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vanished. >> obviously, there was, you know, something really bad. >> her name, brianna. she was just 19 years old. >> just wanted to say to my daughter, breonna, that i love you. i miss you, and nobody's ever giving up. >> nobody was giving up, but nobody was any closer to solving the mystery. where it was breonna? >> within a three mile radius, they were hundreds of registered sex offenders. >> then, a tip but a woman who had found something odd in her boyfriends truck -- women's underwear. and when she asked him for the truth, she discovered something even stranger. >> did you do? this oh my god, did you? ♪ ♪ ♪ >> hello, and welcome to dateline.

reno, nevada calls itself the biggest little city in the world, and this was one of the biggest cases it had ever seen. a local girl, a college student named breonna had disappeared on a winters night. what had happened, no one knew. where it would lead, nobody could predict. but this entire city would soon galvanize for a single mission, to get justice for one of its own. here is josh mankiewicz, with "the night brianna vanished". >> sunday, january 20th, 2008 in a neighborhood just up the hill from reno's silver plated heart, college students jessica and katie, we're waking up after a long night of parting, with their friend, brianna denison. he had slept on the living room couch back home, but when jessica woke up. >> we went up to the kitchen, started making breakfast. the kitchen was right in front of the couch, and breonna was

not sleeping there anymore. >> at first, they were not concerned. >> so we figured maybe she was upstairs, with one of the room it's empty rooms. >> k. t. hunter went upstairs to the bedroom to see if she was sleeping there. >> i knocked on the door and was like hey, time to get up. >> at 9:45, k. t. tried once again to wake breonna. once again, she got no response. >> and i was pounding on the door, and not getting answers. we are starting to pound on my other roommates door. and it was like, all of these things running through my mind. where is she? >> only then did it hit k. t. that breonna was not in the house. what scared k. t., was what bri had left behind. >> her whole life was there. her cell phone, shoes, purse. all of her clothes she had brought, everything was at my house. >> so she could not have left? >> no. >> especially since it was wintertime, and freezing cold that night. k. t. called brianna's mom,

brigitte. >> she called around ten. >> and your first thought was? >> not good. >> so you are worried right away? >> yes, because her cell phone was there, and she had no car. i knew she was not walking around with no shoes on. so, i said i would be right there. >> back at the house, k. t. made another discovery. a terrible discovery. >> i called her mom right back, and i was, like i was just in hysterics crying like, there is blood on the pillow. so then i called 9-1-1. >> dispatch, this is robin, can i help? you >> high. i need the police at my house. my friend spent the night last night on my couch. she is gone, and there is something that looks like blood on the pillow, and all of her stuff is still here. >> breonna's mom, brigitte, could not get to k. t.'s house fast enough. >> so your mind is working overtime? >> yes, i was really freaked out. there was something really bad.

blood, and my child without her cell phone. i mean, what kid is without their cell phone? >> soon, police were everywhere. veteran homicide detectives dave jenkins and his partner, adam, both since retired, we're investigating the scene at mackay court. there, combined 53 years of police work told them the same thing. >> it was pretty apparent that this was not a voluntary missing person. >> family and friends gathered at bridget's house. >> and i said i need this, the media went with it, they did not stop. >> brianna denison as described as five feet tall, 98 pounds and last seen wearing sweats and a white tank top. >> victoria campbell covered the story for k are and via tv. >> police officers everywhere searching through garbage pans, sewers, pulling up the manhole covers, seeing if she had been placed inside a sewer. >> where was breonna? her pillow told a frightening

story. friends had seen blood on it. detectives sent it to the crime lab. >> they identified some stains of mascara, and a pattern between the stains. >> patterns that looked like bite marks. >> suggestive that pillow had been pressed hard against the face of miss brighton denison. >> days later, test confirmed the blood on the pillow was brianna's. reno is a casino town, not easily shocked. but this case hit everyone hard, even the reporter, victoria campbell. >> she was one of ours. we would not let her go without a fight. >> brianna denison was a dazzling beauty, with a 1000 watt smile, a straight arrow kid with a huge heart, who had a tough start in life. her dad passed away suddenly when she was just six years old. her younger brother, was an

infant. her mom brigitte says that made their family even closer. >> we had to team up. and the kids all had to help. you know, i had a little baby. and she became very protective of me. >> as she got older, she stayed close? that does not happen a lot. >> she stayed close, and he followed the rules. the more she followed the rules, the more freedom she had. >> she decided on college in california, and was in her sophomore year ad santa barbara city college. she had a steady boyfriend, while studying psychology, and wanted to work with kids. then came winter break, and brianna came back to visit her hometown friends. >> so you thought great, home, safe? >> never felt like she was unsafe, because she was so responsible. >> so the detectives wanted to know, how do this responsible girl end up missing? they began to retrace her steps, the day before she disappeared.

saturday, january 19th, 2008 started with brianna at her mom 's house, doing laundry, walking around in sweats. brianna had plans to join her reno friends at a concert that night. at 9 pm, brianna went into her mom's bedroom, gave her a hug goodbye, and asked if she wanted a check in call at the end of the night. >> and you said? >> i said no, because i knew where she was staying. >> by 10 pm, bri and her friend from high school k. t. hunter or at the concert. >> she wanted to be at the front, to enjoy it. so we pushed our way to the front. we had so much fun dancing and stuff. >> at some point between 12:30 and 1 am, the detectives determined that k. t. and bri met up with another girlfriend, jessica. all 40 left the concert together, on a shuttle bus. >> i got a picture of her when we were driving, riding the bus.

>> bri and her friends were dropped off at the sands regency casino hotel, the center of a college party crowd that weekend. >> as k. t. recalls, nothing felt out of place. >> during that time, meet anybody you knew? anybody you think seemed suspicious to you? >> nobody we met who seemed suspicious. >> about 2 am, one of brianna his friends, jessica, decided to leave the party and head back to k. t.'s two crash. she later told police, she said goodnight to her friends, and went outside, and then flagged down a guy driving an suv in the parking lot. a total stranger, to get a ride home. >> i probably could have easily walked. it was freezing, so i just got a ride from the parking lot, someone who is leading. what a bad idea. >> coming up. and it was something else bad, happening in the area. >> the previous month, there had been a stranger, a sexual assault abduction in the same

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at a casino diner, police later obtained this video from the security camera. these are the last pictures of brianna denison, before she disappeared.

after breakfast, a friend drop them off at k. t.'s home in mackay court, at about 3:30 am. at the house, brianna made a fateful decision. she decided to sleep on the living room couch. >> she wanted to text her boyfriend anyways, maybe call them because they were fighting at the time. >> the couch was a few feet from the front door. and the front door was a glass paned, giving anybody on the street on easy view of the couch. and that night, the door was unlocked, which was not unusual. >> kind of like a hotel, we all walk our individual doors. but the living room was a lobby, we left it unlocked in case someone forgot their keys. >> around 4 am, k. t. said goodnight to her friend, and went into her bedroom. right next to the living room. >> her last words were, if you need anything, come into my room. >> the detectives looked at her cell phone records, and at 4:23 am, breonna text message her boyfriend in oregon.

exactly what happened after that, in the predawn hours of a 24-hour town was a mystery. because by 9 am, the couch was empty, and she had vanished. now, with the evidence they had before them, homicide detectives adam and dave thought brianna had been abducted. >> we suspected she might well be taken out the back door. >> besides breonna's blood antique mark at the pillow, crime like technicians found another important piece of evidence on the back door. >> we were able to get a touch dna profile off it. on the doorknob of the residents. >> touch dna meaning somebody who just grabbed the ignored of with their bare hand? >> bare hands and there was sufficient skin cells transferred on just the mere

grabbing and opening the door to allow an organic profile to be obtained. >> but whose dna was it? where would the evidence lead and what they find breonna in time? her mother was in a living hell. >> that night, what are you thinking? >> i am thinking what any parent would think, everything goes through my mind, and it's just, you know, it's easy enough to imagine. >> breonna had disappeared. detectives believed that she's been abducted from this house, her attacker taking her out the back door in the middle of the night. the crime lab found a trace simple of the dna on the door simple. it did not match anyone in the house, so detectives were pretty sure that that the unit had been left by whoever had taken breonna. reporter victoria campbell was on the air, almost nonstop.

>> we learned early on that breonna's favorite color was blue. blue ribbons covered every inch of the city, every car, every fence posts, every mailbox, every telephone pole. >> breonna's picture was everywhere. people gathered to pray for her safe return. >> we are the biggest little city in the world, and we are the ones to find her. >> the family set up a command post at a casino. every morning, hundreds of people help with the search. some have been working all night. >> you see people still in their work clothes, black pants and white shirt, the thought machine repairman or change person for the casino would go stand and blind and search all day. >> i did not take long for police to identify a suspect. we >> have a person of interest, so what that we did talk to. you >> remember the man who drove jessica back to katie's home the night at the objection,

a total stranger that she flagged down. investigators released this image at the suv and urged him to come forward. the former lieutenant robert though -- >> we have an individual that is unknown to the women and drove won a dam home to the residents. he could have come back and abducted breonna. >> within days, the man contact the police. his dna was tested, and he was cleared, a dead and. but now detectives had 18 other league that would take this case to a different level. it would no longer be a case of one missing young woman. >> the previous month, there at been a stranger sexual assault abduction in the same city. >> breonna's so missing, but immediately, you're thinking sexual assault? >> when you get down to it very few motives to adopt a young woman. >> back in mid december 2008, a little more than a month before breonna was taken, a 22-year-old foreign exchange student had been attacked in the early morning hours in this

parking lot on the university of nevada reno campus. it was just a few blocks of the house on the -- the attacker kicked out his victim from behind. >> arms crossed the check from one arm and in the other hand, kept her nose and mouth. she went unconscious shortly at that, mostly from being smothered. the next thing she remembers is coming to individual. >> the woman was driven a short distance and then sexually assaulted inside the car. >> during the assault, -- >> when the assault was over, she was proper to her residents and told to get out of the car and not look back. >> she had not looked at his face, but she had seen a lot. >> she was absolutely certain that the defendant was caucasian. she also described the suspect as having very noticeable and thick, meaty fingers. he spoke clear english without discernible or noticeable

accent. >> and from the words that the man used, a pre-harriel analysts gave detectives a profile. >> the offender was not well educated, was kind of a loner, likely employed in the construction trades. >> even better, the victims described his vehicle so well that detectives figured out the make and model. >> it is most likely a 2005 to 2006 toyota tacoma extended cap, four wheel drive pick up. >> and the victim gave police other crucial clues. she saw a baby she on the floor of the car, and there are something else that made the suspect stand out. when he was done, she said, the man took her underwear and kept it. but even more important, police were able to obtain a sample of her attacker's dna, and one of the crime lab compared that simple with the one they took off the back door at mackey court, it was a match. >> that's what we knew it was

somebody at there that was making this a habit and what we hoped would not become a deadly habit. >> for breonna's family, that news is devastating. >> it also gave her mother some hope. >> you just hope that he lets her go like the last one. all through the process, i pretty much had hope that what we find are, what else do you do? >> there's nothing else you can do. >> the alternative is hard to think about. >> police released the description at the attacker and of his vehicle. suddenly, it seemed everyone in reno was looking suspiciously at white guys driving extended cab pickup trucks, but a third victim was about to come forward, and she would fill in a big piece of the puzzle, because she had information no one else in the case had, she had seen her attacker's face. >> coming up --

a valentine's day appeal straight from a mother's heart. >> i just want to say to my daughter, breonna, that i love you, and i miss you, and nobody's ever giving up. when dateline continues. when dateline continues. actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities. i think that this product is a gamechanger for my patients- it really works. i'm a bear. i'm coming out of hibernation after the best nap of my life... and papa is hungry. and while you're hittin' the trail, i'm hitting your cooler. oh, cheddar! i've got hot dog buns! and your cut-rate car insurance might not pay for all this. so get allstate, and be better protected from mayhem, like me. roar. (sfx: family screams in background) ♪ this is not just delivery.

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disappeared, police released a

description of demand that they now knew had struck before, the sexual predator linked to crimes. >> he's a white male, somewhere between the ages of 28 and 40 years old, between five foot six and six feet tall. he drove an suv or extended cab pickup. >> as that became ingrained in the collective mind of reno, another will make it to policing that she had been attacked back in october to doesn't eight, three months before breonna's abduction. she did not want to subject herself to the inevitable indignities that come from a woman reporting a sexual crime. >> but when she heard about breonna, she knew that she had to tout the police her story. she said she was attacked in this parking garage at the university of nevada reno campus, a few blocks from where breonna would later be taken. she sent her attacker grabbed her from behind. detective ronald mcdonald --

>> he put her arm around her, told her not to scream. he held a gun to her head and raped her. there was no dna, but the victim gave police something almost as valuable. >> what did that victim tell you that you didn't already know? >> she had an opportunity to see the offenders face. >> and from her description, the police artist made the sketch that was released to the public. >> and one more thing, like the attack on the foreign exchange student a month later, the man later handed over her under. police are convinced that he kept the underwear as some sort of jewelry but did not release that information, not yet. it was not the biggest man hunt in the city's history, finding to find a rapists and kidnap or before he struck again. >> we have three lengths, serious violent felonies for the same individual in a 400 yard area in the same neighborhood. >> and a crucial period of time?

>> it was a chilling thing for a community. people were rightfully scared to death. >> parents started pulling their daughters out at the university of nevada reno. those who stayed were on high alert. owners of gun specialist or saw a spike in their business, selling weapons, pepper spray and even tasers. police knew that the unit would be the key to breaking the case. the county crime lab tested 4000 criminal dna samples that had been sitting on the shelf, but there is no match. no match in any national database either. detectives looked hard at the hundreds of registered sex offenders in the area. >> and we began doing face to face interviews with any individual who did not already have a dna profile in the system. >> investigators gathered 700 new dna samples from monday questioned and other staff

altered. >> they can't down and set, i matched the description, i want to get my dna so that you don't to worry about me. >> but there was no match there either. >> we were pretty confident that that individual would likely not be our suspect. >> and when you do find a guy, he would say no. >> we were certain that the offender are probably not be too excited about giving up his dna. >> the search dragged into february, 25 days since breonna disappeared. the posters and ribbons around town or fading a bit. her family still out our hope that she was alive. brees mother brigitte made a valentine's day appeal on tv. >> i just want to say to my daughter, breonna, that i love you and i miss you, and nobody's ever giving up. there are thousands of people looking for you. >> the next day, the weather had turned warm, and the snow at started to melt in reno. at lunchtime, a man was taking

a shortcut across this field and and industrial park south of town. he stumbled on to something he thought might be a body. then, he called police. >> this is breaking news. >> a great discovery in south korea today. >> we raced to the scene, and initially, we're told that it is a young caucasian female. >> the field is about nine miles on the house of maggie court. >> we do know that police -- >> reporting for krnv, victoria campbell was there. >> i was pulling over, coming over saying, is that her? i was on a search team, had been looking for her. i hope it is not her. >> on the other side of the yellow tape, the detectives could see what was coming. >> this is not what we want it to be, this is not the outcome. i knew deep in my stomach it was her. >> but for a seasoned homicide detective, that horrible site is not the worst part. >> what bothers you, is that

other victims, like family, who want to know what happened to their loved one, 24/7. and we need to be the bearer of bad news. and it hurt us. >> his next stop was bridgette's house. >> police told you, right away they thought it was probably her? >> yes. and then i kept asking about her nose stone, she does not have pierced ears, i asked if they could tell if they were pierced ears, and the scar on her angle. and they said with the elements, they were not able to tell. so we had to wait for dna. >> the next day, after an all nighter by the crime lab, police made it official. >> an autopsy today has determined that the remains of that female discovered in the field, are those of 19-year-old brianna denison. the official cause and manner

of death was strangulation. it was a sexually motivated crime. >> all i can say to that is at least i am not waiting, four years later, wondering. that is about the only positive i can get out of it. >> back at that field, detectives found something that looked like the killer's calling card. >> they were two sets of panties that were on her right side, tucked underneath the right side. >> thong underwear, one pink and one black, with an image of the pink panther cartoon character. crime lab technicians tested everything and determined that neither pair of underwear belonged to brianna. the pink panther underwear had dna from an unknown person, but the other pair. >> they were identified by forensic dna evidence as having

belonged to one of the roommates in the residence where she had been abducted from. >> they belonged to k. t. hunter, the friend of brianna's who lived at mackay court. there was more dna on the thong, some from the suspect, some from brianna. >> and that hip strap matched to the ligature marks on brianna's neck. she was strangled with the stolen underwear. >> even though bridgette knew the killer could not hurt her daughter anymore, she still could not stop worrying. >> i went from being fearful from brianna's life, to being fearful to whoever he was going to get next time. >> you are not thinking just about the last victim, but the next one? >> i was. >> where police encouraging to you? did they make it sound like they thought this would be

solved? >> yes. one of the detectives actually promised me they would find him. which i thought, wow. that is being pretty confident. >> now, investigators were not just looking for a rapist and kidnap or, but a killer. reno had a murderer in its midst, the whole town was on edge. but weeks past, with no arrest. more than 40 detectives chased thousands of leads. all the public heard was silence. >> from the outside, there was a perception you guys were not getting anywhere. was that frustrating? >> very. >> yes. >> every day, we will come to work. and we knew we were a phone call a way. >> a phone call away. >> the way that phone call ever come? hoping to shake out a lead, police finally released the information about the underwear found with brianna. they guessed right. that one, tawdry detail would break this case.

>> coming up. closing in on a killer. >> with that photograph and initial sketch that we got from a forensic sketch artist, it was very similar. >> when dateline continues. that's why, at novo nordisk, we've spent a hundred years developing treatments to help unlock humanity's full potential. these are the greats: people living with, thriving with — not held back by — disease. they motivate us to fight diabetes and obesity, rare diseases and cardiovascular conditions, for generations to come. so, everyone can meet their moment. because your disease doesn't define you. so, what will? novo nordisk. driving change. -that's it? -yeah. progressive's homequote explorer makes it easy to compare home insurance options. man...i told my wife i'd be in here for hours. what do we do now? we live... ♪♪

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and the engineer? she's taking control with her own account for college. three futures, all with chase. freedom for kids. control for parents. one bank for both. >> hi, richard louis with their chase. make more of what's yours. hours top stories. the federal bureau of prisons confirmed that ted kaczynski, the man known as the unabomber, suffering life without parole, was found dead and is north carolina person so. he was serving time for a series of bombs across the united states that killed three people. he was 81. and there is a man hunt underway in san francisco after nine people were shot in a, quote, targeted and isolated incident on friday night. police say that all victims are expected to survive. now, back to dateline. dateline.

homicide detectives remained ski and jenkins were met soon with the hunt for the killer for brianna dennison. >> i did not have a single day of, and i do not think that i was at home for more than five or six hours on any day from january 20th until the middle of june. >> they had the killer's dna, and they were looking for a white male who drove an extended cab pickup truck. >> you are looking at every extended cab pickup you pass? >> the physical description, when you're in a grocery store, a parking lot, license plate numbers i would see i would make a note and we would follow them down. >> but there was nothing. we >> feared the worst, nothing happens. >> there have been some promising leads, thinking that the killer would strangle his killer with underwear might also visit prostitutes, police started canvassing some of the brothels. the moonlight bunny ranch was

about 30 miles south of reno, the owner is denis huff. >> police asked me for help, and i said let's talk to the girls. let's talk to the girls and see if we can fit that profile that comes into the ranch. >> one of the women who worked at the bunny ranch told police about a regular client who seemed to fit the profile. >> she was scared, he tried to choke her a few times at the party. >> you mean during the session? >> during a session. >> police asked the woman to entice the man back to the ranch. >> when he came back, she kept a condom and kept the glass that he drank from. >> the dna was rushed to the crime lab, but it did not match the killer. an investigation that started off so well, with so many clues about the killer, his habits, his truck, his dna, had now gone almost cold. detectives pressed on,

following more than 4000 leads. all of them, dead ends. but one day of in november of 2008, ten months into 2008, the detective was coming through yet another stack of tips, and one of them caught his eye. >> one thing to struck me as odd, because they are talking about underwear. the anonymous tip was about a woman who had found someone else's thong underwear in her boyfriend's truck. >> do they have a name? >> they said the last name was beulah, and had a first name that started with aj. >> a drivers license search produced a name. >> about the right age. >> physical description. >> you look at his photo? >> the airy part was, when i obtained that photograph and from the initial sketch that we had from the forensic sketch artist, it was eerily similar. >> it seemed an interesting

lead, with man ski drove straight to buhle's house, no one was home, so he left his card. >> i wrote on the back of my business card, which obviously identifies me as a detective. i said, please call me at your convenience. >> about 45 minutes later, he called, but he sounded a little uncomfortable, but who wouldn't be. >> you have detectives who leaves a card on your door, you expect people to be a little nervous. >> the detectives told you let that he would like to talk to him about investigation. do you agree to meet with man ski after work the next day. >> i sat back down and my wife looked at me and said, what's wrong? and i said, the guy never asked me what i was investigating. >> when you leave a car that says homicide, most decent people call and say oh my god what's happened. who do i know that's been harmed? >> nothing like that. >> pretty unusual response. >> you've been looking for a

long time? >> this was ten months of terror. >> the next day, as the detective drove to meet james, his instincts told him that below was different then hundreds of others he talked to. down to the truck that he recently died. >> he had recently on the right kind of truck? >> absolutely. it match perfectly. a four by four extended cab toyota pick up truck. >> but he did not want to get his hopes up. thousands of guys drive pickup trucks in reno. what were the chances this would be the right guy? >> it was like a common practice. hey, we are just going to go talk to the guy, get dna swabs, and move on to the next one. >> but it would turn out to be anything but common. >> a detective comes face to face with a potential discuss suspect. will they crack under questioning? coming up. >> i said, hey, i'm investigating the murder of breonna, and his mood just

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i don't know how long it's been there. long enough to produce eggs, it seems. it would appear that it has begun moving towards us! visionworks. see the difference. reno homicide detective adam was sitting in this wendy's parking lot waiting for james b la, who is a potential suspect in the murder of beer on a dennison. it had been ten months in free anna had been killed, but man city was willing to take the ten minutes for be law to drive up. >> he shows up?

>> he shows up in his truck, parked the right of me. >> the law got into nancy's car. >> it was weird, i shook his hand and when the witnesses said he had needy fingers. >> at first the detective kept a casual. we talked about the cobbs, see if he was a white sox fan, me being a cubs fan, and then i told him. >> i said hey i'm investigating the murder of breonna dennison, and then his mood changed. i got to see this what poorer. he was very very nervous. i said look, all i need is a simple dna swab, and that is it. we will submitted to the lab and that is it. and he says, no i'm not gonna give it to. >> remember, detectives had suspected that one person in one person only would refuse to give them a dna sample. that killer of breonna dennison. >> he's like, you can call my girlfriend, she'll be my alibi.

>> they would speak to his girlfriend, but far from giving him an alibi, she confirmed for us today detectives that she had found another woman's underwear in his truck. >> she suspected at that time that he was having some kind of affair. >> knowing that one of the victims had seen a baby shoe in the truck, they asked because girlfriend if they had a child. and she told him he asked, if they had a four-year-old boy, and that james bailout was the father. she agreed to give him a sample of their son's dna. >> the police knew that if the boy was the son of the suspect, they would have similar dna. >> adam and i were very aware that they would share half the profile of each other. >> it would take a couple of weeks for an overworked crime lab to process the sample. >> police kept an eye on the law and began digging into his background. they are aware that the law had lived a couple of blocks from where the crimes have been committed, and that he was a regular at the sports bar in the same neighborhood. villa worked in construction as

a pipe fitter. he had only a high school education, and had been a bnc student. all of that fit the profile that police have been working with. >> we were trying to find things to eliminate him, and we could not. >> detectives brought the list girlfriend in for more questioning. remember that field where they found breonna's body? >> we learned that his body that his girlfriend actually worked in the building. >> she told him that bill actually drove her to work, and then on that day in 2008 she was looking out her was office window, and watched as breonna dennison's body was being discovered. >> she called b la to tell him >> she told detectives that he hardly said a word on the phone then, but would then minutes after he hung up, police found out that the law had found told his boss that he was quitting.

>> but -- >> >> he told his girlfriend that he had been laid off. detectives told out the very next day, be loved told him and later sold his extended cab pickup. eight months later, he returned to reno in a new truck. that is when his girlfriend discovered that underwear. now, finally, the dna results came back on james dealers son, and confirmed what detectives already felt in their got. >> the child was 99% certain to have been a biological son of the unidentified suspect. >> the following day, when the law went to pickup his son at a daycare center, detectives arrested him. >> i placed my car, and said to him james you are under arrest for the murder of breonna thompson. it was a good feeling. >> coming up, the suspect's girlfriend asked questions. >> did you do this?

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am andrea cannon. detectives had their suspect, james biehle, in custody. but in the interrogation room,

some of the toughest questions would come from his girlfriend. here again is josh banquets with the conclusion of the night breonna vanished. >> back at the police station, bill -- he was charged with kidnapping with three counts of sexual assault and with the murder of breonna. now, detectives were finally able to make that phone call that they had promised that they would make to breonna's mother, brigitte. >> adam called me up and said we have him, can you come down? >> and you're feeling what then? anger? >> relief that he would be off the streets now. >> detectives had made 18 other promise, this time to be less girlfriend. they said that they would let her know the results of her son's dna test. and one day told her that her son's dna was a close match to the dna of the killer, she came to the police station to speak

to billet their. police cameras captured an incredible moment, as horrible as it is remarkable. >> did you do this? oh, my god. did you? did you? look i don't know if i hit you or how do you. did you -- did you? look me in the face. did you? did you? >> now it's not the time. well, i don't know what the time is. >> down the hall, detectives were glued to the monitor. >> she begs him to convince her that it's not him. >> and he'd never. does >> in fact, i think he acknowledges that he is in fact the murder, although he does not admit it directly. >> tell me the truth, please. >> i can't right now. >> she does not want to believe

that the father of her child could be a killer. >> because if you didn't do it i will fight to prove your innocence. >> with what? dna -- so what does it matter? get an attorney, oh yeah, yeah, that'll work. that's gonna work. >> later, detectives got a sample of belies the na and it matched the suspect's dna from all of the crime scenes. last, detectives were sure that they meant that they knew so much about but have been unable to find, the killer would terrorize right now was finally in custody. beulah was facing the death penalty. he would later plead not guilty. >> prosecutors played that extraordinary tape to the jury. if that was not enough, prosecutors had rock-solid dna evidence. more than two years after breonna was murdered and after three weeks of testimony, it took the jury just six hours to

reach a verdict. >> we the jury, find the defendant james michael biehle guilty of count five of sexual assault, guilty of count to kidnapping in the first degree, guilty of count three sexual assault, guilty of thought for, murdering to the first degree of brianna dennison. >> guilty on all counts. the jury gave james billet the death penalty that verdict meant the end of a long and difficult ordeal for the city of reno, especially for breonna's mother brigitte. for her, this is also the beginning of something. we spoke again just after the trial. >> the first interview i did, you are coming apart at the seams. you've come a long way. >> i have. it's been two and a half years. you have to make a choice. you can be miserable and let it control your life, or you can move on and hopefully try to

not let this happen to anyone else. >> for that reason, brigitte set up a bring brief justice foundation, advocating for a nevada law that would require anyone arrested for a felony, as billet had been in 2002 to give a dna simple to be added to police databases, known as breonna's law. a passed in 2013. >> it is not like a brings breonna back to me. i guess i can just move on and do other things. >> it does not bring her back, but it kind of brought you back? >> yeah, kind of, kind of. >> that's all for this edition of dateline, i am andrea canning, thank you for watching. watching >> hello, i'm andrea canning, and this is dateline. four lovely robin,