. >> reporter: danny pearl was a young, wickedly smart reporter, about to be a father, when he was kidnapped in 2002. his beheading put on the internet by his captors for the world to see. there have been many investigations since and a hollywood movie, but nothing compares to this. 32 journalism students at georgetown university spent three and a half years uncovering the truth. >> it took waking up in the middle of the night to make these phone calls to pakistan. we slept on the floor at the office, in the classroom and in our professor's office. >> i learned the true definition of a cold call. >> reporter: khalid shaikh mohammed, the master mind of the 9/11 attacks, had confessed to slitting danny pearl's throat, but only after he had been waterboarded nearly 200 times, raising questions about whether he had told the truth. the students kept probing. the first break came at a secret meeting in a parking garage. a source gave them high quality video of the murder and that's when they saw the detail in the killer's hand. >> the process is called vein matching. it's a biometric way of identi

but these students and the teacher, who was danny pearl's friend, believe danny's case is now solved. >> it was his clues that we followed. and i think he would be really proud of these students and all of the spirit with which this work was done. >> reporter: martha raddatz, abc news, washington. >>> congressional investigators say the military's don't ask, don't tell policy has cost taxpayers nearly $200 million over five years. that's more than $50,000 for each service member removed from 2004 through 2009. the report says more than 3,600 troops were removed under the policy. and the money had to be spent to recruit and train the replacements. nearly 40% of them held critical roles. >> i would say the majority were expelled had served for about two years. that explains where the money was spent on training. >> wow. >>> when we come back, a big shakeup at the top of google. that's on your business news ahead. >>> and l guys, wise guys, wearing the types of bracelets they really don't want. the nicknames are straight out of an episode of "the sopranos." >>> asian markets fell for a s

>>reporter: danny pearl was a young wickedly smart reporter about to be a fat when he was kidnapped in 2002. his beheading put on the internet by his captors for the world to see. there have been many investigations since and hollywood movie. but nothing compares to this. 32 journa journalism students at georgetown university spent 3 and a half years uncovering the truth. >> it took wake up in the middle of the night to make the phone calls to pakistan. we slept on the floor at the office. in the classroom n.our professor office. >> i learned the true definition of cold call. >>reporter: fv the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks had confessed to splitting danny pearl throat but only after he had been what the boarded nearly 200 times. raising questions about whether he had told the truth. the students kept probing. the first break came at secret meeting in a parking garage. source gave them high quality video of the murder and that is when they saw the detail in the killer hand. >> process is called mashing biomet ick way of identifying people. >>reporter: the student found a match. they l

i was lucky, my colleague, i was with "the wall street journal," danny pearl did something that was a little more like an ambush, but so not much different from that. poor danny had his head cut off. i feel very lucky that i got away to tell the story. >> and what did you learn from your contact? >> i think i learned that the way, the reason that he wanted to kill me at the start of the interview was that he believed that i wanted to kill him. and that is the key thing. but remember in most conflicts,n you received abroad that when you give it. i think that's the main lesson. when america's conducting mentor expedition all over the middle east and prodding with drones and such like you should beware that product is fully felt quite deeply by the people there. it's not just what is being felt in america that matters. >> are you still in contact with anyone associate with al qaeda? >> no. this book is part of the reason i gave up journalism. i was 25 years a journalist in the middle east. and after the iraq war in which i was the only correspondent of mine is never going to baghdad, and

reporter: it is less scientific than fingerprinting, but these students and the teacher, who was danny pearl's supposed to keep the post office from delivering the mail. neither snow, nor sleet, nor gloom of night. investigators say a washington state mailman spent his days at a bar and then burned the mail or took it home with him. they found nearly 8,000 letters there. he was sentenced to 120 hours of community service. doesn't quite seem enough, though, does it? >> oh, man. >>> there are some new questions this morning about the woman who fell into a pennsylvania shopping mall fountain while texting. this is the watercooler story of the week. cathy cruz cathy cruz marrero has bigger problems than just a bruised ego. court documents show she used a credit card without permission to rack up 5,000 bucks in purchases. there's also a hit and run incident on her record. when asked about the possibility that the texting incident was simply a hoax, her attorney said nonsense. >>> the deadly snowstorm that brought parts of the midwest and south to a virtual standstill is zeroing in on the northeast

he was there when danny pearl's funeral happened in his home; right so there are -- and he's an american-muslim by the way. he's one of us in that very important respect, so i do think that back to your question, i got distracted right there about my anxiety on the topic, but i believe there is something for us to do which is create the context in which there is a productive dialogue, and within that productive dialogue we will learn as well as i hope change their minds. i was talking about the other day a man i'm a fan of who got the nobel peace prize the other day and minorities that included some chinese, and they didn't agree with everything i said, but in their response to me, they said we live -- we're glad to be in this country. that's fine, we're not unhappy to be here, but we noticed that you're constantly talking about the things we're doing wrong, telling us that china is doing this. well, this woman said, can we talk a bit about what you are doing in iraq and afghanistan? i said, absolutely. if we have these conversations, you have to tell us how it looks. as it happens with those t

pearl in paris. >> that is right. i knew about danny perle, his kidnapping, a wall street journal reporter and he had been kidnapped. we all at the time probably assumed he was dead if it did not know for sure. when i was in paris maryann pearl lived there, she was pregnant with their first child. so i made a call on her and had a chance to visit privately. my daughter jenna was with me, we have a chance to talk with her and bring some encouragement and comfort to per. shirley after that we found out that danny perle had been the head and and that the tragic and brutal when he was killed. i kept up with mary and pearl when i went to paris last year a year ago after george was president for international literacy day, i invited maryann out to lunch with the two spouses of the current embassadors, bilateral ambassadors to france from the u.s. and the wife of our ambassador. so they could meet her but, in fact, she told me then and two weeks later she was, became an american citizen so she is a citizen of the u.s. nile. >> again, with the