[ominous music playing]
She was attacked and sexually assaulted multiple times.
[woman screaming]
[DA J. Paul Newman] There is no other way to describe this murder
than to say that there is evil in this world.
She had been accepted to major in psychology.
She was a person who wanted to help people with their problems.
If he was infatuated with her, he may become violent.
Because he wants to enact the fantasy.
[Newman] No one deserves to be raped or murdered
because they have been drinking.
[Larry Flowers] She decides to file an order of protection
because she feared for her life at that point.
[ominous music playing]
[Flowers] He was a clean-cut looking guy that you would never expect
to turn into a vicious killer.
Maybe he has just the makings of a serial killer
and she just happened to be his first victim.
[woman screaming]
[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.
[ominous percussion]
[country music playing]
Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
A vibrant college town on the edge of Nashville
affectionately dubbed the Boro.
[Newman] Murfreesboro is a very quiet, peaceful community
located about 20 minutes driving down the interstate from Nashville, Tennessee.
A lot of people actually work in Nashville
and live in Murfreesboro because Murfreesboro is such a desirable community.
[Det. Tommy Massey] It’s also home of Middle Tennessee State University.
They have an enrollment of close to 30,000 students.
And so, one of the things you are always gonna have with young college folks
is, unfortunately, alcohol.
And lot of times, alcohol leads to bad decision making.
But, you know, it is a nice city to live in.
[narrator] As the summer semester winds down,
a shocking crime rocks Murfreesboro.
[ominous music playing]
At approximately nine o’clock a. m. on August the 7th, 2015,
the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office received a phone call.
Audrey Bennett found the body of her friend and coworker, Heather Maples.
[Massey] When I arrived on the scene, I entered into the apartment.
It’s a very compact apartment.
Immediately to the right, when you go through the door,
you could see the mattress and box springs.
I saw the body on the mattress. She was facedown.
Her left arm was extended out and her right arm was kind of up by her head.
She did appear to have some physical injuries to her head
from some type of trauma.
There is no other way to describe this murder than
to say that there is evil in this world.
[narrator] The victim is identified as 22-year-old Heather Maples.
[Massey] Heather was very outgoing, personable, full of life.
She always had a smile on her face.
She was very easy to get along with.
Her family loved her very much.
And so did all of her friends.
She was up for challenges. I mean, she moved from Texas to here,
knowing almost no one. So I think that tells you something about her mindset
and determination to do what she wanted to do.
[Newman] That summer she had been accepted to attend MTSU
and to study and major in psychology.
She was a person who cared about people
and who wanted to help people with their problems.
[ominous music playing]
[narrator] Heading up the investigation into Heather Maples’ murder
are veteran homicide detective Tommy Massey,
and assistant District Attorney J. Paul Newman.
[Massey] There was quite a bit of blood to her head.
And one of the things with bloodstains is,
you know there has to be multiple strikes.
Because the first strike brings the blood to the surface.
The second strike, you impact the blood.
As you come back for the third strike, you get the castoff from whatever object is used.
And that is what you see on the wall above where she was laying.
So we knew she had to have been hit multiple times with some object
to produce the trauma to her head.
[Newman] The police see bruising around the neck of Heather Maples.
The bruising appears to be caused by some sort of ligature strangulation.
She had definitely two fairly noticeable ligature marks to the sides of her neck,
which gave you the indication that someone had to be behind her
with some type of object applying enough force
that that object is burrowing into the skin and creating these marks.
The obvious thing to us would be, the killer comes in,
he finds her on the bed and attacks her.
[woman screaming]
During the course of this attack,
maybe he reaches for something on the nightstand
he uses to strike her on the head. Maybe there is an alarm clock
that is heavy enough that he can strike her
and cause the blunt force trauma to her skull
that kind of renders her, you know, almost unconscious.
That object is then used to strangle her to death.
An electrical cord could certainly cause those type of marks
and do that type of damage to her.
Her left hand was almost drawn up in a fist.
And one of her fingernails was broken which was an indication
that she was in quite a bit of pain.
Heather had been spread-eagled out on the bed.
It was apparent that she was probably the victim of a sexual assault.
When you work these type of cases, you see the trauma these victims go through
and the suffering in the final minutes of their life.
That... is the things that stick with you.
[Newman] It was hard to establish a clear motive for the rape.
Obviously in rapes, it is a selfish act.
It is an act of control. It is an act of viciousness.
It is an act of power.
Maybe the motive for murder was because he had raped Heather Nicole Maples.
And if she lived, she would be a witness and can tell us who had raped her.
[woman screaming]
[narrator] To track down the person who sexually assaulted and murdered Heather Maples,
detectives will need to unravel the final 24 hours of her life.
When the police further examined the blood from Heather,
it has not completely dried.
This indicates that this crime occurred within a few hours of the body being discovered
at nine o’clock a. m.
[Massey] I noticed there was blood stains on the bed itself
and to the right of Heather there was a fingerprint that was on the mattress itself
that appeared to still be wet.
It was a very good print.
Matter of fact, one that I think if you rolled it in the police station,
you would not have gotten a better print.
And so, we were able to collect this.
[Newman] The police also found Heather’s cell phone.
They deemed that to be an important piece of evidence.
One of the things we initially discovered once we got Heather’s phone was
she had sent a text message about 2:23 a. m.
The time of the text message helped establish a timeline.
Investigators now had a time of death.
Between 2:23 a. m. and 9:00 a. m. when Heather’s body was discovered.
[narrator] Having collected the evidence around the body,
investigators continue searching the remainder of the apartment.
[Massey] The apartment didn’t appear to be in disarray.
So it appeared that whatever crime had taken place
had been right there to that area where she was at on the bed.
[Newman] The police do not find any indication of forced entry.
Was the door unlocked originally? Did someone gain entry with a key?
Was someone let inside?
[woman screaming]
Did she know who her attacker was?
[narrator] Investigators turn to Heather’s friend, Audrey Bennett,
looking for information about who might have wanted to harm Heather.
[Massey] Ms. Bennett brought to our attention that during the night
Heather had posted on Snapchat that she had been with a gentleman, Marcus Wagner,
and the Snapchat had gone out in the early morning hours.
So she was of the belief that Mr. Wagner was probably the last person
she was seen or with at the time.
So that was a key piece of evidence for us.
[narrator] As investigators continue to question Audrey,
a young man shows up at Heather’s apartment.
[Massey] David O’Donnell arrived at the scene.
He had come back to the apartment because he had her keys,
which offered us an explanation possibly as to why her door was unlocked.
But one of the things that you see sometimes in a homicide case,
the killer will return to the scene.
[suspenseful music playing]
[woman screaming] Help me!
So that obviously, you know, piqued our curiosity.
Why would he have her keys? Why would he be bringing them back?
Had he committed the crime?
We were able to divulge from him
that he is her friend,
and dropped Heather off the night that she was murdered.
They’d been out drinking.
She was pretty intoxicated.
Uh, he helped her get into bed.
He’d only been there for very few short minutes,
and after he dropped her off, he receded back to his residence.
Said, "Hey, she wasn’t drugged, she left her keys in the car.
So I was just merely bringing her keys back this morning."
[Dr. Keira Stockdale] The whole idea of victim blaming
is basically implying
that the person who’s been assaulted
or attacked has some responsibility for what happened to them.
What are women wearing?
Are you being too flirtatious? Or overly friendly?
Or maybe you invited someone to your home?
And so therefore, you’re responsible.
Just because you invited them there,
doesn’t mean also that you consented to sex.
[woman screaming]
[Michael Arntfield] The fact that you’ve got David dropping Heather off
late into the night
and she’s then found dead the next morning,
that leaves a very narrow window
of opportunity for this crime to be committed.
And naturally makes David
an immediate person of interest.
[woman screaming]
[narrator] Investigators have their first suspect
in the brutal sexual assault and murder
of 22-year-old Heather Maples.
The young man who brought her home from the bar,
David O’Donnell.
He tells the investigators
that shortly before midnight, on August the 6th, 2015,
Heather texts and says that
someone is hitting on her at Gentleman Jim’s,
which is a bar, restaurant combination type of thing.
And she wants them to stop and she wants him to come there.
Heather had been with, um...
this gentleman, Marcus Wagner,
that she knew.
They had parted company somewhere around midnight.
[Newman] David O’Donnell arrives at the bar
at approximately midnight.
[Newman] She decides that she needs something to eat.
And she asked David to take her to the Handlebars restaurant.
David and Heather arrive at approximately 12:25.
They have breakfast there.
And then Heather decides that she wants to go back
to Gentleman Jim’s.
Heather and David arrive back at Gentleman Jim’s
at 1:30 a. m.
David drops Heather off
at approximately 2:15 a. m. at her apartment.
[Massey] She couldn’t find her keys,
he didn’t know where they were at.
Therefore, he was not able to lock her door when he left. It was a dead bolt.
And then he went straight home to his girlfriend
waiting for him at his residence.
[Arntfield] It’s easy for David to say that he dropped Heather off at home
and then just went straight back to his own place.
The problem is that there is no one with him
who can independently corroborate that.
All we’ve got to go on is his word.
And no cop would ever just take somebody at their word.
They need to dig deeper.
[narrator] Police speak with David’s girlfriend
to see if his alibi checks out.
Through speaking to his girlfriend,
we knew he had made it home shortly after he dropped Heather off
somewhere in that 2:15 time frame.
[woman screaming]
So, we believe we could exclude David at that point.
[narrator] With David ruled out,
police circle back to Marcus Wagner,
the person from Heather’s Snapchat post.
[Newman] Examining Heather’s phone,
the police see a text
sent at 2:23 a. m.
to Marcus Wagner.
The text says,
"Come here."
That raises the question
as to whether or not Marcus Wagner
came to Heather’s apartment in the early morning hours
of August 7th, 2015.
[woman screaming]
[woman choking and gasping]
[Flowers] Then Heather’s friend Audrey,
as well as police, find this gruesome scene, so of course...
He was the number one suspect.
[narrator] With their sights now set on Marcus Wagner,
investigators dig in to who he is
and his relationship to Heather.
[Massey] Audrey was able to give us some initial information,
that he was known to, uh...
hang out with Heather on several occasions.
He did have a fondness for her.
If Marcus was infatuated with her,
this turns into an obsession.
You know, if Heather says, "no"
and he’s not accepting of that,
he may become violent because he wants to enact the fantasy.
That actually may have led to...
you know, a sexual assault, or in this case, murder.
[narrator] Armed with this information,
detectives bring Marcus Wagner in for questioning.
[Massey] We confronted him about Heather being deceased.
I could tell from his reaction that it was a complete shock to him.
Marcus was very upset about it.
[narrator] Once Marcus has gathered himself,
detectives home in on his relationship with Heather.
[Newman] Marcus tells the investigators
that they are friends
and would meet together, would have a drink,
uh, would socialize.
[Massey] At that point, we did turn the heat up on him a little bit
to see if that might change his demeanor.
Marcus said that there’d never been any kind of sexual,
uh, interaction between the two of them.
[Newman] Although he did say that on occasion,
she did kiss him in a flirty type of situation.
But he maintained that there was no romantic relationship
between the two.
[narrator] Investigators then turn their attention to Marcus’ timeline.
During the window of Heather’s murder,
from 2:23 a. m to 9:00 a. m,
Marcus Wagner tells the police that
he and Heather had gone to Heather’s apartment
and they have a few drinks and socialize.
[Flowers] Around ten ’o clock, they decided to go to Gentleman Jim’s,
stayed there till about midnight.
At that point, Marcus decided he was gonna go home with his girlfriend.
So, they left,
and Heather remained there at Gentleman Jim’s.
[Massey] We questioned Marcus about the text message
that Heather had sent him at 2:23.
[Massey] He simply said, "I honestly didn’t know she texted me."
[woman gasping]
But his girlfriend was able to provide us
a very airtight alibi for him with her being there with him.
[narrator] With another suspect eliminated,
investigators return to Heather’s cell phone
looking for new leads.
She was communicating with a gentlemen
by the name of Scottie Marks
during the course of the night she was murdered.
They had been texting back and forth,
so we knew there was communication there.
Scottie was kind of Heather’s quasi-boyfriend.
[narrator] As investigators dig into Scottie’s past,
they discover a significant red flag.
Scottie was a sex offender
here in Tennessee, registered.
Heather had been sexually assaulted.
So, Scottie Marks
immediately became a person of interest.
[woman screaming]
[Arntfield] So, at the end of the day, you’ve got a registered sex offender
in a relationship
with a young woman ultimately found raped and murdered.
[woman screaming]
I’m not sure that you could get a bigger red flag than that.
[narrator] In the vicious rape and murder
of promising psychology student Heather Maples,
police have a new suspect.
Her boyfriend and registered sex offender,
Scottie Marks.
[woman gasping]
[Newman] When the police locate Scottie Marks
and interview him,
he is very emotional.
He is very upset concerning the death
of Heather.
Scottie described the relationship as a very good relationship
and that he would never be responsible for harming
or hurting Heather.
[Massey] He said, "Heather liked to party."
And she would drink and sometimes when she was drinking,
she was high-strung.
I think he was a little high-strung, so they had had some issues before,
you know, as young kids do.
Alcohol doesn’t always lead to the best decisions.
[narrator] With their sight squarely set on Scottie,
investigators focus on his timeline.
[Massey] Because Scottie was a sex offender,
he was actually on house arrest, for the most part.
He couldn’t go out. It was some of the stipulations of his probation.
He was wearing an ankle monitor.
So he was able to say, "Hey, I was in Knoxville.
I wasn’t even in town."
The police contact the probation officer
who is supervising Scottie Marks.
The probation officer informs them
that Scottie Marks’ ankle bracelet
clearly placed him in Knoxville, Tennessee
some three hours from the location
where Heather Maples had been killed.
[Massey] So we knew at that point that
the GPS was probably as airtight alibi as you can possibly have.
[woman screaming]
[narrator] Having established Scottie didn’t have
the opportunity to kill Heather,
detectives eliminate him from the investigation.
[Newman] Scottie Marks is asked if he knows of
anyone who might possibly wanted to have harmed Heather.
He says Heather’s former boyfriend,
Edward Nixon.
[Massey] Edward Nixon and Heather had lived together for several months.
They had had a pretty turbulent relationship.
There was some domestic violence reports
filed with the police department
that he had assaulted Heather.
March 26th, 2015.
It was a terrifying night for Heather Maples.
Edward became quite upset
over a broken cable box.
So upset to the point where he began throwing things,
spitting on Heather, becoming verbally abusive,
physically abusive.
She decides to file an order of protection,
because she feared for her life at that point.
[Massey] When you look at that kind of turbulent relationship,
you think, "Okay, is this guy capable of doing something to her?"
She had started dating Scottie not too long after leaving Edward.
Maybe he thinks, "Hey, she was cheating on me all along."
And then he decides, "Hey, I’m gonna confront her about it."
[gasps, screams]
That was very much an alarm to us.
[Roots Gadhia] Some men see women as property.
But in believing that, you’re entitled to own her and possess her.
The threat of someone else
potentially being with her
is a toxic combination of...
fueled anger and possessive need.
[gasping]
It’s not surprising that somebody like that would
choose to... kill
rather than giving her the opportunity to be with somebody else.
[narrator] Police track down Edward Nixon in Murfreesboro
and confront him with what they’ve learned about his relationship with Heather.
[Massey] He was not really putting himself
as the bad guy in the relationship,
which makes you pique your interest a little bit,
because obviously the courts have seen fit
to give her an order of protection against him.
He vehemently denied doing the things that she alleged
in the order of protection
and that he really hadn’t had any contact with her
since that had come into play.
He’s like, "Hey, man, I’m done with her."
But he did consent to giving us his DNA.
If she was sexually assaulted, there would potentially be some DNA there
that we could compare.
But Edward had an airtight alibi.
The night of Heather’s murder,
he had a party with six or seven of his friends.
Many of those friends decided to crash at his house.
Those friends corroborated Edward Nixon’s version of events,
and said that he indeed did have a party
on those particular days
and was there the entire time.
He was thus eliminated as a suspect.
At this point in the investigation, we’ve talked to...
the guy that we know has seen her last.
We’ve talked to the guy that people thought she might have been with last.
We’ve talked to the former boyfriend.
We’ve talked to the current boyfriend.
[woman screaming]
[screams] Help me!
So, now the focus kind of comes back to the evidence at hand.
By now, the autopsy’s come in
and she did have trauma to her skull.
The hyoid bone had also been broken,
so we knew at that point, that the manner of her death
was strangulation.
[Arntfield] His own hands, uh... a clock.
These are weapons of opportunity.
We have a very chaotic scene
and it suggests that we have what is known as a "disorganized offender."
[crying]
Somebody who has certain existing fantasies.
Who arrived that night... expecting...
to probably rape and murder Heather,
but who didn’t really have a fully-formed plan.
[Massey] The autopsy also was able to...
conclude that she had been sexually assaulted.
And, uh, that we did recover semen.
So now we had DNA for comparison,
that we could compare the DNA that had been collected to date
with the people we had already conducted interviews of.
[Newman] The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
compared that DNA sample
to the known DNA samples
that they had obtained from the several suspects.
All of the suspects were eliminated.
The officers quickly realize
that they are now back to square one
in the investigation.
[Massey] I do think if you don’t have a connection to these victims,
then you’re not gonna be successful working these kind of cases.
Because you are trying to bring justice to this person
that can no longer speak and tell their story.
You have to be that voice for them.
[narrator] With no suspects and a new school year looming,
panic is growing in Murfreesboro.
The anxiety particularly affected
the women in the Murfreesboro community.
The MTSU students became anxious
because they knew that somewhere in their community,
there was someone who was capable of murder...
and rape.
[woman screaming]
[Flowers] They wanted to feel safe.
[woman screaming]
And knowing there was a killer on the loose,
it was sort of hard to do.
[woman screaming]
Asking, "Why did it happen? Who’s responsible?
Could this happen to me?"
[gasping]
[screaming]
[narrator] Having eliminated all of their suspects
in the rape and murder of Heather Maples,
detectives shift their focus to the forensics,
hoping the results will point them in the direction of the killer.
Now the focus became the bloody fingerprint
that was on the mattress.
[Newman] The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation checked the fingerprint,
first to see if it was Heather Maples’.
It was not.
They put the fingerprint
in the AFIS system,
a nationwide database of fingerprints.
[Massey] Then I got a phone call
that they’d actually gotten a hit
on the fingerprint itself.
Everything for me stopped at that time because
it’s like hitting the lottery.
We’ve got someone to look at for sure now.
[narrator] The fingerprint belongs to a 22-year-old man
named Brandon Bowling.
Brandon submitted his fingerprints for a job application
with a company at some point,
and that company had done a background check on him
and had submitted those fingerprints into the AFIS system.
So, now we’ve got a person of interest.
We gotta find out
does Brandon Bowling live in Murfreesboro? Who is this guy?
[woman screaming]
What we’re able to discover is
Brandon Bowling was originally from Memphis, Tennessee,
was actually a student here at Middle Tennessee State University.
He did have a 2012 arrest
for public intoxication, trespassing, disorderly conduct.
Uh, those charges were ultimately,
uh, dismissed.
It’s hard to think that a guy who got arrested for a public intox
has now made the leap
to raping someone, and ultimately murdering them.
That’s a pretty huge leap right there.
[narrator] While it’s hard to imagine a young man with no violent offenses
committing such a brutal murder,
investigators look into whether Brandon had
any previous contact with Heather.
[Newman] Heather and Brandon Bowling
are Facebook friends
and they have communicated before
at Gentleman Jim’s Bar.
So we knew that they did have some type of connection at some point,
and Brandon resides here at an apartment complex
within a couple miles of where Heather lives.
But, you know, there was a lot of blanks to be filled in
and the only person that could do that was Brandon Bowling himself.
[narrator] Police track down Brandon and bring him to the station for questioning.
[Massey] He seemed to be very calm.
He was not loud or boisterous
or threatening or intimidating in any way
that you would think this guy was capable
of raping and murdering somebody.
He just was a quiet, mild-mannered...
college kid.
Even when I confronted him about, "Hey, this is what we’re here for.
This is a murder investigation about Heather Maples."
He said, "We’re kind of friends."
Him and his other buddy had gone to her apartment a couple of times
and hung out with her.
She’d been over to his apartment at least once before.
[Massey] She had been intoxicated, he’d been intoxicated.
And that they might have had sex on that occasion.
So really aloof about the whole sexual encounter.
But we asked him if he would give us his DNA, which he did consent to.
We asked when was the last time he’d seen her.
He said it’d been at least six weeks ago.
[Newman] But the bloody fingerprint
of Brandon Bowling
was the fingerprint
found on the bed
of Heather Maples.
[woman screaming]
[Newman] So Brandon Bowling
was there
on August the 7th.
[Massey] We knew we kind of had him
because if hadn’t been to her apartment in six weeks,
there’s no way that bloody fingerprint’s on that mattress.
[narrator] Police drill down on where Brandon was the night of the murder.
Brandon Bowling tells the police that on August the 6th,
he and his friend Kyle Waters went to Gentleman Jim’s bar
and stay there until about 2:30 a. m.
The morning of August 7th,
after they leave, he and Kyle Waters
go to Handlebars restaurant
at approximately 2:40 a. m.
and stay there until approximately 5:30 a. m.
Brandon drops Kyle Waters off at his apartment,
then goes to his home and goes to bed
and gets up to go to his class
at nine o’clock a. m.
[narrator] Investigators track down Kyle Waters
to see if he can backup Brandon’s timeline.
[Massey] Kyle seemed like a really nice kid.
He was very meek, mild-mannered,
very polite and very well spoken.
He admitted he knew Heather as well.
He had been to her apartment with Brandon,
probably two or three months ago.
[woman screaming]
[Massey] So now Kyle’s statement becomes really important
because maybe Kyle’s involved in this murder too.
We did ask him to submit his DNA as well,
which he did agree to do.
[Newman] Kyle Waters verifies that he was with Brandon Bowling
the night of August 6th.
He also establishes that they went to Handlebars restaurant.
They leave Handlebars at 3:45 a. m.
They go to the Kroger store.
He says they leave the Kroger store
sometime shortly after 4:00 a. m.
And then Brandon drops Kyle off at Kyle’s apartment.
And that is the last time that he saw Brandon Bowling.
At this point,
the police have two different versions of what happened
August 7th concerning Brandon Bowling and Kyle Waters.
One of the two is not telling the truth.
Is it because one of them may be the murderer?
[woman screaming]
Or is it because both of them were involved
in the murder of Heather Maples?
[thudding]
[woman screaming]
[narrator] Investigators are closing in on Heather Maples’ killer.
But is it Brandon Bowling? Kyle Waters?
Or did they commit the crime together?
[woman screaming]
[Massey] Kyle, he actually broke down in the interview.
And then I thought,
"Hey, man, we’ve broke this guy. He was there.
He was involved because he’s fixing to give us a confession."
Kyle got his composure back
and was like, "Man, I can’t believe my friend would do that."
We were able to go back now
and recover these videos from Kroger.
And we were able to see that Kyle and Brandon were in Kroger around 4:00 a. m.
[Newman] At this juncture, the police have established
that Brandon Bowling
has not told the truth about his whereabouts
during the crucial time period.
Between 2:23 a. m.
when Heather sends her last text
and 9:00 a. m. when Heather’s body was discovered.
However, police do have both the DNA
of Kyle Waters and Brandon Bowling.
When the DNA results come back,
they verified
that Kyle Waters’ DNA
was not the DNA found in the rape kit,
but the DNA of Brandon Bowling
is a match.
[woman screaming] No! Help me!
[Newman] We also know that it was
Brandon Bowling’s bloody fingerprint
that was found next to Heather’s shoulder.
And that Brandon assaulted Heather.
[Massey] He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy capable of doing that
and then you actually sit in the room with him
and see that he never breaks.
I mean, he never shows any remorse whatsoever, that’s the thing.
Which makes you realize
that there are predators amongst us.
[Flowers] He was a clean-cut looking guy that you would never expect,
you know, to turn into a vicious killer.
[Stockdale] We think that these monsters who are out there
are always observable to us
and look a certain way.
They’re frightening or they have criminal records.
But it can be the person next door. The person that you know.
But, in fact, a third of men say
that they would commit a rape
if they weren’t going to get caught.
From a psychological standpoint,
it’s what allows some of those individuals
with those fantasies to progress
towards acting on them.
[woman screaming]
[narrator] Detectives can now piece together
Heather Maples’ final 24 hours.
[Newman] On August the 7th of 2015,
David O’Donnell drives Heather home
at approximately 2:15 a. m.
Heather sent her last text at 2:23 a. m.
and then falls asleep.
Brandon drops Kyle off at his apartment and home at about 4:08.
[Massey] And Brandon makes his way to Heather’s apartment.
The door was unlocked
because she hadn’t been able to lock it because she didn’t have her keys.
He’s able to make entry into her apartment
and discovers her on the bed,
and then whatever
perverse sickness that’s in with him
takes over and then it just escalates.
[woman screaming]
[Newman] There was an altercation.
He strikes her with an alarm clock
and renders her semi-conscious.
After the rape, Brandon Bowling strangles to death Heather Maples.
[woman screaming]
And then leaves the apartment.
[Massey] The why always kind of plagues you
because that’s the one thing, most of the time, you never really get a true answer to,
is why did you do this?
[narrator] Brandon Bowling is charged with the aggravated rape
and first-degree murder of Heather Maples.
[Newman] As further proof, the police had sought a search warrant
for the cell phone of Brandon Bowling
and found a video
that was taken on August the 7th,
2015.
The time was 5:27 a. m.
On the video, you see Heather Maples.
You can see Brandon is shooting the video.
You then realize that you are watching the final minutes
of the life of Heather Maples.
[Stockdale] He is not only raping and assaulting Heather,
he feels like he has the power to also rewatch this again
for his own sexual satisfaction.
This could be the case of sleeping beauty syndrome
where the fantasy is that
in the midst of... of committing a sexual offense,
this person will wake up in fear
and this may be something that they’d want for their own gratification.
[Massey] Had we not caught Brandon Bowling,
I... I think he would have continued on.
And I believe somewhere in his past
that he’s probably been a sexual predator before with women.
[woman screaming]
Maybe he has the makings of a serial killer
and she just happened to be his first victim.
[narrator] At trial, Brandon Bowling pleads guilty to second-degree murder
and aggravated rape.
He is sentenced to 40 years for the murder
and 15 years for the rape.
[Newman] Ultimately, no one deserves to be raped or murdered
because they have been drinking.
No one deserves to be raped or murdered
because they have male friends or they socialize
at a bar.
And especially, Heather Nicole Maples
did not deserve to be murdered
and she did not deserve to be raped.
[Massey] I always want to remember Heather frozen in time
as the carefree, loving person that she was,
and loved by so many.
She had tons of potential.
And, you know, that’s the shame of it.
But that won’t change how she lived,
the time she was on this Earth.