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- Some stories are unforget
- Some stories are unforgetta
- Some stories are unforgettabl
- Some stories are unforgettable.
This is one of them.
- She would show up sometimes before the pastor.
She loved the love we gave her.
- I got a phone call that she didn't come home.
- She went missing on Friday the 13th.
[siren blaring] - I heard sirens,
and my heart kind of dropped.
- Kids would call it a haunted house.
- I visited the scene of the crime,
and haunted house is right.
It really was shocking to see,
and not just because I knew what happened there.
- You couldn't imagine a scarier place
for a body to be found.
- We're trying to identify potential suspects.
John Adams was Chantay's boyfriend.
- Colin's name had been mentioned multiple times.
- She knew Ryan.
- He was missing. He couldn't be located.
- There was this stunning juxtaposition
of good and evil,
and two places representing those very things.
A church and a spooky house.
I have never seen anything like it
in a case that I've covered.
- Take me to that Wednesday night church service.
- He starts talking about demon thoughts.
- That's when it just exploded.
- I grabbed the pew,
and I was like, how?
How?
- This is "Dateline: Unforgettable".
I'm Blayne Alexander with a fresh look at
The Haunted House Confession.
Down this back country road
is an isolated stretch of land,
a place where hunters come looking for prey.
Behind the fence, just through the overgrown grass,
sits an abandoned farmhouse.
The few people who know it's here
call it The Haunted House.
- This place is truly creepy,
straight out of a horror movie.
- But one night, the horror became real.
This was the scene of a crime so evil,
it haunted an entire community
and made neighbor doubt neighbor.
Everybody was a suspect.
- In the very beginning, absolutely.
- The search for justice would lead to a different house,
a house of worship.
Had evil made its way there, too?
To report this story, I spent a lot of time
in Brown County, Texas,
and it became clear to me that faith
is profoundly important to many in this community.
This tragic case for some tested that faith
and for others, caused them to lean more deeply into it.
You're going to meet people
who truly look out for each other.
It's something that stuck with me.
And I think it will for you, too.
For the congregation of North Lake Community Church,
this simple building was a refuge,
a place to sing and worship in peace.
A haven for people like Chantay Blankinship.
- You walk in that church and you felt like,
this is home, this is family.
And I really think that is what
kept her coming back.
- She felt safe there. - Yes.
- Chantay was 25,
and lived with her grandfather and boyfriend
in a community on Lake Brownwood
in Central Texas.
Linda and Russell Lemond met Chantay at church.
Russell was the assistant pastor.
He and his wife took Chantay under their wing
when she started showing up with a notebook
and her own Bible.
- You couldn't help but-but smile
with her around,
because she just-- she-she glowed.
You know, she-she glowed.
- It didn't take a lot to make her happy.
- Chantay's younger sister, Destinee Jarvis.
- You know, she was happy with where she lived,
her church, her neighbors,
you know, going on her walks everyday.
- Neighbors could count on seeing Chantay everyday
as she strolled her neighborhood by the lake.
Friday, May 13th, 2016, was no different,
except that evening,
Chantay went out for a walk and didn't come home.
Her grandfather called Chantay's mom,
Michelle McDaniel.
- My dad had called and said that
Chantay hadn't came home.
We just-- My dad had kind of figured
she had spent the night with one of her friends.
- Chantay's mother wasn't too worried at first,
but as the hours ticked by, that changed.
- He told me she still wasn't home.
- The next day, her mom went to the house,
took a look around,
and saw that her purse was still there.
- She didn't go anywhere without her purse.
Then it kind of went over me, something had happened.
- Chantay's grandfather said
he'd been calling her nonstop.
- It wasn't normal for her not to communicate,
especially with him.
- The family reported her missing to the sheriff.
And in a community this close, word spread quickly.
A search was organized after church on Sunday.
- Were you surprised by how many people
turned out to search?
- Actually, no.
She was loved by everybody.
And the-and the moment we found out that she was missing,
it was like not even a thought.
Let's look for her. We-We had to find Chantay.
- I remember coming down the hill back to the church,
and the parking lot's full.
Probably 2-200 people.
- All there to search for her.
- Yes.
- Since it was such a small community,
it's like, she's gotta be around here.
You know, she couldn't have walked that far.
- We searched under piles of leaves.
Uh, we searched under boats.
You know, anything that would look like
it would be-be hiding something.
- It was Sunday afternoon.
Chantay had been missing almost 48 hours.
- Deputies sped down a road
five miles from Chantay's home
to that abandoned farmhouse.
Their body cameras were rolling as they met
Charlie Radle and his girlfriend Jackie Neal.
- We were just driving around looking for her.
Everybody met at 3:00 at the church
to go look for her,
and we were just driving around.
- Uh-huh.
- Yeah.
- Brown County Sheriff's Office investigator Scott Bird
responded to the scene.
What was the condition she was in?
- Very brutal assault.
There was cuts, bruises all over her face and head.
- So it was very clear to you from the beginning
this is a murder investigation.
- Oh, yes.
- That meant all hands on deck.
Texas Ranger Jason Shea was called in to help.
- I'm a dad. I've got kids.
It-it kind of hits h-- uh, home to you
because, uh, we all have kids
and, uh, it affects you.
- I can tell just looking at you
when you talk about it, it affects you.
- Yeah, sure.
- A young woman, a violent murder.
- It felt like it couldn't have been
a first time killer.
The disappearance on Friday the 13th
and the location where she was found.
Is this some type of cult activity?
- It could have been anybody.
- How long could a murderer hide?
- I can't grab a hold of him. I can't find him.
- All of a sudden it was almost like
somebody turned the lights on and you were like, "Oh!"
And there he is.
- I realize it's like I just put my face
in front of a killer's face,
you know, I mean that close.
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- Chantay's mother, Michelle heard the sirens fir
- Chantay's mother, Michelle heard the sirens first
- Chantay's mother, Michelle heard the sirens first.
Then a friend who'd helped organize the searches
came to find her in person.
- I remember her telling me they had found her.
I remember falling to my knees, screaming.
- Are there any words to describe what you felt?
- I was lost.
I just-- I had lost myself at that moment.
I'd fell to my knees and asked him why.
- I was devastated. - Shock.
- Yeah, devastated and in-- - I was devastated.
- And in shock.
There's bad things that go on
in-in the community anywhere.
You'll get that anywhere.
But her specifically, why her?
- Why would anyone want to hurt Chantay?
What was it about Chantay that just really
drew people to her?
- Her love? Just-just her.
I mean, just meeting her would make you
just fall in love with her.
- Steven McDaniel is Chantay's stepfather.
He'd known her since she was six years old.
What was Chantay like?
- Funny. Loved music.
- She had a good smile.
You couldn't question whether or not she was happy.
- People not only noticed Chantay's smile.
She had a sense of style, too.
- She thought everything was better in pink
or with sparkles or glitter.
- Chantay was tiny, not even five feet.
Barely 90 pounds.
But she had big opinions.
And her grandfather Charlie, the one she lived with,
was happy to give her whatever she wanted.
He'd helped raise her from birth.
- I had her when I was 16.
I guess I was trying to live for me for a while.
I worked and I partied, so she just became
my dad's permanent kid, pretty much.
- Growing up, Chantay needed extra care.
She developed more slowly than other kids.
- So her walking, her talking.
- Mm-hmm. - All of that was delayed.
- Uh-huh.
If you talked to her, you would know
that she was different than a normal child.
She still kind of talked like a child.
- It was like she aged to a certain point
and she stopped.
- How did she navigate those challenges?
- She just did. She--
Uh, nothing ever bothered her.
She would figure it out.
- But she didn't do it alone.
It seemed everyone in the neighborhood
had a protective eye on her,
from her family, her friends,
and, of course, her boyfriend John.
- He spoiled her, just like my dad.
She never went without as long as they were together.
- Sounds like he really took care of her.
- He did take care of her.
- So did her friends at church.
I understand that there were some times
you would help her with the hymns
That would be sung in church. - Yes, yes.
- She stood right next to Linda and I in the choir.
- She was like our daughter.
- She felt like family to you? - Yes.
- And this is the church, North Lake.
- Chantay's church had become the makeshift headquarters
for her search.
Now it was where authorities launched
their investigation.
- Pastor. How are you, sir?
Hey, folks, could you have your attention just a minute?
If you're-- believe you have information
that will assist in this investigation,
I ask you don't discuss it with anybody else.
I want your r-recollections to be your own.
We'll be speaking to you as we get to you, all right?
- She wasn't involved in any type of drugs or-or gangs.
This was an innocent girl who hadn't done anything wrong.
And then we find her in the bottom of a cellar.
- Texas Ranger Jason Shea and a team of investigators
canvassed Chantay's neighborhood,
retracing her final steps.
This really was the starting place
for your investigation?
- Yes, this was the very beginning of it.
Besides the crime scene,
we knew that she had been over here,
so this is the main area where we focused
a lot of our investigation.
- A quick word about the hats.
I was fascinated.
Ranger Shea told me it's a tradition
among Texas Rangers.
It's an actual part of their uniform.
And their hats are a light color
because in the old Westerns,
dark hats represented the bad guys.
I also have fond memories of the show,
Walker, Texas Ranger, so I can't lie,
I was excited to meet one in real life.
But what really stood out for me
was the deep connection
that Ranger Shea and Investigator Bird
had to this community.
What did you hope to find out?
- Somebody that had seen her
or seen her get in a car with somebody.
- A handful of neighbors had seen her
at a local restaurant
just a few hours before she disappeared.
Then she went home,
said goodbye to her boyfriend, John,
before he left for work at 6:00 PM.
She set out for her walk right after
eventually meeting up with a friend.
That friend, Catelyn Maccabee,
told investigators that she and Chantay
walked together for a couple of hours.
- Her grandfather confirmed to police
that call was at 8:48 PM.
- Catelyn said after that,
she and Chantay said goodbye.
- And then within minutes after
she and her friend split, that's when--
- She goes missing.
- And where she and her friend parted ways,
how far was she from her home?
- Quarter mile.
- When you think about that small window,
does it mean that the killer was maybe following her,
waiting for her?
- He could have been.
He may have been waiting for her
and watching for her
and-and waited for that time to--
where she was by herself to, uh, take his chance.
- What happened next was still a mystery,
but a bizarre clue was about to spark
a new and terrifying question.
- You think Friday the 13th, you start wondering,
is there something more sinister
than just somebody got murdered?
-
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- The old house was set back from the road
- The old house was set back from the road,
isolated and in a state of disrepair.
Even for a native like Investigator Scott Bird,
a complete mystery.
- I've never seen that house before.
I-I don't know that I'd ever been
on that county road in my career.
- Investigators soon learned it was a party spot for kids.
Teenagers had nicknamed it The Haunted House.
So it's obvious that people haven't lived here for years.
- The floor's gone.
It's just joists going across.
You're gonna find snakes in there,
other living animals in there.
- Stepping up to the scene of the crime
with Investigator Bird was powerful.
I'd only seen pictures of the crime scene to that point,
so arriving there immediately gave me chills.
It really was a haunted house.
Standing in that very same spot
where terrible things happened was emotional.
My heart broke thinking of Chantay being brought there
in darkness, murdered, and then discarded.
This house was seemingly forgotten.
And it felt that the killer hoped
the same would happen to Chantay.
What were you looking for immediately
when you got here?
- We look for shoe prints,
what's being left in the dirt, tire tracks,
looking for any kind of biological material.
Blood, hair.
- I've got his body cam so we can
get a video going over there.
- Investigators set up a grid search,
combing every inch of the property for clues.
- There's good tire tracks that just dead end
at the gate and back out.
And then there's spin out marks.
Like someone's been through it recently or something.
They found Chantay's bracelets
scattered across the grass.
- Here's another pink band right here, John.
- She wore a bunch of different colored bracelets.
There was one on this side of the gate,
and then there was one
just on the other side of the gate.
- So what did that tell you?
Bracelet here, bracelet there.
Both on the ground.
- That somehow or another, she's losing them
off of her arm.
Um, at that point, we didn't know what caused that.
- Then in the gravel,
they found strands of brown hair.
- You can kind of see it right there in this grass,
where it looks like something has been
through here, right here.
- Yeah, right here, too. - Yeah.
- Investigators concluded someone had dragged Chantay
to the place where she was found.
- Her body had been thrown over the fence,
and then she was drugged by her hair to the cellar.
- Something very brutal happened out there.
You don't just walk and lose your hair
and your bracelets and your jewelry.
Traumatic events were happening.
Just the brutality of it is what sticks out.
- Investigators found a rusty lawnmower blade
near her body.
It was covered in blood.
- And there's blood spatter on that brick,
so you know she's bleeding good.
- There were deep cuts on Chantay's scalp and face.
Bruises on both sides of her neck,
her arms and legs.
And something odd on her chest.
- We didn't know what it came from.
It was... kind of jagged lines,
almost like triangles.
We even took a picture of that
and sent that to FBI headquarters.
- An autopsy revealed
Chantay had died from blunt force trauma
consistent with that bloody lawnmower blade.
She had also been sexually assaulted.
- Not only did we have a murder,
we had a rapist as well.
- Crime scene techs collected evidence at the scene
and sent it out for DNA testing,
hoping it would lead them to Chantay's killer.
- There is a lot of fear that's generated
when something like this happens
in a place like Brownwood.
- Elisha Bird is Investigator Bird's wife.
She is also the county's assistant DA.
- There becomes a time
when you switch from your role
as a supportive spouse to,
I am a prosecutor, and there is a murder
within my county.
- When she saw a photo of that mark on Chantay's chest
and considered that the murder happened
on Friday the 13th,
a theory started to take shape.
- When you put all that together and you think
Friday the 13th, you start wondering
if there's something connecting all of this.
You know, is there something more sinister
than just somebody got murdered?
Is this some type of cult activity?
- Maybe that could explain the why.
If only they could figure out the who.
Right away, Investigator Bird knew
who he wanted to look at first.
- Charlie Radle and Jackie Neal,
the searchers who found Chantay.
- I thought we already found who did this,
because you're five miles away from where
everybody else is looking.
You're in the middle of nowhere.
She can't be seen from the road.
You have to get out of your truck,
climb a fence,
walk through 100 yards of tall grass
to get to where she was.
- So you're thinking we found who did this,
and they gave themselves away.
- Correct.
- Time to head to the sheriff's office
for questioning.
What might a polygraph reveal?
- Did you kill Chantay?
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- The search for Chantay had ende
- The search for Chantay had ended,
but the hunt for her killer was just getting underway.
To start, investigators wanted to take
a hard look at Charlie Radle
and his girlfriend Jackie,
the searchers who found Chantay.
- We were just driving around looking for her.
- It was just-- it was-it was odd
that they had found this.
- It seemed so unlikely that they just got lucky.
The house is so remote,
it's almost impossible to find,
even with GPS.
It's on a dirt road off of another dirt road.
It's incredible to me that Charlie and his girlfriend
found Chantay's body in that storm cellar.
I grew up in Oklahoma, tornado alley,
so storm cellars are very common.
It's where people shelter during a storm.
They're usually detached from the house
with doors that lead underground.
This one was so overgrown that I almost
couldn't even see it from where I was standing.
And for me, it becomes its own character in this story
just because of how eerie it felt.
- What are the odds that he found her
out there innocently?
Sometimes where there's smoke, there's fire.
- If you want to have a seat in the truck
so we don't make any more footprints
than we've already got.
- Charlie and Jackie were both in their 40s,
and they both knew Chantay from her daily walks
in the neighborhood.
She lived about a mile away from them.
- Investigators took note of Charlie's emotion
at the scene
and invited him to the sheriff's office
to see how he would answer questions there.
- Charlie told the investigator
he'd just seen Chantay out walking
not long before she disappeared.
- Charlie said that as soon as they heard
a search was being organized,
he and Jackie jumped in the truck
and hit the country roads.
- Then he said, they came upon that dirt road,
the one leading to the haunted house.
- He had stated that his kids used to go out there
and, you know, teenagers going out there and partying
at this old abandoned house.
- After looking around the dilapidated house,
he said he decided to check the storm cellar.
That's where he found Chantay's body.
- They also interviewed Jackie.
The investigator asked her where Charlie was
on Friday the 13th, the night Chantay disappeared.
- They offered investigators their DNA.
- Charlie also agreed to a polygraph.
How hard did law enforcement press Charlie?
- Extremely hard.
And he showed no indication of deception
during that polygraph.
- And we decided it's time to move on.
- While investigators searched for Chantay's killer,
her family was facing the difficult task
of planning her funeral.
Mourners gathered for the service
at her beloved church.
- Everybody had a touch of pink somewhere,
whether they were wearing,
you know, just pink bracelet
or that they were wearing, um, actual pink.
You know, my mom, my brothers, they'd all got,
like, matching shirts and things like that.
- What stands out to you the most about that day?
- The people.
Some people are standing outside,
walking into the church, being seated,
and it's packed. People are standing.
The whole parking lot's full of people.
- Did you feel the love that this community
had for your daughter? - I did, I did.
- Did you ever consider the possibility
that her killer might be right there
in the room, in the church with you?
- I didn't.
- She didn't, but investigators did.
They rigged up surveillance cameras
inside the church.
- You thought that it was important to see
who was coming, who was going.
- Yes, people will come back
to see what we have found
or to downplay what they've done
or to hide in plain sight.
- But after scrubbing through hours of video,
investigators didn't find anything suspicious.
Still, they were convinced Chantay's killer
had to be close by,
almost certainly someone she knew.
- She wouldn't get in a car with somebody she didn't know.
- Everyone just knew that about her?
- They-They knew that.
There were-- I can't tell you how many people
came up to us and said,
had to have been somebody known
because she wouldn't have gotten in a vehicle
that she didn't know that person.
- So they would have to look at everyone
in Chantay's circle,
starting with the man closest to her.
- In the days after Chantay's body was found,
her family and friends
tried to come to terms with her savage murder.
- I know that you'd said at some point,
even after she was found,
there were days when you almost
still expected to see her
on those walks. - Yes, Yes.
I remember the-the first time we drove down that road,
and it was sad.
It's like she's supposed to be here.
She's not here.
It-it was almost like living that day over again
that we found out that she-she wasn't alive.
- As investigators looked for Chantay's killer,
those closest to her were under scrutiny.
- When we're doing any of these investigations,
who the first people you look at is boyfriend.
- John Adams, Chantay's live-in boyfriend.
At 26, he was a year older than Chantay.
They'd known each other since middle school,
had been a couple for more than three years.
They were even starting to talk about marriage.
- John meant a lot to her. She meant a lot to him.
- That's what mattered to Chantay's family.
They made it clear to John that Chantay was special
and needed to be protected.
- So with John, um, I think there was
a lot of conversations, um, between him
and other family members about it.
Um, and I think they trusted him
to not ever take advantage of her
and to treat her right.
- Two days after Chantay's body was found,
investigators paid John a visit.
- Hello. Car logged over.
What's your name?
- John Adams. - John Adams.
- John recognized the deputy from a traffic stop.
- You pulled me over before.
- I-I pulled you over before. For what?
- Oh, down there on, uh, C.C. Woodson Road.
- Oh, okay.
- Is this where y'all live? In here?
- Yeah.
- Can we go inside? - Yeah.
- John led them to the bedroom he shared with Chantay.
- Is there anything, uh, missing out here?
- No.
- They studied the room.
- Can we, um, have this brush?
- Took pictures and examined Chantay's belongings.
- Just gonna dump this out.
So she goes everywhere with her purse,
but she just didn't have her purse today?
- Then they went back outside.
That's when they let John know
they weren't just looking for clues.
They were looking at him.
- And normally boyfriends are, like, going to be
the number one suspect a lot of times.
- Yeah.
- And also a lot of the times when you do--
When we do these, uh, we do find another suspect.
So when-when we do find the real--
The-the-the real killer... - Yeah.
- Then, you know, we could say, Oh, we covered that base.
- They walked around the property
looking into outbuildings.
- What is that on the hammer?
That for pulling out nails or something?
- They took pictures of John's pickup truck
and were interested to see
a lot of lawnmowers in the shed.
- Man, do you-do you guys have a lawn care service
or something?
- Remember, it was a lawn mower blade
that killed Chantay.
That was missing-- uh, that was tore up.
- They also wanted to know about
John's relationship with Chantay.
Investigators had heard it was loving,
but could be tense at times.
- It was strained.
They weren't the Ozzie and Harriet.
They weren't perfect.
Chantay liked to wave at boys,
and boys would wave back,
and it made her feel good.
That made him a little jealous.
Now, she didn't mean anything by it,
but John was a little bit jealous,
so it-it upset him, so...
- Did you ever learn that Chantay had complained
to neighbors about John sometimes
wanting to control her?
- Sure, um, would tell her what to eat,
what not to eat, where she could go,
where she couldn't go.
- Bitsy Hobbs, one of Chantay's friends,
told investigators she heard the couple fighting.
Chantay sounded angry.
- I think talking to witnesses who had spoken to John,
uh, prior to the homicide,
uh, that he was worried about the relationship
and didn't know how much longer it was gonna last.
- Hmm, so he was thinking it may come to an end soon.
- Quite possible.
Uh, you know, could this have been a spat, an argument,
and that's why, um, you know, she was killed?
We didn't know at that time.
- But they were about to find out.
They had a stack of questions for John Adams.
For starters, what did he do with his phone?
- I spoke with John Harper the first night
and stuff, told my side of the story.
- John Adams seemed like a friendly guy
when he met investigators.
- Who lives here? - Uh, Charlie Barnett.
- And this is where you live, too.
- Yes, sir.
- But friendly didn't mean innocent.
- We didn't know if he knew more about
what had happened to Chantay
than what he was actually telling us.
- Did you bring him in? - We did bring him in,
and asked him what was going on.
So we had a good timeline of where Chantay was at,
and we needed to see where he was at during that time.
- John said that around 5:00 PM
he picked Chantay up at the restaurant
where neighbors had seen her that afternoon.
- John said he then went to work at his restaurant job
around 6:00 PM.
- He said he worked an overnight shift
and got home around 5:00 the next morning.
Chantay wasn't there.
He thought maybe she was at a friend's place.
- They dug into his relationship with Chantay.
- After that interview, John was free to go.
But investigators found something
while searching his cell phone data.
- He had given us his cell phone to download.
Uh, we-we looked at that and noticed
that there was some communication
that had been deleted.
So we had to pull him back in.
- Some messages? - Uh, some messages.
- This time, the conversation was less friendly,
on both sides.
- John admitted he was trying to hide something,
but not about Chantay.
- You know, he-he said, hey, this-this is what was going on.
I was using drugs, and those messages
were in reference to buying and selling marijuana.
And so that's how he explained it.
- They interviewed John four times.
- They were pressuring me.
- We interviewed him too, and asked him
what it was like to be grilled like that.
- Could you-- You could tell
that when they were talking to you,
they weren't just trying to get information.
They were thinking that you had something to do with it.
- They're trying to pressure me to confess
is what-what they were trying to do.
- Were you upset? - I was.
I was very upset. It hurt.
'Cause I have-- I don't have a bone in my body
to do something like that to someone.
- He told us the same thing he told investigators.
His relationship with Chantay
was not perfect, but it was solid.
- Were there ever any rocky moments?
- Uh, there was things.
You know, she'd just get mad for certain reasons.
There would be times where I just had to--
I'd walk away, I wouldn't yell,
really at her or argue with her, you know.
But, I mean, other than that, we-we stayed together,
you know, made it work, you know?
- Even if there were ups and downs
between the two of you? - Yeah.
- It wasn't just investigators.
John knew neighbors were quick to assume
the boyfriend was to blame.
But he told us what some saw as controlling behavior
was his way of protecting Chantay.
- Already people were starting to point their fingers at you.
- And it made me mad, knowing dang well
I didn't-I didn't do nothing.
I did nothing but protect her.
- Investigators needed to check out
everything John told them,
including what he said about other men in town.
Like a guy named Bobby Soza,
who John said liked to throw parties.
- He lived in the area.
He was always seen driving around that area.
- Chantay's friend told investigators
she'd seen a red and white Bronco
in the neighborhood the night Chantay disappeared,
that the driver waved at them
and seemed creepy.
They tracked down Soza and confirmed
he drove a red and white Bronco
and brought him in for questioning
at the sheriff's office.
- Soza said he did drive by Chantay
on her walk that night, but that was it.
- Did investigators search his house, search his car?
- They searched everything.
He was, come in my house, search my vehicle,
look anywhere you want.
- Sorry about the mess. - Oh, you're good, man.
- So he was very open? - Absolutely.
- He also shared where he'd been that night.
- He had gone to another residence,
and there were multiple individuals there
that he didn't leave 'til late that evening.
- Were you able to verify that?
- We were able to verify that.
- The pressure to find Chantay's killer was mounting.
Meanwhile, police had more questions for John Adams,
especially after investigators found out
he'd been deleting text messages from his phone.
- Investigators checked out his story and confirmed
those deleted text messages were just about marijuana.
- So you caught him in something else,
but not murder? - Correct.
- They were also able to get security video
from the restaurant where John worked,
along with the timesheets.
- He told us exactly where he was, what he had done,
and everything he told us was truthful.
- So he gave you an alibi. - Oh, yes.
- And you were able to verify it?
- Yes, through video.
I mean, it doesn't get much better alibi than that.
He was just worried that--
and upset that his fiance had been killed.
- He wanted to figure out who had done this also.
- In talking to John Adams, it was very clear
that his pain was still raw.
I can't imagine grieving the loss of a loved one
while at the same time
living under this cloud of suspicion.
It's always the first place investigators start,
with the significant other.
And I got the sense that John was still traumatized
by everything that happened.
I was so grateful that he chose to open up to us
and tell his part of the story.
- I want to ask you, John,
what do you miss the most about Chantay?
- The most I miss about Chantay...
Her laughter.
It made life easy when she smiled
and just laughed, and not mad at you.
Uh, she-she was like my best friend.
- John as a suspect was a dead end.
But that didn't mean talking to him
was a waste of time.
Not at all.
- We still needed more information
of potential suspects
that might be involved in the case.
So we had to continue to try to keep him on our side
to get as much information as we could.
- John gave them another name,
a name they heard from other neighbors.
Colin Smith.
- When we started doing interviews,
his name had been mentioned multiple times.
- Colin was in his 20s, did some lawn mowing
and odd jobs around town.
And he lived just around the corner from Chantay.
- Chantay went missing,
and it was right there by Colin's house.
Here's where Colin was living at the time.
- Right here? - Yep.
- Okay. - And it kind of backs up,
uh, back to the road to where Chantay was living at, too.
- Okay, okay.
- So she would have had to walk down this area,
um, the day that she went missing.
- John Adams told investigators
Colin was a troublemaker.
- And Chantay's stepdad, Steven, recalls
that months before the murder,
Colin took Chantay out for a late night joyride.
Steven was furious.
- What'd you say?
- I just asked him what he was doing with her.
And, uh, I made her get out of the vehicle
and told him, better stay away from her.
- You told him to stay away from her?
- Yes. - Did he?
- Far as my knowledge, yes.
- But Ranger Shea heard that's not what Colin did.
- Ms. Maccabee that had been walking with Chantay
had told us that Colin Smith
had purchased her some shoes recently.
- Chantay also told her friend
Colin wanted to meet up the night she disappeared.
- Saying, hey, meet me out by the barn tonight,
but don't tell anybody.
- To Chantay? - Yes.
-
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the Chantay Blankinship murder
were starting to hear the same name
from several people, Colin Smith.
And Chantay's friend Catelyn Maccabee
told them about a secret meeting
the night Chantay disappeared.
- That very well meant that Colin could have been
the last person to see her alive.
- Sure, and that's what we were thinking.
Uh, is he the one?
Uh, did-did she say something that upset him?
In my opinion, he was a number one
that we needed to talk to.
- Shea went to see him in person.
- How did you find him?
Was he-- Did he seem shifty to you?
- He-he really didn't. He--
There was a little bit of concern.
- Like other neighbors investigators spoke to,
Colin said he did see Chantay the night she disappeared,
but only from a distance.
He'd seen her pass by his house
on her last walk.
- Chantay was just a friend, Colin said.
But he told investigators that she was interested
in more than friendship.
- Investigators wanted to ask him more questions,
this time hooked up to a lie detector.
- But right before they got started,
a key part of his story changed.
He admitted he did have
a physical relationship with Chantay.
- Colin told police he didn't know
Chantay and John were serious.
- He ended up admitting that he had been
in a sexual relationship with her.
- Was that the only thing he'd been hiding?
Wired up to the machine,
the questions got very specific.
- The investigator told Colin
the results of the tests were not good.
- Was that a red flag? - That's a big red flag.
- A lie detector test can be a powerful tool
for investigators.
Just the willingness of someone to take the test
can often speak volumes.
But here's what many people don't realize.
These tests are not foolproof.
There are plenty of factors.
Stress, grief, anxiety, even medical conditions
that can throw off the readings.
That's why polygraph results cannot be used
as evidence in court.
They're just too unreliable.
But detectives can use them to apply pressure.
- Colin, who'd been cooperative up to this point,
seemed eager to leave.
- Colin stayed long enough to give them his alibi.
He'd been at his brother's house, he said,
about 10 miles away.
- Texas Ranger Shea and I
knew we had to get to the brother
to talk to him before Colin could.
To get the true story
and not Colin calling his brother and saying,
"Hey, cover for me."
- Would Colin's alibi check out,
or would police be forced to consider
a whole new theory?
- It felt like it couldn't have been a first time killer.
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in a room with a young man they found highly suspicious.
- Colin Smith was my main focus.
- Colin had initially lied to detectives
about his relationship with Chantay.
And when they hooked him up to that polygraph,
it seemed he still wasn't telling the whole story.
- Colin told the polygrapher that he had an alibi.
He was with his brother,
but couldn't explain why he failed the polygraph.
- Investigators raced to talk to Colin's brother
before he could.
And the brother confirmed his alibi.
- It's not just his brother that we talked to.
Who else is there with you?
- They also talked to his niece and nephew,
who said they saw Colin, too.
- Of course, they're family members,
so we've got to look at that, too.
- It's not the strongest alibi.
- It's not the strongest because, you know,
family members will cover family members.
- Investigators also took Colin's DNA
and sent it to the crime lab.
How does that come back?
- It come back that he's not a match to the DNA
that was found on her body.
- So you're able to clear him?
- Yes.
- Another dead end.
By now, DNA results were coming in
from the other men they'd talked to.
Chantay's boyfriend, John, was not a match.
Neither was neighbor Bobby Sosa.
- Nobody may have ever looked in that cellar.
It may have been years.
- And the DNA also proved
those searchers who found Chantay
were exactly what they appeared to be.
Good samaritans, far from suspects.
They had been a blessing to the investigation.
- We were very lucky. Very blessed.
There's all kinds of predatory animals out here.
Coyotes, bobcats, stray dogs,
Any kind of, uh, occasional mountain lion.
If we hadn't found her,
that's probably what would have found her.
Some kind of animal.
- The timely discovery of Chantay's body
was a stroke of luck that, to Investigator Bird
felt like divine intervention.
But that luck seemed to be running out
as they tore through lead after lead.
- How many calls were coming in
that you guys had to chase down?
- A lot. Hundreds.
At first, it was just, try this name,
try this name.
- And you all have to chase after each and every one.
- Absolutely. Anytime somebody called in
and said, hey, this person was in the neighborhood,
we'd go talk to them, and we would ask the male
for a buccal swab to take their DNA.
- Investigators collected samples
from at least two dozen men,
including Chantay's grandfather, Charlie.
It seemed unthinkable
the doting Charlie could be the killer.
But Chantay's mom was in favor of testing him.
You thought he could have possibly been involved?
- I thought everybody was involved at this point.
- Nobody was ruled out in your eyes?
- Nobody was ruled out in my eyes.
- It wasn't the grandfather.
And it also wasn't anyone in CODIS,
the national law enforcement DNA database.
Back to square one. - Back to square one.
- Just heart wrenching.
- This is how cold cases are born.
It's dead end after dead end.
It's painful for the families.
It's terrifying for communities
wondering who among them is a killer.
For Investigator Bird,
he told me it was particularly frustrating
because he had the killer's DNA
but didn't know who it belonged to.
The answer was right there, but completely out of reach.
As a journalist,
I'm struck by how easily leads can go cold,
but new technology,
or someone finally coming forward
can make all the difference.
As weeks went by, and then months...
- We just know that they're out there.
It's-it's scary.
- Out there and possibly right there in the community.
- Right. Is this a neighbor? Is this a friend?
- Everybody was scared.
The kids that walked out there constantly
started pairing up.
Nobody walked alone.
- It snatched away that feeling of safety.
- It did. Mm-hmm. - For the whole community.
At Chantay's church,
parishioners were desperate for answers.
- I can't believe
they would take such a precious person.
She meant so much to Linda and I and to the community.
- Pastor, how are you, sir?
- The pastor hounded investigators for updates.
- Called me every day,
every two days, every three days,
wanting to know what we found
and asking questions about the evidence.
- Asking about the case. - Yes.
- And because no one was above suspicion,
investigators even wondered about the pastor himself.
- When somebody becomes too involved in your case,
sometimes they're trying to figure out what you do know,
what you have found out,
what you haven't found out to protect themselves.
- That went nowhere.
And while authorities suspected
the killer was someone Chantay knew,
they couldn't rule out other theories.
Did you ever consider the possibility
that you were dealing with a serial killer?
- You know, that's-that's always a possibility
of things that we look at.
- Elisha Bird was still thinking
about that strange symbol on Chantay's chest.
What could it mean?
- The disappearance on Friday the 13th
and the location where she was found.
It just all-- - The haunted house.
- You're looking for some sort of cohesiveness.
You're looking for some theory of the case.
- A lot of sleepless nights
laying there wondering what did I miss today?
Did I talk to this person today?
Um, it makes you start second guessing yourself.
What are you missing?
- You were really taking this case personally.
- Absolutely.
- Investigator Bird's wife could see
the case was weighing heavily on her husband.
- The great thing with us both being in this field
is we're able to give each other that space,
Recognizing that he needs to be able to think
and to figure out
what his next investigatory step will be.
- Chantay's family feared
the investigation had hit a wall.
- Seemed like that nothin' was getting done to me.
- Desperate for answers,
Chantay's stepfather admits he badgered his neighbors.
- I would stop everybody that drove by the house.
I was out there morning till dark,
trying to find out answers.
I caused a lot of problems out there.
I wanted to know.
- You were desperate. That was your girl.
- Yes, ma'am.
- You start thinking at that point,
they'll probably never actually find who-
who did this.
- They told me they would never stop, but in my eyes,
they had stopped because they were doing stuff
that I didn't know at the time.
What she didn't know was that Investigator Bird
was about to take a leap of faith
with a cutting edge technology,
maybe this would reveal the face of the killer.
- I'm willing to try anything.
- It very much seemed too good to be true.
♪
♪♪
- One year after Chantay was murdered,
her mom organized a memorial.
Friends and family came together
and walked Chantay's route.
- Everybody was out of breath.
We didn't know how she did it.
Yeah, she-- - Well, that was her thing.
- Yeah, it was her thing. It was. She loved it.
Everybody always talked about her.
You know, all the beautiful moments.
You know, everybody's seen her.
Most of them are her walking and her smile.
- Those were difficult days for everyone.
Those who loved her spent hours by her grave.
The stone inscribed "Singing in the Angel's Choir."
Her stepfather, Steven, was grieving
and feeling guilty.
Before she went missing, he told Chantay
he might take her fishing on that Friday.
Instead, he picked up an extra shift at work.
- It's been hard, real hard,
because I figured if I wouldn't have
went to work that weekend, she'd still be here.
- You think through all these "what ifs."
- And I blame myself every day.
- The Lemonds were suffering, too.
- I cried for months and months afterward.
It came to the point where it was unsolved.
It hurt.
I was really angry that, you know, if I said, man,
if I just get five minutes alone with this guy
and, you know, that's not a proper way to think.
But, you know, still, you know,
they took something from all of us.
- Mm-hmm.
- Despite all the leads the investigators had run down,
Chantay's killer was still out there.
Now, like a losing football team,
they were ready for a Hail Mary.
- I was trying anything I could.
We were- we were lost. We couldn't--
We didn't know what the next step was.
- Bird felt incredibly frustrated.
He couldn't crack the case.
Even though he had the killer's DNA.
- It tells us who the killer is.
It doesn't give us a name, but it tells us who did this.
And it's undisputable.
So what you have in your hand is
quite possibly the best piece of evidence
in terms of identifying someone,
but no name. - Right.
That's how I described it to people.
I know exactly who you are.
- Then, Bird heard about a new DNA technique
his department had never used.
The process is called phenotyping.
It uses DNA to predict the way a person looks.
Eye, hair, and skin color, among other things.
Back in 2017,
it was a shiny new tool for law enforcement.
- One of our investigators,
who doesn't work for us anymore,
um, saw a show on TV. - Hmm.
- And it was about phenotyping, and he told me about it.
- Bird googled it and called around.
So you're hearing success stories.
- Correct. - And thinking,
this could work for us too. - Right.
- But when the investigator ran it by others,
he hit a wall of skepticism, including his wife Elisha,
in the district attorney's office.
- It felt very... television-esque.
You know, it felt like something that you see on TV,
but it doesn't really happen that way
in real criminal cases.
And so, it very much felt like a science fiction idea.
- You doubted it from the very beginning?
- From the very beginning,
I didn't believe that it would work.
- This is not a TV show. - This is not a TV show.
And this is not-- They can't do that with DNA.
- You had a lot of people to convince.
- I did, including the sheriff,
the district attorney,
and then I had to convince them
to give me some more money.
- That couldn't have been easy.
- That's not easy.
- The price tag, $3,600.
More money for an investigation
that was already one of the most expensive
this sheriff's office had ever done.
- Michael Murray is the Brown County District Attorney.
Did you have concerns about whether or not
this would even be admissible in court
or this could help with case? - Right,
and it wasn't so much that we needed to use it in court,
but we needed a lead
that would help lead to real other evidence.
And so sometimes, while it may not be
the primary evidence you use in court,
if it leads to other evidence,
that would be the important aspect here.
- Finally, they all agreed, it was time for that Hail Mary.
They got the money,
and the DNA was submitted to a lab
owned by a Virginia Tech company called Parabon.
- You thought, there goes $3,600 down the drain.
- Yes. I think the county just wasted some money.
- Five months later, Investigator Bird got an email.
It was late afternoon.
- I pulled it up, and it said the image was included.
Oh, goodness.
- What are you thinking
before you open this picture?
- I hope I recognize the person.
I hope this gives me an idea of who the person is.
- This is the image in the email.
- So I opened it and had no clue.
It was just a stranger.
- Zero recognition. - Zero.
- Did you see it? - I did.
- Did you think that it looked like a person?
I mean, did it seem like,
hey, this could lead us somewhere?
- It looked like, to me, it looked like
every white kid out at Northlake.
It could have been anybody.
- Not exactly the miracle they were hoping for.
Still, they posted it on social media
and pinned their hopes on the public.
The chance that somebody out there
just might recognize this face.
- You're like, I have no idea.
This looks like just an average white boy
with blonde-- sandy blonde hair.
And it's like, I don't know who that could be.
- We look at the sketch, me and my husband,
and nothing.
- Did anything about it stand out to you?
- Nothing.
- Chantay's sister studied it
and was struck by its sophistication.
You know, you grow up looking at the news,
and, you know,
they're looking for the guy who did whatever.
And it's like a stick figure,
and it looks like something
you could have drew in art class.
This was way advanced, you know,
compared to anything that you had seen prior to that.
- But it didn't ring a bell for Destinee either.
- To me, looks like any dude, a picture, ya know.
- Everyone felt defeated.
Then Michelle got a call from another member
of the family, Chantay's half-brother.
- He saw something others didn't
and gave his mother a name to look up.
- My heart hit the floor, and I remember crying,
and I turned and I said, "This is him."
♪
♪♪
- At first, the Parabon sketch felt like a big dud.
Police posted it on social media
and showed it to the family, but nothing.
Then Michelle's son, Cutter, called her.
He said he felt like he knew it right then.
- Cutter told his mom he was sure the sketch
showed somebody he knew.
Someone named Ryan Riggs.
- I looked him up, and soon as I seen that face,
my heart hit the floor, and I remember crying.
And I turned and I said, "This is him. This is him."
- All of a sudden, it was almost like
somebody turned the lights on,
and you were like, "There he is."
- Ryan Riggs was a local, a member of Chantay's church.
Cutter knew Riggs from high school
and would never forget him.
- Ryan had bullied Cutter in school,
and had poured a whole glass of sweet tea over his head.
- So your son had known him for years.
- They all did.
And they all used to play video games together.
- Michelle called Scott Bird and gave him the name.
- You've got a picture, you've got a name.
How do you put those together?
- We went to social media.
We basically looked up Ryan Riggs on Facebook.
And the picture that popped up of him was the spitting image
of the computer image that we'd received.
- It felt definitive.
It felt like here is the answer.
- Hmm.
- We have been looking for a year and a half
and we've had nothing.
And here it is, and it's a perfect match.
- What did you think when you saw that side by side?
- Started becoming a believer.
- Maybe it wasn't a waste of $3,600.
- Maybe this is not a waste of money.
- Investigators still had a lot of work to do.
The sketch alone wasn't enough for an arrest.
- We start diving into Ryan Riggs
to find out who he is.
- They learned that the 21-year-old Riggs
loved playing video games online
and picked up work doing lawncare.
When Chantay first went missing,
he'd even been part of the search,
riding with John on an ATV.
- We was yelling her name and just trying to see
anything that was out of ordinary,
or see if we could just...
get lucky to find her, you know?
- And Ryan was calling her name, too?
- Yeah, he was.
- When investigators looked in their own files,
they learned more.
- We found that he was a suspect
in an illegal dumping case.
That's where he dumped some trash on a county road.
- Dumping trash is no big deal,
but where he dumped it was.
- Just a half mile from where Chantay's body was found
along that same remote country road.
So what does that tell you? - He knows the area.
- What's more,
in those dark days after Chantay's murder,
Riggs was a constant presence.
Here he is, captured on the police surveillance video,
attending Chantay's funeral,
waiting at the entrance to the church,
then watching from the doorway.
Midway through the service,
he gets a program and takes a seat.
And then he leaves before it's over.
He was at the house for, you know, her wake.
He was at our house multiple times with John,
- Chantay's boyfriend. - Mm-hmm.
I'd be crying talking about it,
and he'd just act like just normal.
- To me, this was one of the most chilling aspects
of this case.
People often say a killer returns to the scene of a crime
sometimes to admire their work or to monitor detectives.
But if Ryan was the killer,
being so intimately close to Chantay's family,
even sharing an ATV with her boyfriend
during the search is just beyond comprehension.
It would be evil and terrifying
that someone could commit such a brutal murder
and then just act normal.
He would come into your intimate space...
- Mm-hmm. - ...and offer comfort,
give you hugs. - Mm-hmm.
- He was there... standing next to me.
Shook my hand.
- He shook your hand? - Yes, ma'am.
The day we buried my daughter.
- The fact that he was there
for some of the most painful moments,
that had to feel like the ultimate insult.
- It was.
How could anybody do that?
I mean... [exhales]
...I just didn't understand.
And I was mad just because he was there the whole time
and I couldn't see it.
And he was right there.
- After 18 months of hard work,
investigators now had a new and urgent priority.
Find Ryan Riggs.
- We find his mom and dad.
They let us come in and look in the house.
He's not there. They don't know where he is.
Hasn't been home for several days.
- After police released the sketch to the public,
Riggs had taken off.
- So now we know Ryan's on the run from us.
We figure he's seen the sketch,
he's seen the news release.
- And at this point, you're looking, but...
- We can't find him.
- My job at that point was we're going to have to
come up with a plan to locate him.
If that's out in the woods, out in the brush,
wherever he's at, we've got to find him.
- You were preparing for a manhunt.
- We were getting ready for a manhunt.
- The investigation had been jump-started
and another dramatic development
was just around the corner.
Not in the woods or the brush,
but at the very church that Chantay loved.
I want you guys to take me
to that Wednesday night church service.
[exhales]
♪
♪♪
- Ryan Riggs was now the prime suspect
in Chantay's murder.
But almost a week after the DNA sketch was made public,
he was nowhere to be found.
Scott Bird believed he was on the run.
- We are calling informants.
We have his picture out to the police department,
fire department.
Everybody out driving around is looking for him.
- Russell and Linda Lemond had no idea
there was an all out manhunt underway
for the young man they knew from church.
- He would pop up every once in a while.
- It was always with his mom and dad or-
Or if mom was there by herself.
- And his sister as well. - Yeah. Yes, his sister.
- What did you know about Ryan Riggs?
- Oh, he was a good kid.
- Good kid?
- He would do anything for you. - Mm-hmm.
- Anything you would ask him, hey, can you do this for me?
And it would be, "Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir."
- We had a community cleanup
of one of the homeless shelters.
I remember him out there, weed eating,
just going to town and weed eating,
cleaning up the community.
He was very excited about doing it.
- On November 15, 2017,
18 months after Chantay was murdered,
the Lemonds headed to church
for a regular Wednesday night service.
I want you guys to take me
to that Wednesday night church service.
- Okay, I'll start.
When we got to church, there's Ryan's parents,
um, the pastor and his wife.
And then I see Ryan in the middle.
- There was Ryan, not hiding, not on the run,
but there in plain sight at the church.
- We sat down, and the pastor said that,
you know, Ryan wants to tell us something.
And he starts talking,
but he's talking about his salvation.
And my thought's like, "What is he talking about?"
- So you're just lost? - It's like, I'm lost.
And he starts talking about that he had,
you know, demon thoughts or he had,
you know, voices in his head,
um, that was telling him to do things.
- And then Ryan Riggs, standing alone at the pulpit
in front of the whole congregation, said it.
He was a murderer.
- I start crying,
and I don't even remember everything he said
at that point.
- I want to ask you, Russell,
all I had to do was mention that church service,
and you were almost brought to tears.
- It was very difficult, very difficult.
Because when he said, "I'm a murderer,"
I just got sick. I was like...
I remember saying, "Please don't tell me
he's talking about Chantay. Please don't tell me."
And the pastor's wife was standing next to us,
and she goes, "Yes."
And...
I remember putting my head down.
And I was so angry. I was so angry.
But I put my head down, I grabbed the pew,
and I was like, how... I loved this boy.
And pastor saw that- he could see--
- You were really conflicted. - ...the look on my face.
He goes, "Russell, I want you to come stand next to him."
And I'm thinking to myself,
that's probably not a good idea right now.
You know, I'm not an angry person,
but I wanted to hurt you for five minutes,
I kid you not, because I loved her so much.
- And now you're being asked to stand next to him.
- So, now, I'm being asked to stand up next to him.
And I went up to the pulpit,
and I put my arms around him, and I embraced him,
and I told him I loved him.
It was one of the hardest things I had to do.
- Did you forgive him in that moment?
- Yes, I did. I did.
This is without question,
one of those interviews that will always stay with me.
You saw Russell's emotion, just choking up
at my mere mention of the church service.
I felt his pain.
Here's a man of deep faith who believed he must love
and forgive, while being wrapped with grief
over Chantay's death.
And Ryan Riggs was given such a graceful space
to surrender without police pressure.
It's compassion that Ryan certainly did not show Chantay,
and it's something that really upset her family.
This is a brutal, cold blooded murderer.
And he's being treated with kid gloves.
He's allowed to come to this church.
Where he's very familiar,
confess in front of people who love him.
Where's the SWAT team?
Where are the dogs?
- Yeah. Yep.
I don't know how he was able to do that at church.
And my thought was, he needs to know we're angry.
And so, before he left,
I just put my face in front of a killer's face,
you know, I mean, that close.
It kind of-- It scared me a little bit.
But I had grabbed his hands and told Ryan.
I said, "Ryan, we want to hate you,
but we can't. We love you."
Because I just wanted him to feel
that what he did was wrong.
- Do you think he felt that? - I'm hoping he did.
- Before that unforgettable scene at the church,
Riggs had been on the run for several days.
But then he showed up at the church with his parents,
told the pastor what he'd done,
and asked if he could confess to the congregation.
The pastor agreed.
So after the confession, what happens?
- Pastor Keener calls Sheriff Hill
and says, "I'm bringing in Ryan Riggs.
He's just confessed to me in the church
of killing Chantay."
- So they all ride to the sheriff's office together.
He's not cuffed, he's not arrested.
He's just in the car with his parents
going to the sheriff's office.
- The sheriff met him out on the highway
and followed him in
to make sure Ryan didn't have a change of heart.
- Investigator Bird and Ranger Shea
rushed to the sheriff's office.
As you're processing all of this--
- How-how can you process that?
That he just confessed to the church that he attended
that he's the one that everybody's been looking for,
for the last 18 months.
You know, driving to the sheriff's office,
trying to process that,
million things are going through your mind.
Did he really do it?
Is he just saying that he did it?
- This is somebody that you've been pursuing for 18 months,
day in and day out.
Finally, you're face-to-face with this person.
What was that moment like for you?
- I kept thinking, my job's not done yet.
Now it's time to talk.
- And did he talk? - Yes, he did.
♪
♪♪
- This was the news Michelle had wanted so badly
for so long, ever since that terrible Friday the 13th.
Her daughter's killer was finally in custody.
But she was confused by the way it happened.
Ryan Riggs did not confess to authorities.
He'd done it in front of the congregation
at Chantay's church.
This was the place where she would go
and find comfort day after day,
where she would sing and sit in the pews.
- The place she loved. - Yeah.
How did it feel to know that he had chosen that place,
that church, to confess to killing her?
- I couldn't imagine being a person sitting on that pew
when he confessed that.
- Michelle was angry that the pastor had arranged
what Riggs himself described as a moment of salvation.
- I felt like it was done wrongfully,
that he shouldn't have been brought into the church.
- Hmm.
- Should not have been able to step foot in that church.
- The way he decided to go about telling everybody
was like his opportunity to try to cleanse himself
or ask for some sort of forgiveness,
or his way of saying, like, "Hey, look, I'm sorry."
Um, I don't believe he was sorry.
- When Riggs arrived at the sheriff's office
after the service, he was finally face-to-face
with Ranger Shea and Investigator Bird.
- Riggs said they drove around the neighborhood.
Then he pulled over in a secluded spot.
- He told investigators that as they sat there
in the truck listening to music,
something inside of him snapped.
- While she's unconscious? - While she's unconscious.
- Then what happened?
- He told us he knew he couldn't let her live
because he had raped her
and he couldn't have her talking.
- Riggs knew about the haunted house
because he'd been there with friends
when he was a teenager.
- So he stomped on her chest to try to kill her.
- That was the mark.
- And that's the mark from his shoes.
- It was an appalling story, but the way Riggs told it
was cold, almost methodical.
- What was his demeanor? - Matter of fact.
And that's what surprised us also.
There wasn't really a whole bunch of emotion
involved in this.
- As you're sitting there listening to him,
what are you thinking about this guy?
- This guy's dangerous. This guy's scary.
He kills without remorse.
And I'm shocked he hadn't done it again.
- Did you believe that Ryan Riggs would kill again?
- Absolutely.
- Riggs was charged with capital murder.
- In the state of Texas, if you commit a murder
and there's aggravating circumstances surround it.
Um, for instance, in this case,
sexually assaulting the victim.
That by itself transformed this from a regular murder case
into a capital murder case.
- So the death penalty is on the table.
- At this point, it very much is.
- But before DA Murray went to court
to seek the death penalty,
he talked to Chantay's family.
He wanted them to know there is a long process
before an execution can be carried out,
likely spanning many years.
- The question is, are you going to be able
to get justice for the family
in a reasonable period of time?
That's not gonna prolong their agony.
- Chantay's mom decided death was too good for Ryan Riggs.
- To me, that would have been an easy way out.
- Easy for him? - Easy for him.
He wouldn't have got to suffer.
- So the state offered Riggs a deal.
A life sentence without the possibility of parole.
- It was important for our community to have closure
and the finality of being able to tell everyone,
we are guaranteed that he will remain in prison.
That was incredibly valuable for our community.
- Riggs accepted the deal.
He was sentenced in February 2019.
- He will never marry, never have kids,
but he's still alive,
and he can still see his family.
He got the choice to live or die,
and Chantay did not.
- Michelle feels she knows
what would have been in her daughter's heart.
- She would have forgave him.
- Do you forgive him? - I don't.
- Chantay's loved ones try not to dwell
on the man who killed her.
Michelle would rather
remember her feisty, radiant daughter.
When you close your eyes and think about your daughter,
what's the first thing that comes to your mind?
- Her smile. - Her smile?
Yeah.
- It doesn't ever go away. I see her all the time.
- I want people to remember her
singing at the choir, walking down the street,
waving at people.
That's how everybody needs to remember her.
Not as some sort of a victim.
- I will always remember this community's bond.
They watched over Chantay on her daily walks.
Then they came together to search for her
when she vanished.
And the faith that many in the community believed
helped bring the killer to justice.
Those neighbors finding Chantay's body so quickly
in that remote location.
Detective Bird told me repeatedly
that without that speedy discovery,
which helped preserve DNA evidence,
they never would have solved this murder.
Call it divine intervention, or incredible luck,
but something extraordinary happened here.
And on the streets where she walked...
in the church where she sang...
Chantay's spirit is still very much alive.
Her family visits her on holidays,
decorating her grave
and picturing her smiling
as she sings in the angel's choir.