and then went looking for daniel. they found him at an apartment complex, arrested him, and brought him in. >> do you want to talk to us without counsel? >> yeah, whatever. but what's it about? >> let me ask you that. what do you think? >> i got no clue. >> reporter: it was, the detectives thought, the typical bad-guy response. they were sure daniel knew something. they asked him about l.j. >> who the hell's l.j.? >> that's what i'm asking you. >> dude, i don't know no l.j. >> reporter: and then about annie. >> tell me about annie. tell me about annie. >> annie who? >> annie. >> who the [ bleep ] is annie? >> annie is a girl that was at your house for a party last weekend. >> dude, i have no idea who annie is. >> we've already talked to a lot of other people that all verify she was there, danny.

>> okay. show me a picture then. >> reporter: you showed him a picture of annie. >> yep. >> brittany? do you mean brittany? >> no, it's annie. >> reporter: detectives thought daniel was lying, and they were done playing around. >> what if i told you she's dead? >> i didn't do it. what the [ bleep ]? if you guys think i did this, i do want a lawyer. >> okay. >> because there's only -- >> we're done. >> the only thing that is shaking me. >> we're done, daniel, because i think you did it. >> well, if you think i did it, then you've got the wrong guy, man. for real. >> good luck. >> find the right guy. >> reporter: derek was confident he had. they booked daniel for annie's murder. >> reporter: l.j., whoever he was, still hadn't turned up, but detective derek johnson still thought he'd wrapped up his first homicide. all he needed was the lab to confirm that the blood found in daniel's home was annie's. but then the lab called and everything unraveled. coming up --

>> i cried for two hours. i had only had a few months in detectives and i didn't know if i was capable of doing this. >> when "dateline" continues. >> when "dateline" continues in relieving strength of aleve. so...magic mornings happen. there's a better choice. aleve pm.

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i'm dara brown with the top stories. rudy giuliani and mike pompeo before there was an ousting. mike pence made an unannounced visit to iraq where he med with the kurdish leader. he said he would be withdrawing 1,000 troops from the kurdish border with syria. see you with more news at the top of the hour. annie kasprzak had had a rough childhood. she was passed along from foster

home to foster home before she was adopted by her case worker, veronica. annie's life finally seemed to be turning around. then in 2012, annie, just 15, was found murdered, her body floating in the jordan river. >> there was never a second that your mind didn't go to, this is not what was supposed to happen. >> reporter: an eyewitness said she saw daniel ferry assault a girl the night annie was killed. that witness also said the girl had shown up with l.j., whom police could never find. but in the course of their investigation of ferry, detectives learned something interesting. and you had another l.j. in that crowd, didn't you? >> yeah. >> reporter: daniel ferry? >> yeah. >> reporter: what was his nickname? >> he used two. one was joker and the other was little joe. >> reporter: little joe? l.j.? >> yeah.

>> reporter: maybe their witness was confused or deliberately hiding the fact that ferry and l.j. were one and the same. either way ferry seemed like their man. but the d.a. wanted more evidence before filing charges. derek johnson and chad carpenter thought the blood samples taken from daniel ferry's home would push the case over the finish line. >> bloodwork came back, and it was negative for blood. >> reporter: not only were the samples not annie's blood, it wasn't even blood at all. a major blow to the investigation. didn't mean he's not good for the crime? >> it doesn't mean that he's not good for the crime. it just led us to believe that, okay, it didn't happen here, at the ferry residence. >> reporter: so ferry might be good for this thing, but boy, you're just not getting there? >> yeah. >> reporter: the only bright spot, daniel ferry wasn't getting out of jail.

he was also being investigated for an unrelated kidnapping and assault case in a neighboring town. >> reporter: they continued to investigate ferry. months went by. lead detective derek johnson was promoted to sergeant. which meant former hairdresser jaclyn moore's dream of making detective finally came true. maybe a case of beware what you wish for. one of her first assignments was the annie kasprzak murder. how did you feel about it? that this was now going to be your case? >> i cried for two hours. >> reporter: jaclyn decided she needed to start again from the beginning, following the chain of evidence that led her colleagues to daniel ferry. she thought she might link ferry to annie through his phone calls. but when she checked -- >> all of his cell phone records showed he was in the middle to northern part of salt lake county. he had never gone south close enough to where annie was killed. not even near her house. >> reporter: and she well knew the physical evidence wasn't there either. >> none of the dna came back

saying annie was ever a friend or ever at his house. >> reporter: but detectives had never found enough evidence to make a murder charge stick. and it turned out, there was an explanation. remember, while under suspicion for annie's murder, ferry was arrested for an unrelated kidnapping in a different town. the charge stuck. ferry eventually pleaded guilty and was sent to prison. draper police came to believe it was this kidnapping that star witness joanna had recounted to them. she had seen a totally different crime. not annie's murder. what's more, it happened on the same night annie was killed. no way daniel ferry could have committed both crimes. so now, rookie detective jaclyn moore went back to the boxes and binders piled high on her desk. >> i felt lost. i decided i need to start from the beginning and see what information derek had when he first got the case. >> reporter: and so began the education of a detective. she started reading through pages and pages of annie's notes and journal entries. who does annie turn out to be, the more you learn about her? >> she's very lost.

she wants to be loved by anyone and everyone. >> reporter: and jaclyn saw that there was one person in particular annie wanted to be loved by. chris bagshaw. his name was scribbled all over her journals. veronica remembered annie gushing about him. >> she liked him. he was different. he had enough of the bad boy going on that he wasn't a goody two-shoes, and so she didn't feel like he looked down at her. >> reporter: annie's diaries revealed something else too. >> she and chris had sex. >> reporter: chris was the boy annie had slept with just months before her death. after which, remember, she lied about being pregnant. >> i am starting to think that she made up the pregnancy to keep chris around because he didn't want to be with her anymore. >> reporter: next, jaclyn pored over annie and chris' phone records from the night of the murder. not only was chris the last person annie spoke to, but the pattern of their calls spoke volumes. >> 30 seconds here and then it hangs up. immediately one of them calls the other back.

sometimes the call is ignored. sometimes chris' phone is blocked. >> reporter: what do you think is going on? >> it looks like a fight. it looks like they're yelling at each other and hanging up on each other. >> reporter: chris had no criminal record and no eyewitness put him at the scene. and there was still the mysterious l.j., annie's reported boyfriend whom police could never find. not in any police database, not anywhere. that is, until jaclyn knocked on one more door. [ knocking ] >> hey. >> how's it going? >> hi. are you jack? >> yeah. >> i'm detective moore. this is detective johnson. >> reporter: her close buddy and predecessor, derek johnson, was by her side when she went to interview annie's friend jackson. he told them the same story that they'd been hearing all along, annie telling friends she was pregnant. nothing new. but then they asked jackson if he knew who l.j. was. his answer floored them. >> she would always referred to

this guy as l.j., and i asked her, well, what's his real name? and she said chris. >> a stunning revelation. was l.j., all along, just annie's nickname for chris bagshaw? coming up -- a death on the road and a body blow to jaclyn's case. >> i lost any information i had on that case. >> when "dateline" continues. ha >> when "dateline" continues sto. selfie-ing. and whatever this is. available to the public... never. smartdogs are not the answer. but geico has a simple tip. turn on "do not disturb while driving" mode. brought to you by geico.

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september 1st, 2013, it was 6:00 a.m. derek johnson, once the lead detective on annie's murder case, was now a sergeant. he was just finishing his graveyard shift and headed back to the station when he noticed a car parked on the side of the road. it looked like a stranded motorist. derek stopped to help but never made it out of his car. >> that motorist had a gun, and he was angry. >> reporter: draper police chief brian roberts. >> and he fired at derek johnson while he was sitting in the driver's seat of his car. >> reporter: derek, wounded, tried to drive away but lost control and crashed head-on into a tree. he died at the scene. >> it was hard. yeah, it sucked. it -- you have to give me a second.

so, derek, he was a good guy, good cop, good friend. >> reporter: derek was just 32 years old, leaving behind his wife, his 6-year-old sorngs and his family at draper p.d. >> you know everybody talks about a cop's cop and the best cop you can have and how he treated and served the community. derek was one of those guys. >> reporter: for jaclyn moore, the loss was two-fold. >> he was starting to get some free time to come help me with the case and tell me more about what he did when he was on the case. and then he was killed. i didn't have anyone else to ask. >> reporter: you'd lost your friend. your old competitive friend. >> i lost my friend, and i lost any information that i needed on that case. there was no one else. >> reporter: because he was kind of the institutional memory of this thing, wasn't he? >> yes. >> reporter: jaclyn had only herself to rely on now. in the balance, justice for

annie, now dead for a year and a half. she strongly suspected chris bagshaw knew more than he was telling. jaclyn listened to chris' interviews again and again and noticed something interesting chris said about his shoes. >> she had a bloody nose last time i hung out with her, and we were sitting right next to each other, and she did drip it on my shoes. >> do you remember where on the shoe? >> it was on my shoelaces. i'm not sure which shoe it is. >> when was that? >> about five days ago maybe, me and my friend spencer were hanging out, and she just came over. >> okay. >> reporter: spencer, remember, jaclyn had seen him coming into the station in the days following annie's murder. she had a gut feeling back then

that he was hiding something and detectives at the time asked for his phone. >> do you have an idea why we took your phone? >> for call logs? >> well, no, that's part of the reason. but there was a message on there that we're kind of interested in. do you know what that message is? >> reporter: it was a message from chris. the cops might come back to your house. i need you to tell them that annie got a bloody nose so i don't get blamed. >> he told me about the -- he said something about the bloody nose. that i actually don't remember seeing. i remember hearing it though. >> reporter: lab results eventually did show annie's blood was on chris' shoes. detectives questioned him about it during a second interview. >> okay. it would have just been one drop? >> yeah. >> reporter: but then his story began to change. >> where did it drip on your shoe? >> there was a little bit on the shoelace, and then there was a little bit right here. >> okay. so those are two separate drops you could see? >> yeah. >> reporter: in fact, the lab found more than just those two spots of blood. they found several. but studying the case file, jaclyn noticed that the lab didn't test every spot to see if it belonged to annie. they also hadn't tested the bottom of chris' shoes. so what do you do? >> well, at that point we went with a private lab to see if they could test the shoes further.

it appeared the bottom of the shoe, both shoes, were soaked in blood. >> reporter: it seemed like damning evidence, but after testing that blood further -- >> it came back with two males and two females. >> reporter: again, nothing you can take to the jury. >> right. >> reporter: she tested some of the other evidence, but it didn't lead anywhere. >> reporter: this is more of jaclyn learning how to be a detective. >> yes. >> reporter: she took a week-long course on cell phone investigation taught by a former homicide detective. his name was sy ray, and he was a busy man. >> i said, hey, i have this case, and it's two years old. and i have this cell phone map and i can't explain it. >> reporter: one call stood out, an incoming call at 9:01 p.m.

the night annie was killed. >> it's a 1:59 in length. and what really stood out is we see these 25 handoffs. >> reporter: handoffs, the signal bouncing from tower to tower. >> but the 25 handoffs were only between these four towers that we were looking at here. >> reporter: sy created this map of the pings. but the signal strength had to be so similar within those four towers, and a very poor signal at that, that it would cause the handing off that we saw. >> reporter: eventually they found it, the only spot in town that caused the strange pattern of pings. it was at the jordan river, the very spot where annie was killed. >> we feel very, very comfortable saying, at 9:01 p.m. on march 10th, the phone was within 100 meters of where we're standing. >> reporter: of course, a skilled defense attorney could argue just because chris' phone was there, didn't mean he was. except for one important detail. it turned out of all the people who could have called chris that night the one who did, at precisely 9:01 p.m., was annie's mom, veronica. that was because of something annie had told veronica earlier that morning, something about chris. >> he had asked her, what would you do if i asked you to run away with me? would you do if i asked you to runaway with me. >> runaway? >> i told you, if you're ever missing, he's the first person i'm calling. >> which she did. >> without even realizing it, helped misplace chris bag shaw

at the scene of the crime right around the time her daughter was killed. it was early morning, october 16, 2014, when veronica got another life changing call. coming up -- jaclyn says we're in colorado and in the process of arresting chris. >> when "dateline" continues. i, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. hey! my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise. who's the dummy now? whoof! whoof! so get allstate where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. sorry! he's a baby! have a skincare routine. but what about a lip care routine? pay your lips some attention. the chapstick total hydration collection. exfoliate

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chris now 17 had moved to

grand junction, colorado and was living with his mom. he was completely unprepared for the undercover officers who approached him on his way to school and for the young detective who met him in the interview room. we have a warrant for your arrest. >> for? >> murder and obstruction of justice. >> i thought i proved myself. >> no, you didn't. chris was extradited back to utah. veronica and james were grateful to police but they knew nothing could bring annie back. >> while we support the police department and attorney's office and appreciate all the work they've continued to do, it does

not change what happened. >> february 29, 2016, almost four years since annie's murder and darwin christopher bagshaw's trial was just a week away. he had refused to talk to police and pleaded not guilty. >> we were preparing for trial the following week and i got a phone call that chris' attorney scheduled a hearing that day. >> jaclyn, now a sergeant with the utah state police ran down to court and barely made it in time. when she got there, she saw chris standing before the judge. >> the case is set for a change of plea hearing today. are we going forward with that? >> yes. >> there was no deal offered, just a change of heart. >> are you pleading guilty to the charge because you're guilty of it? >> yes, your honor. >> chris' attorney said chris wanted to take responsibility for what he had done. >> all right. as to count one, murder or first degree felony, how do you plead?

>> guilty, your honor. >> a guilty plea. confirming what jaclyn had pieced together over the years of her investigation. and she had a theory about how it all went down. >> march 10, annie is discussing over the phone what her options are for her baby with chris. and chris is telling her, he's come up with a plan and they can runaway and be together. >> jaclyn think chris believed annie was pregnant. so he persuaded him to meet her at the river. >> but. >> chris has no intent on running away. chris' only reason for being there is to kill her. so he just starts beating her until she dies. >> turns out to be very sloppy, the amount of blood. >> i feel he betrayed annie more than he betrayed us. annie knew him and annie trusted him. >> at his sentencing, chris now

18, sounded remorseful. >> i'm very sorry for everything that's happened and i want to to apologize to annie's family and to my family and to everybody in court today for putting everybody through this. >> still trying to put words into everything that has happened. >> for veronica, no amount of i'm sorries could make up for what she and annie's entire family lost. >> you feel sadness, may you feel loss, may your tears heal your soul, but may your conscience never clear. i will grieve my daughter every day. >> for the charge of murder or first degree felony, i'll sentence you to an indeterminate term of not less than 15 years. >> chris bagshaw robbed annie of her future. >> it would be 15 years to life in prison. >> jaclyn has other cases to

work these days. but this one, annie's case will surely always hold a special place in her heart. do you think derek would have approved? his confidence in you vindicated finally? >> i wish so bad he was there. >> annie started off as a case for veronica, too. but she became so much more. >> we put her ashes in the ocean so that she would never be in one place and so that wherever we were at, we could feel like she was there. >> despite the horrific events that took away her daughter, veronica is still as determined as ever to continue to do good work and to help children in need. she and james have since adopted five more children.

it is just what annie would have wanted them to do. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thanks for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it's 6:00 in the east, 3:00 out west. here's what's happening. new details in the documents. what we've learned about rudy giuliani, the secretary of state and the firing of the ukraine ambassador. also what giuliani said in a new interview. are you afraid, mr. mayor, that you could be indicted? >> oh, wow. how long have you known me? >> i've known you several years. >> you think i'm afraid? >> turning up the heat of why california congressman devin nunes may face an ethics investigation. pushback. the threat from top military officials to the trump administration over a