[Pamela Hofsass] It was clear that whoever committed the crime was known to her.
And was allowed in by her.
[woman yelling]
Her career was blossoming.
This is my cubicle. My computer.
She loved life. Loved her family.
She really was effervescent.
She was quite special.
It had all the hallmarks of a frenzied assault
with multiple strikes and a lot of bloodshed.
It seemed to me like it was a rage killing.
The letter that he read
at the memorial service stated, "If I killed Lisa..."
It was very, very strange.
The perpetrator stayed in the house for over 30 hours
and approximately 2 feet of hair was cut and taken.
[man] Removing her hair would have just intensified
the killer's obsessive tendencies.
The need to own her, even in death.
It was 13 years since the homicide
and then they said, "We have a perfect match.
We finally got the guy."
[narrator] Every day in North America
dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case, detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline.
The minutes and hours containing evidence
that can help unlock the mystery and catch the killer.
[narrator] San Francisco, California,
sparkles with color and diversity.
And in the late 1990s,
the upscale neighborhood of Diamond Heights
is one of the city's crown jewels.
[Hofsass] San Francisco is bustling in '98.
And one of the reasons people move to Diamond Heights
is to see the expansive view of the city from above.
There is a panoramic view of the bay.
It was considered a very safe neighborhood.
No major crimes like you might find in The Tenderloin or downtown San Francisco.
[narrator] On a late spring morning,
with the city enveloped in a layer of fog,
an alarming call comes into 911
from an upscale condominium complex.
[Hofsass] The manager of one of the buildings in Diamond Heights Village
noticed a foul odor coming from condominium 307.
The manager found the door unlocked, opened the door,
and saw what appeared to be a deceased individual.
It would be a fair assumption to say
that he realized something was terribly wrong.
He immediately called the police.
[siren blaring]
Police and paramedics arrived at the scene at 12:20pm
and upon entering they found a female on the floor.
It was immediately obvious to the first responders that this was a homicide.
[narrator] The victim is the owner of the condo,
36-year-old computer programmer, Lisa Valdez.
Lisa worked in the IT profession
and her career was blossoming.
And this is my cubicle.
My computer that I can type on the little computer.
Lisa Valdez was born and raised in San Francisco.
She loved life.
Loved her family.
She really was effervescent.
She was quite special.
[narrator] Inspectors Pam Hofsass and Ronan Shouldice
from the San Francisco Police Department's homicide detail
are called in to investigate.
[Shouldice] When you are in such close proximity
knowing that this person has been violently murdered,
you can really not stop the video reel in your mind
imagining the sequence of events.
Crime scenes, they will reveal some of the story themselves.
Lisa's body was left in the position that you could only
describe as being extremely undignified.
Her shirt was pulled up around her neck.
Her underwear appeared to have been torn off
and were on the floor beside her.
She had a number of stab wounds.
It was really difficult to discern any wounds
or pattern of wounds, given that there was
a degree of decomposition already underway.
It appeared that she had been deceased for a period of a few days.
[Hofsass] If you look at the crime scene,
it seems that there is a very angry outburst.
The way the mattress is located was very odd.
It appears that the victim was stabbed on the bed
and then pulled off the mattress onto the floor.
In this case, the blood at the scene tells us a lot.
When you see a lot of high-velocity splatter,
this suggests that someone has been struck or stabbed
with tremendous speed and force
and is casting blood a great distance.
It suggests that this is very much a frenzied attack,
some kind of crime of passion.
[narrator] To solve Lisa Valdez's murder,
detectives will need to reconstruct the final 24 hours of her life.
[Lisa screaming, straining]
There was a bed which was in disarray,
with a large quantity of blood.
Blood all over. Basically, the mattress is soaked, the bedding is soaked.
So maybe it was a sexual encounter gone bad.
[Shouldice] The injuries were clearly the result of stabbing
using some kind of weapon, given the degree of bloodshed.
The working assumption was that it was an edged weapon.
A knife of some sort.
[narrator] Detectives collect all the bedding for testing,
hoping some of the blood belongs to Lisa's killer.
[Shouldice] Particularly in an edged weapon attack
where there is often a high likelihood
that the assailant will likewise injure himself or herself.
[Hofsass] If you stab someone repeatedly,
your fatty palm of your hand
is going to get wet with the blood of that victim
and then you will start hitting the hilt
and the blade with your palm as you are stabbing someone.
[narrator] Inspectors continue processing the crime scene looking for answers.
[Shouldice] Beside Lisa's body on the carpet,
there was also a broken glass.
This broken glass, perhaps it may have been held by her assailant.
There was a phone beside the bed with the receiver knocked off the base.
There was blood on it.
Everything was collected for both the DNA and latent fingerprints.
[narrator] Investigators collect Lisa's computer, agenda, and answering machine
hoping they'll offer up clues on who might have wanted to kill her.
We collect these items attempting to establish recent contacts and activity.
[Hofsass] If you looked at her calendar,
almost every hour of every single day
was filled with some event or celebration,
either a date or a gym workout.
Hawaiian dance class. I mean, she did it all.
So she was very, very active.
[Shouldice] Then the search continued throughout the rest of the condominium.
The bathroom became an area of focus
because it seemed clear to me that the assailant had spent some time in there.
Most significantly to me,
the toilet seat was in the raised position.
[Hofsass] Lisa lives alone.
Most women don't leave the toilet seat up.
We don't go to the bathroom that way.
[Shouldice] We recovered a partial latent fingerprint
consistent with where an individual's fingers
may go underneath to raise it into the up position.
Other surfaces also yielded prints or partial prints all of which were collected.
[narrator] New questions emerge as investigators
work their way through Lisa's condo.
At the scene, you have to look at everything.
Was this a burglary gone wrong?
There was nothing to indicate that somebody had,
either before or after the homicide,
searched through Lisa's unit looking for valuables.
It was a very secure building.
You had to be admitted or to have codes to access the building.
There was a door viewer in the door
which would allow her to see who was outside.
[Hofsass] There's no sign of forced entry.
It was clear that whoever committed the crime
was known to her and was allowed in by Lisa Valdez.
[narrator] Having determined that Lisa has likely been deceased for several days,
inspectors turned to her neighbors
hoping to narrow down her window with death.
Downstairs neighbors report they heard a commotion
at around 1:26 in the morning of Sunday, May 17.
It could be as she is being pulled off the mattress and, you know, lands on the floor.
It could be when she's being stabbed to death.
[narrator] Based on this new information,
inspectors believe that Lisa was likely murdered
around 1:26 a.m.
Investigators turn to the medical examiner,
hoping their findings will help them build a profile of the killer.
[Hofsass] The medical examiner
noted a total of 21 stab wounds
to the face, the neck, and the chest.
They also noted that the aorta was severed,
which explains the amount of blood on the mattress and the bedding.
And they also noted defensive wounds on her hands,
so she probably put her hands up for self-defense.
[Lisa screaming]
[Shouldice] It had all the hallmarks of a frenzied assault
with multiple strikes and a lot of bloodshed.
[Arntfield] Twenty-one separate stab wounds is overkill.
The fact that most of these horrific stab wounds
are concentrated around Lisa's face and chest
tells me that this was not only intensely personal,
but that this was someone who wanted to absolutely erase her. Not only kill her.
And there is some type of possessive, obsessive,
and often sexual underlying motive.
[Shouldice] Because of the degradation of DNA,
the medical examiner couldn't prove that there was also rape involved.
But again, she was left in a position that would be consistent
with some kind of a sexual assault,
most likely postmortem.
[narrator] The medical examiner makes another important discovery.
Lisa's hair appears to have been crudely cut, most likely postmortem
as there are no lacerations to her scalp.
[Stockdale] The fact that Lisa is found with their hair cut off,
this is something that is fantasy ritualistic-driven,
because cutting someone's hair is not required
for commission of this crime.
It could very well be that the killer is motivated
to have a piece of her always with him.
[narrator] Inspectors receive the crime lab reports
and the initial findings don't yield any DNA results.
Fingerprint analysis also comes up empty.
But then they receive a potential new lead.
In one particular area on one of the pillowcases,
there were a couple of drops that caught the attention of the crime lab.
They felt very optimistic that it could be the assailant's blood.
And it was.
[Hofsass] We found a mixture of two different DNAs on the pillow.
One was Lisa Valdez and one was a unknown male profile.
This blood droplet was a major breakthrough for the case.
That DNA profile needs to be matched to somebody,
because he must be the killer.
[narrator] In the brutal murder
of 36-year-old computer programmer, Lisa Valdez,
investigators have their first big break.
They have found male DNA, possibly from her killer.
I personally hand-delivered a small, little tube of DNA extract
from this droplet on Lisa's pillow
that revealed a unknown male profile to the state DNA crime lab.
Now, In 1998, early DNA methods took a lot of time,
but they uploaded it to the database which was very small
and limited at the time and found no match.
[narrator] With no concrete leads or potential suspects,
inspectors turned to Lisa's mother, Helen Valdez,
hoping she can fill out her daughter's time-line.
[Hofsass] Helen and Lisa were very close.
They spent a lot of time together.
They would talk almost every day.
It was very, very painful for Helen to lose her daughter
and not know why someone would do that.
It was just a real heartbreak for her. As for any parent.
[narrator] Investigators ask Helen Valdez about her last contact with Lisa.
And learned they saw each other
just a few hours before Lisa was likely killed.
Lisa's mother said that on Saturday, May 16,
Lisa entertained her mother and some friends at a dinner party.
Most of the other guests were leaving
at about 11:00 p.m.
Helen stays on with Lisa for another little while
and left around midnight or 12:00 a.m. on Sunday, May 17th.
[narrator] Helen Valdez also reveals a crucial detail
about her daughter's appearance.
As part of the autopsy,
the medical examiner noted that her hair was shoulder length
and when that information was shared with the family,
the response was that Lisa's pride and joy was her hair.
[Shouldice] They called it, I believe, her crowning glory. It was her signature.
Helen said that she would never have cut her hair.
[Hofsass] 2 feet of her hair, her prized possession, is taken.
That is what's known as a token.
This adds to the fact that the person who committed the crime
knew Lisa because they would have known
that her hair was, really, a big part of her life.
[Shouldice] It would imply that there is a fixation
or there is something beyond just the violence involved.
[Stockdale] The killer cutting her hair could be a way
of humiliating her.
It could be a way of sending a message
that I am attacking you, and I'm attacking your sexuality,
and your femininity.
Maybe I want to take this to also possess you.
Maybe he wants a memento or trophy
that he can use for his own purposes.
[Arntfield] By removing her hair,
it would have just intensified the killer's obsessive tendencies.
The need to own her...
even in death.
[narrator] Inspectors ask Helen Valdez
if there are any men in Lisa's life
who might match the profile of a man who was obsessed with her.
Helen said that Lisa had told her during the dinner party
that she had a date with somebody new
the following day, on Sunday, May 17.
Helen did not know who this individual was.
It became a potentially interesting lead
because she perhaps had received a visit from him prematurely
and let him into her apartment.
Trying to find this individual rapidly became a focus of the investigation.
[narrator] Then results come in from the analysis
of Lisa's computer and her telephone
with fresh leads for inspectors to dig into.
Computer forensics investigators determined
that at approximately 12:10 a.m. on Sunday, May 17,
Lisa was updating her own website,
which would have been shortly after her mother Helen had left around midnight.
Her computer was then abruptly shut down without logging off
or anything like that at 1:30 in the morning.
So as we examine the timeline,
given the loud noise at about 1:26 a.m.,
and then you look at the improper shutdown
of Lisa's computer at 1:30 a.m.,
it would suggest that the dynamics had shifted
within her apartment at that time.
[Hofsass] The theory is that it could have been the perpetrator
that either just shut it down or unplugged it.
The investigation also reveals that at 2:50 a.m.,
a call comes in to Lisa's landline which is unanswered.
[phone beeping]
This call is received by the answering machine.
[narrator] The caller identifies himself as Kevin Duvall.
[Hofsass] Kevin states, "Hi, Lisa. Hi, sweetie.
I'm sorry I'm not gonna be able to make the date today.
Talk to you soon. Thanks. Bye."
We needed to find Kevin.
[narrator] Then the investigation gets another boost.
When Lisa's housekeeper comes forward with new information.
The housekeeper comes every Monday to clean Lisa's condo.
But on Monday, May 18, at around 10:00 in the morning,
she gets to Lisa's condo, opens the door,
and sees Lisa on the floor and a gym bag on one side
and she hears a male voice and says, "Oh, I don't want to interrupt.
I'll come back next week."
And she quickly closes the door.
So that led investigators to think that the perpetrator
stayed in the house for over 30 hours.
He was there after midnight on Sunday, May 17, through Monday at 10am.
How scary is that? [chuckles]
That he was able to stay that long is kind of disturbing and unusual.
We are not sure what he could of possibly been doing that entire time.
[narrator] In a sadistic killing of Lisa Valdez,
homicide investigators have learned that the young woman's murderer
likely stayed with her dead body for more than 30 hours.
The theory is that she is murdered on May 17
at almost 1:30, early hours of Sunday morning.
And, so, thanks to the housekeeper's account of the timeline,
he still there Monday morning, May 18, at 10:00.
At this point we are still struggling to connect the dots
so this just confounds the investigation
and adds to the complexity of what's going on.
It merits noting that Lisa's killer spent over 24 hours
with her body postmortem.
It suggests a number of things.
We know for instance that convicted sexual sadists and sexual murderers
like to spend prolonged amounts of time with their victims.
They see their victims as objects to be possessed and experimented with.
It ups the ante in terms of how dangerous this person is.
[narrator] Investigators need to determine
if there is a connection between the phone message
left for Lisa by Kevin Duvall at 2:52 a.m. and her murder.
The phone call on her answering machine is from a payphone.
[Shouldice] The content of the message was a young man
who had to cancel a date for later on that afternoon.
Certainly the possibility would exist
that if this individual called at that time,
he could, conceivably, be attempting to create some kind of alibi position
for himself if he was involved.
The fact that Lisa had a date planned with some mystery man after she was murdered
and that this guy, Kevin, had canceled that date around 2:00 in the morning,
this in itself is inherently suspicious.
[narrator] Inspectors look into Kevin Duvall,
and discover his phone number in Lisa's address book.
[Hofsass] We were looking for anyone who had any issues with Lisa,
that maybe was passionately in love with her
that she didn't accept.
Kevin comes into the station
to provide a statement regarding the last contact he had with Lisa.
Investigators found that Kevin Duvall, during their interview,
was behaving very nervously
and that he had advised the police
that he met Lisa through a recruiting center
where the two were looking for work
and that their friendship then developed and blossomed.
[Hofsass] In Kevin's statement,
he mentioned that the reason he canceled the date with Lisa on that Sunday
was wasn't feeling well and he just wanted to give her a heads-up and let her know
in the middle of the night that that was the case.
[narrator] As detectives continued to question Kevin
they observe something suspicious.
[Arntfield] Police note that on Kevin's hand,
he has this laceration that is consistent
with the types of wounds obtained unintentionally
by offenders who stab a victim.
It's very difficult to repeatedly stab someone with most knives
and not sustain some kind of incidental self-injury.
This immediately is going to raise some red flags.
The cut could indicate that he was the perpetrator
because we know that blood was dripped onto the pillow after the stabbing.
[narrator] When inspectors ask about his whereabouts
in the early hours of Sunday, May 17,
Kevin's alibi is that he was home alone.
When you are alone, you have no one to witness that you are alone.
This was before GPS and surveillance cameras
and so, there was nobody who could substantiate his being home alone.
Kevin becomes the prime suspect because there is no real alibi
and he did have a cut on his hand.
We're thinking, "if he has a cut on his hand, he must be the killer."
We requested that he provide DNA samples and fingerprints.
[Hofsass] Along with his DNA swabs and fingerprints,
Kevin agrees to take a polygraph exam.
His polygraph was inconclusive,
which means that they couldn't say without a doubt
that he was telling the whole truth.
[narrator] But when the forensic results come in,
they are conclusive.
The results eliminate him and exclude him
as a source of the blood on the pillow,
fingerprint-wise and DNA-wise.
So Kevin could not have been the killer.
[narrator] With their prime suspect eliminated,
investigators are still left with the DNA
of an unknown male killer, and not much else.
Lisa knows her killer,
and this is probably someone who has obsessed over her.
Maybe he's been rejected
and he moves from rejected to resentful.
The more he ruminates on this, the more potentially his violence increases,
so this obsession turns deadly.
This guy is really a cornucopia
of high-risk sexual preoccupations.
All of which points to a disordered but obsessive mind.
[Hofsass] Officers interview, like, 50 people at least.
Every person that they've interviewed,
every person that they've sampled is hitting a deadend,
and that's very frustrating.
[narrator] Inspectors circle back to Lisa's mother, Helen,
to see if there's anyone else
who comes to mind who fits the profile of the killer.
We came across one potential suspect.
Gary, who they were very interested in.
[Hofsass] According to Lisa's friends,
they dated in the past, maybe one or two dates.
He was very much into her and she was not into him,
and so that piqued the interest
for the investigation,
'cause now we are talking about unrequited love
and possible jealousy.
[narrator] Helen Valdez hadn't thought much
of Gary Walker before the murder.
But recent events have raised her suspicion.
There was a memorial service for Lisa.
And Gary read a letter out loud to everyone,
that was very unusual and scary,
I guess, is the right word.
The letter that he read at the memorial service stated,
"If I killed Lisa..."
It also stated he would have never done that
because he loved her so much.
It was really bizarre and very, very strange.
People were surprised and taken aback.
[Arntfield] Gary's disturbing poem reading...
I mean, this is someone who is
a little too preoccupied with Lisa.
This to me speaks of a certain degree of obsession,
even of obsessive fantasy.
[Hofsass] He literally becomes the prime suspect
with that information.
[Lisa screams]
[narrator] In the gruesome murder
of 36-year-old Lisa Valdez,
inspectors are zeroing in on a new suspect,
Gary Walker.
A man she once dated
who developed a twisted obsession with her.
This prime suspect is infatuated with Lisa.
When you tie that in with the letter
that he read at the memorial service
that stated, "If I killed Lisa,"
we have bizarre behavior from this individual.
She definitely was not interested,
and so he murdered her.
That's the theory, right?
And it's quite possible that's why she's dead.
[narrator] With suspicions swirling around Gary Walker,
detectives haul him into the station for questioning.
Gary says he's very close to Lisa,
he's a good friend of hers,
and that he considered Lisa his soulmate.
He would never do any kind of harm to her at all.
[narrator] Investigators drill down on Gary's timeline
in the hours leading up to Lisa's murder.
So, according to Gary's statement,
he was with friends on the evening of May 16th, Saturday.
And then after midnight on Sunday morning,
he was at home asleep alone in his apartment.
But there was nobody who could
substantiate his being home alone and asleep
and not having anything to do with this murder at the time.
A DNA swab is collected from Gary
and fingerprints are collected so that we can compare it
to the latent fingerprints from the toilet seat
and the DNA evidence from the pillow
that we have from the crime scene.
[narrator] Investigators also obtain search warrants
for Gary's home and vehicle.
He is the prime suspect.
And when they search Gary's house,
they find evidence of his infatuation with Lisa.
There's pictures and letters and mementos of Lisa all over.
When police search his residence,
they find a shrine to Lisa.
Photographs.
Photographs intermingled with pornography,
and essentially all things Lisa
that suggest Gary was beyond obsessed.
The homicide inspectors
felt that he may be indeed her murderer.
[narrator] Police sees plenty of incriminating evidence,
but while all of it plays to the profile
of an obsessed killer,
nothing from Gary's home comes back with Lisa's DNA.
Nothing had blood drips on it.
There was no evidence that he took something from the scene
and brought it back to his house.
There was no evidence
that we could tie it to the crime scene.
So there's no proof that he committed the crime.
[narrator] But with no one able to verify Gary's alibi,
inspectors ask him to submit to a polygraph test.
They definitely thought he was going to fail the polygraph
and confess to the murder.
That was their hope, and it didn't pan out that way.
They subject Gary to a couple of polygraphs.
They come back inconclusive
each and every time.
[narrator] The only remaining avenue
of investigation into Gary is the forensics.
[Hofsass] The fingerprints eliminate Gary
from the crime scene,
and so then it's a matter of getting the DNA results in.
And the DNA is also excluding Gary from the crime scene.
It could have been the breakthrough,
and it wasn't.
We're still at a deadend.
We don't have any other information
about who committed this crime.
The investigation essentially hits the wall.
[narrator] Over the course of several months,
investigators obtain and test the DNA of dozens of other men
in Lisa's address book and list of caller IDs.
We were still receiving from the homicide inspectors
a series of potential candidates
for comparison against the fingerprints
collected from the crime scene.
At least a dozen sets of prints were admitted to CSI
for comparison against that,
and every one of them was negative.
[Hofsass] We've already eliminated
so many of the contacts through interviewing and testing,
also contacting people she has dated,
or her ex-boyfriends, and everybody is eliminated.
There's no evidence of who might have committed the crime.
[narrator] Months turn to years
and the case grows cold
and stays cold for more than a decade.
The thing that stuck out for me was that this gal,
she lived on her own, she was self-sufficient,
she was independent.
She loved life.
I related to a lot of that, and so I saw myself in her.
And I saw the way she was brutally murdered.
I actually had the DNA profile in a chart on my desk,
and every time a case came up and we had a reference sample
come in for a violent crime,
I would look at that profile to see if there was a match.
And year after year, I would call the state lab
and just ask them to conduct a quick search of that profile
that's already in CODIS and still not a match.
[Shouldice] I left that fingerprint
from the crime scene on my desk
where it remained for years.
It was a constant reminder
that there was still an unidentified fingerprint
within that case file.
[Arntfield] Lisa's murder is a case that,
beginning to end, lends itself to obsession.
We have the very malicious obsession of the killer
and some other people in her life,
but then we have the very benevolent
and virtuous obsession of the police
who will never let this case go.
[narrator] Then, Pam Hofsass attends a conference
for homicide detectives,
where she learns how popular familial DNA sites
can be used to solve crimes.
Instead of looking for an exact perfect DNA match,
we look for a partial match.
In other words, if there is a relative,
like a brother, a son,
or father, biologically,
they are going to have very similar
genetic information as a DNA profile,
and if they would be in the database,
then we could backtrack and do research
on the backend to see
if any of those relatives were in the area or available,
let's say, to commit that crime.
When I got back, I told my lieutenant at the time,
"We got to do a familial search on Lisa Valdez."
[narrator] Investigators hope the killer's DNA
they found on the pillow case
can be matched to one of their family members.
But on September 2nd, 2011, Inspector Hofsass gains
new information that breaks the case wide open.
[Hofsass] I got a call from the state lab,
and they said, "We always do
one last CODIS search before we do a familial."
And they said we did one last search
and your guy was just arrested and finally sampled for DNA
and entered into the DNA database.
We have a perfect match.
Finally, this is the guy.
[narrator] The previously unidentified male
who left his DNA at the crime scene
has been recently arrested in San Francisco
on a shoplifting charge.
His name is Anthony Quinn Hughes.
[Lisa yelps]
[Hofsass] Anthony Quinn Hughes had never come up
in the course of the original investigation,
and he was not on the radar.
Now, this individual was arrested
and he was finally swabbed as a felony arrest
and that's how it connected to the unknown DNA profile
that was hovering and waiting for someone to finally match.
Thirteen years since the homicide of Lisa Valdez,
and it was just an amazing feeling.
I couldn't wait to figure out where this guy was,
and get him in custody for Lisa's murder.
[narrator] Thirteen years after the murder
of Lisa Valdez, police match her killer's DNA
from the scene to a man named Anthony Quinn Hughes,
caught shoplifting
in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.
At that time, I'm contacted by Inspector Pam Hofsass
in a state of great excitement.
And I think her opening line may have been,
"You won't believe it."
Now, Anthony Hughes actually had fingerprints on file
and she wanted me to compare
the fingerprint from the toilet seat
against this set of prints.
I did that, and later the same day,
I was able to return the compliment by telling her it's him.
I felt like celebrating, frankly.
It was a big day.
[narrator] Now 52-years-old, Anthony Hughes would have
been in his late 30s at the time of Lisa's murder.
Investigators returned to the case files
looking for a connection to Lisa.
His name never came up in any of the conversations
with friends of Lisa or the family.
But further review of the original case files
show that he was in her address book
and he was on her answering machine.
[narrator] With DNA and fingerprint matches,
inspectors obtain an arrest warrant
for Anthony Quinn Hughes.
The challenge for us was to try to locate him,
since he didn't have any known address
through our database records.
We just knew where he was arrested most recently.
The idea was that he had to be from that area.
Within 24 hours of that warrant being issued,
Mr. Hughes jaywalked
in front of a police car and was recognized
and was taken into custody.
[narrator] Anthony is questioned
at San Francisco's police headquarters.
[Hofsass] He was just kind of disheveled
and appeared homeless,
but he's very friendly and outgoing.
[narrator] Inspectors show Anthony
a photograph of Lisa Valdez.
[Hofsass] When we first showed him the photo of Lisa,
he says he doesn't know her.
Slowly but surely, through the course of the interrogation,
he admitted that he knew Lisa from high school,
that they dated for a little bit.
He was 17 and she was 16.
He definitely felt like Lisa's mom did not approve of him,
and then he moved on
and got married and had children,
and that kind of thing.
And then I said, "When's the last time you had contact with her?"
He said something like the late '80s.
And he talked about how he had met her jogging
around Lake Merritt in Oakland which is across the bay.
And we know she was going to school
at the college right there.
So that was plausible.
And then he talked about how he hadn't seen her
since then, which we knew was not true.
The late '90s, he was in Lisa's address book.
His name, his address, his phone number, et cetera.
[narrator] Inspectors press Anthony
for details about what happened
the last time he saw Lisa.
[Hofsass] He wasn't forthcoming,
but he said he bumped into her in Oakland.
He said she took him to her dorm room and, you know,
made some off-the-cuff comment about
how many guys she slept with back in that day.
His whole demeanor just got really angry
and worked up and he kept saying,
"I don't understand why she would do that," on and on and on.
It was really kind of eye-popping.
When Anthony says this,
I don't think he necessarily realizes
how that comment about how many partners Lisa has
is so unusual, and why it would be unusual
that this is something that he's fantasizing and thinking about.
And so it's been all-consuming.
It's leaking out even in the course of this questioning.
[narrator] Detectives then confront Anthony Hughes
with the fact they found his DNA
at the scene of Lisa's murder.
[Hofsass] He denied being in her condo.
So we asked him how do you explain your DNA
and your fingerprints there,
and he could not provide an explanation at all.
He said, "I want to die."
Repeatedly. "I want to die."
And then he did something pretty spectacular.
My partner and I were looking at each other like,
"Okay, so now he's going to confess."
But he took the pen and he started to write out
what we assumed was going to be a confession,
instead he took the pen
and started to stab himself.
Oh, no, no, no.
- Don't do that. Don't do that. - Don't do that.
[Hofsass] Which is a form of admission, in a sense.
[narrator] After 13 years,
inspectors are finally able to piece together
the final 24 hours of Lisa Valdez's life.
[Lisa screaming]
[Hofsass] Lisa and Anthony
had some form of relationship back in the day,
and years later, somehow reconnected.
He was upset that she had boyfriends, and it seemed like
he had some kind of jealousy and infatuation with Lisa.
He was so besotted with her, and he was rejected.
[narrator] In the early morning
- of Sunday, May 17th, 1998... - [doorbell buzzes]
Anthony finally decides to visit Lisa
and confess his feelings.
[Hofsass] It appears that Anthony made contact
at Lisa's condo complex sometime after midnight.
And he had to have been buzzed in by Lisa.
[narrator] Some type of confrontation erupts
between the two of them.
He was somebody who was fixated on her,
who didn't take no for an answer,
who was rebuffed and reacted with a rage,
and it starts to unravel pretty quickly.
We can assume Anthony takes a knife
and stabs her repeatedly.
[Shouldice] The fact that her underwear
had been torn away suggested strongly
that there was a sexual element to this homicide.
[Hofsass] So she's struggling with him,
trying to get him to stop stabbing her.
At around 1:26 in the morning when the downstairs neighbors
heard a commotion, and then she's murdered.
It was a rage killing.
[narrator] After Anthony kills Lisa,
he stays with her body for up to 30 hours.
[Hofsass] At some point, he takes a token of hair.
He cuts her hair at least two feet, and at some point,
he cleaned up in the bathroom,
and I would assume that once the housekeeper
came by on Monday, May 18th,
at around 10:00 in the morning,
he might have thought that police would be coming
right after, and he hightailed it.
It's possible that Anthony was a sexual sadist,
given the amount of time that was reported
that he spent with Lisa's body,
and that he has stabbed her numerous times.
And he's taken her hair.
He's asserting his dominance over her.
Maybe in some ways, this could almost be
a revenge, or vengeful fantasy,
where he's actively been fantasizing
about committing this aggressive act towards Lisa.
[narrator] In the heinous killing of Lisa Valdez,
Anthony Quinn Hughes is found guilty
of second-degree murder
and is sentenced to 16 years to life.
There may still be a few unanswered questions
as to the root of why.
But the combined behaviors,
timelines, and evidence, when put together,
leaves you at a place
where there's no other conclusion you can come to.
And that was Anthony Hughes
- is responsible for the murder of Lisa Valdez. - [doorbell buzzes]
That was a really satisfying moment
for all of us and for her family.
That's all you can hope for.
Some glimmer of relief.
That's why you do this job.
To just give families
some measure of closure and finality.
[Arntfield] Lisa's case, at the end of the day,
wad solved through a combination
of just dogged, shoe-leather detective work
as well as the understanding of the importance
of preserving evidence like DNA
for the science of the future.
[narrator] After more than 20 years,
Lisa continues to live on in the memories of her family
and the many friends whose lives she touched.
She was a force to be reckoned with.
Everyone loved her.
She just really had a love of life, and I admired that.
And I just felt like,
how could he take her out like that?
You know, brutal, senseless.
And those are the kinds of cases
that stick with you as a homicide detective.
Come on.
[Shouldice] She had a lot to bring to the world
and you could see her personality.
And she was energetic and funny.
[giggles]
Very outgoing, and I felt kind of privileged,
in a way, to get that glimpse of her.
And I know that's how her family remember her.
And now it's how I remember her, too.