Ashley Flowers

And while we weren't able to access the tape, the sheriff's office did share the transcript with us.

So we've recreated parts of that interview so you can hear what happened in Don's own words.

different variations of that and uh after he got us back into the bedroom he told my husband that he was going to rape me and make my husband watch dawn goes on to describe in detail how the man forced her to take off her clothes and what he made her do after but no matter what sex act he tried to force on her or make her perform dawn said that he was not able to perform

Dawn said the man was a white guy with long, sandy blonde hair that fell to about his collar, and he looked to be in his late 20s, maybe early 30s.

He was clean-shaven, and she guessed that he was maybe six feet tall or so.

Now, he didn't talk with any kind of accent that she recognized, so her assumption would be that he was someone from the Midwest, like her.

But for all the talking he did, giving them directions and making threats, Dawn pointed out that he never used their names.

Dawn said the only weapon he had was the gun, which she thought he must have brought with him because he had it as soon as he entered the house.

And as far as she knew, at least at the time she was there, he didn't take anything.

Perhaps looking for anything that might have left trace evidence, investigators pressed her, asking Dawn what the intruder might have touched.

He hadn't been wearing gloves, according to her account, so this line of questioning seemed promising.

And thinking back over things, she told them that he could have touched the front door where he came in and maybe the bedroom door when they went in there.

She didn't remember seeing it, but she guessed that he would have had to touch those doors at some point.

And she suggested that he could have also touched the dresser in the closet because that's where the clothes were that he ended up tying her up with.

She recalled that after she tried to tie up Tom, the assailant put something down or pick something up off a buffet table that they had in the living room.

And then he ended up tying up Tom himself.

With Dawn's details guiding them, investigators moved through the farmhouse piece by piece.

They collected multiple items of evidence, most notably a bloody knife sitting on the chair next to Tom's body in the living room, and the ropes that were used to bind him.

They took the bedspread from the primary bedroom, along with cuttings from the bed itself.

They also swabbed the closet door for the presence of blood and collected several latent prints, though the evidence log doesn't specify from where.