- I'm craig melvin,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
- During the middle of the night,
I heard this loud noise.
It sounded like someone was in the house.
I opened up her door to her bedroom,
And I thought, "I'm hearing things."
- Your instincts were right
That something happened in the middle of the night.
- You think your child's safe in your home sleeping.
- She was just 16, emma, the honor student,
Cheerleader, volunteer.
- She could get along with anybody.
- Always so, like, kindhearted and sweet.
- She wanted to be a nurse, and she had a plan.
- She went to sleep one Sunday night
And never woke up.
- I saw a 16-year-old female laying in her bed.
There was a bullet hole in the wall.
- So, she's been shot?
- Someone had fired a shot from outside the residence.
- Was emma a target?
- That weekend, she'd seen a mysterious figure
Dressed in black.
- Turnin' the doorknob. Beatin' on the door.
She's in fear. She's in a panic.
- She was shaking.
- Now, two brave friends set out on a secret mission.
Could they help catch her killer?
- You're trying to bring down a murder suspect.
- I just knew it was something that had to be done.
[sirens wailing]
- It all became a lot more real.
♪♪
- Hello, and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
Emma walker was a popular teenager
With a heart as big as her smile.
Then suddenly, she was gone, shot in her bed.
Her death was a mystery until the killer
Shared a secret with two friends.
What those friends did next was bold,
And it would take a brazen plan by police
To catch the triggerman.
Here's andrea canning with "noises in the night."
♪♪
- When the autumn chill seeps into this community
Just north of knoxville, tennessee,
Hundreds of high school students are drawn
To the blaze of Friday night lights
To cheer on their hometown heroes, the bobcats.
[cheering]
- She was the Friday night light
Who perhaps shown brightest of them all,
Emma walker, a bobcats cheerleader
Since her freshman year at central high.
- She was a really good cheerleader.
Some cheerleaders would just kind of go through the motions,
But emma would put her own kind of sparkle, I guess,
Into what she would do. - Yeah.
- Fellow cheerleaders, kelsey and lauren,
Say their friend, emma, could be sassy, too.
- She would always say, "well, I am kind of a big deal."
- And I take it that she said that
With a hint of sarcasm.
- Yes. - Mm-hmm.
- They're educational snacks of the presidents.
- Who are you gonna eat first?
[laughing]
- People who didn't know her were like,
"oh, she's, like, the super pretty cheerleader.
"like, oh, no."
But then they would meet her and be like,
"she's the nicest person I've ever met."
- Keegan and nathan were emma's longtime school friends.
- Once you got to know her, you were like, "wow.
"like, she's, like, a down to earth person
"and, like, really sweet."
- She had a smile that could light up the room,
A big, beautiful smile.
- Emma's parents, jill and mark,
Say that infectious smile...
[giggling]
- Was the hallmark of her playful personality.
♪ hands up ♪
- She liked to play jokes on me by grabbing my iphone,
Takin' selfies of herself,
And I had no idea but... [chuckles]
- Emma volunteered at an animal shelter.
At school, she was an honor roll student
With a clear career goal.
- She wanted to be a neonatal nurse,
And when we would talk about, like,
The different professions,
And we'd get to the ones about babies,
And she's like, "that's what I wanna do."
- It's no surprise that emma got noticed by boys at school,
And there was one boy she definitely noticed back.
- That's really all she, like, talked about at first
Was just, like, he's super cute.
- He was riley gaul,
Two years older than emma, popular, too,
A standout wide receiver on the bobcats football team.
Did you ever think riley would make it to the nfl?
- Yeah, if there was anybody that was gonna do it,
It definitely would've been riley.
- Riley's friends from grade school, alex and noah,
Say he wasn't just a high school jock.
He was active at church and loved star wars movies.
- Started out kind of a nerdy guy.
That's how-- that's how we met, obviously.
- Obviously. [chuckles]
- And then a little bit later in high school,
He got a little bit more into football,
But he kept with his nerd roots.
- He was really funny,
And I think that's why emma fell for him
In the first place,
'cause they were both super goofy.
- She had a big crush on him.
- Mm-hmm. She did.
- There was just one problem.
Riley already had a girlfriend,
But he said he broke up with her to date emma.
And things got serious pretty quickly
Between the two of them.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Did either of you say, "hey, maybe slow down
"a little bit, that this is moving fast?"
- Even if you told her, like, she did her own thing,
And so we knew there was no, like, holding her back.
- But as the months went by, it became clear
Riley, the star football player,
Was also, well, a player.
It turned out his ex wasn't really an ex after all.
- He had, like, promised his ex-girlfriend
That he would take her to prom that year
And take emma his senior year.
- She was okay with this?
- She wasn't okay with it, but she did let it happen.
- Yeah.
- She couldn't let go? - No.
- That must be hard for a parent when you see a guy
Who's got two girls on the go.
- Mm-hmm. - That's-- that's not cool.
- No, it's not cool, and she was young and--
And had a mind of her own
And didn't want us to voice our opinion
About our concerns.
- Emma's determination to be with riley
Caused a lot of tension between her and her parents.
How does it work when you're trying to be good parents,
And your daughter has that strong personality?
- It's difficult. - Very difficult.
- I mean, she just was very stubborn
And thought her way was the right way.
She wanted to learn for herself.
- Emma and riley dated on and off in high school
For two years.
When riley graduated and went off to college
Just a half an hour away,
They tried to keep their relationship going.
But just before thanksgiving, in riley's freshman year,
Emma said she saw snapchats of riley
With other girls on campus,
And she broke up with him for good.
Emma's parents say the tension at home evaporated.
It must have felt so good to be the happy family, again.
- It did.
The whole household was different.
- The household wasn't calm for very long.
On November 20, 2016, a Sunday,
Emma went for ice cream with her dad
And planned to get up early for school
The next morning.
- I told her, "good night. Love you. I'm going to bed."
And during the middle of the night,
I-- I heard this loud noise.
- What kinda noise was it?
- It sounded like someone was in the house
And opened a door and slammed it,
And then I heard it again.
- Mark jumped out of bed
To check on emma and her brother.
- I opened up her door to her bedroom,
And I stared at her for probably 15-20 seconds,
And she just lying asleep in her bed.
[sighs] and, uh, I shut the door
And went to my son's bedroom,
And he was in the bed asleep.
So, I thought, well, I'm hearing things.
So, I checked the doors around the house
And went back to bed.
- In the morning, emma's mom, jill, woke up early.
- I went in to wake her up, and I couldn't wake her up.
- What's going through your mind in that moment?
- I had no idea,
And I can't recall a lot of it.
Um, I just know I checked for a pulse.
- And there was no pulse. - No pulse.
[sighs] so, you know...
- Emma's younger brother, evan, also rushed in.
Poor evan, too. - Yes.
- I'm sure that's something you wish that--
- I wish he'd never have to experience.
It's like a-- a nightmare.
[screaming]
- Jill called 911.
- Yeah. - Stay on the line.
- What had happened to emma walker?
- Coming up...
The investigation begins.
- I saw a 16-year-old female laying in her bed
With a small amount of blood on her pillow.
- People had thought she might've overdosed on something.
- They thought that she had ingested poison or whatever.
- This is a mystery, right now.
- It's all a mystery.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Monday, November 21, 2016
Was supposed to be a regular school morning.
Instead, first responders were arriving
At the walker family home,
And word that something horrible had happened to emma
Was tearing through town. Friends calling friends.
- She was just bawling, and I was like, "okay,
"you need to breathe, and you need to calm down.
"what's wrong?" and she said, "emma is dead."
And I said, "what are you talking about?"
'cause it really didn't register in my mind, like,
I mean-- - not our emma.
- Not our emma. No. - Yeah.
- It didn't seem real at first to nathan, either.
- And I was like, yeah, that's my best friend,
But, no, she didn't pass away.
Like, it just hit me. Like, I started bawlin'.
- Emma's ex-boyfriend, riley, was at his college dorm
When his phone was flooded with calls and texts.
He grieved on social media.
- You know, how much he loved her,
How much he's gonna miss her.
Like, she doesn't deserve this.
- She's in a better place now.
- You know.
- Tell god about our bible verse.
- Did their hearts go out to riley that, you know,
He's lost-- - a lot of people.
- A lot of people had commented, "I'm so sorry.
I'm praying for you." - "prayers for you."
- Still, no one knew yet how emma died.
What are some of the rumors that are now floating around
On social media about what happened to emma?
- People had thought she might've overdosed on something. Um--
- Some people said brain bleed.
- The biggest one that upset us the most
Were people who didn't know her were, like,
Saying that she killed herself.
- Was there any part of you that was confused
And thinking, well, maybe it's possible?
- Uh-uh. - No.
- Like, no part of me thought
That emma would ever take her life.
- This is a mystery, right now,
As to what happened. - Mm-hmm.
- Emma is there, and you know that she's--
Has not survived whatever has happened.
- Mm-hmm. - But you don't know what.
- No. - Mm-hmm.
It's all a mystery.
- Investigators arrived with just sketchy details
From first responders.
- They thought that, originally, that it was a suicide,
That she had ingested somethin',
Um, poison or whatever.
- Knox county major mike maclean was assigned
To investigate the case with detective allen merritt.
- Saw a 16-year-old female laying in her bed
With a small amount of, uh, blood on her pillow,
Uh, and some people had confused that
With, um, that she had gotten sick
Or, you know, had ingested somethin'
And caused her to vomit.
- But when the detective looked closer,
He saw something unusual.
- First responders didn't immediately see
The hole in the wall.
- There was a hole in the wall next to emma's bed,
A bullet hole,
And while only a little blood was visible
On emma's pillow,
When investigators inspected her head,
They saw a small entry wound.
So, she's been shot? - Yes, ma'am.
- Shot in her own bed.
- The bullet struck her, um,
Just left and above the ear.
- Basically, it was a fatal wound.
- She had to have been shot then through the wall?
- Yes. It's kinda obvious that someone had fired a shot,
Um, from outside the residence into the residence,
Um, striking her in the head.
- This is not the kinda neighborhood
That has drive-by shootings, right?
- Yes, ma'am. That's correct.
It's actually a fairly low crime rate area.
- As the detectives processed what was now a crime scene,
They found more clues as to what might've happened.
- We go outside residence, uh, and that's where
We also determine that there was a second, uh, shot
That had been fired through the end wall of the house.
- So, bullet holes in two separate walls,
And there, in the walker's yard...
- We find a-- a shell casing,
A spent casing, uh, that had been fired.
And then, as we again work around
To the end wall of the residence,
We find a, uh, a spent casing,
Uh, and a live round.
- When emma's parents learned what had happened,
They were barely able to take it in.
- They had told us that she had been shot.
- It's unthinkable. - Mm-hmm.
- Emma's father, mark, recalled with horror
Those noises he'd heard during the night.
- Knowing that those noises that I heard were gunshots,
And they sounded nothing like gunshots.
- But your instincts were right
That something happened in the middle of the night.
- Mm-hmm.
- You think your child is safe in your home sleeping.
- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- But who would wanna kill this sweet, popular girl
Whose goal in life was to care for newborn babies?
It turned out the last few days of emma walker's life
Had been anything but normal
And might be the key to unraveling the mystery.
- A strange encounter leaves emma shaken
And takes center stage in the investigation.
Coming up...
- She sees a person dressed all in black.
- A mysterious figure at emma's door.
- Then this person comes to the front door
And starts, you know, trying to get in the house,
Turnin' the doorknob, beatin' on the door.
She's in fear. She's in a panic.
- I have to say I would have been absolutely terrified.
- Definitely.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Emma walker was shot dead in her own bed.
At 16 years old, she had her whole life ahead of her.
- Yeah, all of the great things that she would have done.
- Yeah.
I mean, proms, and graduations,
And things that we'd never get to see,
You know, getting married, having kids.
- As emma's family began to imagine life without her,
Police were focused on finding her killer.
They were talking to her family and friends
About the days right before the shooting.
- That's a lot of activity in a period of two days
That's unexplained.
- It was the weekend before thanksgiving.
Friday night, emma and her group were celebrating
A football win at a friend's house.
Her friend, zach, was at the party
When emma received a text message
From an unknown number.
The message said something about riley.
He'd been taken.
- There were text messages
Sayin' that, like, someone has riley.
Like, they said come out. - Someone has riley.
- Yeah, someone has, like, kidnapped him.
- Riley kidnapped?
The strange messages kept coming.
[phone ringing] then emma's phone rang.
Riley was on the line.
- Him screaming in the background.
Like, "help me. Help me, emma.
"like, I need your help."
- You can hear riley on the call calling for help?
- Yes.
- Emma and her friends rushed out of the house,
And there was riley.
- And he had his hands on his head.
He just looked confused.
I could see her, like, yelling at him.
Like, "what's going on?" and she was really angry.
- Emma was furious with riley.
She and her friends thought the whole thing
Was some kind of prank.
- We all kinda, as I said, like, ehh.
It's very farfetched for him to really be kidnapped.
We didn't think twice about it.
- But if the kidnapping was a joke,
What happened the next morning was no laughing matter.
Emma's friends told police that Saturday,
She drove herself home from her friend's house.
- As she's pulling in the subdivision,
Approaching her residence, she sees a-a-a--
A person dressed all in black,
Uh, and as she gets closer, you know, he--
He cinches the hood up and puts some sunglasses on.
- Emma was texting her friends a play-by-play.
- As she gets in the residence,
Then this person comes to the front door
And starts, you know, trying to get in the house,
Turnin' the doorknob, beatin' on the door.
She's in fear. She's in a panic.
And so, she reaches out to the one person that, uh,
That she thinks can help her, which was riley gaul.
- Emma had just broken up with riley
And was angry at him for what she thought
Was that strange kidnapping stunt
The night before. Still, she texted him this.
"I hate you, but I need you right now."
She facetime called him and asked him to come over.
Why do you think she reached out to him
Given what-- that they had-- they had just broken up?
- I think he was a sense of, like, security to her
And that, you know, she-- he was her protector
From other things.
- Riley searched the house and neighborhood
But saw no signs of anyone.
Neither called the police,
But now investigators were investigating emma's murder.
They discovered surveillance footage from a neighbor's house,
And there he was.
So, this is the mysterious man in black.
- At that point, it is. - Yeah.
- Were you able to see a face? - No.
- A possible intruder? An attempted kidnapping?
What was going on?
Police needed to talk to riley right away.
- I'm detective merritt. This is detective hurst.
- They asked him for details about the kidnapping,
And he insisted it really happened.
- Emma didn't buy riley's kidnapping story,
But she was genuinely terrified
When she called him the next day
About the man in black.
- That's the only person riley could think of
Who would wanna harm emma.
- Riley told police even though he and emma were broken up,
He still cared for her.
In fact, they spoke on the phone Sunday night
In the hours before emma was shot.
- Riley said he spent the rest of that night on campus
About 25 miles away crying over the breakup.
- He woke up to people texting
And calling with their condolences.
- Riley the heartbroken ex
And now he'd lost the love of his life for good,
But this pair of seasoned investigators
Had their radar up.
- As you start seeing more of his personality,
You could see that he had to have her.
- Coming up...
A closer look at that mysterious man in black.
- She had actually seen the man in black.
She recognized him by his build, by his gait,
The way he walked, the way he carried himself.
- Who was he?
When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin.
Teenager emma walker was shot dead as she slept.
Under police questioning, her ex-boyfriend, riley gaul,
Suggested the killer may have been the menacing man in black
Who banged on emma's door the day before she died.
His identity was a mystery,
Or was it?
Detectives were about to put emma's romantic life
Under a microscope.
Once again, here's andrea canning
With "noises in the night."
- Emma walker had been murdered,
And all over twitter,
Riley gaul was the grieving ex.
What did he change the bio to?
- Living every day through emma walker.
- Rest easy, my angel.
I love you so much. - Yeah.
- And now, emma's friends were looking back
On her romance with riley,
And they remembered a high school boyfriend
Who was jealous, possessive, even obsessed.
- He started to get very kinda controlling of her,
Like where she was, what she did.
Like, if she wanted to hang out with our friends,
He was like, "you're not going."
- He didn't want her to hang out with people.
Like, it was just him and her.
- And if emma went somewhere without him...
- He would text her 40 to 100 times.
- He's just blowing her phone up.
- Yeah, saying--
- "emma, emma, emma, talk to me. Talk to me.
"text me back. Call me," just over and over again.
- Yeah, and he'd call her 20-30 times.
- Emma's parents thought the relationship was toxic.
They had seen their daughter change.
This new personality with riley in the picture
Was not one that you recognized.
- Uh-uh. - No, not with emma.
Her fun-loving self was no longer--
Was very closed off, more in her room, big--
- Angry. - Angry at us.
- Was it kinda like her-her spark
Had been extinguished? - Yes.
- Her parents said riley seemed intent on
Driving a wedge between emma and her family.
- He would tell her she really didn't have parents,
That she really barely had a brother,
And I think he just wanted her to think that that was--
He was all she had.
- This is a nightmare situation for a parent.
- Yes.
- Jill and mark had always been involved parents
Monitoring their kids' social media and cell phones.
They even have a tracker on emma's car.
So, when things got bad with riley,
They tried to limit emma's contact with him,
But he always seemed to find a way around their rules.
- He would show up to our church
Because they couldn't tell him to leave.
- Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- Or a basketball game because it's a public event going on,
So they can't tell him he shouldn't be there.
- And when emma finally broke up with him
A few weeks before she died, even his close friends said
It seemed like he was unraveling.
Were you worried about him? - Yeah, very, very.
- I think this is when we started to see, like,
If he wanted to do something, like, he could.
- He seemed a little unstable to you.
- Yeah.
- And now that emma was dead, her friends weren't buying
His sad messages on social media.
What are you thinking when you're reading riley's posts?
- He's trying to cover up for himself.
- Did you think he did it or something else?
- I thought he had something to do with it.
- Police were thinking the same thing
As they listened to stories about emma and riley.
- Based on my experience as a detective, it--
It was a-- an abusive relationship,
Not physically,
But it was more of a psychological
And emotional, uh, type of, uh, of abuse.
- Police were skeptical of everything riley said.
They didn't believe the kidnapping story,
And when they talked to one of emma's friends
In the neighborhood,
They were even more suspicious.
The friend was certain riley was the mysterious man in black.
- She had actually seen the man in black
And believed it to be riley, and she recognized him
By his build, by his gait, the way he walked,
The way he carried himself.
- So, during that interview,
Police were closely watching riley.
They noted how he referred to emma in the strangest way.
- Now, this is someone he's professed his love to
And gone on social media and spoke out about
How she's his everything and-- and all that,
But yet when he goes to talk to me in the interview,
He refers to her as the girl.
How did you get from there back to--
- As the interview progressed, police tried to
Nail down riley's whereabouts the night emma was shot.
He stuck to the same story.
He was at his college in maryville, tennessee
Almost a half hour away,
Crying in his car over the breakup.
- As police questioned riley...
They became more and more skeptical,
And he was picking up on it.
- You know, based on my years of experience,
It was an over the top reply.
I mean, it was-- it was phony.
- Despite his denial, riley was now the prime suspect,
But they had to let him go.
They didn't have enough evidence,
And there was a missing piece to the puzzle.
Where was the gun that killed emma?
It would take two young men
On a dangerous mission to find it.
- Riley gaul spills a secret and becomes the target
Of an undercover operation. Coming up...
- They set up a listening device in the car.
- And the police could hear you, but you couldn't hear them.
- Mm-hmm. - Yeah.
- Could these two friends find that missing gun
And the killer?
- This potentially could be very dangerous.
- Absolutely.
You're gonna have two boys in a car with a guy
That's believed to have already killed one person
With a murder weapon.
You know, this is a huge, dangerous thing.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- The day before emma walker was killed,
Riley gaul's grandfather called police
About a handgun he owned.
- He files a report that the gun is stolen.
- That missing gun was a problem for riley, too.
He lived with his grandpa, and the gun was the same caliber
As the one used to kill emma.
Police didn't think that was a coincidence.
Did he express that he knew where the gun was,
Or did he completely deny?
- Yeah, he completely denied everything relevant to the gun.
- And after his denials to police,
Riley reached out to his close friends,
Alex and noah.
Since his breakup with emma,
Riley had been leaning on them for support.
What did he say about how he felt about it?
- He was torn up. Throughout this whole time,
I tried to spend as much time with him as I could.
Um, just be there for him whenever he needed.
- Riley confided in alex and noah, again.
He said he would never hurt emma,
Had nothing to do with the shooting,
But he did have his grandpa's gun.
- "they're gonna find a way to put this on me
"if they find the gun."
He's like, "can you just help me get rid of this?"
- The boys were willing to comfort riley
But not help get rid of evidence in a murder investigation.
Instead, they called lieutenant merritt.
- It's amazing that they called.
- Oh, absolutely. Uh, they-- they--
- I mean, this-- this is a big piece
Of the puzzle here. - Absolutely. Absolutely.
They could've very well just went on living their lives,
Minding their business.
- Riley told his friends he planned to go to the bluffs
High above the tennessee river and toss the gun into the water.
Police hatched a plan, a bold and risky sting operation.
Have alex and noah go with riley,
And the moment they see the gun, signal detectives,
Who would swoop in and make an arrest.
This potentially could be very dangerous.
- Absolutely.
You're gonna have two boys in a car with a guy
That's believed to have already killed one person
With a murder weapon.
You know, this is a huge, dangerous thing.
- Dangerous for sure
And then detectives made it even more complicated.
They decided to secretly record the whole thing.
- They set up a listening device in the car itself,
My car.
I had a little one inside the collar of my jacket,
Which sucked because
I couldn't take off my jacket the whole time.
- And then you got the key fob that took the video,
As well. - Yeah.
- And the police could hear you, but you couldn't hear them.
- Mm-hmm. - Yeah.
- Everything came together with lightning speed.
Just hours after calling police, 18-year-olds alex and noah
Were wired up and ready to meet riley.
What did your parents think about this?
- So--
- You're very vulnerable in this position.
- Yeah. So, my-my parents
Had just moved, um, to north carolina.
I was living in tennessee on my own.
I didn't have time to talk to my dad about it.
- You did not tell your parents.
[chuckles] - I didn't.
- The plan hinged on the boys texting a secret word
To detectives the moment they see the gun
Without tipping off riley. The pressure was intense.
- Riley came over to noah's house.
The mission was underway.
- Police were nearby listening in.
As instructed, the boys tried to be natural.
- Riley clearly had no clue about the sting.
He had faith in his friends.
- The boys headed out.
First stop, riley's stepfather's house
Where he'd hidden the gun.
He came out holding a plastic garbage bag.
Detectives were still tracking the boys closely or trying to.
- It's kind of a crazy part here.
We-we've got detectives watchin' 'em.
They leave out, uh, from the stepdad's,
And, at some point, we lose 'em.
Uh, I mean, we-we-- we lose sight of the vehicle.
We've lost the wire.
- Is that a heart beating moment?
- Yes, obviously, we wanna track 'em real time.
We wanna keep up with 'em.
- Police did find them, again, in time to see the boys
Make an odd detour.
On their way to the river, they stop for
Some drive through fast food.
- You're in the middle of this critical undercover operation,
And you decide to go for chili cheese fries?
- Yep. - Why?
- Um, it was, like, almost the whole time,
We were, like, saying goodbye to one of our best friends.
It was, like, almost just, like, comforting to, like,
Kinda have it be like it was before.
- Mm-hmm.
- They got to the bluffs around 11:00 and pulled into
An apartment complex parking lot.
Alex knew the security code for the gate.
He used to make deliveries there.
And then the big moment.
The hidden camera didn't catch it,
But alex and noah will never forget it.
Riley pulled the gun out of the bag.
- Noah texted the detectives.
They were supposed to pounce, but 30 seconds passed,
Then a minute. No police.
Alex saw their suvs outside the gate.
What was the delay? Two minutes, still no police.
The tension was unbearable.
Then alex did something audacious.
He took the gun out of riley's hand.
- Alex, why did you take the gun from riley?
That was kind of a bold move.
- Yeah, it was really. I mean--
- I was watchin' from the backseat.
I was like, "what? No!"
- It was just kind of, like, an instinctual thing,
And riley grabs it back out of my hands.
- Yeah. - That was scary.
- And that was when police got through the gate
And made their move.
- Riley was cuffed and taken away.
The gun was still in the car.
- The mission was a success. Alex and noah were safe.
Riley was charged with the murder of emma walker
And taken to jail.
It was the end of a long, crazy day.
A popular football hero was behind bars.
How did it all come to this?
- He was controlling and obsessive,
But you never thought, like, a murderer.
- And in a case already full of surprises,
The biggest one was still to come.
- Coming up...
A sudden change in riley's story,
And it is a stunner.
- What riley is saying is, "I'm not a cold-blooded killer."
- Would the jury believe it?
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back.
Former high school football star, riley gaul,
Was charged with killing emma walker,
The cheerleader he professed to love.
Two of riley's friends had helped police
Secretly record him
As he tried to dispose of the suspected murder weapon.
Now, the case was headed to court
Where a toxic teenage romance would be laid bare
For all to see.
Here is andrea canning with the conclusion of
"noises in the night."
- Almost a year and half had passed
Since emma walker was shot and killed
Through the wall of her bedroom.
Emma's ex, riley gaul,
Pleaded not guilty to first degree murder.
Knox county district attorney general charme allen
Prepared for a high profile trial.
Why do you think this case has captured so much attention?
- People can relate to being a teenage couple in love.
Uh, people can relate to breakups.
And I think one thing that really, um, scared people
In our community was that, uh,
Emma was asleep in her own home, in her own bed.
- Was it stressful as the trial approached?
- Yes. - Very.
- Just the worries of what the turnout will be.
- Prosecutors kevin allen and molly martin
Would have to prove to a jury that it was riley
Who pulled the trigger.
What was your strategy going into the trial?
- I think the main thing we needed to-to--
To focus on in the beginning was putting him there that night,
And so I think the cell phone records
And the gps locations were very important
Up until that moment.
- They placed him around emma's house.
- He placed himself in maryville,
And the phone records placed back in knoxville.
- So, he had clearly told a lie about where he was.
- Yes, yes. - When-when emma was shot.
- Yes.
- The picture that we painted of riley gaul was a deceiver,
Uh, somebody that was phony, uh, that, uh, that, I mean,
You couldn't get a-a-- the truth out of him
If you, uh, tried.
- But on the first day of trial, riley's defense attorney,
Wesley stone, upended the state's case
With an unexpected admission.
Riley was there, did fire the gun,
But it was not murder.
- That was a fairly stunning claim.
- From the gallery, veteran crime reporter
Jamie saterfield saw jaws drop.
- What he said was that riley, uh, never intended to kill her
And, in fact, assumed he would not kill her
If he shot through a wall.
- Not premeditated murder.
- Right. - Right.
In tennessee, that's two to four years
In the penitentiary, so--
- That would be a huge difference.
- Yeah.
- All of the state's preparation went out the window.
- The case went from a whodunit to a state of mind defense.
- The defense said riley wasn't some crazy killer,
Just crazy in love with emma with a bizarre plan
To win her back.
- When riley gaul fired that shot in the backyard,
As crazy as it is and as bizarre as it is,
He was hoping that he could come to her rescue.
- The defense told the jury riley only meant to scare emma
With the gunshots.
Then with emma needing comfort, he'd swoop in
And be her knight in shining armor.
His attorney argued, riley had no idea
That those bullets would pass through the house.
- Some of us who know about firearms
May very well know that if you shoot into a house,
That it'll go through the wall. Some of us may not,
And I submit to you riley gaul did not.
- The defense denied riley was the man in black
But admitted that the kidnapping story was a ruse,
A stunt to get emma's attention.
Riley's attorney said it showed how desperate
His client was to be with her.
- And that would later become a theme of his defense,
That rather than killing emma,
What he intended to do was play her rescuer.
- It almost does sound like he was just trying to scare her
When you first hear it.
- I would think the same thing, and then I went out to the scene
And looked at the house and looked at
Where he would be standing, and it is, what,
Five feet away from the house, I think the measurements were,
And it's me pointin' a gun right at you, right now,
And pullin' the trigger. It's that-- it was that close.
- So close prosecutors said it was obvious that
Riley was shooting to kill.
- Shoot up into the air, shoot in the--
Shoot in through the window, anywhere but where you shot.
- The state agreed with the defense on one point.
Riley was desperate to be with emma,
But that desperation had become dangerous.
Prosecutors argued of course he was the man in black.
After that and the kidnapping stunt failed,
They said riley gave up on winning her back.
Instead, he sneaked into emma's backyard,
Stood outside her window, and fired into the wall
Knowing exactly where she slept on the other side.
- I think this is a case about revenge.
I think that-that he sought to, uh, get back at her
For the hurt that he perceived, uh, that she was
Purposely putting on him by breaking up with him.
- And after he killed her, the prosecutor said
He went to great lengths to cover his tracks.
- They showed the jury the video
Of that undercover sting
And how riley tried to manipulate his closest friends
Into covering up his crime.
- I'm trusting you guys, like, with my life.
- His plan was to get away with this.
His plan was never to be caught.
- Which theory would the jury believe,
A reckless act or premeditated murder?
They went off to deliberate and came back four hours later.
[gasps]
- You hear "guilty." what's that moment like?
- Relieved. - It's a sense of relief.
- Riley was sentenced to life in prison.
He'll be in his 70's by the time he's eligible for parole.
- We're really proud of all the investigators
And all the work,
But we're almost more proud of noah and alex.
I mean--
- I mean, are they heroes in this?
- I think they really are. - Yeah, yeah.
- I really do.
- Lieutenant merritt, the walkers,
They call you the heroes. What do you say to that?
- Just did what I had to do.
- It took a lotta guts to do what you did.
- We appreciate that.
- As for emma, who used to joke that she was kind of a big deal,
She's actually become one with tributes to her
All over town.
There's a scholarship in her name at central high
And a dog park dedicated to the young animal lover.
- It's just a good, fun, happy place to come
And remember her
And for other people to remember her.
- And here at the east tennessee children's hospital,
A nicu exam room has been named in her memory,
But emma's parents believe the best way
To honor their daughter is to learn from what happened.
Detective merritt says it is important to understand
When teenage drama turns into dangerous behavior.
- I think we need to educate our young people better
About relationships and what a healthy relationship is
And what is psychological abuse, emotional abuse.
- And that's what we hope someone gets out of the story,
Is awareness.
- And know what's healthy for you.
- Emma may be gone, but for those who loved her,
The young girl still sparkles.
- She'd wanna be out there, you know, and she'd want us
To be laughin' and havin' fun and not sit.
You know, you can't cry all day,
That you have to-- you still have to live life.
♪♪
- That's all for this edition of "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin. Thank you for watching.