>> i have, yes. i have a deep religious faith. and i have a good family. i have had a wonderful career. i am grateful for it. i have had blessings they are extensive and consistent. and so i, i am at peace. i don't have any unfulfilled ambitions that are burning in me. >> would you like another crack at it? >> no, i wouldn't. no thanks. not again. i enjoyed being president. it was a great experience for me. and i, and i, i

>> there's a lot of suspects in this case. >> they were asking questions nonstop. >> i know what you did. >> do you think aj is in the van still alive? >> i do. it was very much an abandoned home like out of the movies. >> it had a very creepy feel to it. >> it came crashing down at that moment. the reality of it. >> heartbreaking. but also, a sense of now there are some answers. rs. hello and welcome to "dateline." her name was anjelica hadsell, but most people called her aj. she was as smart as she was reliable, which is why her loved ones were so baffled when she vanished.

but someone close to aj knew exactly what happened to her and tried desperately to throw investigators off track, before the truth was finally revealed. here's andrea canning with "the jacket." andrea canning: norfolk, virginia, home to the nation's largest naval base, where ships of war crowd the harbor, symbols of safety and security. life here is tied to the slow, predictable ebb and flow of the surrounding waters. but in march of 2015, a crime hit this seaside community like a hurricane and upended its sense of security. this was a massive story. you know, an 18-year-old girl, a beautiful girl, who grew up in this community just disappears, basically, out of nowhere. andrea canning: the investigation that followed was anything but predictable. it quickly spiraled into something much, much larger.

andrea canning: and revealed how evil penetrated an inner circle of friends and family, sowing seeds of lies, betrayal, deception, and proving how sometimes those closest to us can hurt us the most. it's just horribly tragic that somebody could do something to someone who trusted them so very much. andrea canning: it all started when anjelica hadsell, also known as aj, came home from college on spring break and simply vanished. this could have been anybody's child. this could have been anybody's sister. andrea canning: reporter kayla gaskins covered the story for nbc affiliate wavy-tv. was there thought in the community that maybe aj ran away? every single person that knows her has said this is extremely out of character. this is not what we expect from aj. she doesn't just fall off the face of the earth. andrea canning: it was midafternoon when aj's dad, wesley hadsell, said he got a text from his wife. her words were, have you heard from aj?

and i says, no. why? she said, i texted her, and she said she was out with friends. andrea canning: that was surprising. wesley hadsell: if she went somewhere, she would normally tell us where she was going. andrea canning: so wesley said he sent aj a text of his own. i'd asked her very specifically, where are you? what are you doing? did you get any response? i got responses, but she wouldn't tell us where she was at. she said she needed time. she needed space. andrea canning: later that evening, aj's mom returned home from work. aj wasn't there, but a note in her handwriting was. what did it say? it said, dear madre, with everything that's going on, it's a lot to deal with. andrea canning: both parents knew aj was dealing with a lot of stress. it was her freshman year in college, which proved to be harder than she thought. plus, she was breaking up with her boyfriend, josh campbell. was she in love with this boy? she was head over heels. he was the one. could you see that she was hurting from the breakup? yes. she was devastated.

andrea canning: also devastating, right before spring break, aj learned her dad, wesley, had started abusing drugs. aj's mom asked him to leave the house, forcing him to move into a nearby hotel. aj took the news hard. she looked at me, and she had some tears in her eyes. i went to give her my hand, and she's like, just get away from me. i don't want to talk to you right now. you could see the disappointment in aj's eyes? yes, ma'am. yes. this is not a good time for aj. it was just piling on. andrea canning: aj's parents reached out to her friends. no one had seen or heard from her. by midafternoon the next day, the texts from her phone stopped coming altogether. my wife got off of work. i had asked her if she had heard from aj. she said no. she's like, what do you want to do? i was like, well, we need to go to the police. andrea canning: norfolk police detective david benjamin got the case. after speaking to her parents, he constructed a timeline of the day she went missing. timeline begins on march 2 at 7:00 in the morning.

andrea canning: according to her mom, that's when she left aj at home so she could take her other daughters to school and then head to work. aj seemed fine. her dad, wesley, said he last saw her shortly after noon that day when he met her at this gas station to give her money. he stated that he gave her $200 and then spoke with her for about a half an hour. she didn't say why she needed the money. she seemed to be ok. he said that she was wearing her university jacket. it's, like, a blue jacket, had her name embroidered on it. andrea canning: he also said that when the two parted, aj headed home. but a couple of hours later, when her sisters returned from school, she wasn't there. the door was unlocked. there was half-folded laundry in the living room. aj's wallet, with money in it, was sitting on the couch. all very odd. anjelica would typically not leave things undone, so she would have finished the laundry. she would have taken her wallet if she was going to leave. what does that say to you when you're trying

to put this puzzle together? it said that something has happened abruptly. are you starting to fear the worst, that something has happened to aj? i'm not fearing the worst, but i was scared. i was scared for her safety. i didn't know what was going on. andrea canning: a daughter seemingly in distress. had aj reached the breaking point, or was something more sinister at work? where is aj? investigators take a hard look at the clues she left behind. coming up, that note her mom found was supposedly from aj. but did aj write it? it looked like her daughter's handwriting, but it was very odd that she would leave a note. that's not something she ever did. craig melvin: and the first break in the case-- this was a little suspicious, too. i saw a little white rectangle on the ground, and i saw a name on it. did any alarm bells go off that here this is her ex-boyfriend who happens

to find her credit card? i mean, that's a pretty big coincidence. it did seem like a big coincidence. craig melvin: when "dateline" continues. ooo! our car's value went up! maybe we should track all our cars' value on carvana? we need more trackers! oh! i'm getting a value update! do you see which one is going off? how's it trackin'? some dips, some rises. now what? "hold?" sold. track your car's value on carvana today. why pay more for an effective daily body lotion? gold bond healing lotion hydrates for half the price of the leading daily moisturizing lotion. it visibly heals and moisturizes dry skin in just 1 use. choose gold bond. my moderate to severe crohn's symptoms kept me out of the picture. now i have skyrizi. ♪ i've got places to go and i'm feeling free. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me.♪ and now i'm back in the picture.

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-yeah! -i can't go back to jail! wait, did you rob my bank? sharing is caring, bro! let's make like dice and roll. ♪♪ what causes a curve down there? is it peyronie's disease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated? stop typing. start talking to a specialized urologist. because it could be peyronie's disease, or pd. it's a medical condition where there is a curve in the erection, caused by a formation of scar tissue. and an estimated 1 in 10 men may have it. but pd can be treated even without surgery. say goodbye to searching online. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. visit makeapdplan.com today. and build a treatment andrea canning: aj hadsell had been missing for over 24 hours. text messages from her cell phone indicated she was stressed out, overwhelmed, and in need of some time alone. but to detective benjamin, none of it made sense.

had anyone seen her? nobody had seen her. andrea canning: nothing? no. what did you learn about aj? who was she? she was an athlete. she's very outgoing, a good kid, i mean, no issues with drugs or alcohol. really was kind of flying straight. andrea canning: she was a star on the softball diamond. it's where she developed a reputation for being tough. what was aj's personality like? she was quiet and reserved, you know, but when she was in her element, she was hell on wheels. she did everything that the boys did. she had more guy friends than girl friends. andrea canning: corey french was one of those friends. they dated briefly in junior high. what was it about aj that drew you to her? when i met her, she just had this-- this thing about her, and i just couldn't stop wanting to see her more. she was just-- she had something about her, and i just couldn't steer away. she was gorgeous. corey french: yeah. i mean, i'm sure you must have noticed that. (chuckling) oh, yeah.

she was beautiful. andrea canning: aj grew up relying mostly on her mom and caring for her two younger half sisters. she never knew her biological dad, and a bitter divorce put a wedge between aj and her first stepfather. then wesley married aj's mom. wesley and aj quickly hit it off. eventually, he asked to adopt aj. i adored anjelica. she was my daughter, you know, she was my family. so it felt right to just make it official. what did she say to you? she said, if i was being serious, that she would like to take my name. the feelings that i felt were overwhelming. she felt happy, like she got the father figure that she had wanted. i think it was something that she had been missing for a while. she felt like that part of her family was now complete. andrea canning: when aj was 17, she left norfolk and headed to college. what were her dreams? she had a lot of aspirations. she was definitely an overachiever. she was trying to graduate with a double major in three years.

andrea canning: but all the recent stress in aj's life left the detective wondering if the young overachiever had pushed herself to the breaking point. did you think that maybe she ran away? initially, that was one of the possible theories. just overwhelmed, just possibly could have just said, i can't deal with this anymore. correct. andrea canning: but the more people benjamin talked to, the more he learned that simply wasn't. aj. was she the type who would ever run away if things got too heavy? no, she's a fighter. she would take things head on. she would never run away. she wouldn't run away from anything. andrea canning: aj's friend andre barr felt the same way. nobody thought she had just ran away. why? aj wouldn't have done that without telling at least one of us. andrea canning: but it seemed aj was trying to reach out to her parents. after all, she left that note for her mom at the house. but there was something peculiar about it. it looked like her daughter's handwriting, but it was very odd that she would leave a note. that's not something she ever did. andrea canning: as for those text messages,

there was something odd about them, too. one, she refused to say where she was or who she was with. two, she was using language that was inconsistent with how she would normally send text messages. i became more and more concerned that she was in danger. it was looking more and more like an abduction. andrea canning: but who would want to kidnap aj? the detectives started to build a list of suspects, working from the inside out. high on that list was her boyfriend, josh campbell. remember, they were breaking up. when i first met josh, i felt like his affect was strange and a little inconsistent with what he should be like based on the situation. meaning what? he should have been more upset or-- more upset and perhaps more involved in the search process. did you think that there could be a motive there, that maybe aj broke up with him-- he was unhappy with her? absolutely. andrea canning: but josh had a strong alibi, and he said the breakup with aj was mutual.

was he cleared, or was he set aside? he was set aside. there were very few people that were completely eliminated. andrea canning: then, three days into detective benjamin's investigation, the first significant clue. it wasn't actually us that found it. it was a friend of anjelica's, corey french. andrea canning: you make a big discovery. yes. andrea canning: corey said that while walking home from work, he spotted a piece of a credit card on the side of the road. i saw a little white rectangle on the ground, so i went toward it. and when i picked it up to flip it over, i saw her name on it. andrea canning: it was aj's. police searched the area and found several more pieces. did any alarm bells go off that here this is her ex-boyfriend who happens to find her credit card? i mean, that's a pretty big coincidence. it did seem like a big coincidence. andrea canning: when investigators questioned corey, he told them he and aj were close, but that he hadn't seen her for months. he had reached out to aj when she was home

for spring break and wanted to see her and kept asking to see her. andrea canning: but wesley told police this was far more than a coincidence. he insisted they needed to investigate corey. we had gotten some information from wesley that corey was obsessive in reference to anjelica and that he really wanted to be with her again. corey french was the ex-boyfriend. they had a bad breakup, even for kids at that age, it was considered bad, where he just hung around, made his presence known. you're thinking at this point that corey french had something to do with aj's disappearance. correct andrea canning: then, the next day, a game changer. aj's other friend andre barr called police and said he found another piece of the puzzle. there it was. plain sight. craig melvin: coming up-- andrea canning: this is huge. it is huge. craig melvin: --another clue linked to corey french. does your mind jump to maybe corey did this? it did.

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with your monthly gift right now. andrea canning: almost a week had passed since aj hadsell disappeared. by now, practically everyone in norfolk had heard about the missing teen. her closeknit community rallied behind her desperate family to offer its support.

how was aj's family holding up? they were constantly talking to the media. they were doing the interviews. we got the impression they wanted to do everything in their power to find aj and to bring her back. andrea canning: reporter kayla gaskins. her family and her friends held a balloon release. andrea canning: aj's mom, jennifer, was there. everybody has her in their prayers. and, you know, everybody's got hope and praying for her to come home every day. andrea canning: jennifer worked behind the scenes, but wesley seemed to be everywhere. she didn't go on her own. you know, she's not just sitting somewhere happy watching tv, watching this. i became the leader at that point. you're driving around, talking to people-- correct. andrea canning: --trying to see if anyone's seen her? correct. he is the person organizing everyone to go and find his daughter. he is helping pass out flyers. andrea canning: family and friends spread the word throughout norfolk to be on the lookout for aj. her story even went national, when we featured it in our "missing in america" series.

meanwhile, detective benjamin called in help. we involved the state. we involved federal agents. we involved the center for the missing and exploited children. the clock was ticking in this case. correct. andrea canning: then, the investigation went into overdrive, after andre barr found a stunning new clue. he observed aj's longwood university jacket, the item that she was last seen alive in by wesley hadsell. andrea canning: it was found in the house where corey french lived. this is huge. it is huge. andrea canning: remember, aj's middle school boyfriend had just told police it had been months since he last saw her. they hadn't seen each other-- they had not seen each other. --aj and corey. she never met up with him. david benjamin: correct. so there would be no reason. correct. when you saw the jacket there, what are you thinking? i'm just angry more than anything. nothing made sense. andrea canning: andre didn't tell corey what he saw.

instead, he left the jacket where it was and immediately called the police. does your mind jump to maybe corey did this? it did, its trophy behavior, you know, someone who kills someone and wants a trophy to remember that event. andrea canning: so benjamin wanted to talk to corey again, this time as a suspect. investigators brought corey to police headquarters while they searched the teen's home. we're wondering what other pieces of evidence might be found, or is anjelica there? is it possible that we're going to find her body in the house? andrea canning: they didn't find aj. but they did find her jacket behind a couch cushion, just as andre described. back at the station, benjamin turned up the heat on corey french. we did begin to lean on him pretty hard. you know, we went through a basic interview. and then we started to get more and more accusatory as the interview progressed. they were asking questions. they were asking my relationship with anjelica, how much i cared about her. and then eventually they hit me

with, we know you had something to do with it, and we need you to-- to let us know what it is you did. what did you say to them? i don't know where she is. i don't-- i don't-- why are you asking me this? andrea canning: then the big reveal. benjamin pulled out the jacket. he had an extreme reaction to seeing the jacket. he physically pulled away, came up out of his chair a little bit. he swore. they said, we found this in your house behind your couch cushion. had you ever seen that jacket before? no. how did that jacket get in the house then? my mind was asking that over and over and over again. andrea canning: corey continued to deny having anything to do with aj's disappearance. my answers were always the same. i don't know. i don't know. i don't know what you're talking about. it kept going. it just was a tennis match the whole time that i kept losing. you found the credit card, and the jacket is now found in your house. yeah. so it's making me look really bad. andrea canning: but at the end of a lengthy interrogation,

detective benjamin let corey go home. we have the jacket. but that's all we had. we were in that very uncomfortable gray zone, where we've got someone who looks very bad in terms of, you know, being a suspect, but not enough to charge them for it and to get them off the street. andrea canning: after learning police released corey, wesley took matters into his own hands. i felt corey french was definitely involved, so i thought that something drastic needed to happen to get some answers. wesley really did go after corey. he posted himself up across the street from corey's house, and he got an air horn, and he was blowing the air horn repeatedly throughout the night. andrea canning: wesley even sent corey a pizza with a message on the box. i said, i know what you did. that was it, just big black letters, "i know what you did." and i said, hey, go deliver that to their house. andrea canning: to some in the community, wesley's vigilante behavior crossed a line. to others, it was understandable.

i think people gave him a pass for that behavior because of the situation. i think people related to him as a dad, a father in pain, who wants to know what happened. andrea canning: despite wesley's insistence that police look no further than corey french, detective benjamin expanded his focus. he now set his sights on yet a third person, aj's first stepfather, zach hoffer. we really, really looked carefully at him. craig melvin: coming up-- was your gut telling you, we're going to find this person in her inner circle? we felt so because she had a very kind of defined group of folks that she stuck with. craig melvin: but wesley was growing frustrated with the pace of the investigation. he was accusing us of not looking in the right places, essentially not being as committed to the case as we should be. craig melvin: when "dateline" continues.

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jimmy carter died at the age of nearly 100 two years after entering hospice care. president biden called carter a dear friend and later announced in a statement that the u.s. will hold a national day of mourning for carter on january the 9th. for now, back to dateline. in. in. uspected aj hadsell's ex-boyfriend, corey french, was involved in her abduction. on a tip from aj's friend andre barr, detectives found the jacket she wore the day she disappeared inside corey's home. it was a big break, and another twist

was just around the corner. andre had more to share, information that could upend the investigation. back to andrea canning with "the jacket." andrea canning: the search for aj hadsell was well into its second week. her father was now telling anyone who would listen that he knew who was responsible for her disappearance, corey french. was the community really zeroing in, as well, on corey french? aj's friends were. aj's family was. his own friends started to spy on him. andrea canning: still, no one knew for sure what had happened to aj. there must have been such frustration from the family and friends as each day goes by and no sighting of aj. they're frustrated, but determined. they were going to do their own work aside from police. they were going to organize their own searches. andrea canning: like this one for aj's phone. wesley said he got a tip that it was in this field. so he rallied the troops to search for it,

but they found nothing. you were taking charge of searching, reaching out to people. i was reaching out. if i knew something or heard something, i reached out to people. how did you feel about how the police were handling this? i had no feelings other than helplessness. they weren't telling us anything. he was becoming quite frustrated with us. he was accusing us of not looking in the right places, essentially not being as committed to the case as we should be. andrea canning: detective benjamin ignored wesley's complaints and continued to focus on those closest to aj. was your gut telling you anything, like, i feel like we're going to find this person in her inner circle? we felt so because she had a very kind of defined group of folks that she stuck with. andrea canning: next on investigators' list of suspects was zach hoffer. aj's first stepdad. they learned that zach's relationship with aj had become strained. it was a relationship that began when she was a toddler. she ultimately started calling me daddy when she was, like, probably two, something

like that. and i became daddy. so she became my child. i mean, it was just that simple. andrea canning: soon after marrying, aj's mom and zach had two daughters of their own. anjelica was an amazing big sister. they were my life, my three daughters, my three cubs, as i called them, you know. andrea canning: when aj was eight years old, things between zach and aj's mom started to fall apart. at the same time, the relationship between aj and zach also started to fall apart. a divorce happened. there was a lot of strife between the family. andrea canning: then wesley came along. even though zach wasn't the biological dad, he fought for custody of aj and lost. zach was feeling marginalized from the family, his girls, and from anjelica. it must have stung when wesley adopted aj. now he's officially her dad. yes, she was anjelica hoffer for her whole life. before that. that was what everybody knew her as. i was angry and hurt, so it felt like it

was a stab in the heart. andrea canning: detective benjamin wondered, could zach have felt betrayed, leading him to ultimately harm aj? did you bring zach in multiple times? multiple interviews, some very lengthy ones, some very-- some accusatory. how was zach acting as you're interviewing him he seemed to be overly interested in the progression of the case. andrea canning: but the harder they looked, the less suspicious he seemed. they determined he was nowhere near aj at the time she went missing. still, as it was with almost everyone he looked at, benjamin wasn't yet willing to clear zach. he was not put on a back burner. he was always kind of right there. he was on the burner. yes. andrea canning: as the investigation headed into its third week, benjamin learned wesley and a friend of aj's made another major discovery. wesley said a tip led them to articles of clothing along the side of the road. turns out they were aj's.

but to the detective, there was something unsettling about the discovery. the friend who helped find the clothing was andre barr. so andre finds the jacket in corey french's house, and he happens to also find the next large piece of evidence, which is anjelica's clothing strewn about on south battlefield boulevard. are you starting to think andre might have something to do with it? it just seemed very odd that, you know, two of the three major pieces of evidence so far in this case was found by andre barr. would he have a possible motive? he's in her inner circle, too. he is in her inner circle. so did you bring andre in for questioning? we did. well, we point out how none of these-- this makes sense. he finally cracks that the story that he gave us about how he found the jacket in corey french's house was not how it actually happened. the plot thickens. craig melvin: coming up-- he was constantly receiving tips

that would require us to follow up, finding evidence. craig melvin: --wesley keeps police busy with tips-- we did come to believe that he was inserting himself too much in the investigation. craig melvin: --and a grave day at an abandoned house. little furniture, if any, overgrown. it had a very creepy feel to it. craig melvin: when "dateline" continues. let's monopoly go! friends are like money. keke, i won again? they make everything more fun. and you can never have enough! toodaloo. my moderate to severe crohn's symptoms kept me out of the picture. now i have skyrizi. ♪ i've got places to go and i'm feeling free. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me.♪ and now i'm back in the picture.

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if you feel your heart racing while at rest, or if you have mental changes. depression or thoughts of suicide may occur. common side effects include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, stomach pain, flu, or upset, headache, feeling tired, dizzy, or bloated, gas, and heartburn. some side effects lead to dehydration, which may cause kidney problems. with wegovy®, i'm losing weight, i'm keeping it off, and i'm lowering my cv risk. ask your prescriber about wegovy®. andrea canning: andre barr was now

the latest person on detective benjamin's radar. andre had helped find not one, but two key pieces of evidence-- first aj's jacket and now more pieces of aj's clothing. we're not sure what dynamics are playing out at this point, but we do think it's odd that he was involved in-- in the finding of both of these pieces of evidence. andrea canning: so detective benjamin sat andre down for an intensive grilling. they were just asking questions nonstop. did you ask andre, did you have anything to do with aj's disappearance? of course. andrea canning: what did he say? he denied, obviously, anything like that, was shocked that we were even going down that pathway. andrea canning: that's when andre revealed something startling about how he found aj's jacket at corey's house. wesley had told him where to look for it. how did wesley know where it was? andre tells us that wesley hadsell approaches him and says that he broke in to corey french's house in an attempt to look for aj and to look for any evidence because he's so strongly suspected.

corey french of being involved, and that while he was in the house, he found aj's jacket. andrea canning: wesley said he didn't tell police about his discovery because he feared they would arrest him for breaking and entering. he says to andre, i want you to get into corey french's house, use some kind of ruse, and find the jacket and then report it to the police. he wants to make it look like you found it. yeah. and he wants to keep that story alive. right. this is a crazy story. it is a crazy story. andrea canning: to benjamin, it also made a lot of sense. early on in the investigation, he learned there was more in wesley's checkered past than just drug abuse. wesley had an extensive criminal record that included, what else, breaking and entering. he had a fairly lengthy criminal past, starting from when he was a juvenile. he had robbed a bank at one point. he had burglarized several businesses. andrea canning: but it wasn't just wesley's past

that raised a flag. benjamin said he'd been acting strange ever since the investigation started. he was constantly receiving tips that would require us to follow up, finding evidence. isn't that something a dad would or should do if their daughter was missing? yes, to an extent. but we did come to believe or feel, rather, that he was inserting himself too much in the investigation, which is a red flag for us, as if he wants to know what we're doing, what we know. andrea canning: even more troubling, investigators couldn't verify wesley's account of where he last saw aj. he was insistent that he met her at a gas station off of tidewater drive. what he didn't know was that we had obtained the surveillance video from the gas station for several hours prior to the time that he says he met her to several hours after the time that he says he left her there.

was he on that video with aj? he was not on their video at all. wasn't even at the gas station. wasn't even at the gas station. so this story totally isn't adding up. not at all. that didn't sit right with us and was pointing towards him as a suspect. andrea canning: it was hard to believe. after weeks of talking to numerous people inside aj's circle, it was aj's adoptive father, the person adamant about finding her, who had now become benjamin's number-one suspect. the detective didn't have enough to accuse him of abducting aj, but he did have enough to arrest wesley for breaking into corey's house. we thought we had enough at least for a burglary charge. andrea canning: the arrest stunned the norfolk community. strange turn of events. "10 on your side" has learned the missing girl's father, wesley hadsell, was arrested by norfolk police overnight. andrea canning: toni colvin was a south hampton county commonwealth assistant attorney. when aj went missing, i was aware. i remember seeing the searches and started

to see what was going on with mr. hadsell when he got arrested for that burglary charge. andrea canning: wesley's arrest gave them probable cause to search his property, starting with his hotel room. we found ammunition. he's a convicted felon. he's not supposed to have ammunition. and it was hidden in a vent in his hotel room. andrea canning: benjamin then moved on to wesley's work van. inside his work van, we see a garmin gps device that's in the dash of the vehicle. andrea canning: investigators painstakingly analyzed the data from that device, focusing on the several days before and after aj went missing. he turns on his gps and he goes to some location in suffolk, and then he just keeps the gps on. and we got this wonderful track of every place that that gps unit had been. its pinging off the satellite and leaving breadcrumbs very close together. andrea canning: most of wesley's movements during that period of time could be explained, but there was one unusual detour wesley took

that seemed very suspicious. it led investigators to this abandoned house in a remote rural area about an hour west of norfolk. it was very much an abandoned-looking home, little furniture, if any, overgrown. andrea canning: that doesn't sound good. it didn't sound good, and it didn't make a lot of sense. andrea canning: the detective immediately gathered his team and raced out to the location. it was gray and misty out. it had a very creepy feel to it. andrea canning: as investigators slowly walked the property, benjamin made his way to an area in the back. and i'm looking at this little waterway. it's like a drainage ditch. and somebody had placed a sheet of plywood to bridge this little waterway. so i put my right toe underneath the piece of wood, and i pulled up on it and kind of leaned over and looked underneath it. andrea canning: it was there. detective benjamin found aj. it had been five weeks since she disappeared.

she was lying face down in the water, her body badly decomposed. there were some telltale signs that were very disturbing. her pants had obviously been pulled down. so what this is saying to us is that she had been sexually assaulted. it kind of all came crashing down at that moment for us. we were always holding out hope that she was alive. and now it just-- the reality of it, here she was in a ditch. andrea canning: news quickly spread that aj had been found. such a sad ending. the community must have just been in a state of shock. heartbreaking, but also a sense of, well, now there are some answers. andrea canning: with the discovery of aj's body in her county, toni colvin would prosecute the case. any time you have a circumstantial case, you always are concerned that you can paint an adequate picture for the jury to understand what happened and that they can put all of those pieces together.

craig melvin: coming up-- there are people who think you're a monster. um, people have opinions. i never did anything wrong to that kid. craig melvin: what will the jury's opinion be? we, the jury, find the defendant, wesley paul hadsell-- craig melvin: when "dateline" continues. long after guests leave, viruses and bacteria linger. air fresheners add a scent. but only lysol air sanitizer helps erase the trace, eliminating odor and killing 99.9% of viruses and bacteria in the air. scent can't sanitize. lysol can. my moderate to severe crohn's symptoms kept me out of the picture. now i have skyrizi. ♪ i've got places to go and i'm feeling free. ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me.♪ and now i'm back in the picture. feel significant symptom relief at 4 weeks with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements.

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believed her stepfather, wesley, was responsible. now he was headed to court, where prosecutors planned to prove he killed her, then concocted an elaborate smokescreen to cover his tracks. but would jurors believe this father could do something so cruel? here's andrea canning with the, conclusion of "the jacket." andrea canning: the search for aj lasted more than five weeks multiple police agencies had answered the call, as did an entire community. now it was over, with the discovery of aj's body behind an abandoned home. that's when i just lost it. and i felt like-- in that moment, i felt like i just kind of died. i couldn't-- i couldn't believe what had happened. i couldn't believe that-- that she was now gone. andrea canning: prosecutor colvin and detective benjamin began building their case against aj's father, wesley hadsell. are you convinced in this moment that wesley did this?

yes. his gps led us to her body. there is no getting around it whatsoever. andrea canning: so they went back to the beginning, to the morning aj went missing. on a hunch, the detective had his investigators comb through hours of footage from a 7-eleven security camera that captured traffic near the hadsell residence. the tedious work paid off when they spotted wesley driving to the house around noon. we were able to determine that wesley hadsell left his work, went to the residence, knowing that anjelica was going to be home alone , and that something happened when he was there. so our theory is that's when he abducted her. we believe that he forced her to write that note. the note was out of character for aj. andrea canning: investigators then saw him on that same security footage driving his van away from the house at 1:27 pm. are you thinking she's in that van? at that point, most likely, because there would have been no other place to hide her.

andrea canning: although they can't say exactly when or where it happened, benjamin believes at some point over the next several hours, wesley killed aj. and then he drove her out to an abandoned house, took her behind the house and dumped her face down in a ditch. and then went and joined the family. and acted like nothing happened, that he had no involvement in it. not only that, acted as a very concerned father. correct. andrea canning: that's when they say wesley started covering his tracks. he sent those cryptic text messages from aj's phone. he also began planting evidence, first pieces of aj's credit card, then her jacket. you're now thinking that wesley broke into corey french's house and planted aj's jacket. that's exactly what we thought. it's like out of the movies-- yes. --framing somebody for murder. corey french was the perfect patsy for this. he had been in a relationship with anjelica, and it had ended, and he obviously still had feelings for her.

you were framed for murder-- yeah, i was. --or at least someone attempted to frame you for murder. yeah, it still affects me to this day. every good moment i had growing up in norfolk, anything like that, all of it's-- all of it's gone. it broke me down to-- to almost nothing. andrea canning: colvin believes that of all the evidence against wesley, the most damning is aj's cause of death. the medical examiner determined that she died of heroin poisoning. she was not a drug user. there was no evidence that showed that she would have been able to have access to heroin. the only evidence of anybody that had that access to heroin is the defendant. andrea canning: police located wesley's drug dealer. he told them he sold wesley heroin soon after aj went missing. and in another search of wesley's hotel room, police found heroin hidden in the ceiling. so he's the individual that was able to obtain heroin. he did obtain heroin, and then he forced her to consume it. andrea canning: but the question remained, why?

why would this seemingly loving stepfather, who ultimately adopted aj, want to kill her? the detective had a theory. i think he had maybe an unhealthy attraction to anjelica. he might have tried something. she might have resisted. with his drugs, everything unraveling in his life, i think he lost control. andrea canning: almost seven years after aj disappeared, her father, wesley hadsell, faced a jury of his peers. defense attorney james ellenson knew he had his work cut out for him, but he also believed that as strong as the commonwealth's case was, it still couldn't prove how and when wesley poisoned aj with the heroin. i would challenge anybody as to how did she actually die? there's no solid evidence-- no, i don't-- --that puts him there with killing her. i-- no. i don't see where there was proof beyond a reasonable doubt. andrea canning: ellenson also pointed out the commonwealth couldn't say for certain

why wesley killed aj. was there any evidence to show that wesley was in love with aj, that wesley was obsessed with aj? nothing, absolutely nothing. there is absolutely not a shred of evidence of any of that. andrea canning: after two weeks of testimony, jurors left the courtroom to deliberate. they didn't need much time. 40 minutes for a almost three-week trial? to come to a decision that quickly is not something anybody thought was going to happen. we, the jury, find the defendant, wesley paul hadsell, guilty as charged in the indictment. were you just so surprised? i think it showed us how strong of a case that we had. andrea canning: wesley hadsell chose not to testify in court, but he did speak to us from jail. he maintained his innocence, despite all the evidence indicating otherwise. wesley denied planting the credit card and the clothes. and as for the jacket? that jacket? it wasn't there by my means. i didn't plant that jacket.

andrea canning: what about the garment that led investigators to the abandoned house? it's your gps. it's my gps, you know. i can't explain why it was there. i definitely know that i wasn't there. what do you say to anyone who's hearing this, who's saying, this guy is telling lie after lie after lie, that he is the worst kind of human being that would do this to his own daughter and try to cover it up? that's their opinion. i mean, i have not hurt anjelica, ever. were you obsessed with her? no, ma'am. were you harboring secret feelings for her? no. no, ma'am. did you sexually assault aj? no, ma'am. there are people who think you're a monster. um, people have opinions. would you like to confess here today that-- that you killed aj? no, ma'am. i never did anything wrong to that kid. he denied it to us, that he had anything to do with aj's death. the evidence is overwhelming, absolutely overwhelming. i feel 100% confident that we got the right person and that he got the appropriate punishment.

andrea canning: prosecutors never brought sexual assault charges against wesley. his sentence for murder, life in prison, which was vindication for the many people caught in his web of deceit, including zach hoffer, aj's first stepfather, whose deep love for her was questioned as something sinister. you were the caring parent here. you obviously cared a lot about her. that's all it was. it's just that simple. i just cared about her. i care about my children, and that's it. andrea canning: like zach hoffer, andre barr became a suspect too. worse, he was used by wesley to try and frame a close friend. wes was just good at manipulating people. he played everybody in his game of chess, and he lost. andrea canning: as for corey french, the young man wesley tried to frame for aj's murder, he says his life will never be the same. the only thing i really have to say to him is basically, just [bleep] you, dude. that's-- that's all i can say. i just-- i hope that he sees her every single day and that-- in the way that he left her.

andrea canning: aj hadsell left an indelible mark on her family and all her many friends. through them, her memory will live on. i just hope that everyone is aware of how great she was, of how amazing she was, how smart she was, how dedicated she was. yeah, i just-- i just miss her. and i just-- i know i'll never forget her. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. e." i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline."t frie. monique winkis: he just liked to make people smile. kelly horn: he would always boast about how he was an fbi agent. he was so proud. my brother and his friend came running down to the neighbor's house.