across new york city's east river, in the neighborhood of astoria queens, roommates, rob, and jill hanner, are settling into their apartment for the night. >> it's a calm, ordinary night and i'm in bed and i hear this really loud noise. it was like a gunshot. so i spring out of bed. i walk to the window. i want to see what's going on. i see fire. it was quite shocking to see a fire in what is essentially my backyard. and i immediately started knocking on jill's door and tell her to get up. >> i'm like, should i call 911? like, i don't know what to do. so i immediately got on the phone, called 911. >> that's when i grabbed my camera. >> there's a car fire, that -- a car fire that just -- in astoria. >> an suv has barreled into an empty lot just behind budon and hanner's apartment. >> this guy just drove his car right into this wood. i could tell that he was under some sort of influence of something. i couldn't get a read on what he was on, but i could tell that his mind was not all there. >> he's, like, taking the metal pieces and hitting the car and just totally fell over. >> from their v

journalist david hanners covered this story for "the dallas morning news." >> they had a dead child onds, so they needed to investigate it, and i think their immediate thinking was someone killed her. >> during the autopsy, the pathologist noticed long vertical marks and puncture wounds all over april's body, which he believed were indicative of some form of abuse. and he saw no indication that april's leg wound was caused by a dog since the wound did not have the jagged edges often seen in animal bites. the wound was cleanly cut, and the pathologist concluded that it had been made by a knife. his finding was that april had been murdered. as john and debbie returned from april's funeral service, they faced a full-scale investigation. >> the police were everywhere. they felt like that dogs couldn't have done that to her. it was very scary. i couldn't figure it. i couldn't understand how somebody could have come and done that. >> police found april's blood on a fence post and some leaves, but found no other outward signs of any dog attack. there were three dogs on the property. two belon