David Muir

This past spring, another cold case becomes big news. So-called Golden State Killer. They went on a reign of terror for so many years.

You may have seen her on this show. Tonight, on an all-new 2020, our DNA detective connecting the dots.

That mystery starts right now on 2020.

And I'm David Muir. Thanks for joining us. Tonight, right here, a grieving family waiting 26 years for an answer.

Prosecutors are extremely confident about this case, and they will press for the death penalty. And, of course, he'll be following that trial. In the meantime, that is 2020 for tonight. I'm David Muir.

Tonight on an all-new 2020, a cold case murder for more than two decades, now solved in just two days.

A young elementary school teacher who never showed up for work.

And I'm David Muir. And this is 2020. And ABC's Whit Johnson tonight reporting this hour. He's been on this story from the start.

He's 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo. That former police officer who authorities say went on a reign of terror for so many years.

In custody, DeAngelo.

Tonight on 2020, the so-called Golden State Killer, a 40-year-old cold case, back in the news tonight. The police are saying lock up tight. Sorry.

And I'm David Muir from all of us here at ABC News. Thank you for watching. Have a great evening. Good weekend. Good night.

Tonight, we have one. I think they got him. Now we're taking you inside the epic manhunt. We have a master suspect name list of 8,000 names.

What was he saying?

As a magician, I'm searching for people with amazing abilities who will teach me things that I didn't even know were possible. Things that you shouldn't do and anything can go wrong.

How might he have orchestrated this? Who might he have talked to to get this done? And was this something where he was planning for a big jackpot, a payout somehow? Monster DuBose.

So this guy Rudy, of course, is made up. He was a person, an identity concocted by Bart Whitaker.

I ended up loving him like a son. Very, very much.

Stephen Champagne was a Marine in 2005, but back in 2003, when the murders occurred, he was a bartender. He worked with Bart Whitaker at the Country Club up near Lake Conroe.

You could characterize that interview as chilling. I don't think there's anybody who could watch that and not wonder how a person could be so cold.

The death row fight for life.

Sugar Land is an affluent suburb of Houston, all-American town, in which kids play in the street, in their front yards. It's a place where you want to raise your children.

The real Rudy Rios comes forward. This is the guy that Art Whitaker had been impersonating.

But then... Now to our other top story tonight.

He is a very law and order kind of guy and believes in the death penalty. There's a lot of speculation here, and I don't think anybody knows what the governor's going to do.

He will spend the rest of his life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Sugar Land for years has been known as one of the safest cities in America. For the police, this is not something the likes of which they'd ever seen before.

Death Row is ominous, cold. It is a place you look at it from the outside and you know what happens inside.

Tonight, on an all-new 2020, an unbreakable bond between mother and daughter. But someone came between them.

Well, we can report tonight that her attorney now says that's been amicably settled with Kaufman's widow. And that is 2020 for tonight. I'm David Muir.

Hold on, he's coming out.

We're talking murder. 2020 tonight, going into a dangerous underworld no one could have imagined. Drugs and a lot of money.

And I'm David Muir, and this is 2020. And here tonight, Deborah Roberts.

They called me up and said, you want to go to Oklahoma? Oklahoma and meet this woman who has good information on a scandal going there where the Kerr-McGee, which was the company that owned A lot of nuclear processing plants was messing up.

It was not quite on my beat, and I said, no, thank you. And the bureau chief undid that answer and said, you're going out to Oklahoma City. So there it was. Burnham was going to OKC.

Jetzt zeigt sie alle neuen Details aus den 38 Tagen auf der Straße.

Neue Identitäten wie John und Joanna, leben, schlafen in einer Kommune.

Good evening and thanks for joining us. I'm David Muir.

And until now we have not heard from the young woman who went missing. But that all changes right here tonight. Here's ABC's Eva Pilgrim on this story from the start. Tonight we are heading to rural Cullioca, Tennessee, where this strange and heart-wrenching story begins.

And we do know that his sentencing is later this fall. In the meantime, that is 2020 for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm David Moore.

I wasn't getting out of this.

Kidnapping a 15-year-old girl.

But tonight, what you've never heard before, her story.

The interview her school may not want you to hear.

What is the worst that happens? I go broke. I can't pay my loans. I start an OnlyFans, but only you guys subscribe. You can't do OnlyFans. Yeah, you wouldn't make it on there. So sorry.

Let's picture these two young lovers going on this romantic, tense, crazy adventure to England.

Under-assumed names, passing bad checks, but then it all came crashing down on them.

That's right. He was questioned for three or four days without an attorney. Presumably, that person would have told him to shut up.

We know, Elizabeth, that the most powerful form of evidence in a courtroom is a confession. Because an average person, a juror... Can't understand. Why would you implicate yourself?

His idea, his twisted fantasy was that he would serve his time in Germany, which could be as little as a few years, come out as her hero, and they would ride off into the sunset together.

He is somebody who could have and should have known better, and he was blinded by love.

What's up, Sheriff?

Well, well, well. What's up, Sheriff? Good, good. This is Richard Hudson. Hey, how are you? Very nice to meet you. Pleasure.

Oh, it's beyond sad. It's tragic when you have a guy who has only been with one woman in his life and she turned out to be the devil.

Oh, my God, let's talk about the sock print. How the hell can you convict somebody based on a sock print?

Well, what you do is you bring in an expert, a sock print expert, right? Which sounds ridiculous because it is.

What kind of sense does it make for him to give the wrong details? That doesn't add up.

Sexually not only inexperienced, but, you know, a virgin, right? And... He meets a girl, Elizabeth Hasem, who is one of the hottest girls on campus. She was apparently very bright as well, came from a very good family, and he falls head over heels in love with her.

When you see and you read those love letters, you can sort of feel that there was a lot of, you know, sexual tension.

Young lovers going on this crazy adventure.

Under-assumed names passing bad checks, but then it all came crashing down on them. Two first-degree murder charges.

You have a guy who has only been with one woman in his life, and he turned out to be the devil. This evening, right here, he's speaking out. But if he didn't do it, who did? We know two guys did it. Somebody watching this show right now knows them. They walk among us. Good evening, I'm David Buick.

Was it

Because you were pissed off about the affair.

I did not.

Mark Jensen has said he will once again be appealing his conviction. He'll be sentenced this April. In the meantime, that is our program for tonight. Thank you for watching. I'm David Muir. And from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night.

Jesus!

Presiding? Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen.

It was at this convenience store that Abraham Shakespeare bought the lotto ticket that changed his life.

And we should note that Jeremiah, their son, he is now 16 years old. That's our program for tonight. Thank you for watching. I'm David Muir.

Please be seated, ladies and gentlemen.

And Deborah, as you know, she also continues to advocate for DNA arrest laws. Today, 34 states require that DNA is collected after an arrest. That's our program for tonight. I'm David Muir.

We, the jury, find the defendant, Andrea Snyderman, count one, hindering the apprehension of a criminal, guilty. Count two, guilty. Count three, guilty.

This retrial is expected to last less than a month, and sanity is at the center of Newman's fate.

Day 32 of the government shutdown now beginning its second month. We have never seen this.

We should note tonight that Natalie Cochran does plan to appeal her murder conviction. In the meantime, that is our program for tonight. I'm David Muir.

Tonight, a deadly inferno, the city of angels ablaze.

shrubs trees there's a fire right right outside our car the fear i mean this is utterly terrifying yeah let's get out of here the lives shattered i don't know how we're gonna come back from this the heroes racing in tonight the breaking news special we are utterly surrounded by fire if that building there is fully engulfed the horror and the hope i don't know how we're gonna get through it but we will

David Muir reporting.

American Catastrophe. L.A. Burning. Now reporting, David Muir.

Tonight, we take you inside two cases, two young women both brutally murdered in their homes, the killers in each case evading police for decades. In one case, a mother just 19 years old, she was engaged to be married.

And as DNA technology improves, law enforcement, they continue to work the case.

And of course, it doesn't. As the years continue to pass, the mystery and the collateral damage for this whole community only grew.

So every December 2nd represents another year without justice for Courtney and her grandparents.

It's been 25 years, but remembering hasn't gotten any easier for David Swartz.

Eventually, the Three Rivers Police Department decided to partner with the Michigan State Police. They're convinced that with advances in DNA testing technology, that the Kathy Swartz case can finally be solved.

Both of these brutal murders were cold cases for decades. What links both of those cases all of these years later is the cutting-edge forensic technology inside this lab. Tonight, you'll see it unfold right here as they unmask the killer in both cases. It's the first week of December 1988. Nineteen-year-old Kathy Swartz is home with her nine-month-old daughter.

And then three years ago, Othram, a forensics lab in Texas, now enters the picture. a promising something everyone close to the Kathy Swartz case has waited decades for, answers.

They knew that it was an unknown male contributor to that DNA, but they didn't know who it was.

All these years later, they said, well, look at this and see if there's something you can do with it. And you were convinced you could?

We were absolutely certain that we could help the Michigan State Police work this case.

In 2022, a package containing DNA, that single bloody fingerprint from Kathy Swartz's pink phone, arrives right here at this building just north of Houston. You know, to the outsider, it looks like just another office building, but what's actually happening inside, in these labs, is now changing how investigations across this country are being solved.

This is the headquarters of OTHRIM, a cutting edge forensics lab that's been mentioned in some of today's most talked about criminal investigations. And Othram has been credited by law enforcement with helping to solve cases that have been unsolvable for years now. How are you?

How are you? Thank you.

David and Kristin Middleman are the husband and wife team behind all of this.

So you'll hold on to remains for a while and keep trying?

The Middleman's partnership, both in work and in life, actually began over a few blind mice. It's the year 2000. You've just started your PhD at Baylor. You're doing a study on mice.

And there was another young scientist.

David Middleman had worked in biomedical research for years before realizing that law enforcement was relying on a limited form of DNA testing. He knew that better technology was available, but said it just wasn't being widely used out there.

In Kathy's living room, a tree decorated, ready for the first Christmas for her little baby.

You start to think, wow, this is really an unused tool here for law enforcement.

Yeah. I felt wrong that there were tools available, and yet there was this piling up backlog of cases that were unsolved.

So at one point, you turn to Kristen and you say, I want to start my own lab.

100%.

And Othram's reputation now for cracking these cold cases using DNA evidence and forensic genetic genealogy is what actually led Michigan detectives to send that 30-year-old DNA to this lab. In the Kathy Swartz case, this DNA was how old when it got here from that pink phone?

It was decades old, and in spite of being so old, the DNA was still intact and usable for testing.

So you knew right away this was suitable, and this was just his DNA, the suspect's?

Yeah, the DNA was a single unknown male contributor. It's a small sample, but in spite of that, there's anywhere from hundreds to thousands of cells worth of DNA.

So if you touch David's hand, How much DNA, how many cells have you left there?

Hundreds of cells on his hand. And sometimes you're dealing with 10, 15. Even less. From years ago. Yeah.

And still able to solve the case. It's a very, very sensitive technology.

this kathy schwartz case you've chemically labeled all the different parts of the dna in this room right here and what do you do with it from there it is now ready to actually be read this particular dna sequencer is uh one of the most powerful sequencers here with the green yes give me a comparison to what authorities used to have to deal with what would the dna sequence reveal versus what you can reveal with the dna sequencing from this machine now

Sure. So for the last 30 years, people have used a different kind of DNA testing technology that can measure 20 data points in the DNA. This machine actually can read out the entire sequence. So whereas you might get 20 data points in the earlier versions of this technology, this machine could give you anywhere from 100,000 to a million data points. 100,000 to a million?

100,000 to a million data points.

So now that you have this sequencing that they just didn't have access to years ago, in this particular case, for example, what do you then do with that data?

So with the data file that comes out that might have 100,000 to a million DNA markers, you can do a lot more, including genetic genealogy and that search for distant relatives.

You're taking what in many cases is a very old DNA sample from these cold cases. You're expanding the DNA sequence, but you're also able to take that information now and put it up against vast public data now because families and relatives and third cousins and fourth cousins have put all of this information out there. And it would seem that this might unlock cold cases everywhere.

Finding those investigators and then gaining their trust is what Othram says has been critical to their success in helping to crack these cases. In those early years, you have no background in law enforcement. Are you essentially making cold calls to police stations? I spent my time almost exclusively talking to law enforcement.

You live in Texas, and you know if you want to land a case in Texas, you've got to get to the Texas Rangers. But how did you convince them that we've got a tool here?

Well, the one that I've done the most work with is Ranger Brandon Bess.

And he had one case in mind. They told me it was the most heinous thing that had ever happened that was unsolved in Beaumont.

That other case, that young school teacher, 31-year-old Catherine Edwards.

What was unique about this case? The victim was a schoolteacher, well-liked by everyone. There was no sign of forced entry. So this is a very odd situation. It just didn't add up.

And that officer, Carmen Brown Apples, has the memory of her entering Catherine Edwards' townhouse has played over and over again in her mind for decades. You remember walking in and what you discovered?

What did you find as far as the bedroom and the bathroom?

Investigators learned that her sister, Allison, was likely the last person, aside from the killer, obviously, to see Catherine alive. Allison would tell detectives that her twin sister arrived at her house after work to pick up her beloved beagle, Maggie.

Of course, in these cases, it's standard procedure for investigators to look at those closest to the victim. And really, from the beginning, her ex-boyfriend is seen as a prime suspect. But critical evidence from the scene actually points in a different direction.

Now we've just got to match it. The DNA actually doesn't match her ex-boyfriend, and he's now cleared in the case. And there are no matches to the DNA in CODIS, which is the National Criminal Offender DNA Database, either.

The case would go cold for decades. And obviously, it's just one of hundreds of thousands of unsolved murders in this country. But then in 2020, two investigators, Ranger Brandon Best and Beaumont Police Detective Aaron Llewellyn, decided to take a fresh look at the case. At the time, Best had just been connected with this new lab called Othram.

And Detective Llewellyn knows that there's DNA that's actually available to test in this case.

We believed that was going to be our only hope. The last hope for answers, the DNA evidence from the murder of that elementary school teacher, Catherine Edwards, is now headed to Othram for testing.

And in the case of that Michigan mom, Kathy Swartz, what new lead is about to be uncovered right behind this glass? You'll see right here tonight how both cases are about to crack wide open, sending investigators across this country to find the killers they've been searching for for decades.

This is that baby left standing alone in that crib all those years ago. She's now 36 years old. How was your mother described to you?

Tonight, two horrible murders. I just, just felt awful. And now a survivor who lived to tell.

But only one way to solve them after years of going cold. I honestly felt the genetic genealogy was our only chance. All these years later, they said, well, look at this and see if there's something you can do with it.

That the two of them were able to go back and look at that evidence. Yes.

And there was a moment like, this is our guy. For some families, you are the last hope. Courtney Swartz's childhood was clouded in mystery. She was the sole survivor. She was just a baby at the time during a vicious attack that left her 19 year old mother, Kathy Swartz, strangled and stabbed to death right near her.

Among the clues left behind at the scene, a single bloody fingerprint on Kathy's pink phone. It contained DNA of the possible killer. But of course, the question for decades, who was the killer?

More than 1000 miles from Three Rivers, MI. We're right here on the Neches River in Beaumont, TX, where another family heartbroken for decades. The community wondering do they too have a killer in their midst after the brutal murder of a young elementary school teacher, Catherine Edwards. She was just 31 and detectives here wondering would they ever have the tools to solve this case.

And you retired. And when you left the force, at that point, it had not been solved.

It would turn out that spark, the one that would finally reignite the whole investigation into the murder of Catherine Edwards, was actually coming, thanks to a major leap forward in forensic technology.

Investigators now have a human profile that can actually be searched in public databases to try to find possible family members across this country. And to do that, you need a genealogist to connect the dots. And Beaumont detective Aaron Llewellyn didn't have to look far for help.

So now along with the Middlemans from the Othram Forensic Laboratory, you've got two husband-wife teams actually working the case of this elementary school teacher, Catherine Edwards, and soon another critical partner joins the hunt.

Cheryl LaPointe just happens to be a professional genealogist with experience working in criminal cases. She also has Cajun ancestry.

A friendship quickly forms as the two women spend the next three months building a family tree around the suspect's DNA, using every record they can find, a combination of internet research and good old-fashioned library archives.

So detectives had questioned at the time whether or not this suspect had changed the diaper.

And the details of that assault set off alarm bells for detectives.

So all these years later, investigators in the Catherine Edwards case, the school teacher who was brutally murdered, now think there might have been a second victim of the suspect who is still alive, Paula Bledsoe Ramsey.

She says a man offered her a ride home.

She realized very quickly that that man wasn't driving in the direction of her home.

Paula said she summoned the courage about a week later to tell police what had happened. They would soon tell her that they identified the man who attacked her. And it turns out he wasn't a police trainee. He was a 21-year-old salesman in Beaumont.

So when you looked at what had happened in 1981 with this sexual assault, you thought there's a lot here that seems awfully close to the Katherine Edwards case. I did. It turns out that the man who pleaded guilty in that 1981 case is a man by the name of Clayton Foreman. This is the same name that turned up in Tina and Shara's genealogy hunt.

He was one of two brothers from the family tree that they actually put together. And you might be wondering why his name never surfaced before. You have to remember that this case was back in 1981, and DNA collection wasn't even a thing by law enforcement. It was still a decade away. This is how he eluded detectives at the time.

As investigators get closer to solving this mystery, they begin to learn more about Clayton Forman's background. And in a twist in this case, one of the things they learned is that Clayton Forman, the suspect, actually went to the same school as Catherine Edwards, the woman who was killed. In fact, they probably walked down the same hallways here at school. And there was something else.

Catherine Edwards was actually friends with the suspect's first wife. In fact, Catherine Edwards was a bridesmaid at their wedding.

So you tell the FBI what you found, and they gather some trash at the suspect's home in Ohio.

So he'd been told that one of his Uber customers had had something taken and that he needed to come down. Maybe you guys could ask him a few questions about it. That's not what you were going to ask him?

You showed up with the handcuffs that he used on Catherine Edwards.

Did he know that those were the handcuffs he used? He was told.

So finally, 36 years after Katherine Edwards' murder and arrest, the team can now return to Texas to prepare for trial. And in South Carolina, another team of investigators, they're now chasing a promising lead in their case because of this new technology, the murder of Michigan mom Kathy Swartz, whose daughter has gone so many years without answers.

Investigators working the cold case murder of Kathy Schwartz, the young Michigan mother who was murdered, her baby right nearby, they had sent off the perpetrator's DNA taken from her pink phone to that lab in Texas, Othram. So after three decades with no arrests in this case, Othram actually uses their cutting edge technology to build a comprehensive DNA sequence of who the perpetrator is.

So now that you have this sequencing that they just didn't have access to years ago, what do you then do with that?

We could use that profile to search a database of people. And in doing this, we can then begin to figure out how these people that are near relatives are arranged on a family tree. And if we can do that, then we can begin to ask where the person that we're looking to identify might fit on the tree.

In going down the family tree, you find that there is actually a family that lives in Three Rivers, Michigan, a mother and father with four sons.

That's correct.

we were very excited because now we have leads to run off from we are very quickly be able to eliminate barry because his dna that was in codas and they're able to rule him out so they take him right off the list detectives then track down two more of the waters brothers who both quickly agree to turn over their dna one two three four and with that dna they're able to eliminate them as well which just left robert waters

And from what detectives can tell from looking at his wife's Facebook page, Robert Waters appears to be a happily married family man.

After initially not showing at the police station, detectives call Waters. He's informed that they have a warrant for his prints and his DNA. And later that day, he actually comes in.

Unfortunately, at that police station, they're having trouble actually getting a clean print from Waters.

So you've got the detectives now waiting for a definitive answer from the lab in Michigan. So they spend the next five hours actually making small talk with Robert Waters.

But investigators always believe that Kathy Schwartz must have known her killer in some way. You'll remember there was no forced entry. And they finally discover the connection when they go back to speak to Kathy's one-time fiancé, Mike Warner.

But before his day in court could actually come, the suspect, Robert Waters, does something that shocks everyone.

But after evading law enforcement for decades, Robert Waters never makes it back to Michigan.

What would you have said to him in court?

Another case in Texas, the beloved teacher, her whole future ahead of her.

But remember, there are two cases here that have been unlocked by this new technology. And back in Beaumont, Texas, Katherine Edwards' loved ones are determined to see the suspect in that case, Clayton Foreman, the man charged with murdering her, face a jury.

Prosecutors begin by playing that 911 call Catherine's parents made for the jury.

You know, Catherine's parents did not live to see the man accused of killing their daughter arrested. So this is left now to the twin sister, Alison, to tell jurors about her sister.

In a heart-crushing moment, Allison shares with the jury how she honored her sister after her death.

Excuse me. Thank you. Prosecution's next witness is about to detail the surprising connection between Katherine Edwards and Clayton Foreman.

Yes. What she's about to tell the jury about his reaction to Katherine's death.

Jurors in the trial of Clayton Foreman, the man accused of killing that school teacher, Catherine Edwards, are now hearing about this investigation that took nearly 30 years, and all of it now culminating with this cutting-edge DNA testing done by that Texas lab, Othram.

Please have a seat. I was very eager to get to the courtroom. I work at OTHRUM. We'll do the testing, and it will result in the building of a DNA profile to generate new leads in the investigation. It's one thing to solve a case, and it's another to be able to defend how that work was done, allow it to be interrogated openly and critiqued. We want to see at least 50% of the markers.

And you can see that in actuality, it looks like 87%. So that's far in excess of what is necessary to produce a workable profile.

So prosecutors want the jurors now to hear from the woman who can actually detail the connection between that school teacher, Catherine Edwards, and Clayton Foreman. She was married to him.

And remember, Catherine Edwards and her twin sister were actually bridesmaids at the wedding.

Yes. She also testified that while she was married to Foreman, she actually discovered something unnerving in his car.

I didn't know what he would do. And later, when questioned by the defense, Diana said she never saw the briefcase again. She also recalled an odd conversation that she'd actually had with her ex-husband about Catherine and her twin sister.

After 11 years of marriage, Diana and Foreman divorced, but they continued to stay in touch. And she tells jurors how two years later, in 1995, she actually called her ex-husband after finding out that Catherine had been murdered.

And there was one more witness jurors would hear from, Paula Ramsey, Foreman's victim from 1981. It had been decades since Paula had even heard the name of the man who assaulted her.

And on the other end of the line was Detective Llewellyn.

And so suddenly, all these years later, in a courtroom full of strangers, Paula is telling her story about how she was assaulted by Foreman.

And in the end, Clayton Foreman's defense, they wouldn't call any witnesses, but they did deliver a closing statement.

It was an extraordinary thing to have closure in that courtroom for that young school teacher. And that other case, the mother who was brutally murdered, her baby just a few feet away. Now she's about to meet the couple who unlock this case. As we stand here today, all these years later, it's so peaceful and quiet here. It's hard to imagine what played out behind us.

But when crime scene investigators pass through that gruesome scene again, this time with a new forensic light source, they find a new clue and one that was imperceptible to the naked eye.

Justice, finally, for that elementary school teacher, Catherine Edwards. And in the second case, justice as well for Kathy Swartz's daughter, Courtney. Hi, Courtney.

Just the idea, though, that the two of them were able to go back and look at that evidence and solve it all these years later.

Do you think that there are cases like this all over the country right now just waiting to be solved with this new technology?

There are tens of thousands of little tubes of DNA in crime labs across this country. And all of them have answers.

For some families, you are the last hope.

And we should note that that lab, those DNA decoders, Kristen and David Middleman, Othram, they recently announced their 455th DNA match. Deborah, they are solving these cases.

And I'm David Muir from all of us here at 2020 at ABC News.

South Lanes is a bowling alley in Three Rivers, Michigan. It's the social epicenter of this small town where Kathy Swartz's father ran the pro shop. After her brutal murder back in 1988, it also became a place that connected Kathy's daughter, Courtney, to her mother.

Your mother's best friend, Jennifer, has told you a lot about your mom.

You remember walking in and what you discovered?

They were a young family just starting out. Kathy and Mike Warner had only been engaged about three weeks before her brutal death. And since he was the one who found her body, you know, of course, police would have a lot of questions for him.

She'd been handcuffed.

Of course, the question, who would want to kill each of these women? The mystery behind their murders would torment their loved ones for decades.

And when detectives speak to Kathy's friends, they hear about an ex-boyfriend named Troy Schultes. It turns out he had a nickname, Harley, which of course got their attention. He was a huge fan of the band Metallica.

And he said, well, I didn't do it. And still with no solid alibi for the night of the murder, police zero in on Troy.

And before long, an arrest in the Kathy Swartz case is announced. But if investigators think they've got their guy, a rude awakening is ahead. Kathy Swartz's daughter Courtney, the baby left standing in her crib after her mother was brutally murdered, is a mother herself now.

And she and her four children have stayed in Three Rivers, Michigan, finding comfort in a mother that she lost when she was just a baby.

Back in 1988, police believed they found the perpetrator who brutally murdered Courtney's mother, the man whose nickname was scrawled across her refrigerator, her ex-boyfriend, Troy Schultes.

Without any kind of solid alibi and now under a cloud of suspicion, Troy is arrested, he's charged, and he pleads not guilty.

And for the detectives who were working these cases, frustrating dead ends. There was also a suspicion, could it have been a member of law enforcement?

So with the investigation now back at square one, the Three Rivers Police Department, they refocused on matching the fingerprint and the footprint found at the crime scene to the killer.

Zachary David Hughes.

Zachary David Hughes.

He confessed to the crime of taking Christina's life. None of us could believe what we were hearing. I was actually wondering why we were in the courtroom and having a trial.

I don't understand how you could stab someone 30 times and be in a struggle with them without malice in your heart. He was trying to play God, and he was trying to play the judge, and he was trying to play the executor.

Zachary David Hughes.

My lasting impression of this case is it was tragic. It was a heinous crime. It didn't have to happen.

Remembering her sister tonight and with hopes for her niece. We should also note tonight that Zach Hughes has now appealed his conviction.

And I'm David Muir from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night.

Are you aware of what's going on out there where you live?

I would say probably somewhere in the middle of the week.

Did somebody tell you?

It's the Karen Swift story. The woman last seen alive at a Halloween party and was a second woman also in danger and all new 2020 starts right now.

And when you said go to be with them, would you be going to party with them?

That's our program for tonight. I'm David Muir.

He was very brief.

As a magician, I'm searching for people with amazing abilities who will teach me things that I didn't even know were possible. Things that you shouldn't do and anything can go wrong.

Exactly, David, and we were talking about this just last week during Jimmy Carter's funeral. Those Iranian hostages, those American hostages held by Iran for 444 days, Jimmy Carter put his heart and soul into that, and that probably in some ways cost him re-election.

But the deal was not made until Ronald Reagan, just hours after Ronald Reagan became president, a punch in the gut to Jimmy Carter by Iran.