48 Hours - Redemption Song

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

The 1985 murder of Natalie Antonetti was a cold case for over 20 years. But then an anonymous phone call to the police pointed them back to the man who claimed innocence and seemed to have had an air-tight alibi. "48 Hours" correspondent Tracy Smith reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 5/24/2014.Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays and stream on demand on Paramount+.

Coming to Texas, I started a new tradition for myself, wearing cowboy boots in trial. I've always been fascinated with crime. I've always been interested in what makes criminals do what they do. I came here from England 20 years ago. Now I prosecute felony cases here in Texas. I think it's a noble endeavor. There's always a search for the truth. There's a search for truth.

There's a search for justice. This is, without a doubt, the most challenging case I have ever handled. A beautiful young woman who was murdered while she lay sleeping. That's my mom, Natalie Antenetti. Beautiful, vibrant, excited to be alive. She was an amazing mom. She always tried to have a good time with everything.

Your stars would shine every single night. My mom was a young mom. She was into, you know, rock and roll. Music was always playing. By all accounts just one of those people that you just meet and you never forget. You know jump down the stairs and and and there she was. Just covered in blood or heck was bleeding pretty bad. It was absolutely awful.

Who did this? Who could have done this? That was also really scary, you know? Like who would have been? Like who would have had this out for this wonderful woman that never you know really did anything to anyone Well it's 25 years ago and it's like the one thing I've tried to get out of my memory and I can't We had no DNA no fingerprints really no physical evidence of any kind this was a cold case I never thought that it would be solved I thought it was just over The initial phone call was anonymous an angry wife called the police to tell on her husband.

It just blew the case wide open. We're going to help your friend out. There's no way to ever forget. It was really, really a horrible scene. In 1985, Johnny Gowdy was just 16. Before dawn that October morning, he heard something, rolled out of bed, and stumbled down the stairs.

It was his mom, Natalie Antonetti. I was incoherent, kind of in shock and, you know, completely, you know, just covered in blood or head was bleeding pretty bad. And I tried to ask her what had happened. You know, she knew he did this to her and she couldn't talk. She just had a really, really frightened look in her eyes. And I just, you know, it's hard to see your mom in that situation. imagine what it's like to see her covered in blood and try to talk to her and she can't tell you what happened. You could see in her eyes that she was scared. When the ambulance got there,

that kind of took over and, you know, put her in the gurney and stuff. And then I rode to the hospital with her. Before she went in, I asked to give me a kiss and she was able to do that. Did you have any idea that you were kissing her goodbye? No. Natalie's murder would haunt Johnny Gowdy for over 20 years. To start unraveling this mystery, we began on 6th Street, the heart of Austin's music scene. What role did 6th Street play in the music scene back then? Well, 6th Street was where all of those musicians would play. There was a band in every club on every corner.

It still is. Natalie's dear friend Mark Holman is a former guitarist for Carol King. He runs a studio now, but misses those days. We'd go down here, we'd see our friends, we'd support our friends. I could walk in and the bass player would hold up his base like this, and I'd walk into the bass and I'd start jamming on a song. You're kidding. Back then, this was the only place to go.

Was Natalie a part of that scene? Absolutely. What was Natalie like? Beautiful, incredible. She was a real light, brown hair, beautiful eyes. She was almost hippie-ish, real savvy at the same time, and very Cuban. So she had her roots, one of my favorite people. Natalie's son Johnny dreamed of being a rock star, and Mark gave him the push.

His big dream was to kind of do what you were doing? I guess so. And in fact, I put him in my band in the 80s. I'd put him front and center, you know, and I always looked great, you know. He was the frontman, he was the cutie. He's the cutie. He still is. And Johnny's music is inspired by memories of his mom.

A single mother who worked full-time but loved the music world. She and Johnny's dad split when he was little. Think about her every day. She was an amazing mom. Music was always playing. Growing up, I didn't have a TV, but we always had our records with us. You know, cleaning the house. You didn't just clean the house.

you put on your favorite record as loud as you could and you just danced around and at the end of it the house was clean. So even cleaning the house, she would rock out. Yeah, yeah. Mom was like, hey, I just made some cookies. You want to get them, you'd be like, I'll be there in a minute. And she'd sing back well, if you want it, here it is, come and get. You know, everything was a song, you know. That's great. It was very much like that growing up. But the song ended suddenly for Johnny and for Natalie.

After two weeks in a coma, Natalie died. It was a shocker for everyone in the tight-knit Austin music scene and a confusing case for police. See this building right up here? Right here? That was Natalie's apartment. Austin police detective Tom Walsh picked up Natalie's homicide on the Cold Case Squad in 2007. How do you imagine that he would have done this?

I think it was very quick. It was in and out. Police think Natalie was bashed in the head with a baseball bat. Over and over again. A crime so violent, Natalie's bloody handprints were left all over the house. Here's the downstairs porch and the upstairs porch of Natalie's apartment. At the time, there was a witness who reported seeing a shadowy figure nearby. He saw a man holding... a club or a small baseball bat.

A baseball bat. Yes. The witness described a man, 510 or 511, with sandy hair. Police focused on a restaurant manager and sometime male stripper named Marty Odom. With blonde hair and a sturdy build, he seemed to match the witness description. And shortly after Natalie's murder, he was arrested for another very serious crime. He raped a woman in North Austin, and then investigators found out that he lived in the apartment complex that Natalie lived in. Odom had a track record of violence.

He was known to keep a baseball bat around. His ex-wife said he was abusive and sexually violent, and his roommate claimed he bragged that he once slept with Natalie. Police questioned Odom, even gave him a lie detector test, which he reportedly failed. but he always denied killing Natalie. Police didn't have enough evidence, so he was never charged with her murder. But he was convicted for the unrelated rape and sent to prison. With the arrest and conviction of the rapist Marty Odom,

the police were convinced they also had the man who killed Natalie. The case was seemingly closed. That is, at least for the next 20 years. But that is just the beginning of this story. In 2006, there was a tip called in. This woman said that her husband made a statement that he had sinned against God and sin against man. When they told me about the rapist, I thought it was the rapist

because I was 17 and I wanted to know who's killed my mom. So I was like, okay, well, then the cops say it. You know, that's who it is. You kind of have to trust in the police. And so I did. I believed that that was the guy. But Johnny was never fully satisfied. Police had arrested Marty Odom for the unrelated rape,

and he went to prison for that crime. But it wasn't enough. No one was officially accused or punished for Natalie's murder. And that began to eat at Johnny. I was just mad, you know, mad at the world. I'm mad of the faceless person that came in and murdered my mom. and split no one ever caught. Therapy helped but music helped even more. It saved my life, you know, it's a life-saving thing. The music? Yeah, yeah, being able to make that music,

being able to put that energy into something that's cathartic and not turn it on yourself, I think is pretty lucky. I never really wrote songs before she died and then after she died. I wrote pretty much like 150 songs in like four months. Something incandescent, radiant and secure. What do you think she would think? I mean, she was so into music. What would she think of this little... She would like this band a lot.

She wouldn't like you, though. Johnny's been working on and off the road. as a musician ever since, trying to put the past behind him, with his band, Liars and Saints. Then in 2007, more than 20 years after Natalie Antonetti's murder, an angry wife called the Austin Police Department. It was an anonymous call, but she had a tip, a tip that would crack this old homicide case wide open. I was on tour, and my phone rang from a number I didn't know, and I answered it. This guy said, Hi, my name is Detective Tom Wallace from the Austin Police Department. Don't worry, you're not in trouble.

Detective Walsh had news. I was like, wow, they're reopening my mom's case, and this guy that's got it, it is amazing. What do you like about being a cop? When I became a detective, I loved being in the hunt. What is it about a mystery that you like? Solving it. And thanks to that phone call, Walsh felt he was on a fast track to the solving this one.

He was like, I know who did this. The suspect was a man named Dennis Davis. I did know Dennis very well. You know, he was a friend of mine. Dennis Davis was a well-known name in the Austin music scene, a studio owner and engineer who later moved to Nashville to work with big stars like Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. How did he come across to you? Was he a player, a ladies' man?

No. No, not at all. He didn't see him that way. I saw him just really quiet and reserved. I never thought of him as someone that had the capacity really to hurt another person. Johnny knew Dennis too, because Dennis had dated his mom. And he was good to Johnny. He just had this amazing studio.

I had like the best studio in town. And I was like the only 16-year-old kid that could go by there any time. I thought he was a nice guy. Dennis Davis was not an obvious suspect. For one thing, he had what sounded like a solid alibi. He said he was with a girlfriend at his house on the night of the murder. Dennis told police he got a phone call from a friend and rushed to the crime scene, just in time to see Natalie being loaded into an ambulance.

17 years after Natalie's murder, it was Dennis Davis' wife who made that call to police. Becky Davis had a feeling for years that her husband may have murdered Natalie, but never said anything until now. She was in therapy because her and her husband were going through a divorce, and the therapist said, you need to call the police. It was a tantalizing lead, but not nearly enough to make an arrest. So Walsh hit the road and tracked down this woman, Emparo Garcia Crowe. who was Dennis Davis's alibi.

You come bearing journals, my goodness. Emparo Garcia Crow is a writer and performer. Here, let me help you. At the time, the cops never questioned her. But if they had, she would have told them there's no way she was with Dennis that night, and she can prove it. These are all your journals?

Not all of them. That's just one box of probably about four years, and I've had them for 30 years. Because she's kept detailed journals since the late 70s. At this time in my life, I was writing every day. I kind of really wanted to get, in a way, a psychological picture of myself.

Because the mind likes to change things if you don't, you know. It's clear from her journals Amparo knew both Dennis and Natalie. Dennis had a party recently, and I met the woman that he's seen who was Natalie. Who was Natalie? In fact, around the time of Natalie's murder, Amparo had also been. been dating Dennis Davis.

There was kind of a shyness to him. But Amparo says, according to her journal, she ended up dating Dennis for only about three weeks before going back to an old boyfriend named Hal. I had gone back to Hal, and that's what I'm writing here. We're kind of in a honeymoon stage. That was the week before Natalie was killed. You stopped dating Dennis the Thursday. That Thursday before the assault.

Dennis had told police he and Amparo had been in bed together when the dramatic phone call came, telling him that Natalie had been assaulted. But there's no mention of any of this in Amparo's diary. I mean, I'm a writer. I'm a dramatist. I know if I'm impacted by something, I log it. It would be in here if you were with Dennis that night. Absolutely. I'd be working it out. It would be so shocking.

If a phone call had come in the middle of the night, I would remember that I'd remember that phone call and be woken up at his house in the middle of the night. That never happened. It wasn't exactly a smoking gun, but if Amparo's story is true, then Dennis is lying, and his alibi is worthless. Detective Walsh was energized by this new information, and it opened new doors. Walsh discovered another woman who revealed a very different side of the supposedly mild-mannered Dennis Davis. The first sign was he would just get beat red. His eyes would bulge out.

That's when you knew time to go. Austin, Texas, 1985. Rock and roll reigns supreme. The party was fueled by the warm Texas sun and plenty of beer and booze. You guys were all into the music scene. What was that like? Oh, there was just so many, you know, people that were up and coming.

And everybody would go to so many clubs here and watch them play and then watch them grow. Linda Bless moved to Austin in 1984. She worked on tours with major rock acts. And Linda would turn out to be a key witness in the investigation into her friend, Dennis Davis. There were two different sides of Dennis. One was the very sweet, caring side. The other side, you didn't know when it was going to come out. Linda says she saw glimpses of this darker side,

a Dennis Davis who was jealous, angry, even violent. It was almost like a screaming inside, you know, and like, ugh. What would set him off? It always seemed to pertain to women. His previous best friend told me one time that the only time that he ever saw Dennis get angry was when another man would be paying attention to a woman that he was with and the rage would come.

In 2008, Detective Walsh went looking for Dennis to question him about Natalie's murder, and he found him in a jail cell in Pennsylvania, serving two months on a DUI. The interview starts out friendly. You were like the king. Yeah. It's good to be the king.

Absolutely. Looks like he's your pal. Yeah. He was my pal. But not for long. Walsh wants to tie Dennis to Natalie's murder and the likely murder weapon, a baseball bat.

Did you have a small bat? Dennis says he never had a baseball bat. He never had one? He had not. just one, but he had a couple of them. In fact, Linda says one night at a party at Dennis's house... All of a sudden, Dennis showed up in the doorway with this bat in his hand. Linda says Dennis was heading for his girlfriend.

I just got up and pushed him into the bedroom or, you know, had him go into the bedroom and put the bat down, and come on, let's go outside. And Walsh found tangible evidence of this angry side. You think you were jealous? I think I was starting to get a little bit. It's about the note. Sitting in the case file, a note left for Natalie from a jealous Dennis about her new boyfriend.

Natalie, you can go to hell. I'd take it up with you. If you don't have the brains and self-respect to see through his boyfriend, The case against Dennis is getting stronger. The broken alibi, the baseball bat, the angry note. Next, Walsh tracks down an ex-girlfriend named Galinda, who tells the most damning story of them all.

Dennis had been in a rage and was crying, and he was laying down in the fetal position, and he told her that he had killed, before he had murdered Natalie were the words that she said he used. He confessed to her. He confessed to her. And that was enough. In 2009, 24 years after Natalie Antonetti's murder,

Austin police arrested Dennis Davis. Johnny had never imagined that Dennis was capable of killing his mom. People around town that knew me at times might have said, you know, I think Dennis did this. And I'll always be like, really? Like, he's such a like a nondescript kind of dude. You thought he was a wimp? I thought he was kind of wimpy, yeah.

But to Johnny, Detective Walsh was no wimp. When I first met Tom Walsh, it was like, this guy was actively, you know, working on this case. From the moment I met him, I never doubted that he was going to do this. He was going to do this. He would never out and out say that he murdered Natalie. Towards the end of the whole interrogation, I said to him, what do you think?

And he said, you think I did it. What was your reaction when you were told that he was going to be arrested for your mom's murder? Everything made sense. All the weird cryptic questions that Tom Walsh was calling me every once in while. I said, do you remember a Chevy Malibu? Like, no. Do you remember this?

Like, do you remember this guy saying this? like, nope. And it all made sense. And Johnny suddenly looked at Dennis in a new light. He was a bad, jealous, violent guy. Dennis Davis says he didn't murder Natalie and can't believe that Johnny thinks he did. Johnny should know better.

He knew me. I didn't do this horrible crime. The Second World War is the largest event in human history. A 20-part series with Tom Hanks. No part of the globe was untouched. No life unchanged. It's the ultimate account of World War II. Every single person had a story.

These are the stories that make us who we are. Listen to World War II with Tom Hanks on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everybody wants to get on this train. It's a cold case. Everybody wants to solve this case. Wade Russell is a Texas attorney. He's been a lawyer for 30 years, and riding motorcycles more than 40. And he began working for Dennis Davis when he was arrested in 2009. The investigator wants to solve this case.

Everybody wants to be a hero. The problem is, Wade says, there just isn't enough evidence against Dennis to convict. His client, he says, is an innocent man. The detective in this case knew that the... The neighbor identified someone who didn't look like Dennis Davis. And that neighbor is the only eyewitness, the man who called minutes after Natalie's attack to report a prowler carrying a baseball bat. This neighbor identified a person, a tall, blonde man.

My client's about 5-6, 57, slight billed, curly dark hair. He is not the person the neighbor identified. So if Dennis Davis didn't kill Natalie, who did? I think it's very possible that Marty Odom committed the offense. That's Marty Odom, the rapist, who was living near Natalie at the time of her murder. The man cops once thought was their best suspect. He claimed to know the victim in this case, and we also know he's very violent. He was violent with his girlfriend.

He was violent with his ex-wife. He took a polygraph, and he flunked the polygraph. The polygraph operator said, I'm 100% sure he committed the offense. The guy who ran the lie detector test said, that he was 100% sure that Marty Odom killed Natalie? Yes. I'm innocent, and I didn't do it. Dennis Davis, the man in hot water for this once cold case,

in his only TV interview. Through your eyes, who was Natalie Antointy? She was a very vivacious, lively, energetic young woman. When she answered the phone, she went, Hello? Just like that. Dennis told us he truly cared for Natalie, and that's why he wrote that angry note about her new boyfriend, a musician.

One of my pet peeves in this world is when I see young women get involved with musicians who just drag them down. In the note, Dennis told Natalie to go to hell. That was a pretty angry note. Yes, it was. Doesn't it sound like the guy that wrote that note would be capable of harming Natalie, the guy who's angry?

Getting mad, writing a note is a far cry from killing somebody. You wrote a nasty note, oh, you're capable of murder. Everything gets blown out of proportion. But how does he answer Galinda's story about his confession? She exaggerated. So what's the real story? I just told her, I told her some things. I said, it's my fault that Natalie died.

If I hadn't upset her that night, that day, she'd still be alive today. The night she was attacked, Natalie went out for a short walk by the pool near her apartment. I think someone spotted her or followed her or she ran into someone out of the pool, and then they came back later. And then killed her? Yeah. Did you ever hurt Natalie? No, never. Did you kill Natalie?

No, I did not. I'm absolutely sure. I wouldn't do something like that. You have a victim who has no defensive wounds. It's not a burglar. It's not a rapist. Somebody was exceptionally angry at her. There's one candidate for that, Dennis Davis.

Austin Assistant District Attorney Mark Pryor. This is the first case I've ever lost sleepover. This was a very tough case. Mark Pryor's co-counsel was Afraine Delafin. Fuente. Being a co-case, a 1985 case, and here you are trying it in the year 2011. The prosecution's case wasn't just cold. It was almost entirely circumstantial. Yeah, I just wake up at night, and I'd wonder about, could we do this? Could we bring Johnny Justice? When I went in and met with Ephrae and Delafontez and with Mark Pryor, they never said, don't get

your hopes up. I think Ephrain said, I don't know, Johnny, brother. This is going to be tough. April 2011, Natalie Antonetti's brutal and unexplained murder, unsolved for 26 years, is finally going to trial. The evidence is going to show that this man, Dennis Davis, split her scar as she lay on the couch in her apartment. The evidence is going to show that this man, Dennis Davis, left a trail of breadcrumbs, small mistakes that eventually, after two decades, led the police to his door.

The prosecution's case may be circumstantial, but they do have that phone call that started it all. A statement that the defendant had made was that he had sinned against God and man. The woman who made that call is Rebecca Davis. The defendant's wife. And they have Amparo, who denies being with Dennis on the night of the murder. Linda Bless, who remembers him carrying a baseball bat, and Galinda, his ex-girlfriend, who says he confessed to murder. He told her.

He flat out told her. I killed her. I killed Natalie Antonetti. Attorney Wade Russell reminds the jury there was no physical evidence against Dennis at all. You're not going to hear any DNA evidence. You're not going to find any hair samples. You are not going to hear from any eyewitnesses that saw Dennis Davis at the crime scene. Dennis would choose not to take the stand.

There is not proof beyond reasonable doubt, and everyone you knows that is you sit here. This case would be all about truth and lies. Did you have a small hat? He lied in the interview. Didn't have a bat. Says it twice. His ex-girlfriend was beaten to death with a bat. He owned a bat.

He knew we had one. He just lied. This is ludicrous. It's ludicrous. It's reasonable doubt after reasonable doubt. All right, ladies and gentlemen, jury, you may retire to the jury room at this time. In less than four hours. The defendant please rise. The jury was back with their verdict. The state of Texas versus Dennis Davis and the 167th District Court, Travis County, Texas verdict to the jury.

We, the jury, find the defendant... The defendant... please rise. We the jury find the defendant Dennis Davis guilty of the offensive murder as alleged in the indictment signed by the foreperson. Guilty of Natalie Antonetti's murder. It was 26 years since Natalie was killed, but it was not too late for Johnny. I was so grateful. I mean, I was overcome and it was hard to hold in. My aunts and I were squeezing each other's hands so hard. It was unbelievable. The next day was Davis' sentencing hearing, and the star witness was a shocker.

I am begging the mercy of the court. It was his ex-wife, Becky Davis, the woman who started it all with her phone call to police. Now, you're aware, of course, a call that you made to the police got this investigation started. Yeah, yeah. Amazingly, Becky, who once turned her husband into police, is now standing by her. her man. I don't understand that he forgave me. He just said, Becky, you want it?

And you asked me. I could have told you what happened. He not once got mad at me. Some time after she made that fateful phone call, Becky reconciled with Dennis. Now they're back together, and she says she can't live without him. I can't do things. I can't pay my bills. I can't lift anything.

I can't operate without him. I don't know what I'm going to do now. The judge was not persuaded. Defendant would please rise. At this time, the court assesses your punishment out of the term of 36 years. After court, Wade Russell says the defense was gutted. They weren't allowed to present evidence of Marty Odom

as an alternative suspect. We had a strong, very strong circumstantial case against Marty Odom. Marty Odom is the rapist who seemed to match the eyewitness description. Thank you very much. But Wade never got to tell that story in court. You had this other guy that you think killed Natalie, but you couldn't tell the jury? I was not allowed to tell the jury that.

It's like trying a case with your hand behind your back. The jury, in essence, heard half a case. They didn't get the whole case. Does that sound like a fair trial to you? It does not to me. If you have a guy at the scene who says, he saw somebody with a baseball bat, that's a pretty strong witness.

At face value, it is. But he changed the description of the guy that he'd seen. First of all, he said he was six feet tall, and then we had a month later, that same witness picking out somebody who was Dennis Davis's size. And there was never any evidence that Marty Odom actually knew Natalie.

To Mark Pryor, Dennis Davis all but convicted himself. It occurred to me very early on that we had a defendant who in many ways always wanted to confess to this. He gave an alibi that could have easily been broken. We had him making admissions to his wife, Becky Davis, and then basically a flat-out confession to Galinda Mudgeett. The guilty conscience needs to confess,

and I think that's what we had here. Even after the verdict, Dennis Davis says he's innocent of this crime, and he can't believe he ended up here in a Texas state prison for the next. 36 years. I was shocked. I was completely shocked. Let's go back to how this all started.

How do you feel about Becky calling police back in 2006? I couldn't understand why she would do something like that. She told me that, I scared her one night. In 2006, Dennis and Becky had a huge fight in their backyard. I was swinging a swage that I used to chop wood. I used to chop wood. It's a big, heavy thing. And I was swinging it around the backyard,

and I was angry. And I scared her. Soon after that fight, Becky made her phone call to police about the statement Dennis made almost 17 years earlier. He had said, quote, I've sinned against God and man. And when you heard that, your wife, essentially, saying, I think he's capable of murder.

Well, she didn't say murder, but I guess that's what it is. Johnny says he's satisfied now, even though his mother's case could have been solved years earlier. I think that definitely those women, Galinda Namely, and his wife, Rebecca, were scared. I think they were scared of them. They could have solved your mom's murder 25 years ago,

if somebody would have spoken up. They could have, and then they also could have not talked. I'm just grateful that they did come forward when they did. I'm really lucky. We're lucky we got that call. The most important person in my life is never there, no matter what, all the time. My favorite person is never there. I have this great photograph of us when we went to Memorial Day Barbecue.

I was like 14 years old, and they had asked us to get involved in a softball game, and we were the ones that were barefooted running on gravel. She was so excited that she and I had won. And so there's a picture of us after the game together with kind of these big, you know, smirks on our faces. Like you couldn't have done it without the barefoot of Cubans. Two years after Dennis Davis was sent to prison, and appeals court overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial.

The reason, Davis's lawyer was ineffective, especially in failing to submit more evidence to the trial judge about the alternate suspect. If Russell had done that, the jury might have been able to hear about Marty Odom after all. In April 2014, Davis walked out of prison,

a man with a second chance at freedom. Dennis, how do you feel right now? I'm in shock. I'll let you know soon as I start feeling again. As for Johnny Gowdy's reaction, he thinks the jury got it right the first time that Dennis Davis killed his mom. mother. In 2018, the prosecution dismissed the case against Dennis Davis.

Sunday, June 14, Paramount Plus presents a night for the ages. Live at the White House. UFC stars don't come bigger than this. The world's greatest fighters on America's biggest stage. This is the moment we have all been waiting for. featuring two UFC title fights with Ilya Teporia versus Justin Gachi. The hype is real. Plus Alex Pereira versus Cyril Gar and so. Much more. Let's go, baby! UFC at the White House, Sunday, June 14th at 80s, only on Paramount Plus.