the dishwasher. >> police urgently needed to know everything about colton and jennifer. >> thieves the nicest person. >> the most intriguing player would be laura hall. in your mind you're 100% convinced that laura hall was absolutely a part of the dismemberment and the mutilation? >> i believe she was. >> reporter: we've been following laura hall's case since 2005, and yet it is still difficult to know just exactly who laura is, or what role she played that awful night here in austin. the events of that night are so hard to believe. and many say so is laura. >> i can't believe it. it doesn't seem real. it gets... it's like, when am i

going to wake up? this is not my life. this is not happening. >> reporter: as laura tells it, she had nothing to do with the horrific crime. but she is guilty, she admits, of falling in love with the wrong man. >> oh, i loved the guy. i loved colton pitonyak. >> reporter: they met at a party in the spring of 2005. laura was also a student at u.t., a government major with hopes of becoming a lawyer. >> i was really attracted to colton from the beginning. i thought he was a very sexy guy. he was hot. we immediately just got together right away. it was great. we would spend days together at a time. we'd just stay in the house all day. yeah. ( laughs ) i felt like i was on top of the world when i was with colton. until you get to know colton, you can't see on the surface

that there's something wrong underneath. >> reporter: so without knowing anything was wrong, laura says she showed up at colton's apartment just before dawn on august 17, 2005. he'd called her saying he needed to talk. >> he answered the door really kind of paranoid and fearful. and i'm kind of like, "colton, what's the deal, what's going on?" i'm kind of starting to freak out a little bit and he says, "come here, come here." >> reporter: laura says colton led her into the bathroom. >> there was a dead woman curled up in his bathtub. and i said, "that's a mannequin." i mean, that's how much i did not believe, or want to believe. i was like, "man, oh, my god, you know, what happened?"

>> reporter: laura says colton had been drinking. he told her he didn't remember what had happened. >> i remember him goading me out of the bathroom with a knife that had blood on it up to the hilt. the last thing you want to think is this person that i've had sex with has, you know, killed somebody. so you kind of want to know who came in here and did this? and the other thing you kind of think is, "well, there's one. am i next?" >> reporter: but then, surprisingly, laura says colton just let her go. and where did you go? >> home. >> reporter: and what did you do? >> i mean, i still... i was in denial, okay? >> reporter: it never occurred to you to call the cops? or your folks, or your friends, or anyone? >> it didn't seem like a good move.

i mean, look, i didn't know what was going to happen if i called the police, okay? there was nothing i could have done to save her life at that point. >> reporter: did you have any concern for the girl who was dead? >> oh... >> reporter: really? >> i wasn't able to even process, and even today i have not processed the emotions. i didn't know who she was. >> any time you see the most beautiful color of blue, that's jennifer's eyes. >> reporter: jennifer cave grew up in corpus christi, in a family of five girls. she had spent time in austin as a student but was about to start work at a law firm. jennifer's mother, sharon. >> at about 3:00 the law firm called me. and they said, "jennifer has gone to work for us." and i'm like, "oh, yes, i know." i said, "she's so excited." i said, "thank you so much for giving her this opportunity." and it kind of got quiet. and he said, "well, there's...

there's a problem," and he said, "and we're concerned." he said, "jennifer didn't come to work today." and i said "what?" i knew something was wrong. that's just not who jennifer was. if jennifer told you she was going to be somewhere at 8:00, jennifer was there at 8:00. >> reporter: sharon began frantically calling around to find her daughter. she discovered jennifer had been out with colton. but when sharon finally got colton on the phone, he told her nothing. >> no man, i don't know. i haven't seen her. i don't know what you're talking about. i'm like were you with jennifer. no, man i wasn't with her. i saw her for a few minutes but no, i wasn't with her. and he hung up. >> jennifer's stepfather jim also spoke with colton. >> hey dude, i'm eating pizza, don't bother me anymore, quit calling me. >> sharon and jim decided to head to austin, hoping for the best.

but preparing for the worst. >> i remembered that when we were trying to figure out what we were going to do and getting some clothes packed, we stood right here in this hallway and i looked at jim and i said this is going to be really bad, isn't it. and he said yeah, i'm afraid it could be.

>> reporter: the next day, august 18, 2005, sharon and jim hit the highway and raced four hours from corpus christi to austin, and straight to colton's apartment. he was the last person to be seen with jennifer. it was early evening by the time they arrived. they found jennifer's car nearby. >> we start knocking on the door. we knock on the windows, and we walk around the apartment seeing if there was a back door. >> we're really getting scared that something bad has happened inside that apartment. >> reporter: at around 8:00 pm jim called 911, but when the cops arrived, they wouldn't

break in without a search warrant. so after they left, jim muscled his way in through a window. >> completely dark. all i had was a flashlight. so i just started crawling through the window trying to push the drapes out of my way. and i was yelling. i said "please don't hurt me. i'm here to help you. i'm not here to hurt anybody. this is jim." and the place is a wreck. >> wreck... >> i mean there's... it's just... it looked like there'd been a struggle. >> reporter: jim told sharon to wait on the porch to protect her from what he feared he might find inside. >> so i kept going down this hallway, and then there was another door on my left which was closed. and i opened that door, it had the light in there. it appeared to be a bathtub, and i was seeing something, so i flipped the light switch on, which was right here, and there

she was. >> reporter: jim had found jennifer, or what was left of her. >> reporter: police raced back to the apartment and began the search for colton. they quickly found out something they didn't expect. colton was not your typical clean-cut business student. he had a serious problem with drugs, especially cocaine. he was also a small-time dealer. what was his persona? >> he held himself out as a gangster. i mean, he had all the" scarface" posters.

>> reporter: and a collection of gangster movies. >> "donnie brasco,"" goodfellas," and a series of movies that involved dismemberment. i know one of them involves dismemberment with a machete. >> reporter: investigators began piling up clues. colton's car was in its regular parking place. inside was the gun believed to have been used to kill jennifer cave. and before long, something else became clear. colton's sometime girlfriend, laura hall, had also disappeared. >> this guy's... apparently you want... he's killed jennifer cave and mutilated her body. he's got my daughter. he's got my daughter. >> reporter: loren and carol hall desperately tried to reach their daughter. finally they got through to laura's cell phone. laura told them she had crossed the border into mexico with colton.

>> she told me, "dad, colton's killed someone, and they found a body." i heard a rustling, like someone's grabbing the phone from you. and that's when i said, "man, you need to turn yourself in." and he goes "your daughter had nothing to do with this. you need to get her out of here." i thought, "yeah, i'm very aware of that. you need to get her out of there. she looks just like jennifer cave. who's going to be next?" >> reporter: did you think that he was going to kill her? >> yes. >> we thought we'd never see her again. >> but it was like... i felt, "help me, daddy." >> colton flipped out. he wanted to get out of town. he ended up saying, "take me to mexico." so i did. >> reporter: were you afraid for your life?

>> of course i was. >> reporter: and that's why you drove him to mexico? >> i was afraid for my life. i was trying to stay alive. >> reporter: what were your plans when the two of you got to mexico? >> i didn't have a plan. >> reporter: did he have a plan? >> not that i heard of. he was incoherent and in a sense, i mean, so was i. we were in no condition. >> reporter: colton and laura fled austin some 16 hours after the murder. they drove laura's dark green cadillac some 200 miles to the mexican town of piedras negras, a quiet border town just on the other side of eagle pass, texas. they weren't in mexico for long. after five days, they were

nabbed by a mexican swat team and handed over to american authorities. back in austin, colton pitonyac was charged with murder on august 23, 2005. laura was not arrested, but when police questioned her, she was less than cooperative. >> it was just too soon. i had just gotten away from him. i mean, i wasn't ready to be rational yet. >> reporter: and what did you tell the police? >> just that i thought we were on vacation, i don't know anything about it. colton's a great guy and he didn't do it. >> reporter: and that was a lie? >> of course. >> reporter: three days later though, laura was questioned again. >> i know what's coming. like i already know. they're going to do something and you're not going to like it. >> reporter: arrested and later

charged with hindering apprehension for her role in colton's escape. police didn't believe laura's story that colton had forced her to drive him to mexico. >> reporter: laura agrees to talk, but initially holds back. >> reporter: the interrogation lasts nine grueling hours. i did not want to go to jail. i can't go to jail.

that's just a whole new set of nightmares coming at me that i'm not ready to deal with. >> reporter: but in the end, detective mark gilcrest finally gets laura to give up the gruesome details. laura admits that she saw the body in the bathtub, but claimed it was colton's idea to dismember it. >> reporter: i think that people are going to look at this and they're going to see how articulate you are, how bright you are, and they're going to say, "okay, either this girl is

really stupid... >> right. >> reporter: "...or she's a sociopath." with all due respect, which one is it? >> well, it's neither. i'm definitely not a sociopath. >> reporter: but laura does admit to a problem with men. >> i'm stupid with men. i'm absolutely stupid with them. i didn't want to hurt him, which sounds kind of sick. looking back, it seems to me like everything that came out of that man's mouth was a lie or a game or a trick. he was only out to get what was best for him, and he didn't care who got hurt in the process. for the worst allergies,

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because it's my element there and i can control it. it's almost like a shield. it's like a shield against bad things, because when you're in it they can't touch you. i definitely feel like my life is closing in on me right now. i feel this huge weight of pressure, a dark cloud around me that is the police and the district attorney's office that could snatch away what i have at any second. so, like, i definitely feel shackled. >> reporter: from september 2005, when she was arrested, until colton's trial in january 2007, laura hall stood by colton. >> i loved colton pitonyak. yes, i did. >> mr. pitonyak, to the indictment as read by the state's attorney, how do you plead?

>> not guilty. >> reporter: how strong is the evidence against colton? >> i felt it was very strong. >> reporter: prosecutor bill bishop. >> you'll hear that ms. cave died as a result of a gunshot through the arm and the torso of her body. you'll hear after her death she was dismembered. her hands removed. her head removed. we knew him to be the only person in her company that evening. once they left 6th street, the location obviously of her body being in his apartment, he went to a hardware store and bought cleaning supplies such as ammonia and febreze, masks, gloves and a hacksaw. the clerk asked him what he needed a hacksaw for, and he said he was frying a turkey and needed a hacksaw to cut it up because it was frozen. >> state your name for the court and jury. >> colton aaron pitonyak. >> reporter: when he took the stand, colton pitonyak said he couldn't remember what happened that night. he claimed he was strung out on drugs and alcohol. >> do you know how you got back to your apartment?

>> i assume jennifer took me. >> reporter: nor could he explain the shooting. >> do you have any recollection of the circumstances surrounding jennifer's death? >> i have no idea what happened that night. >> reporter: but colton's mental fog apparently began to lift a few hours after the shooting, coincidentally, right around the time laura hall showed up at his door. >> i can't remember exactly what i told her, but i showed her jennifer's body. >> what did she say? she just said, "what are we going to do?" >> reporter: and for the first time, colton started shifting the blame. except for the murder itself, colton blamed laura for almost everything. >> did you take that knife and cut on jennifer's body with it? >> no, i did not. >> how can you be sure? >> there's no way i would have done what was done.

>> of course he remembers all that, then incriminates me and nothing about his own actions. >> somebody cut up the body, either you or laura or both of you. who cut it up? >> i did not. >> reporter: is he lying? >> of course he's lying! >> you may step down and go by your lawyers. >> reporter: but the jury never heard laura's side of the story. on the advice of her attorney, laura never took the stand at colton's trial. do you regret not testifying at his trial? >> yes. i do. i had no idea he was going to do what he did. >> members of the jury, have you reached a verdict. >> yes, sir, we have. we the jury find the defendant colton pitonyac guilty. >> the jury just took over an hour. >> then it was laura's turn. >> i'm accused of some

unspeakable things. i'm facing ten years in prison for mutilating a body. colton did that. i want people to look at me what i am. they created a fictional character and put my name on it. everyone has pointed their finger at me. >> reporter: prosecutors say laura hall did everything wrong the day of the murder. she left colton's apartment and never told anyone what she had seen, not the cops, not even her mother, whom she spoke with several times that afternoon. in fact, she spent most of the day running errands-- before she went back to pick up colton and drive him to mexico. >> she had every opportunity in the world to call the police, send them to colton's apartment and certainly she would have been safe from colton for a long time had she done that. i guess, to use my word, i would say you have to have a good case of evil. >> reporter: a good case of evil. at trial, this time with no

cameras allowed, prosecutor bill bishop outlines laura's ever changing account of events. >> she gave a series of statements to the police. she had previously made a statement that she had no idea what had happened, she'd never seen the body. her statement then became she'd seen the body but didn't know what had happened. >> here's the deal, man. i was scared of colton. >> and it eventually grew into, "i was a victim, i was kidnapped, i had nothing to do with it." >> reporter: prosecutors produced witnesses who claim laura told them about her involvement in the mutilation, and bishop says laura's d.n.a. was found on a key piece of evidence. >> her d.n.a. was on the gun, the murder weapon itself, that was found in colton's car. >> reporter: bishop does not accuse laura of murdering jennifer cave, but the autopsy showed jennifer was shot through the head after death. in addition to the gun, laura's d.n.a. was also found in

colton's apartment. >> it was on a flip-flop in the bathroom. there was a shop towel out in the living room of the apartment that had both her d.n.a. and colton pitonyak's d.n.a. >> reporter: and that is enough physical evidence, to you, to place her not only there, but to say that she participated in the dismemberment? >> when put with her statements to co-workers and things such as that, absolutely. >> reporter: but laura was in colton's apartment dozens of times before the murder, and she says the d.n.a., even the d.n.a. on the gun, means nothing. >> he had the gun before. he'd had that gun for weeks. >> reporter: and you picked it up? >> sure. >> reporter: and put your hand on the trigger? >> i can imagine. >> reporter: and the d.a. had more: this photo taken when laura and colton were on the run in mexico. >> she does not appear to be there against her will. >> that photograph to me means nothing. how hard is it to go like this?

>> reporter: the defense had wanted the jury to see the tape of laura's police interrogation... >> reporter: ...where for nine emotional hours she firmly maintained she had nothing to do with the dismemberment. >> reporter: but the judge refused to allow it, calling it inadmissable hearsay. the ruling, in effect, tossed attorney joe james sawyer's defense out the window. >> the net result is i have to advise my client, even though we planned on you testifying, you can't do it. >> reporter: so just as in colton's trial, laura never takes the stand. sawyer can only hope the jury sees it his way. >> there's no question the most volatile component in this case is that people are going to be repulsed by what happened to jennifer cave. the great challenge is to say to them, "feel any way you want. remember the difference between

feeling and proof." >> reporter: as the jury deliberates, laura tries to remain optimistic. >> i'm ready to be acquitted. i have a heart attack and die probably on the courtroom floor if they come back with a guilty. but i can't allow myself to think that way. >> laura hall is a convicted felon. two hours ago, a travis county jury convicted her. >> the jury found laura guilty of tampering with evidence the for cutting up jennifer cave's body and helping colton to escape to mexico. she was sentenced to five years. >> all of a sudden i'm in the courtroom and they're just taking me away into jail. i just could not believe it. >> but as is usually the case with laura hall, that was not the end of this story. >> if you don't think that colton shot jennifer cave, who

do you think shot her? >> well, i don't know who shot her. >> if it's not colton in your mind who is the other suspect. >> there's other suspects and laura hall is as good as any. when your eyes are smiling... you're smiling. and when they're laughing... you're laughing. be kind to your eyes... with transitions lenses. transitions adapt to changing light so you see your whole day comfortably... and conveniently while protecting your eyes from the sun. ask your eyecare professional which transitions lenses are right for you. g going heart healthy? so is campbell's healthy request soup. low in fat and cholesterol, heart healthy levels of sodium, and taste you'll love. girl: this is good for my heart? chef: you noticed. [cheering]