. >> reporter: the man on the home was tom fallis begging for help and willing his wife to live. >> nore staying here. >> reporter: tom told the dispatcher she shot herself then put the phone down, holding her head, trying to stop the bleeding. so he had his 9-year-old daughter pick up the phone. >> honey, are you there? >> yes. >> okay, can you go open the door and let the officers in? >> it's open. mommy got shot. >> okay, okay, we're going to help. open the door. >> reporter: brian spencer was a county deputy back then to discover that the evans police had beaten him there. >> there were three ahead of me and more, siren, lights. >> pretty fast response. >> very fast. >> reporter: and this bit of news was going around fast too. >> this was a sheriff's employee, a jail employee. >> reporter: not that that should matter the effort was save ashley fallis' life. this was recorded by a police body camera and shows the paramedics arriving. chaotic. >> the scene, very. frantic, the officers located ashley fallis somewhere in the home. >> reporter: the local police took charge and asked bri

and tom fallis and his children make a life as best they can. >>> that's all for "dateline."i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. >> like a scene out of a movie. there was tape. there were cops with dogs searching all around the crime scene. i just ran towards the cops and started yelling shelley, shelley. >> a young art student murdered. >> she said, "your daughter's been found in blood." and then the phone went dead. >> this was brutal and this was savage. >> reporter: a clever killer leaves a blank canvas. you had no fingerprints you had no dna. >> police zero in. >> she's like, "he's really weirding me out." >> reporter: but maybe the brutality of the crime pointed to the roommate. >> something like a lover would do. a spurned lover. >> absolutely. >> and she could well have been that spurned lover? >> oh, yes. she sure could have. sorry a dark picture begins to develop. portrait of an artist as a young killer. >> you know there's evil in there. >>> reporter: once there was a quiet, little girl in a quiet, little town who liked to draw. she drew the butterflies that f