>> i choose to believe in my heart that her presence is still here. her legacy gets to be that she still is here in this world, changing this world and making a difference. >> this edition of "dateline." i'm natalie morales. thank you for watching. i'm kracraig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> this is "dateline." how far would you go? how long would you wait to get justice for a friend? >> he killed her. he needed to pay for it. >> they'd been college roommates, super close, until that terrible night. that many wounds certainly suggests rage at the victim. >> absolutely. >> who could have done it? her boyfriend? >> something just didn't seem right. >> her new friend? >> things weren't adding up. >> her ex?

>> he was very obsessed with angie. >> the trail went cold for more than two decades, but she was sure she knew who the killer was, even got a private detective license to help prove it. >> i said, i'm a private investigator, and i need you to tell me where's the evidence, all of that. wasn't well received at all. >> finally, the break they needed. >> we got the match. >> leading to one of the greatest twists of all time. >> we could not have -- you could not have shocked me more. >> hello, and welcome to when "dateline" continues. when angie samota walked into a room, people noticed -- pretty, vivacious, and outgoing. the college student had her choice of dates. then late one friday night, angie was murdered. a crucial clue pointed to one

man, but in this case, nothing was as it seemed. it would take decades and a tenacious friend to uncover the truth. here's josh mankowitz with "in the middle of the night." >> reporter: it was a saturday morning in october, 1984, when sheilah wysoc kids's phone rang. >> it was a girlfriend. she said there's been an accident. >> reporter: an accident involving sheilah's good friend, freshman roommate and fellow student at southern methodist university, angie samota. >> and i initially thought that angie had been in a car accident, and of course i went through the is she in the hospital, where is she? and i wasn't getting any information from her. and my girlfriend was crying. >> reporter: that's because it wasn't an accident. that same morning, angie's sorority sister, evelyn sandy, was given the news straight out by two friends.

>> they told me that angie had been murdered. she had been found naked with a lot of stab wounds. it was absolute shock. >> reporter: angie samota had not only been killed but butchered. repeat repeatedly stabbed in her bedroom. a bloody end to a life that this so much promise. >> she was the most amazing person. she was full of life. she could light up a room. she was a very hard worker, and she knew where she was going. she was driven. >> reporter: angie grew up in amarillo and attended the school in dallas and bought a condo near the smu campus. >> angie was this amazing shining star to so many people that she knew. she was absolutely brilliant before her time.

she was a double major in engineering and computer science at smu at a time which girls were not doing that. she had this amazing joy devivre, this love of life. was the life of the party. >> reporter: beautiful, intelligent, single, and 20 years old. it's a combination that attracts men of all kind. >> she used to get notes on her car. she'd get flowers. she'd come in and show me who wrote her that day. she had a lot of attention, absolutely. a lot of attention. >> reporter: am i right in thinking that she didn't always have the best taste in guys? >> like any other 18 to 20-year-old, she didn't choose wisely at that point in her life. >> reporter: some of those choices and some of those men would figure prominently in the interlocking stories of angie samota's life and of her death. there was lance whom angie had dated back home in amarillo and through her freshman year in

dallas. according to her friends, angie said she was afraid of lance because he had a temper and had once pulled a knife on her. there was ben, angie's boyfriend at the time of her death. older and already out of school, he was a construction supervisor in dallas. sounds like he was kind of the opposite of lance. >> i will say he's the opposite of lance. >> reporter: and there was russell. a new friend of angie's who'd gone out that evening with her and her friend, anita, another female engineering student at smu. you saw her that last night. >> yes. >> how was me? >> she was angie. i mean, she was fine. >> reporter: that night, anita accompanied angie and russ old an expedition of a series of bars and clubs. angie's friend ben was not present. >> ben was aware of the fact that angie, russell, and i were going out together. >> reporter: at least to angie's

friend evelyn, ben didn't seem like the type to get jealous or violent. you could never imagine ben hurting angie? >> i could absolutely never, ever imagine ben hurting angie. >> reporter: the evening ended at 1:00 a.m. angie dropped russell off at his apartment which was walking distance from her own and then took anita home. anita had thought about spending the night at angie's but decided against it. what was the last thing you said to each other that night? >> see you tomorrow at the football game. she doesn't meet me there. very strange because angie was pretty much a woman of her word. i remember saying, i wonder where angie is. i came home, and my roommate said, there's something i need tell you. she said, you might want to sit down. she goes, angie was murdered last night, and the police are wanting you to call them back. >> reporter: what did you think? >> i didn't want to believe it at first. beyond that, i started with the whole -- woulda, coulda,

shoulda. could i have prevented it, should i have spent the night, would things have been different? >> reporter: but she was not the last person to see angie alive. it turns out angie's boyfriend, ben, was that person. she had stopped by his place on her way home after dropping off anita. later that night, it was ben who called police to angie's condo. what got their attention was not just what ben said but how he sounded when he said it. >> i called her, she won't answer the door or can't answer the door. >> reporter: does he sound frantic? panicked? investigators didn't think so. coming up -- police start focusing on ben, but soon the list of suspects gets longer. >> he was a pretty scary guy. he was creepy. ok at this human g to get in shape. you know what he will get?

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in the fall of 1984, smu college student angie samota had been found murdered. arriving officers walked in on a bloodbath. >> they found one shoe in the den, another shoe have somewhere else, all her clothes stacked up in one neat pile, and then angie laying on the bed covered in blood. her chest area was pretty caved in with stab wounds. >> reporter: that was a vicious assault. >> there were 18 stab wounds,

ten of which punctured the heart. breaking the breast bone and going through the body. >> reporter: the detectives were assistant district attorneys in dallas at the time. they say whoever stabbed angie was intent on killing her. that many wounds can certainly suggest rage, anger at the victim. >> absolutely. >> from what you could tell, did angie samota have any enemies? >> seemed recycle had broken hearts. but enemies, she was the type of person that didn't have enemies. everyone seemed to like her a lot. the only people seemed to be mad at her were ex-boyfriends or people that wanted to be her boyfriend. >> reporter: police immediately focused on the man in angie's life -- starting with ben, her then-boyfriend. ben told police a story that sounded a bit suspicious. he said that after dropping off anita after their night out, angie had stopped by his place, waking him up for a brief visit. and that she then drove home.

within minutes of reaching her condo, ben says angie called at around 1:45 a.m. in that phone call, ben says angie told him she had let a man she didn't know into her home in the middle of the night. a man who'd asked to use her phone and bathroom. ben says angie then hung up, promising to call back. but she never did, ben said, and she didn't answer his calls. concerned, ben told police he drove to her condo, but angie wasn't answering her door either, and now ben was locked outside, calling police on the early generation mobile phone in his truck and sounding to them oddly calm. >> my girlfriend called me, said there was a man in her apartment using the bathroom and the phone. and now i cannot get her to answer the phone. her car's here, and she won't answer the door or can't answer the door. >> he broke in? >> no, no. >> he didn't break in? she let him in?

>> i'm not sure. i think so. >> does she know this man? >> i don't believe so, no. >> she won't answer the phone? >> no. >> reporter: police weren't sure what to make of ben and his version of events. so there was no way to tell whether the story that ben had told police on the 911 tape actually happened. >> the only thing we was ben's word. >> reporter: no cell phone records back then and no records of local phone calls. that call that ben talked about, that may never have happened? >> that is correct. >> i would expect someone to be -- i can't find her, where she is, she's not answering. it was a very mellow -- a very feelingless phone call. it was somebody who didn't seem too concerned. >> reporter: ben waited in the living room while police went into angie's bedroom. they came out and told him angie was dead. >> the first responding officer, what he remembered most was even after he had discovered the body and said so, ben didn't even ask what condition, how she was, or anything like that.

>> reporter: and sometimes people who don't ask that question don't ask it because they already know the answer. >> exactly. >> didn't ask how she was killed, whether it was gunshot, stab wounds. >> reporter: that's unusual. >> very. >> reporter: and there was something else -- ben's story may have been suspicious, but ben himself was squeaking clean. >> this was approximately 2:00 in the morning. he had been awakened from sleep, and he arrived at the location in a clean, pressed shirt, and he smelled of soap as if he had just cleaned up. that tended to raise some suspicions with the first responding officers that something didn't seem right. >> reporter: while police were trying to process the story ben was telling, they widened their investigation on include angie's ex-boyfriend, lance, the boy next door in amarillo. the boy angie had trouble with.

it was something angie's friend sheilah knew all about. >> he was very obsessed with angie. he was so obsessed with her, he would come down all the time to school to see her. >> reporter: they had dated three angie's freshman year. >> one night i got a call from angie. she was crying, and she said that lance had gone crazy, and i needed to get over there. she was screaming. lance had taken a knife and shredded all of her clothes. >> reporter: did he threaten her? >> yes, yes, he did. verbally, and you is a weapon, whether -- you have a weapon, whether it's a knife, scissors, he threatened her. he was creepy. >> reporter: suddenly lance was at the top of the investigators' list. >> barack obaprime suspect. >> especially when we have an 18-wound stabbing.

>> reporter: someone got in undetected or angie knew them and let them in. >> yes. >> reporter: and all of that pointed either to the ex-boyfriend, lance, or to angie's current boyfriend, ben. or maybe to a new man in her life, the man she'd been out with the last night of her life, russell. soon police would ask sheilah, then a college student, to help narrow down that list of suspects and solve the crime. >> he killed her. he needed to pay for it. >> reporter: coming up, sheilah's nerve-racking night with suspect number one. >> here i am sitting across from this man thinking, i'm eating dinner with a murderer. >> reporter: and then investigators get a break. >> they had their guy now.

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so let's woah. ready. set. woah. universal orlando resort. stay at a universal hotel starting from $79 a night plus tax. restrictions apply. who wanted angie samota dead? an autopsy determined she'd also been sexually assaulted just before she was stabbed to death. her friend, sheilah. >> i find out she had been raped, and i can't think of anything else. it was overwhelming emotionally. >> reporter: it was hard for angie's friends to hear, but the rape did help law enforcement because they now had the

perpetrator's dna profile. but back in the mid '80s that wasn't the help it would be today. >> back in 1984, they could do a type of blood testing where they can determine whether or not an individual is a secreter or non-secreter. basically narrow it down to 20% of the population. >> reporter: roughly 80% of americans are concresecreters m they have markers in their blood toothpaste. the other 20% don't have those markers. the killer was a non-secreter. >> correct. >> reporter: that plenty it couldn't be lance, the ex-boyfriend. angie's friends say she told them lance had threatened her with a knife. blood tests revealed lance was a secreter. in addition, lance had an alibi putting him 370 miles away on the night of the murder. >> he was staying with his parents in amarillo, working at the local gym there. they were satisfied that he was

not in town when this took place. >> so he was eliminated based on that. >> reporter: what about ben? angie's oddly unemotional boyfriend who officers thought acted strangely the night of the murder. did police officers check if there were scratches or bruises on him? >> they checked that. they checked his vehicle. they checked his apartment for any type of blood, bloody clothes, anything like that. >> nothing. >> nothing. >> reporter: and tests showed ben was also a secreter. whoever had raped and killed angie was not. so cross ben off the list. which leaves russell. >> and he was a non-secreter. so he could not be eliminated. >> reporter: his alibi was that he was in home in bed. not exactly the strongest. >> there was no witness that could confirm where he was after he was dropped off by angie and anita. >> no one can confirm if he went to bed, where he was after that. >> reporter: did he ever move

off this story? >> no. >> no. >> reporter: and russell said there was nothing romantic about the evening. it was just a night out for three young people. he continued to insist that he didn't have any feelings for angie, that he didn't perceive that evening as a dates, and he wasn't romantically interested in her. >> correct. >> reporter: i get the feeling no one believed that. >> a lot of things weren't adding up. >> reporter: soon police were asking angie's friend anita about russell buchanan. was there something specifically they wanted to know? >> did i think he was romantically interested in angie. i think they were piecing together that we went out that night, that he'd had some romantic interest in her and maybe she rebuffed him. since he lived within walking distance, that he had committed the crime. >> reporter: what anita didn't know was that the day after the crime, russell went town for before 24 hours. seemed suspicious. when he returned, police paid him a visit. he told them he didn't know

anything about angie's murder even though it was in the headlines and all over local news. it seemed hard to believe. police saw both motive and opportunity. and while there was no witness placing russell at the crime scene, there was also no one to back up his alibi. angie's friend sheilah met with the lead detective who laid out for her the police theory. >> russell snapped is the word he used. and then he grabbed a knife, took her into the room, and proceeded to rape her. this is probably the one and only murder he will do. that it was just a passionate moment and he snapped, and he's going to be back to his old calm self. >> reporter: investigators asked sheilah to have dinner with russell and ask him about his whereabouts the night of the murder. she agreed. >> it was so uncomfortable. here i am sitting across from this man thinking i'm eating dinner with a murderer. i'm getting into a car with a

murderer. this guy murdered my roommate. >> reporter: but even to sheilah, russell stuck to his story, just as he had a couple of weeks after the murder when police asked him to take a lie detector test. in fact, russell was found to be truthful when he was asked questions about angie's murder. about three months later, dallas police took a second look. >> and they looked at the polygraph again and came to a consensus that he was deceptive on those questions. >> reporter: that's a big difference from the way the original results were perceived. >> huge. they had their guy now. >> i did not want to believe that it was somebody close to her. it was more than i could handle. >> reporter: did you think police were going to charge russell? >> oh, yes, absolutely. >> reporter: but they didn't. russell hired an attorney and stopped talking with police. >> they told me that he had lawyered up, and they couldn't touch him. they also said that russell was leaving the country.

so of course he was leaving the country, he lawyered up, he is hiding. it's done. he's going to get away with murders. roy not so fast. russell buchanan is about to tell us a story that will make you re-evaluate everything you just heard. coming up, russell answers the tough questions. >> reporter: the police theory was that you attacked her, you had sex with her, and then you stabbed her to death. >> and then, will investigators finally have a way to know if he's telling the truths? >> they did have a sample that in today's technology could be tested to try and find a dna standard. standard when we started carvana, they told us that selling cars 100% online wouldn't work. but we went to work.

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according to the u.s. fire service. new zealand's prime minister was re-elected on saturday in a landslide. in recent months, she's received praise from around the world for her happening of the coronavirus. now back to "dateline." welcome back. i'm craig melvin. detectives were convinced they knew who killed angie samota. russell buchanan had the means and a possible motive. but the evidence against him was circumstantial, and soon the case went cold. russell had his own story to tell, but the truth would lay dormant for decades only to be uncovered by an amateur sleuth obsessed with the case. back to josh mankiewicz with "in the middle of the night." >> reporter: several months after angie samota was raped and

murdered, the prime suspect, russell buchanan, hired an attorney and refused to speak with police. several months after that, he left the country. it seemed suspicious, but without enough evidence to arrest russell, police could not stop him. russell was not arrested or charged in angie's murder. he went on to become a successful architect. it had been nearly 30 years when russell decided to talk once again about what happened that night and about angie. her friends describe her as the kind of girl that guys get crushes on. >> maybe so. >> reporter: possible that you had a crush on her? >> no. no. not at all. i -- i hardly knew her. >> reporter: but after questioning angie's friend anita about that shared night out, investigators wrote that she told them that the evening centered around russell and angie, and that anita felt as if she were along for appearances sake only.

>> it certainly didn't occur to me that it was an angie and russ event. it was the three of us. i remember anita and i sitting at the table visiting while angie was out on the dance floor dancing. >> reporter: russell had told police angie and anita had dropped him off around 1:00 a.m., and he then went to sleep. for him, that was the end of the night. your alibi was you were home in bed. >> yeah. and there was no way to prove it unfortunately. >> reporter: the police theory was that you -- after you were dropped off -- walked back to angie's house, knocked on the door. she let you in because she knew you. you already had a thing for her. something went wrong, you attacked her. you had sex with her, you raped her, and then since she knew you and she could identify you, you stabbed her to death. >> that's what they thought. >> reporter: and so in the days after the murder, police started

picking up russell after work and bringing him down to the station for questioning. >> it seemed like two or three times a month for six months. as they got toward the five to six-month time period, there was a significant shift in the tone and tenor of the interrogation. >> reporter: more accusatory. >> outright accusatory. i recall in detail the detective leaning back in his chair with an envelope, photographs of the crime scene, that they were absolutely horrific. he would hold them up in front of me, and his questions were, russell, this looks familiar, doesn't it? you remember this, don't you? because you did this. >> reporter: we think you did this. >> no. it wasn't "we think," it is "you did this." you had sex with her.

you killed her. you stabbed her 18 times. >> reporter: but russell continued to deny it. that steady drumbeat of accusation and denial ended only when russell hired the attorney and refused any further free trips downtown. and the murder of angie samota then went cold for years. then in 2004, 20 years after the crime, angie's friend sheilah, by then living in nashville, decided to act on something she'd thought about for a while. >> i actually had felt angie around me for a while. and then i was doing homework for a bible study class, and all of a sudden i look up, and as you're sitting there, there was angie. and then i thought, it's time. and i called the police. >> reporter: and said? >> i wanted to know about the

angela samota case, who was working on it, if they were working on it, and if they weren't, would they reopen it. at that point told me nobody in 20 years had called. not one single phone call. >> reporter: that prompted sheilah to take a big step. she decided to get a private investigator's license to see if she could learn enough about crime and criminals to actually help solve angie's murder. at the very least, she wanted dallas police to take her seriously. she earned her license in 2006 and called the police again. >> i said, i'm a private investigator, you need to send me all the information on angela samota's case, and i need talk to the detective, and i need you to tell me what has been done, what hasn't been done, where's the information, where's the evidence, all of that. wasn't well received at all. >> reporter: but they met with you to talk about the case. >> no.

no. >> reporter: they gave you the evidence. >> no. no. >> reporter: they gave you regular votes? >> no. -- regular votes? >> no, no, none of it. >> reporter: doesn't sound like it helped to be a private eye. >> it did not. after finding out they were not going to welcome me into the investigation, i started making phone calls to them. and the first 50 phone calls went to the lead detective who had been moved to traffic. got nowhere with him. and finally one day, six months into it, i talked to a receptionist who said he's in retirement. he's not even working traffic. >> reporter: wait a minute. you left 15 messages in one month. >> yes. i'm a little obsessive. >> reporter: sheilah's persistence paid off. she eventually was put in touch with the investigator looking at cold cases. a woman who dusted off the old angie samota files, took a look inside, and found some promising

evidence. >> in '06 when she decided to reopen the case, she went over to lab and realized that they did have a rape kit. they did have a sample that in today's technology could be tested to try and find a dna standard. >> reporter: by 2006, dna testing had evolved. some other angie's other friends also approached police about reopening the investigation. it was sheilah who eventually made more than 700 phone calls over the years trying to move angie's case forward. she even offered to pay for the dna testing herself. >> i said, okay, i'll send you a check, i'll overit. who do i make it out to. she said you can't do that. you're not allowed. >> that's something police departments pay for, not pis. >> right. >> reporter: finally, in 2008, the dna sample from angie samota's cold case was entered into the national data base. to sheilah, the frightened

co-ed-turned-mom-turned private eye, the pieces were about to finally fall into place. you still focused on the theory that russell buchanan did it and got away with murder? >> absolutely. absolutely. found out he was still in dallas. that he was actually a professional, and i kept thinking, why is this man having a good life after he had murdered angie. it was going to be solved. and russell was going to go to jalg. >> reporter: well, just a minute -- >> sheilah's persistence breathed new life into a case that sat cold for nearly 24 years. now, the investigation was about to take a stunning turn. coming up -- >> the detective said, we got him. my mind immediately went to russell. who else could have done it? >> good question. but the last thing she was prepared for was the answer. these are real people, not actors, who've got their eczema under control. with less eczema, you can show more skin.

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march, 2008, the dna from angie samota's killer was entered into codis, the national dna data base. and finally, police had the answer that had eluded them for 23 1/2 years. >> we got the break we were looking for. we got the match. >> i received a call, and it was the detective, and she said "we got him."

my mind immediately went to russell. who else could she could have done it. >> she said to you? >> it's not russell. it's not russell. you could not have shocked me any more. everything i had known my whole life was just gone. this whole time i thought this guy had done it, and it wasn't him. it wasn't him. >> reporter: dna as we now know does not lie. the s. taken from angie samota's body did not match russell buchan buchanan. did you feel guilty? for having done everything you -- >> to put somebody behind bars? well, yeah. >> reporter: everything you could to convict russell and send him to death flow is. >> -- death row? >> yes, absolutely. of course i did. i thought this guy was it, and absolutely i was going to get him. and he wasn't the guy. so everything that i thought was

truth was not truth anymore. and yes, i felt very guilty. still do. >> reporter: she felt guilty. russell felt anything but. all those years he'd been unaware of how hard sheilah had worked to convict him. all he'd known was the intense heat police had applied. but even now, russell just can't seem to get the words "i told you so" out of his mouth. >> doesn't change anything. angie's life hasn't been resurrected. but my role or lack of role in this case was -- was put to rest. i no longer had to wonder anymore about who perpetrated this horrible crime. i no longer had to live with the idea that there were people in the police department that thought i had perpetrated this crime. >> reporter: the dallas police called him on the phone to

apologize. >> the police sergeant was very, very thoughtful. he said, "on behalf of the dallas police department, i want to tell you that we apologize for anything that we may have done to have accused you of a crime in this case, and we wish you well." >> reporter: wait a minute -- >> didn't hurt me feelings at all. they -- >> wait. you were okay with that? that's all -- that's all it took? >> you bet. >> reporter: home interrogations? >> i have no idea. >> reporter: holding the crime seen photos up in front of you. >> not a happy experience. >> reporter: then they apologize, steph curand you're right, fine. >> i refused to allow this incident to define who i am. i have moved on. i harbor no ill feelings toward the dallas police department. never have. i happen to be an innocent bystander, falsely accused. but life goes on. in fact, i was thrilled that they called me to offer an

apology. >> reporter: but he does think about what might have happened. >> what if i had said i could not go out that friday evening? i wouldn't be here. i would not have even been considered a suspect. so the fate of that one decision to go out one evening, cast a very long shadow. not only for angie but for everyone else involved. >> reporter: and there's an even bigger question for russell -- what if he hadn't been able to hire a lawyer? he was, prosecutors say, an eyelash away from being arrested for angie's rape and murder. if you believe that he was attracted to angie, he had motive, he had opportunity. he didn't have an alibi.

now you add failing a polygraph. >> all the evidence pointed toward him. >> reporter: it was all circumstantial. >> correct. >> reporter: in the mid '80s, that was the kind of thing that got you locked up. >> got a lot of people locked up. >> reporter: so who was the man behind the dna snatch and what story would he tell? >> angie's friends face the accused killer in court. will they get the justice they have fought so hard to win? coming up -- >> i remember the air being sucked out of the room and the feeling that i'm in the presence of pure evil. >> but what would a jury see? introducing voltaren arthritis pain gel.

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welcome back. 20-year-old angie samota had her whole life ahead of her when it was cut tragically short. by 2008, she had been dead longer than she lived, and still her case was unsolved. with advances in dna technology, police were now ready to reveal a promising new suspect. for years, angie's friend sheilah wanted nothing more than the truth. what she learned was as stunning as the murder itself. here's josh mankiewicz with the conclusion of "in the middle of the night." >> reporter: more than 23 years

after the rape and murder of angie samota, the man behind that dna was finally identified. it was not as we now know russell buchanan. it was not lance, the ex-boyfriend. and it was not ben, the boyfriend who never asked police how angie died. the man whose dna was found in angie samota's body is donald andrew bess. not a name you had heard before. >> never. never had hit the radar of the dallas police department. >> reporter: not someone she knew. >> never crossed paths. >> reporter: why was mr. bess' dna on file in the national data base? >> he had previously been arrested and convicted of two different rapes. >> reporter: donald bess had been out on parole only seven months on a rape charge when angie was raped and killed.

prosecutors say she clearly had no idea of his history when he came knocking on her door. and angie let him in the house. why would she do that? >> a different time. little more innocent. 1984. if they said, hey, can i use the bathroom, can you give me directions -- she was the type of individual that would help. she wouldn't have thought twice about it. >> reporter: he's never admitted to it. >> has not. he still has yet to admit at that he had sexual relations with her. >> reporter: in may, 2008, donald bess was charged with angie's rape and murder. the trial took place two years later. his dna hit was fresh, but everything else in the case of more than 20 years old. and the murder weapon was never found. by now, donald bess was 61. angie would have been 45. her college friend sheilah walked in the courtroom on the first day of trial. >> and i just remember feeling shaky all over. >> reporter: she got a close

look for the first time at the man accused of robbing angie of most of her life. >> he walks in the door, and i remember will air being sucked out of the room. and the -- the feeling that i'm in the presence of pure evil. >> reporter: anita and russell, the friends with whom angie spent her last night, both testified. both found it emotional. >> just keep reliving a situation that is just difficult. it was just a flood of emotion, of how could you do something like that. >> it was tough. it was very tough. >> reporter: did you look at the defendant while you were there? >> yeah. yeah. that was scary. >> reporter: and think to yourself -- >> that was scary. >> reporter: you're the reason that i was under suspicion for so long. >> no. that was not what was going through my mind at all. what was going through my mind was, dude, do not come after me. >> reporter: prosecutors had dna

on their side which sounds like a slam-dunk. but nothing ever is in a jury trial. >> the mere fact that his dna is found in her doesn't necessarily put him at the crime scene. it doesn't necessarily make him her murderer. >> reporter: the defense team including robbie mcclung went on the attack. >> all you can assume from dna is that he had sex with her. it's up to the facts and the evidence to determine whether or not it was consensual or unconsensual. >> reporter: you're going to tell me angie samota chose to have sex with convicted rapist donald bess? >> i can't tell you, no one can tell you. no one was there but angie samota and donald bess. >> reporter: and the defense did the same thing police did in the first hours after angie's murder -- make her boyfriend ben a suspect. the man who made that calm 911 call that police found suspects. >> to assume that a very intelligent young lady is going to throw the door open to some stranger at 1:30 in the morning

to come into her apartment and use the bathroom but then is so afraid of this person that she picks up the phone and calls her boyfriend. and then hangs up the phone willingly, and yet this is supposed to be the assailant that kills her? it doesn't make sense. >> reporter: you find ben's actions suspicious? >> extremely suspicious. >> reporter: she and the other on the defense team didn't point their fingers only at ben but also at ex-boyfriend lance, at russell, and at any other man who could have been invited by angie into her home. >> it almost seems as if she were overcome by someone she knew, in close proximity. >> reporter: or someone holding knife. >> it could be someone that she knew. but it could be someone other than donald bess. >> reporter: someone like ben, the defense suggested, and they put the blame on angie herself for possibly making him jealous. >> a bouncer at the club where she had been that night talked about the way she was dressed, the way she was acting, that she

was extremely flirtatious with him and that's how she got in the club. and just kind of the general tenor of her behavior. >> reporter: you're kind of making her out to be -- >> i know. it sounds that way, doesn't it? >> sort of trampy. >> trampy seems to be a harsh word. what i'd say is that things weren't exactly as they seemed. that there maybe had been some reckless behavior. maybe a little bit more fun and flirtatious than certain people would have liked, and that maybe someone found out about it. >> reporter: you think ben was angrier than he let on. >> much angrier. >> reporter: even though he appeared calm. >> there are a lot of suspects out there that can appear calm when they need to be calm. >> they put on a defense of anything they could that would stick. and the best way to do that is to attack the victim. and the victim's reputation and credibility. and she wasn't there because he had murdered her to defend

herself. that's what they did. and shame on them. >> reporter: it didn't work. >> it didn't work. >> reporter: despite the defense's attack on angie and its suggestions about the men in her life, the jury deliberated for less than an hour. the verdict was guilty. the same injury sentenextented the death penalty. his appeal to the supreme court was denied in 2013. for angie's friends, this was the end of a very long and very sad trail. >> i can only guess that angie would have been probably overwhelmed to know that so many of you were still thinking about her all those years later. >> angie was really special. and i mean, she never left our hearts and minds. >> reporter: you still think about her. >> i do. >> reporter: you fought pretty hard to find out who killed her. >> i did. i did. >> reporter: you should feel some accomplishment at that.

>> i feel that maybe she can rest in peace. she died such a history ink death that she deserved to die in peace. >> that's all for "dateline." thank you for watching. i'm craig melvin. >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline." everyone says that you and your sister were your mom's life. >> yeah. amazing person. committed to family. committed to my sister and i. and then five years later, gone. she was a gorgeous girl, a model who became a mom. >> you guys made some good looking kids. >> they sure did. >> reporter: on the eve of her son's 5th birthday, she vanished. >> the whole time we're all trying to talk without the kids hearing us