"(Narrator:) It seems like Diane Holik has it all." "(McClendon:) She had an incredible job." "She had a beautiful home." "Diane was one of these people that when she walked into a room, the whole room lit up." "(Narrator:) And when she sets her heart on marriage, she soon has a sparkling diamond ring." "(McClendon:) He knew that she was the prize." "She was beautiful, well-traveled, educated." "She had everything." "(Narrator:) But one dark night, evil enters Diane's life." "We've never seen a case like this in Austin." "It kind of threw the city upside-down." "(Narrator:) Now police must investigate" "Diane's network of friends and acquaintances to figure out who could have harmed this well-loved woman." "The manner in which Diane was killed and the terror that she must have faced, we wanted whoever did it to pay for it." "This was probably the most difficult case I've ever worked." "♪♪" "♪♪" "(Narrator:) Austin, Texas, 2001." "43-year-old Diane Holik is the life of the party anywhere she goes." "We could go to elegant restaurants and be all dressed up, or we could go put our jeans and boots on and go country dancing." "Ladies!" "Anywhere she was, you wanted to be around her." "Nightcap, anyone?" "(Lepore:) Diane had a zest for life far beyond anybody I ever knew." "She wanted to taste every fish she caught." "She wanted to catch every fish she ate." "(Narrator:) An executive with IBM," "Diane has had to move around the country for work." "When she settles in Austin in 1996, the 38-year-old decides it's time to put down roots." "Austin, Texas, was a great place for single people..." "The dancing, the traveling, running along the lake, all the things that she just loved doing." "(Narrator:) Diane buys a beautiful house with a pool in an upscale neighborhood and fills it with her friends." " Hey, gorgeous." " Hey." "How can I be of use?" "When one of her coworkers, Ray Chancy, falls under her spell, he becomes part of her intimate circle, someone she relies on." "Listen, I just heard you're going to be out of town next week?" "I am." "If you need someone to walk the puppies, feed the puppies, water the plants, no problem." " Thank you so much." " No problem." "Diane traveled a lot for work, and she loved her two dogs." "He would often go over and take care of the dogs for her." "All right." "Let's go." "(Lepore:) He would also take care and check the house, empty the garbage or if Diane needed something done while she was traveling." "I-I'm not sure she realized how much he cared about her." "♪♪" "(Narrator:) Her friends are all surprised when Diane, who is fiercely independent, joins a dating service." "They're even more surprised when she immediately meets a divorced software executive from Houston named Dennis Conley." "Dennis was ready to settle down and was looking for that other perfect half." " You didn't!" " [ Both laugh ]" " So good." " Hold up." "I have something for you." "He bought her things." "[ Chuckling ] Oh, my God." "♪♪" "They just were the perfect couple." "I love you." "(Narrator:) Within two months of meeting Diane," "Dennis pops the question." "(Lepore:) I remember the night she came to tell us." "She just jumped up in the air, screamed bloody murder, and said, "I'm engaged," was so excited to show her hand." "The ring was absolutely beautiful." "She was proud, proud, proud of it." "She never took it off." "(Narrator:) Of course, marriage brings compromise, and in Diane's case, that means pulling up her Austin roots to be with Dennis." "(McClendon:) The plan was for her to move to Houston, and because she worked out of her home, she could really be anywhere." "The first thing Diane did when she got engaged was to start getting the house ready for sale." "(Narrator:) Now the only thing holding up their marriage is a sluggish real-estate market." "The market was kind of slow back then." "There were a lot of homes for sale in the neighborhood at the time, and they weren't moving very fast." "(Narrator:) But Diane is confident her house will sell." "She hires a neighbor to be her realtor, feeling the close proximity will work to her advantage." "I'm on my way to Houston." "♪♪" "All is going according to plan until Thursday, November 15, 2001." "(Lepore:) We had about 15 inches of rain probably within a 2- or 3-hour period." "We had massive flooding, winds, tornados not too far from us, so it was a really, really bad, stormy day." "(Cooper:) Diane was at home, alone, but she stayed in." "She wasn't going to go anywhere in that storm." "She was very much afraid of the storm." "♪♪" "(Narrator:) The next day dawns gray and damp." "No one's heard from Diane." "At 10 A.M., she misses a scheduled conference call at work." "Four hours later, there is still no word from her." "(Lepore:) For Diane not to call in for her meeting was very surprising." "People started to call and say, "Diane, are you there?"" "Hi. you've reached Diane Holik." "Please leave a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can." "[ Beep ]" "(Woman:) Hi, Diane." "It's 2:00." "Just worried about you, wanted to check and make sure you're okay." "One of her coworkers is afraid that something might have happened to Diane, so she wanted the police department to go by and just check on her to make sure that she was okay." "♪♪" "(Narrator:) In the wake of the storm, her coworker's concern seems reasonable, and police head over to Diane's upscale neighborhood." "When the patrol officers arrived at Diane's home, they noticed that there was a for-sale sign in the front yard." "[ Doorbell rings ]" "They did not see any people in the house." "Everything seemed to be secured." "Do you see any movement in there?" "No." "just some dogs." "[ Dog barking in distance ]" "Let's go around back, check the back out." "(Gerrish:) They walked around the house to see if the back door was open, but all the windows were secure." "All the doors were secure." "Austin PD, open up." "(Narrator:) Diane's realtor neighbor sees the police at the house and walks over." "Hearing their concern, she lets them in with her key." "I know some weekends, she goes to Houston to see her boyfriend, but you're more than welcome to walk around." "There didn't seem to be anything missing from the house." "Austin PD, is anyone home?" "There wasn't a sign of a struggle." "Ma'am, when was the last time you saw the homeowner?" "Just a couple days ago." "Nothing seemed to be out of place." "The officers couldn't find anything that looked suspicious when they first looked around the first floor of her home." "We're going to take a look upstairs before we go." "Go ahead, officers." "(Gerrish:) So the officers went upstairs, and they did a full sweep of the upstairs." "They looked in all the bedrooms, turned on all the lights, checked the gym room." "Anything?" "Nothing." "what about you?" "Nada." "(Narrator:) Just like downstairs, nothing is out of place, but one officer has a hunch." "Wait." "give me one second." "Let me just check this room one more time." "(De los Santos:) The officer says," ""I better check the other side of that bed,"" "'cause he wasn't able to see both sides, so he walked to the other side of the bed, and then that's when he saw that the bedspread seemed to be covering something." "♪♪" "I think we need an E.M.T. Call it in." "This is 631." "We have a 1054, 1054." "Victim is unresponsive." "This woman matched the description of Diane Holik." "She had been strangled." "♪♪" "It was gruesome." "It was brutal." "It was obvious that she died a very violent death." "♪♪" "♪♪" "(Narrator:) Diane Holik was reported missing by her coworkers after staying home during a devastating storm." "Tragically, police have just found her body wrapped in a comforter under a bed in her otherwise immaculate house." "Homicide detectives Tracy Gerrish and Eric De Los Santos arrive on the scene and quickly realize this murder may be difficult to solve." "Is that what we got?" "White female, ligature Mark on the neck." "Somebody apparently placed her here." "What we had was a mystery, going in." "There was a white female, deceased, but there was no indications of any forced entry." "I mean, everything looks normal." "(Gerrish:) There was no sign of a struggle." "The area around her body was very clean." "[ Camera shutter clicks ] she was fully dressed." "Her hands were kind of draped in a folding fashion on her waist." "It was almost as if she were staged." "♪♪" "(Narrator:) While Diane's cause of death is clear, there's something unusual about her injuries." "At first, they see no sign she struggled against being strangled." "(De los Santos:) Someone tries to choke you with a rope or even with their hands, you're going to naturally want to bring your hands up to remove that ligature, and if it's being done forcibly, you're going to inadvertently" "maybe scratch yourself on your neck." "There was no signs of any defensive marks on Diane's neck nor anywhere else on her body." "(Narrator:) As police continue to examine Diane, the terrible truth becomes clear." "Here's why." "We discovered on Diane's wrists these 1/16-of-an-inch markings that almost appeared to be, like, flex cuffs, which is what police use to handcuff people." "I think her hands were bound." "They're plastic zip ties." "That must have been terrifying because she can't fight back." "(Narrator:) Detectives and crime-scene investigators continue a painstaking search for evidence." "We had crime scene fingerprint every door, every toilet, any surface that we thought maybe the killer might touch." "(Narrator:) But her murderer has been even more thorough." "We found nothing." "(Narrator:) Even Diane's fingerprints are gone." "For us, the main point of that crime scene is to find this person's mistake, and we weren't finding any mistakes." "(Narrator:) In the entire house, only one item seems out of place." "(De los Santos:) There was a towel hanging over the love seat in the living room that's just, like, thrown on there." "♪♪" "(Davis:) There was some hair that was clinging to the towel." "I don't think that's Diane's." "(Narrator:) If it's the killer's, it could be the break detectives were hoping for." "Those hairs were taken off of the towel and were examined further." "(Narrator:) As detectives continue to catalog what scarce evidence they can gather from the scene, they soon rule out robbery as a motive." "Diane is still wearing jewelry, and her purse contains a wad of cash." "(De los Santos:) With the no forced entry in this particular case," "Diane either let this person in or the person had keys to the house and let themselves in." "(Narrator:) Police now suspect that Diane was murdered by someone she knew, so somewhere in Diane's network of close friends, coworkers, and acquaintances is a killer." "[ Choking ]" "To decipher the complex web of connections, detectives need to speak with Diane's inner circle." "And that is when we started to find out about Dennis Conley, her fiancé." "(Narrator:) And it's not all good." "So how long had Diane and Dennis known each other?" "They met last October online." "I'm sorry, but there was something about him that didn't sit right." "Like what?" "They were fighting a lot." "(Narrator:) Friends tell police that at first," "Diane seemed happy with the successful businessman, but not all of her friends felt the same way." "So tell us about Dennis." "What was his relationship with Diane like?" "A bit over-the-top, like he was pushing her." "Pushing her how?" "[ Sighs ] into marriage?" "I don't know, in-into a relationship that..." "I-I don't think she was ready for." "(Lepore:) Dennis was controlling." "Dennis didn't like the dogs, and that was very difficult for Diane." "They were her kids, as far as she was concerned." "Dennis didn't like her going out dancing with her friends." "Diane was afraid that she was going to give up her friends and her independence." "(Narrator:) In fact, according to her friends," "Diane had recently begun to question her decision to marry Dennis." "Diane, we talked about this." "We talked about this before moving to Houston!" "I don't know why we need to bring the dogs!" "Why do we need to bring the dogs?" "Yeah, why do we need to bring the dogs?" "!" "They're like my babies." "Oh, come on." "I'm not leaving them here." "Are you crazy?" "There's dog stuff everywhere." "(Lepore:) During the week of the murder, she had, in fact, had a fight with Dennis, and she had thought about going on a date with someone that she had met." "She tried to break up with him, but there was just something that kept them together." "She would never take that ring off." "(Narrator:) Lynn's comment gets the attention of detectives De Los Santos and Gerrish." "Diane wasn't wearing an engagement ring when police found her body." "It's possible that a killer will take a personal piece of jewelry off the body of a victim to keep as a trophy." "(Narrator:) It's a disturbing conclusion, but if the killer took the ring, he may have left something else behind." "So in order to pull that ring off of her finger, he would have had to have grabbed her hand, and there's a possibility that there was a transfer of his DNA onto her hand." "So we swabbed her hand, and we sent that off to a DNA lab." "(Narrator:) The missing ring just adds to the urgency the police feel about interviewing Diane's fiancé, Dennis." "He hasn't been told about Diane's murder, and he's been leaving alarming messages on her answering machine." "The tone of his messages that he was leaving on her answering machine were concerning to me because it appeared that he was quick to anger." "If he's the killer, he's setting up his alibi." "If he's not the killer, he's genuinely concerned." "(Narrator:) After police reach him," "Dennis makes the 3 1/2-hour drive from Houston to Austin, and that's when they break the news of Diane's death." "Since he's already a suspect, his interview will be videotaped." "I remember her saying, you know, that she loved me and that she would jump at the chance to be in a relationship and marry me." "He did not seem like he was that upset about Diane's death." "He seemed more concerned about himself." "He told me that they were in couples' counseling already." "He felt like she didn't allow him to be a man around the house." "He liked her independence, but then, he didn't like her independence." "We don't fight." "It's just, you know, everybody carries baggage into your relationships at this age, and our baggage was clashing." "And we were working on it." "(Davis:) his behavior raised some red flags that made us want to investigate him further." "(Narrator:) He tells investigators he last communicated with Diane at about 2:00 in the afternoon on Thursday, November 15th, the day she died, and she had good news." "Hello?" " Hey, honey." " (Conley:) Hi, sweetie." "Did you sell that house yet?" "There's somebody who's really interested, so I think it's going to happen." "Well, maybe this is our lucky day." "(Gerrish:) Diane told him, "keep your fingers crossed." "I think I may have my house sold,"" "and she seemed really excited about that." "(Narrator:) According to the medical examiner," "Diane was killed sometime between 3:00 P.M." "On Thursday, November 15th, and 3:00 A.M. on Friday, the 16th." "(Gerrish:) Dennis' alibi was that he was actually in Houston at the time, preparing a presentation to give to his company, and he had stayed up pretty much until 10:00 or 11:00 at night." "It was plenty of time for him to drive to Austin, commit the murder, and drive back." "(Narrator:) Detectives take Dennis' fingerprints and a DNA swab and tell him they need to confirm his alibi." "There was no evidence that we had that would allow us to detain him." "(Narrator:) But Dennis has his own suspicions." "He tells detectives that he believes he knows who the killer is, someone close to Diane who no one else would suspect." "Has anybody gotten ahold of Ray?" "♪♪" "♪♪" "(Narrator:) Diane Holik has been found murdered in her own home." "Police have brought her hot-tempered fiancé," "Dennis Conley, in for questioning, but he denies any major problems between them and points a finger at a possible suspect." "He told us that we should be looking at one of Diane's coworkers, Ray Chancy." "He said that Ray had a bad habit of becoming obsessed with women that were kind of out of his league." "(Conley:) Ray is a very dysfunctional person, from my standpoint, in the fact that he seems to be attracted to women that are not attracted to him." "(Gerrish:) So you think he, pretty much, is obsessed with her?" "Dennis said that Ray was always coming over to Diane's house, that he was doing favors for her, running errands for her." "He felt like Ray was in love with Diane." "He would often buy her flowers and gifts, and she did not reciprocate the feelings for Ray." "Dennis said that he thought Ray and Diane had had some type of a falling out within the last month or so and that Ray may still be upset about that." "(Narrator:) Police wonder if Dennis is truly being helpful of simply trying to throw them off his trail." "If I was a woman, he would give me the creeps." "(De los Santos:) If Dennis is, indeed, the suspect, he's obviously going to want to deflect the attention from him and place it over to Ray." "(Narrator:) But while Dennis remains a serious person of interest," "Ray is now on detectives' radar, as well." "The killer spends a lot of time in the house cleaning up." "Ray would feel comfortable doing this, since he had obviously been there before." "(Narrator:) Investigators ask Ray to come to the police station." "Though he says he's shocked by Diane's death, he says he's determined to help them solve the case." "Ray met Diane through IBM." "She actually hired him and was his boss." "So you might have had a little crush on her?" "Diane?" "oh, hell, yeah, for sure." "He very much loved Diane." "That was obvious." "He said he would spoil her with things, and I think it was because he felt like eventually, she would come around and start to like him as much as he liked her." "(Narrator:) But his hopes went unfulfilled." "Ray admits their friendship never progressed to anything more." "I did ask Ray if he and Diane ever had a sexual relationship, and he said no." " Not even kissing?" " Never even." "Did you want to?" "Always wanted to, but never did." "[ Laughter ]" "(Narrator:) Ray is being very open with the cops, but his unrequited love for Diane puts them ill at ease." "Detective Gerrish questions him further." "There was no forced entry into Diane's house, so we knew that the killer was either invited in or they let themselves in with a key." "I asked him if he had a key to her house, and he told me he did." "(Chancy:) As far as I know," "I think I'm the only person that I know that has keys, but Dennis, of course, has a key." "He's her fiancé." "I'm sure he does." "(Narrator:) When detectives ask Ray about Diane's fiancé, Dennis, he tells them he didn't approve of him." "He would see them arguing a lot." "He felt that Dennis was easy to anger." "He just didn't feel like Dennis was the right person for Diane." "(Narrator:) But something about Ray's behavior strikes the detectives as odd." "So are you going to ask me?" "(Gerrish:) Ray was almost too eager to help us with the investigation." "Sometimes, when people are super eager to help you, it normally means that they're trying to hide their involvement in something." "(Narrator:) Asked for his whereabouts the night of Diane's murder," "Ray claims he was at work late into the night." "Just as they did with Dennis, police take his fingerprints and a DNA sample and plan to check his alibi." "We had to let Ray go because we had no, again, hard evidence linking him to the crime scene." "(Narrator:) Three days after Diane's murder, the investigation is at a standstill." "Both Dennis and Ray have offered up plausible alibis, and since the killer did such a thorough cleaning job, police have very little forensic evidence to check against the fingerprints and DNA samples they have taken from each man." "They're hoping that DNA from the hairs on the towel left in Diane's living room will provide some much-needed clues, but they have to wait for the results." "(Gerrish:) We're not at the point we would like to be at the investigation." "It's very frustrating to not have a piece of evidence that links a suspect to the crime scene." "(Narrator:) Back at square one with their case, detectives decide to retrace their steps and return to the scene." "There's something we're missing." "Why don't we... go back to Diane's neighborhood?" "Yeah." "Combing the area around Diane's house, they notice several other homes for sale." "Maybe they have something in common with Diane that's worth investigating." "We didn't find anyone who saw anything or anyone at Diane's home during those times." "(Narrator:) But several women reported encountering a strange man at their door that day." "♪♪" "Oh." "Ma'am." "Hi." "Detective Santos." "Detective Gerrish." "Your house is on the market, yes?" "Yes." "anybody come to look?" "It's funny you should say something." "There was a man who came here." "Um, he wanted to preview the house, pay cash." "He was by himself." "I didn't get a good feeling about him." "What do you mean?" "Something in his eyes." "I just didn't..." "I didn't..." "like the way he looked." "Honestly, I just wanted to close the door and let him leave." "Thank you." "Thank you." "[ Doorbell rings ]" "Yes, how can I help you?" "Hi, uh, your house is on the market?" "Yes." "Anybody come by to look at it?" "As a matter of fact, yes." "A tall guy, dark hair..." "Mm-hmm." "Slicked back, big nose, very scary-looking." "(Davis:) And he had told basically the same story to all of these women, that he didn't want to use a realtor and that he wanted to come in and look at the house and preview the homes for his wife." "Hi, yeah, I saw the for-sale sign out front." "Most of the women that interacted with this man said that he was strange." "My wife loves this place." "I was wondering if I could take a tour." "Oh, not right now." "Thank you." "They thought it was strange that he was married but he wasn't with his wife." "They thought it was strange that he would just come to their home in the middle of a work day and ask to come into their home." "(Narrator:) Diane had mentioned a possible homebuyer to Dennis on the day of her murder." "Could this be the break the investigation needs?" "Our first idea was that this man may have been the last person to see Diane alive." "(Narrator:) Then, as they canvass homes for sale in the neighborhood, a pattern seems to emerge." "All of the women that we talked to had been visited by this man on the day that Diane was killed." "[ Knock on door ]" "Hi." "can I help you?" "Hi, I was wondering if I could take a tour of the place." "(De los Santos:) He said he was willing to pay cash, and that was a huge thing at that time in Austin because the economy was depressed." "So people were eager when a potential buyer came around." "(Narrator:) Even with that cash incentive, many of the women are reluctant to open their door." "(Davis:) Some of them were so creeped out by him that they didn't even let him in the house." "(Narrator:) But one woman they talked to did let him in, and she came to regret it." "(Davis:) Christine choate is actually a realtor, so when this man appeared on her doorstep, she felt comfortable letting him in since she was going to show her own home anyway." "(Narrator:) When the man asked her if she lived alone, she was uneasy, so when he wanted her to show him the upstairs bedroom, she hesitated." "She thought that he was trying to lure her upstairs." "(Narrator:) Following her gut instinct, she refused, but not before she got some information the police will find quite valuable." "(Davis:) Christine Choate wrote down this man's contact information." "He gave his name as Walter Miller, and he gave her a phone number." "(Narrator:) Police run the number, but they don't find anyone named Walter Miller at the other end." "(De los Santos:) That phone number came back to a Matthew Sipulski." "D.U.I., drugs..." "This guy is dirty." "Looking into Sipulski, we learned that he's got some criminal history." "This changed the investigation because now we know that there's possibly another man, a stranger that we don't know about who has now been introduced into the mix." "In about 72 hours, we have the suspects." "We have the fiancé, and we have the coworker possibly obsessed with Diane, but, you know, wondering, "is this our guy?"" "I think we got ourselves a new suspect." "♪♪" "♪♪" "(Narrator:) While police are working diligently to solve the murder of Diane Holik, her family and friends must deal with the painful ordeal of burying her..." "A heartbreaking task, given the violence of her murder." "I can remember driving, and the sun was shining through the clouds." "And it really felt to me like Diane was reaching down to me, and it was in a very particular way that the sun was shining through, like a hole in the clouds, and every time I see it now, I always think of Diane." "I know that she's up there." "She liked to look good, so we had her nails done." "We had her hair done." "We got her makeup." "The funeral, she looked quite beautiful." "It was one of the hardest things I think I've done in my life." "(Narrator:) But while the funeral gives friends some closure, with her murder still unsolved, it is of little comfort." "Not knowing what had happened to her was like holding your breath underwater and not being able to breathe." "[ Voice breaking ] how do you breathe?" "♪♪" "(Narrator:) The police, however, do have a new lead." "By tracing a phone-number tip from a neighbor, they are focusing on Matthew Sipulski who, it appears, is masquerading as a homebuyer named Walter Miller in order to gain entry to the homes of single women." "Matthew does have a history of family violence and of drug abuse." "(Narrator:) But when police track him down, they're shocked by what they find." "Matthew suffered from paralysis in both arms." "He had gotten into a car accident and was walking with a cane and had a collar around his neck." "(Narrator:) Just minutes into their interview, looking at Sipulski, they know they have the wrong man." "What happened?" "Uh..." "I screwed up, obviously." "He is so handicapped, there is no way that Sipulski could have strangled Diane or dragged her down a hallway, and surely, the homeowners who reported this mystery man would have mentioned his physical infirmities." "Matthew Sipulski just did not have the physical capability to have committed this crime." "That's all right." "You don't need to get up." "That's fine." "We'll show ourselves out." " That's all you want?" " Thank you." "In fact, Matthew Sipulski is barely capable of walking." "Police now theorize that the mystery homebuyer gave out a fake name and number that led them to Sipulski." "But if Matthew Sipulski isn't the mystery homebuyer, who is?" "All of the women described him as fairly tall and stocky." "He had a very thick neck." "He had a very prominent nose." "(Gerrish:) based off the descriptions from all the women, we are able to put together a composite sketch." "(Narrator:) Police believe that this man was at Diane's house on the day of her murder." "He is their strongest suspect so far." "On November 20, 2001, that sketch airs on the evening news." " How tall would you say he was?" " Gerrish?" "Within minutes, phones start ringing." "Uh-huh." "could you give me a description of what he looked like, what he was wearing?" "We began to receive multiple phone calls from real-estate agents about this man." "And how tall would you say he was?" "None of them knew his real name, but they all had the same story." "You let him in the house." "You did?" "♪♪" "(Narrator:) One of them, a realtor named Tammy Tayman, says the man called her about looking at a listing for a vacant house." "(Tayman:) I told him I usually meet people at the office." "He said he was a cash buyer, he recently sold a ranch, and that he could only look after work." "(Narrator:) With a depressed real-estate market," "Tammy agrees to the meeting, and right from the get-go, his behavior puts the seasoned realtor on edge, much like others have reported." "All the alarms were going off for me with this man." "He was shifty." "He wasn't looking at me." "I felt like he was trying to get closer to me." "Like, I'd go into a room." "He'd walk around." "He'd start to come towards me." "I'd get away, and he'd get closer." "I was just thinking of escape." "How can I get out if something happens?" "How can I have people hear me?" "(Narrator:) Fortunately, Tammy is able to steer him out the front door, but she's convinced the man intended her harm." "When she heard the story that we put out with the composite, she knew it was the same guy that she had encountered." "(Narrator:) Though Tammy tayman doesn't provide the police with any new leads, the next caller does." "No, that's all right, ma'am." "Just give me your name." "(Narrator:) Johna Ramirez says the same man showed up on her doorstep when her house was for sale." "She was home alone with a small child." "He wanted to come into her home, and he got angry with her at the door when she wouldn't open it." "By any chance, did you see him drive away?" "Did you catch his license plate?" "You did?" "Johna said that this man made her so uncomfortable that she wrote down his license plate." "Thank you so much, ma'am." "You've been very helpful." "Thank you so much." "We got a license plate." "Nice." "let's run it." "(Narrator:) Police trace the license plate to a man named Patrick Russo, a resident of a small town 30 minutes outside of Austin." "That was the first time that Mr. Russo's name had surfaced in this investigation, so they ran him through the computers to see if they can find any information." "That's when all the alarms and the bullhorns and everything else went off." "Multiple assaults of women, he is on parole for aggravated kidnapping." "(Gerrish:) Patrick Russo has a pretty shady past." "He had been arrested for multiple assaults on women throughout his career." "(Narrator:) His rap sheet is a game-changer." "Once we learned about Mr. Russo's background, we decided that the most important thing would be to find him as soon as possible." "We were fairly confident at this point that this was the man that had killed Diane Holik." "Our fear was that based on what we believed he had done in Austin, it was only a matter of time until he killed again." "Let's go get him." "♪♪" "(Narrator:) Detectives craft an audacious plan to drive to Russo's home at 4:00 A.M." "And catch him by surprise." "♪♪" "Austin PD." "Austin police." "Could you open the door, please?" "[ Door creaks ]" "♪♪" "♪♪" "(Narrator:) In the early-morning hours of November 21, 2001," "Austin police officers approach the home of Patrick Anthony Russo, the man they suspect of murdering Diane Holik." "Austin police." "Could you open the door, please?" "Gerrish:" "when Patrick opens the door, we immediately look at each other because he looks very much like the composite sketch." "Can I help you?" "Your name has come up in an investigation." "We're going to need you to come with us." "And much to our surprise, he doesn't seem very surprised that we're there at 4:00 in the morning." "(Narrator:) Back at Austin PD, detectives start by talking to Russo about his past crimes." "Patrick Russo was actually on parole for an aggravated kidnapping." "(Narrator:) Russo had served eight years in prison for choking a woman, a crime that sounds shockingly similar to the murder of Diane Holik, except that woman survived." "(Russo:) I ended up holding the receptionist against her will, and I tied her up." "I tied her hands up." "(De los Santos:) In front of her, back of her?" "In back of her." "(Narrator:) Russo confesses because he says that's all in the past." "He's changed since becoming a Christian in prison." "(Davis:) and he started telling them that he was a music minister at a church in Bastrop County and that they were just..." "talking to the wrong person." "He was just denying everything." "He denied going into anybody's homes." "When we threw her picture down in front of him and asked him if he has ever met that woman, he vehemently denied ever seeing or meeting her." "He has asked us, you know," ""is somebody accusing me of something?"" "And we said..." ""I don't know." "Did you do something?"" "If she's saying that I stole something from her, then I'm sorry." "I don't know what to say, but I haven't stolen anything from anybody." "(Narrator:) Then, Russo offers up an alibi for his whereabouts on November 15th." "(Davis:) He said that he had driven to a radio station to talk to them about playing his music." "(Narrator:) But detectives are quickly able to find evidence that debunks Russo's story." "He wasn't near the radio station after all." "We pull his cellphone records, and we notice that he is pinging or in the area of a cell tower that is very near Diane's home." "(Narrator:) But there's more." "We interviewed Patrick's first wife." "She gave us a pretty chilling account of their sex life, and she told us that really," "Patrick could not receive any type of gratification unless he was strangling her, and she said on several occasions, she almost passed out." "She thought that he was going to kill her." "(Narrator:) Then, with the evidence steadily building against him..." "We got a phone call from a Ms. Cranford, who lived in the Austin area." "Her home had been for sale during the same time period." "(Narrator:) She offers up an important piece of the puzzle that can connect Patrick Russo to Diane Holik's murder." "You let him in?" "Okay, so he picked up the brochure." "That's good." "Do you still have it?" "She had a flyer that would have his fingerprints on it because he left it behind." "Could you set that aside for us?" "I'm going to send somebody over to pick it up." "Have you ever... handled a real-estate flyer for a house for sale in west Austin?" "No." "So then, your fingerprints shouldn't be on it." "Correct." "And if they were, then that would be...?" "That would be wrong." "I'm telling you I haven't touched any flyers." "The police immediately send a crime-scene unit out, and they took the flyer back to the police lab and processed it for fingerprints there." "(Narrator:) If Russo's prints are on the flyer, he's lied to them while on parole, and they can arrest and hold him while they build their case." "The fingerprints are a match." "♪♪" "(Narrator:) And when the DNA analysis comes back on the hairs left on the towel and the swab of Diane's ring finger... (Davis:) it was absolutely not Dennis Conley's DNA, absolutely not Ray Chancy's DNA." "Statistically, you could eliminate 99.9% of the world's population from contributing both the DNA on the hand and the DNA on the hair, but you could not exclude Mr. Russo." "(Tayman:) There was zero doubt it was him." "I knew instantly." "He was never looking for a home." "He was looking for somebody to kill." "(Narrator:) The DNA match puts Russo at the scene of the crime." "♪♪" "On February 5, 2004," "Patrick Russo goes on trial for murder." "The prosecution tells the jury they believe that on November 15, 2001," "Russo was in Diane's neighborhood..." "Hunting for a victim." "[ Knock on door ]" "Desperate to sell her home, Diane let him in." "(Russo:) I'm so sorry." "Yeah, I was here earlier." "I was wondering if..." " Come in." " Thank you so much." " Oh, my goodness." " Oh, thank you." " What...?" "What are you doing in the rain?" " I was in the neighborhood." "A-and this was the only time I could come by." "J-just wait one minute." "Let me get you a towel." "(Davis:) I think that Russo came to her front door, that she let him in, and she gave him a towel to dry off with, and that's how his hair ended up on the towel." "If you don't mind, we can start upstairs." "You're going to love this house." "It's perfect for families." "(Gerrish:) Once he was in, he took the opportunity, when they were looking around the house again, to attack her, bind her, and strangle her." "(Narrator:) Police believe that Russo stole Diane's diamond engagement ring to make it look like a robbery and discarded it on his way home." "(Gerrish:) and then, he cleaned the crime scene up." "Then, he left." "(Narrator:) The ring has never been found." "The only thing that he forgot was the towel." "♪♪" "February 20, 2004," "Patrick Anthony Russo is found guilty of capital murder." "He is sentenced to life in prison." "I do believe justice was served." "(De los Santos:) If we hadn't caught Patrick Russo, he would have absolutely done this again." "This was probably... the most difficult case I've ever worked." "Um." "It was a perfect storm of a whodunit." "We had to pull out every tool in our tool chest to actually solve this case." "Justice was served in this case." "We found the man that did it, we convicted him, and he will spend the rest of his life in prison." "(Narrator:) For Diane's friends, the only way to deal with her loss is to find comfort in her memory." "(Lepore:) I never fail to remember how happy Diane was and how sad it was that we lost her." "I think Diane thought she would live till 90 and have two kids and two dogs and a white picket fence." "(Cooper:) I would like for Diane to be remembered for... the shining star that she was, the happy person, the loving person." "She was a light in this life that should never have gone out." "She was amazing." "♪♪"