Dateline NBC - The Woman Who Couldn’t Scream

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

After hearing someone break into their apartment, two women call 911 and barricade themselves in the bathroom until help arrives. Little do they know, their call for help holds the key to solving the mysterious murder of a young graduate student named Katie Sepich.Twenty years after Katie’s murder, her mother Jayann sits down with Josh Mankiewicz to talk about grief, faith and the national impact she’s made advocating to broaden law enforcement’s ability to gather DNA evidence.After the Verdict is available now only by subscription to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts. LINK: https://apple.co/3u23I3M

I'm Lester Holt. Tonight on Dateline, she was a woman determined to change the world. But when she disappeared one summer's night, her family's world was changed forever. The feeling that you're leaving your child for the last time. It was horrible. We find her shoes. The screen's missing from the window. She fought back and she scratched that individual. There was plenty of DNA. There was DNA under every fingernail.

We learn about the argument with the boyfriend. This is a guy trying to build an alibi. That's what it sounds like. Things didn't add up. You didn't think this was someone close to her? No. I wanted answers. Someone that could do this could hurt other people. I just knew he was in the house. Here's Josh Mankiewicz with The Woman Who Couldn't Scream. 911, what city?

Las Cruces. November 2003. Two women were barricaded inside their bathroom in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and desperately calling 911. They'd seen the intruder before. Watching them. Lurking. Waiting. watching them, lurking, waiting.

Vanilla? Uh-huh? I need you to calm down, okay? Vanilla? Now he was inside the apartment they shared as college roommates. You'll want to remember this 911 call. Is the officer there? I don't know. Because although no one knew it at the time,

what happened to those terrified women on that night held the key to solving a murder. It was a mystery that went on for years and spanned hundreds of miles. But it began just a few weeks before that frantic call. And just a few miles away, that's where our story begins. As we drove up, as I glanced over, I saw what appeared to be a body, a partially nude body. It was August 31st. A couple out target shooting that morning made the discovery. Soon a sheriff's investigator was interviewing them at the scene. I was looking for signs of life. I was trying to see if she was still alive.

The body appeared to have been there for several hours. Was it kind of blind luck that somebody found that body so soon after it was dumped? Because I kind of get the feeling like it would have been quite possible for no one to find it for months. If they hadn't come out target practicing, it would have been a while before they'd have found her. Back then, Robert Jones was a captain with the Dona Ana County Sheriff's Department. He took me to where the body was found. She was face down, and her legs were actually spread apart. And you think that was deliberate? I think it was deliberate.

That's a message of some kind. I think so. I think it was more of a message of his power and stuff like that, but it was definitely a message. And her killer had attempted to burn her corpse. He did. He poured some kind of liquid more on her shoulder area and on her back and then lit it on fire. That attempt to hide or destroy evidence failed. Instead, the killer or killers left behind a partially nude body, scraped and badly burned. The woman appeared to be in her 20s, dark shoulder-length hair, big blue eyes, and no ID. There was a tire track there that

we got some good photographs off of that we could use for comparison purposes. And you're reasonably sure that that belonged to the killer's vehicle? Yeah, we were almost 100% sure. It was the only track that was backed up right to the body. It had to be the vehicle. To cops, the scene suggested she'd been killed somewhere else and then brought to this area near an old landfill.

So, where was that original crime scene? And more importantly, who was she? Around 3 p.m., about four hours after the body was found, the phone rang at the Las Cruces Police Department. A woman was reporting her college roommate missing. She'd last been seen at a house party with her boyfriend. We would get several missing person cases a month. Mark Myers was a detective with the Las Cruces PD. I think what

was concerning about this one was the close proximity to her house, to where the party was. More troubling was that the woman had left her car at the party and didn't take any of her personal belongings with her. She didn't have any means, her purse, her keys, everything was left at the party. And she's just off the map. She should have been home. And so when her roommates got home and she wasn't there, you know, they were really concerned.

Police already knew a body had been found in the desert earlier that day Officers responded to the home of the caller A woman named Tracy Waters The first officer there had asked me for a photo of her So I had gone and grabbed a photo off my bulletin board And given that to them Police left with a photo of a 22-year-old woman

She had dark shoulder-length hair And big blue eyes Police left with a photo of a 22-year-old woman. She had dark shoulder-length hair and big blue eyes. Would that photo solve the mystery? Who was that woman in the desert? When we come back... I screamed. She looked like she was in pain. And it was awful. A disturbing twist was ahead, and an ordeal that would test them all.

One by one, you're asking everyone to give you a DNA sample? Yes. How many people say yes? Everybody, except her boyfriend. He says no. It was the long Labor Day weekend in Las Cruces, a college town home to New Mexico State University. It was a weird time in our, like, current group. Things were going to be different this school year for Tracy Waters and for her roommate, Katie Sepich, who was starting grad school to study business administration.

And for Katie's boyfriend, Joe Bischoff, he was moving home to Gallup, New Mexico to help with his family's business. They had plans to still be together. We're making plans for which weekends one would come and one would go to see the other, but distance was happening. That holiday weekend, Joe was in town to pick up the last of his stuff. Of course, he and Katie made plans to get together. She worked that day in between doing things and Joe took, well, maybe I should better say, she took Joe and he bought her a ring. It was her birthstone that she had been eyeballing. We had gone the day before to the store and looked at it. Just like a promise ring. I mean, I don't think I would ever tie

promise ring to the ring that it was, but I think it was definitely a look to the future. Right. I mean, that would certainly seem to suggest that Joe was thinking of a future just as she was. Yes. Yeah. Then when the sun set in Las Cruces, they all went out. Katie flashing her new ring with Joe by her side. So we had gone to a couple bars, closed down one of our favorite bars. Sort of just one evening-long party. An evening-long party. As usual, by the end of the night, they were at a friend's home, where the partying continued. Tracy had fallen asleep in one of the bedrooms.

And in the middle of the night, she heard whispers. I remember hearing down the hall, where's Katie? But I was more hearing it in a term of like, where in the house, not like where in the world. And I just never came out of the room. The next morning, Joe knocked on the bedroom door and asked Tracy if she'd heard from Katie. Joe said Katie was gone and he didn't know where she was. So I went to

grab my phone and he said, I've called her. Her phone's here. Tracy had some questions for Joe. Right out the gate, I said, did you guys get an argument? Was she mad? He said no. Did he know why she left the party? I don't know that he was even saying that she had left, except that she wasn't there, and he was like, do you know where she went? Have you heard from her? And I'm like, I was asleep. She thought Katie must have walked back to the house they shared.

I go home. And expecting to see her in her room. Yes. Any sign that Katie had been there? No. I looked in her room. Nothing. All the doors were locked. There was no like sign that she had come in or left or anything. Her purse and wallet and cell phone were all back at the party. In her car. Her car was at the party. Tracy started calling every friend who lived within walking distance. Had anyone seen Katie? As more and more people were telling me no, I was getting more and more nervous. So I asked Joe seriously what happened.

And he said, we got into an argument, but I don't know where she went. That sounded a little different from what he'd said earlier. Did he describe the nature of that argument? No, not at that time, no. He wouldn't say what it was about? No, I also wasn't asking because them getting into an argument wasn't unheard of, but her storming off without her things was what made me nervous. All kinds of scenarios raced through Tracy's mind.

If she were walking and she had gotten hit, like if someone had hit her, so I called hospitals. And then if she were walking and got picked up by police because she was definitely intoxicated, so I called the jail. To all of this, you get a pretty quick, no, we got nothing like that. We have no one. And at this point, Joe and a friend of his are driving up and down the street just looking to see if she was on the street. Joe more worried or sort of exasperated? Like, why are you doing this to me? I think he was frustrated, for sure. And as time was going on and none of the people that I was calling were saying she was there, he was getting more

worried. That afternoon, Tracy called Katie's parents, Jayanne and Dave Sepich, more than 200 miles away in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Katie's mom, Jayanne, picked up the phone. Her roommate said, have you talked to Katie today? So I said, no, I haven't. What's going on? And she explained that she and Joe had had an argument and she had stormed out. And she said, no one's seen her since. And I said, oh, she's probably hiding out at a friend's house, probably trying to scare Joe. And she said, no, we've called everyone. And I told her that I was very worried and that I wanted to report her missing. And Jayden said, absolutely call. That's when Tracy called Las Cruces PD and gave the cops that photo of Katie.

She did that not knowing a body had already been found earlier that day. It wasn't long before they were back. I would say within the hour they were back. And I took that as a good sign, and the officer asked me if I could come to identify someone. And I said yes, like enthusiastically, because I guess I'm thinking they've arrested some woman who was walking down the street intoxicated, and that's what I'm going to do is say, yep, that's her.

It was far from what Tracy imagined. The officer drove her to the local hospital, where she was escorted down to the basement. Is it like in TV and movies, they pull a sheet back? She was in a body bag, and they folded back the top to about chest area, and I screamed because all I saw initially was the side of her head, and I saw a silver earring, and it was her. I didn't even have to look at her face and I knew it was her and she looked like she was in pain and it was awful coming up literally I fell to my knees. It was horrible. Who would want to kill Katie?

It has to be a stranger. Because no one close to her would hurt her like that? We didn't think so. When Dateline continues. Being a parent involves a lot of things, but close to the top of the list is commitment. The minute Tracy Waters called the Sepiches to let them know Katie was missing, Katie's dad Dave got in the car bound for Las Cruces to look for his daughter. I don't know where she's at or what she's doing, but I'm going to go give

her my peace of mind if I find her. If he went prepared to give his daughter a lecture, everything changed once he arrived. When I walked in the door, there was a police captain and a victim's advocate and a minister. And I knew immediately when I saw him that it couldn't be good. And of course, they told me that they had found her body that morning, but they didn't know who she was because she didn't have any ID on her. I mean, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Any father would have to see for himself. I'll never forget going down the hallway in the basement of that hospital to the morgue

and going in there, and when they pulled that sheet back, I literally, I fell to my knees. And then I can remember walking out there and it was a, the feeling that you're leaving your child for the last time, it was horrible. Dave Sepich steadied himself and called his wife, Jayanne. And he said, she's gone. And I said, for sure? And he said, yeah. He said, I just saw her.

She's dead. She'd hoped it wasn't true, but she'd had a moment earlier that day. I just had a feeling. Call it mother's intuition. I had had a very anxious feeling from the time I woke up that morning. It was Jan who told Katie's brother, A.J. It was such a blow, you know, to your soul that you really just don't know how to keep moving forward. And there's no sight from anything beyond the next minute, the next breath.

A.J. immediately left Albuquerque, where he'd just started college, to be with his family. Caroline, the youngest of the Sepich kids, watched through her nine-year-old eyes. My visual memories of my life right after my sister died are really crisp and really clear, but they're not vibrant. It's as if this very bright light of love was just gone because it was. My sister was gone. It was a seismic shift in the Sepich clan because Katie was full of life from the moment she was born. Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! This is me!

Little Katie. She was quite something. She was just a ball of fire from day one. Say hi. Hi. Thanks. Katie was just the most rambunctious little kid you've ever met. And she grew up that way. She was just going 90 miles an hour her whole life. She was something. That didn't change.

No. It's what AJ loved about his big sister. She was always the front runner, the one with the ideas, and I was kind of, you know, the backup singer. In this home video, he literally tried to be, but Katie made sure she was front and center. Nevertheless, growing up, Katie protected him always. She was like a hybrid of a mom and a sister to me. And also a best friend. If I was having, you know, trouble in school with, like, a classmate, you know, she would step in.

Katie, not your mom. Oh, no, Katie would. Me and Katie were kind of the two peas in the pod that were always kind of together, you know, us against the world kind of thing. There's AJ, Katie, Dan. Before long, Katie was off to college in Las Cruces and looking to the future. I said, what do you think you're going to do with this MBA? Katie, what do you think you're going to do?

And she said, oh, mom, I don't know yet. I really don't know. She said, but I know one thing. I'm going to change the world. And you thought that's the way young idealistic kids talk, or you're right, Katie? Knowing Katie, I thought she probably will. You know, she'll probably find something that she thinks is important and make it happen and maybe change the world.

Now the Sepiches wondered how or if their world could go on without her. In my mind, I was thinking, I don't know if we can do this. I've never been here before, and it just looked like a long, dark hallway that you can't figure out how to get to the other end. And at this point, we had been together 32 years, and I was determined that our family was going to stay together and that we would fight to do that. And those are the two prettiest girls in the whole world. They would fight to save their family. And for a special treat. But they also needed to know who took Katie away from them.

Jan told me, she said, I can't figure out who would do this to Katie. And she said, it has to be a stranger. Had to be a random act. Because no one close to her would hurt her like that? We didn't think so. Well, Katie had a way about her that she could tell someone something and get away with it that nobody else could tell them, and people didn't get angry with her. So if it wasn't anyone she knew, then who? A big mystery to solve for the city of Las Cruces. And a big story for the local media, like NBC affiliate KOB.

We're interviewing witnesses, family, friends, anybody that may have seen her that night at the bars here in town. This was a holiday weekend. Much of law enforcement was off the clock. A lot of work that should have been done wasn't done. A couple of days passed before Robert Jones was assigned as lead investigator for the Sheriff's Department. So it took a few days to sort of get up to speed. Yeah, we were way behind the eight ball,

way behind it. Mark Myers, who was there from the beginning, stayed on for Las Cruces PD and worked the case with Jones. By now, officers had returned to Tracy and Katie's house, where a roommate had made a discovery near Katie's bedroom window, a sign Katie had made at home. We find her shoes. We find that the screen's been missing from the window, and you can actually see in the gravel where her body was, where she had struggled there.

There was a difference of opinion. Some people believed that it happened there. Some people believed that all that was the abduction of the fight and getting her away from there. Meaning Katie could have been killed right there outside her home. Or abducted there, killed somewhere else, and later dumped near the old landfill. Investigators did agree on one thing. Katie fought. She fought with everything she had. According to the autopsy report, Katie Sepich had been sexually assaulted and murdered by strangulation. But thanks to science, the evil that men do sometimes lives after them. In this case, Robert Jones was certain Katie had her attacker's DNA under her fingernails

and elsewhere on her body. She obviously took some skin off of the person that did this. Forensic evidence was collected from Katie's remains. Investigators hoped that DNA profile would provide all the answers. Because then all they would need was the suspect profile that matched it. Coming up...

You know you're here. You know it's not good. Okay? Yes, sir. Police have some questions for Katie's boyfriend, Joe. I feel so bad. Katie was everything to me.

If she was everything to you, why were you just going around letting her go? At only 22, Katie Sepich was strong and unafraid. She just had this fearless attitude that, you know, I can handle it. You know, I've got it under control. That summer night in 2003, Katie was overpowered. She was tough. I think she did everything she could, you know.

Tonight's investigators have made the case a top priority. Sepich was supposed to come home late Saturday night, but she never did. Despite all the local coverage, there was something different about this case. When you have a murder case like this, you have people calling in saying, hey, this guy's saying he did this or I saw this. Normally, people drop a dime on somebody they know. Yes, you get some tips, but we just weren't getting it on this one. Investigators started canvassing the neighborhood.

Someone must have seen or at least heard something. That's when Katie's parents shared an unusual fact about their daughter. Katie Sepich could not scream. She had a very husky voice and she just, she couldn't scream. I mean, when she would try, she'd go, she could not scream. Yeah, ever since she was a little girl. Meaning it was suddenly unlikely any neighbor, any witness, had heard a cry for help. You've thought about that, haven't you? Yeah, because her roommate's mother was asleep in the house. Tracy's mom was visiting. Her room was just a few feet away from where investigators believed Katie was attacked.

But she never heard anything. And I'm sure that Katie at least tried, but her voice just wouldn't let her do it. No witnesses, just Katie and her attacker, someone law enforcement was certain would have some visible scratches. So at least in those first few days, you're looking at somebody with some scrapes on them. We did. They found no one, and there was also Katie's jewelry, missing from her body. We hit every pawn shop in the state,

in western Texas, in eastern Arizona, in southern Colorado. They were looking for a watch and two rings, including the birthstone ring Katie's boyfriend Joe had bought for her. And that was one of the things that we never disclosed to anybody because we knew that if we could ever find that ring or if we ever found someone, they couldn't say, well, we knew about it because we didn't release that information. Any of her jewelry turn up anywhere? It doesn't.

Cops also wondered if Katie, who was a popular waitress at a local restaurant in Las Cruces, had felt threatened or stalked by any of her customers. We looked at everything that we could that surrounded her there. Nothing. Nothing. An impossible scenario anyway, thought Jayanne, because Katie shared everything with her mom. Katie was very open and honest with me. And I know that if she had been being stalked or if she felt like someone was threatening her, I would have known about it. She would have said something. She would have told me. And I know that if she had been being stalked or if she felt like someone was

threatening her, I would have known about it. She would have said something. She would have told me. Police and sheriff's investigators looked closer to home and learned something interesting. Security camera video from the bar they went to that night showed Joe and Katie together and holding hands as they left. However, at the house party that followed, things went south in a hurry. And when you start interviewing people at the party, you know, you learn about the argument with the boyfriend. That comes up pretty quickly. Oh yeah, right away. What did people tell you? That she was extremely upset because she walked in on him kissing some other girl. That was a detail Joe omitted from

his story to Katie's roommate, Tracy, and from his initial statement to police. Investigators wanted more from Joe, so nine hours after Katie's body was found, they escorted him to the station and started pressing Joe hard. You know you're here. Yeah. You know it's not good, okay? Yes, sir. Your girlfriend Katie has passed away, okay?

Get ready. You need some clean air. I have to. Joe was emotional but seemed to pull it together and this time he offered more details I was hoping you could tell me a little bit more about what happened last night she got mad at me came home from the bar

she got mad at me because I was kind of pulling her off my roommate's sister she walked in and then she left. And that's the last, you know, that's the last time I saw her. He said he and a friend went to look for Katie in Katie's car. I drove by her house. Her light wasn't on, so I had to stop. Joe said he then went back to the house party

and fell asleep on the couch with the woman he had kissed. I was really drunk. I really didn't care. I kind of liked that. I didn't care about our relationship very much. I'm not really as faithful as I should be. Joe said he did try to phone Katie. It's not hard to imagine a scenario in which a boyfriend and girlfriend have a fight over his involvement with some other woman.

She storms off. He goes after her. They continue the fight someplace else. He loses his temper. It turns more violent than anybody anticipated, and he ends up dumping her body somewhere. It's a likely scenario. It's something that could have happened, and, I mean, it just happens a lot.

Just like that. I mean, it absolutely looked like he had some involvement in this. So the investigator asked flat out. Did you kill her? No, sir. How did it happen? What, sir? Her death.

I don't know, sir. I know nothing about it. Sir, I know nothing about it. I feel so bad. Kitty was everything to me. If she was everything to you, why were you screwing around on her, don't you? I know, sir. I get drunk. I'm stupid, you know. They needed to rule Joe in or out, along with everyone else who'd been at that house party. And there was one labor-intensive way to do that. One by one, you're asking everyone whom you know to be

in attendance at the party to give you a DNA sample. Yes. How many people say yes? Everybody. So 30, 40 people. Except her boyfriend. Joe Bischoff. He says no. He says no. Coming up. They told us the reasons they thought it was Joe. And it broke my heart.

Perfect boyfriend, now prime suspect. Could a hidden camera capture a confession? Sometimes people have to relieve their mind. And if it was Joe, that was the perfect place. When Dateline continues. When investigators spoke with Katie Sepich's boyfriend, Joe Bischoff, there were things that didn't sit well with them. For example, after Katie stormed off on the night she disappeared, Joe said he and a friend went looking for her.

Lo and behold, that would have been the time that she would have been abducted. What's more, Joe's story was that he went to Katie's house, but he never got out of the car. So if you're really going to check on her, check on her, right? Don't just drive by and assume that if you don't see her, she made it in the house. Big red flag, thought Detective Myers. And then there were the phone calls Joe said he'd made to Katie's phone trying to find her.

When we got all the phone records and got her phone, he was actually calling the phone. At the same time, he was in possession of her purse, her phone, and her keys. It sounds like he's calling her phone trying to do a cover story, saying he's trying to get a hold of her. This is a guy trying to build an alibi. That's what it sounds like. Within days of Katie's murder, Joe left Las Cruces for his hometown 300 miles away. He told investigators he'd be coming back if they needed anything else from him. And of course, they did. Investigators asked Joe to return for another interview and to give a sample of his DNA. And when I called him on the phone, he said that he wouldn't be back,

that he had retained an attorney, wasn't going to be talking to us anymore. And then Joe Bischoff made it clear he was not going to provide his DNA. He's not helping us at all. Under what circumstances would someone not give their DNA to help solve the murder of somebody that they were involved with and loved and planned to marry if they don't have any involvement? We couldn't understand why he wouldn't give us the DNA if he had no involvement in it. Well, Joe wasn't saying, but his attorney explained the change of heart to the

press by saying it had to do with the way the investigation was being handled. So now investigators had to try to get Joe's DNA without his cooperation. You followed Joe Bischoff around hoping he was going to discard something, some soda can or something that you could get DNA off of. Anything, yep. Didn't work. Didn't work. And because you don't have his DNA, you can't test it, and because he won't do an interview, you can't ask him to take his shirt off? We can't. He's basically untouchable. There's nothing we can do to him. Not yet, anyway. But the evidence seemed to

be stacking up. Investigators told the Sepiches Joe Bischoff was now their prime suspect. They told us the reasons they thought it was Joe and it broke my heart. I mean, I thought I couldn't be any more upset than I was. Because you had him in your home. And because I liked him. I remember thinking, this just can't be. After all, Joe had passed the list test, something J.N. taught all her kids. I used to tell them, make a list. Make a list of things that you think are important in someone that you would want to end up with. And make a list of deal breakers. And when Katie called me about Jo, she said, Mom, no deal breakers, all the important things on the list.

As a dad, you know, you kind of make sure that there are going to be somebody that's going to treat your daughter right. And he did. I mean, he was a very nice, very polite gentleman. And, you know, he really, I think, thought the world of Katie. And it just boggled our mind when all this happened. Couldn't believe it. Could they have been that wrong about Joe? I knew Katie loved him. And it just broke my heart to think this man she loved killed her and that her last moments were being killed by someone she loved. Another huge blow to the Sepich family

because they couldn't believe anyone who knew and loved their daughter would be capable of taking her life. Up to that point, Joe was planning on coming for the funeral. And when several of our friends found out about it and then they told some other people that he was a suspect, some of our friends contacted some of Katie's friends and said, he better not come. It's not a good idea for him to come. And so Joe Bischoff, who dated Katie for eight months, did not attend her funeral services in Carlsbad.

He might have been the only person ever to cross paths with Katie Sepich, who was not in attendance. There were well over a thousand people there. They had to set up loudspeakers outside because everybody couldn't get into the church. Katie's brother, AJ, could barely speak. And from the only things that I can even remember were the feeling of the tears kind of just streaming like a river down my face and reminding everybody, you know, in the crowd,

just if you have a sibling, like, you know, call them now. Tell them you love them. While family and friends mourned and celebrated Katie Sepich's life, investigators were trying to solve her death. And that quest took them to the church parking lot. They knew Joe wasn't at the funeral. But they wanted to be thorough. We photographed and videotaped all of the vehicles that were there, all their tire tracks. Remember, cops had found a tire track near Katie's body.

Some shoe leather police work told them the tire likely belonged to a small pickup truck. Now they were hoping to find that vehicle parked at Katie's funeral. Nothing. Nothing. Then another idea. Myers decided to put a hidden camera at Katie's grave site, hoping Joe Bischoff would visit. And see if he confesses to Katie's grave. Yes.

People do things like that? Sometimes people have to relieve their mind and apologize. And if it was Joe, that was the perfect place. He wasn't allowed to attend the funeral. Maybe he'd go and do it. Coming up, new evidence from the lab. She scratched her attacker. She did. There was plenty of DNA. There was DNA under every fingernail. Would it point to Joe? I really don't think so. A hidden camera at a gravesite. Sounds like something from a movie.

To investigators trying to solve a murder, it sounded promising. A chance to record Joe Bischoff maybe baring his soul, confessing to the murder of Katie Sepich. It was a great idea, but it didn't work. A sprinkler knocked over the camera, and so there was no evidence Joe ever visited Katie's gravesite in Carlsbad. Cops remained focused on Joe, even though investigators frankly admitted they didn't have enough for an arrest.

The Sepiches were desperate for answers. They offered reward money and kept the story in the media. 22-year-old graduate student Katie Sepich was walking home from a late Saturday night party. Anything to keep the investigation from stalling. The one thing we are pretty well sure of is that it was someone she knew. And I feel confident that they will find the right person or persons. Publicly, they seem to hold it together. Their youngest daughter, Caroline, saw a different side.

The look of sadness in my parents' eyes, in my brother's eyes, and the fact that it was there day after day and that it never went away by now the forensic evidence collected from katie's body had been sent to a lab and the results were back she scratched her attacker she did there was plenty of dna there was dna under every fingernail on both hands the same dna was also found in other areas of her body. That profile belonged to one man.

I'm thinking one of the first things you do is run that DNA against the national database. We did. And? That person was not in the database. And that seemed to support their theory. This is not a stranger. Everything led us to believe that she knew who this person was. You know, everything led to this not being a random killing.

To investigators, it all led back to Joe Bischoff. But from the beginning, Tracy Waters, Katie's roommate, disagreed. I said, I don't think so. I really don't think so. Actually, I said impossible. Tracy knew Joe initially did not tell her or police that Katie had caught him kissing another woman that night. She thought there might be an innocent explanation for how Joe behaved after that. I think he knew what he had done to cause their argument,

and he didn't want me to know. He was embarrassed. I think he was very embarrassed. As for his refusal to cooperate with investigators, Tracy said Joe was following his parents' advice. They were the ones who'd hired the attorney, said Tracy. And I think that that's what any parent would do, especially if they truly believe that their son was innocent. Or if they believe their son was guilty. True. True. I think it's what a parent does to protect their kid,

and I think that that's what the Bischoffs did to protect Joe. Jones and Myers tried to get a warrant for Joe's DNA. Susana Martinez, who was district attorney in Dona Ana County when Katie was killed, would not approve it. We didn't have the probable cause. You have to have probable cause to be able to present to a judge to say, this is why we need this from him.

And saying, everybody else gave a DNA sample, he's her boyfriend, he's the only one who won't, that's not enough for a court order. It is not sufficient. Detective Myers disagreed. I, to this day, believe we have plenty of probable cause. He puts himself at the scene of the crime. He is creating an alibi, and he's not truthful about it in the beginning.

That normally gets you over the probable cause bar. Absolutely. Absolutely. But, you know, it was a high-profile case. We don't get a lot of those kind of cases, so they were overly cautious. Then another idea, this time from Robert Jones. Joe had told investigators he and Katie had sex the day before she went missing. Jones wondered if Joe's DNA might still be on the bedding they'd collected from Katie's room. So you test the bedding to see if you can get Joe's DNA. We did. We sent it in. They held their breath and waited.

Coming up... The district attorney said, look, we got a DNA sample off of Katie's bed. Let's clear this up right now. The results are in, and a whole new puzzle is about to begin. I jolted out of bed, and I just ran down the hallway. I just was like, I am not a victim. He picked the wrong girl. When Dateline continues. In 1950, a small town in New Mexico renamed itself Truth or Consequences,

after a popular radio show. Now, just down the road, people who loved Katie Sepich were struggling to deal with both, the truth and the consequences of her murder. I had a lot of dreams that she wasn't dead. And that it was all just something that had to be staged and that she would be back. I had dreams that she called me and told me that. Except every time Tracy opened her eyes, reality set in. Katie was not coming back. Spent a lot of time concerned that someone had been watching our house,

would know all of our moves and our schedules. That's if it's somebody random. If it's not somebody random, then somebody you know might be a murderer. Yeah, I think the other unrest is that someone that you've interacted with, that you've shared a drink with, that you've posed in a picture with, could hurt someone like they hurt her. Is a killer. Yeah. Tracy had staked out the lonely ground of believing

Joe Bischoff was not capable of hurting Katie. But as the days went by... There were times where I wanted it to just be him. Because then it would be over. It'd be done. It's tougher when there's no answer. It is. And I was willing to accept being wrong about someone if it meant there was an answer.

Finally, a few months after the murder came an answer of sorts. Male DNA had been found on Katie's bedsheets. We don't know for sure that it's Joe, but we know that Katie wasn't seeing anybody else. Presumably that's Joe. Presumably that's Joe. Their prime suspect. So investigators eagerly compared the DNA from the bed with the DNA found on Katie's body. And it doesn't match the DNA under her fingernails. It does not match the DNA on her body at all.

Which could only mean one thing. Joe didn't do this. Joe Bischoff, who had changed his story, who had stopped cooperating, who had lawyered up, who was the only person at that party not to give a DNA sample, was also not the killer. I was shocked, devastated,

because now I'm like, now it's the worst case scenario, right? Now you're back to square one. Square zero, and now we're three months behind, and we don't have a clue. In hindsight, Myers admits they'd developed a case of tunnel vision. That didn't change his conviction that Joe Bischoff's refusal to cooperate was inexcusable. I'd be hard-pressed to not want to punch him in the throat. He made your job harder and

put Katie's family through some unneeded hardship. Oh, he put them through hell for no reason. Give up your DNA and be there for the family. That's all he had to do. After the results of the bedding came back, Joe Bischoff did eventually give a sample of his DNA. The district attorney contacted Joe Bischoff's attorney and said, look, we got a DNA sample off Katie's bed. It's a male, but it's not the one that we found on her body. So if that's you, so if it's Joe, let's clear this up right now and get everybody off his back. And that's what happened.

I felt kind of vindicated. I felt actually just more happy that I hadn't been wrong. And that you didn't turn on him. And that I stood by my vision of him the entire time. I just felt so bad for him because he had been villainized wrongly. The Sipich's did not share that sympathy. Yeah, definitely. We were very upset that this could have been resolved way earlier and they could have been on the road looking somewhere else.

And so if it wasn't Joe Bischoff, then who? Katie's killer was still on the loose. And now all of Las Cruces seem to be on edge. You feel it in the community. You go get a cup of coffee and people ask you about it. And, you know, they expect you to give good answers like, hey, we're safe, right? And you can't really tell them that. Yeah, it was stressful. Then a new lead, another woman, another attack, and a new mystery, one that would take investigators on a manhunt halfway across the country. Coming up.

If you can say it without screaming, please don't. A crime hauntingly like katie's certainly sounds familiar sounds real familiar police wondered could there be a link we were almost 90 confident that this is the guys DNA evidence had cleared Joe Bischoff as a suspect in Katie Sepich's murder. Now her family wondered if her killer would ever be found. I was so relieved when that DNA didn't match. The bedding didn't match, because I didn't want it to be him. On the other hand, I was like, Dave, I thought, well, if it's not him, who is it? And then investigators discovered a disturbing new lead. A little woman. We're going to find the middle of the field. It had happened 11 days before Katie's murder, about 1,500 miles away in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

There was a female that had walked outside of a, she had left a bar and walked outside and was going to her vehicle. It sounded a lot like what had happened to Katie Sepich. The 25-year-old woman had gotten upset with her boyfriend and walked out on him. And she was picked up by two individuals. They grabbed her, threw her in the vehicle. They drove her out into a secluded farm area where they raped her. They strangled her, and then they poured a liquid on her body and lit her on fire. Certainly sounds familiar. Sounds real familiar.

Miraculously, though, that young woman in Wisconsin survived. She crawled to a nearby home, rang the doorbell, and the owners called 911. And as they tried to help the injured woman, the dispatcher encouraged them to ask her questions. Ma'am, do you know what the vehicle was that these people were in? I don't know. I don't know. Do you know what the vehicle was that these people were in? Oh, she's insane. If I kept screaming, please don't. Oh, now I can smell the burn on her.

You can smell the burn? Yeah. You know, her flesh. Now we can see you were lit on fire. Was there one or two people? Two people. Did they have a description at all? Do you know what did they look like?

Were they tall? Short? Not sure. The young woman couldn't offer much more. Not at that point. She was eventually able to provide police a description of her attackers, which led to these sketches. Two men who drove a truck, just as investigators believed Katie's killer did. Then came a call from the manager of a nearby dairy farm. And one of the farmers there recognized both of the individuals as his employees. Their

names were Gregorio Morales and Juan Nieto. The farmer said the men had left town separately after the attack, but Morales had recently resurfaced and was back working at the farm. That's when the dairy farmer turned detective. He bought soda from Morales. And once Morales drank from the bottles, the dairy farmer secured them in a plastic bag and turned them over to investigators, who sent them out for DNA testing. The investigators also looked into the suspect's backgrounds and discovered this.

One of the suspects had lived in New Mexico within 200 miles of us. What's your gut tell you at that point? This is it. These are the guys. We're hoping. He wasn't the only one. Our hope was real high. And then of course, once we found out that some of them had connections in New Mexico, we were almost 90% confident that this is the guys. But you've been confident about Joe, too. Yeah. I think you just look for any morsel out there that you can find to hang on to. Jan was struggling with a different thought. I thought, why couldn't Katie have lived?

You know, why couldn't that have been Katie? But I worked through that. I realized I've since decided don't use the word if. Never use the word if. You'd rather think about what is. Face what is. Try to change the future if you can, but don't look back and say, what if? A few months later, investigators submitted the soda bottles for DNA testing, and they learned Gregorio Morales was a match, just not the match Robert Jones was hoping for. And his DNA is a match for the Green Bay case, but not for Katie's. But not for Katie's.

But there's still one more suspect in that. Yes, Juan Nieto is still outstanding. Juan Nieto was the second suspect in the Green Bay case. He remained a suspect in Katie's murder. Right now, investigators in the Sepich case hope to find Nieto. Only one problem. Mr. Nieto was nowhere to be found. Coming up. I just felt like I've been kicked in the stomach. What do you mean they don't do this? A bold plan to

change the system. Well, this is just wrong. We need to bring families justice. It sort of transformed Katie's family, didn't it? It did. When Dateline continues. In the summer of 2004, the Seppich family held out hope that cops were closer to catching Katie's killer. This could be it. One of the suspects, Gregorio Morales, turned out to be a match for the rape case in Wisconsin. But not to Katie's murder. Still, there was one outstanding suspect. Juan Roberto Nieto, he's still on the run. More than a year after Katie's murder, investigators finally caught up with Nieto in Georgia and arrested him.

They obtained a DNA sample, sent it out to the lab, and... And it's not a match. It's not a match. Not a match. Not a match to Katie's case. But plenty of evidence to tie him to the Wisconsin case. So that one was solved. Katie's murder was not.

That was definitely a really strong and unbelievably harsh letdown. And once again, we're back to square one. Later that year, the Sepiches suffered another blow. Robert Jones was calling it quits after 23 years with a badge. During that time, my father got very ill. I just decided to go and retire at that time. Tough to leave with it unsolved. Very tough. He didn't want to stop.

No, he didn't want to stop. It's hard to put down, right? I mean, here you have a girl with a great family who had her whole life ahead of her, and that was stolen from her. That's hard to walk away from, you know? Once you walk away, you don't know who's going to work on it, if they're going to give the same effort you did. So Myers was determined to give it all he had. The Sepiches weren't giving up either. Jayanne recalled Jones once telling her how his team regularly searched the National DNA database to see if any new profiles were uploaded that matched Katie's killer. And I made the comment that this man was such a monster that he would be arrested for something. And when he was arrested,

when they took his fingerprints and when they took his mugshot, that they would swab his cheek and would be able to identify him. And that's when Robert Jones said, oh, no, Jan, it's illegal to do that. It's illegal in New Mexico and almost every state. Because in nearly every state, DNA was taken from people who were convicted, not people who were arrested. And I just felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. I thought, what do you mean they don't do this? Why not? That realization stirred something in Jan.

And that was when I started thinking, well, this is just wrong. We need to shorten that time frame. We need to bring families justice. She got to work educating herself about DNA and the justice system. Caroline, at 11 years old, got involved. I even started reading books about DNA and about DNA and criminal justice, and I was just a little kid, but I was a big nerd. So we just had a lot of family discussions about what was required to get a match and how that would work. And that's when we came up with the idea of, in New Mexico, expanding, taking DNA to all felony arrests. And we started talking about that, and that's how this venture got started.

It sort of transformed Katie's family, didn't it? It did. Remember Susana Martinez? She was district attorney when Katie was killed in 2003. She also helped the Sepiches in their efforts to change the state's DNA laws. As part of the District Attorney Association, I then started to help out by making sure he was trying to push a law forward with the state legislature. In 2006, almost two and a half years after Katie's murder, the Sepich's state representatives submitted their proposed bill to the New Mexico state legislature for review. He told Jayanne they were in a race against time. New Mexico in 2006 only had a 30-day session, and we were told there's no way you can get this law passed in 30 days. It's going to be

impossible. Impossible was not a word Jayanne liked to hear. She moved 300 miles north to the state capital in Santa Fe for a month. My mom wouldn't take no for an answer. She just decided this was too important. Once J.N. got there, she discovered most of the legislators, while sympathetic, did not want to change existing law. They were concerned that it would be unconstitutional, that it would be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which is, you know, protects us from unreasonable search and seizure. That because your DNA, you have to put a Q-tip inside your mouth that it's a search. That it's somehow more invasive than a fingerprint. That because DNA contains the blueprint of who you are, that it's more of an invasion of privacy than a fingerprint. That because DNA contains the blueprint of who you are, that it's more of an invasion of privacy than a fingerprint.

Nonsense, Jan thought. We take fingerprints of arrestees all the time. And DNA is the modern fingerprint. Armed with many months of research, she worked around the clock to persuade legislators. I got to the legislature every morning at about 7, and I stayed till every night at about 8. And there's 112 legislators in New Mexico, and I talked to 108 of them face-to-face,

just sat down and explained things to them. Katie's family hoped her murder would help bring real change and maybe prevent other families from suffering a similar fate. And they prayed a new law might just help catch Katie's killer as well. We just felt like eventually somebody's going to get caught. And if the right person was arrested for the right thing, that that might be the person. It was a family effort. Even so, A.J. struggled with the starring role in which his dead sister had been cast.

It was difficult for me to see, you know, my sister's face kind of being used as the poster child for legal action. You know, it was just at that time, seeing her in the news and seeing that her face and her likeness just everywhere, it hurt. You know, it was just... Because she didn't belong to everybody else. She belonged to you. Exactly. It was just, it made something so private, you know, into something extremely public. As the brief legislative session drew to a close, the Sipich family held their collective breath, as they'd done so many times before. No telling what was about to happen, but at the end of the session, there was finally a vote. Coming up... I couldn't quit thinking about it. I couldn't sleep. He wanted justice. He wanted vengeance.

A crime unsolved. A family on the brink. I wanted answers. I really wanted answers. Was a breakthrough near? We couldn't give up. Katie Sepich had fought hard for her life. After her murder, Katie's mother, Jayanne, fought hard, too, for a new law that might help catch her daughter's killer and maybe save other lives as well. I just believe that had this been on the books, this law been on the books, say 10 years ago, Katie's killer might have already been convicted

and she would be alive today. In February 2006, the New Mexico State Legislature voted on the Sepich's proposed bill. It ended up being passed with only five no votes. So you must have done something right. Well, I believe in it. I know that it's right, and I did a lot of research, and one by one changed some minds and hearts. It became known as Katie's Law, mandating that law enforcement collect DNA right at the time of arrest for a violent crime, instead of waiting the years it might take to secure a conviction. It was really inspiring to see that we could make a difference. And we were just really grateful that it happened,

because we had so much hope that it would lead to a match for Katie's case and that it would help countless other families. How has the fight that changed the law changed your mom? It's made her into a warrior, that's for damn sure. And so that changed kind of not only how I view my mother, but also in a big way how, you know, I dealt with it myself. And perhaps this newfound mission was also helping J. Ann and Dave deliver on a promise they'd made to each other early on to keep their family together. They were keeping up a lot of their strength through fighting and through, you know, through the case. And that was something that I think was probably the only thing at that point in time that was really breathing life into them.

And they bonded together as a family. They made up their minds that they were going to do whatever they could to make sure this didn't happen to anybody else's kid. And if they could take that tragedy and turn it into so much good, then we couldn't give up. While Jay-Ann found a purpose in pushing for Katie's law, Dave remained consumed by something else, finding out who killed his daughter. I couldn't quit thinking about it. I couldn't sleep. At work, I'd find myself on the computer looking at things and looking at maps and trying to figure out, well, where Katie walked and who else would have been in that area. He wanted justice. He wanted vengeance.

He basically wanted to know that whoever did this to Katie was going to receive what was coming to them. I get the feeling he was working at least as hard as the police on that. Oh, if not harder. He was living and breathing every single moment of every single day. Over the years, they tried everything, doubled the reward money to $100,000. They even hired a famous psychic. She told us that he would be caught, it would be through DNA, and it would be shortly before Christmas. So many paths had led nowhere. I had made the decision that it was very possible we would never know. And that I had to accept that and move on.

And that took a lot of work to come to that. Because I wanted answers. I really wanted answers. Tracy Waters felt the same way. I really started to believe we would never know. That this person would have gotten away with this and is potentially hurting so many more people. Because someone that could do what I saw done to her could hurt other people.

Myers says he believed in his heart that one day he'd be able to deliver the news that Katie's family and friends craved. I never gave up hope because we had such good evidence. Eventually this guy is going to re-offend and then he's going to get swabbed and then he's going to get caught. Exactly. That's what the hope was. Didn't make it any less frustrating, but it was, that's what you held on to. Katie's killer was out there, somewhere. Myers believed he would strike again. Little did investigators know, he already had.

Coming up. Two young women in a frantic, frightening ordeal. Somehow I just knew he was in the house. I can see, like, a silhouette, and moments later, he's rattling the door. Would they hold the key to solving Katie's case? When Dateline continues. In the years following Katie Sepich's murder, investigators chased one dead-end lead after another,

never knowing the killer had already revealed himself. Remember that frantic 911 call you heard at the beginning of our story? The two women had locked themselves in the bathroom after an intruder broke into their Las Cruces apartment in November 2003. It may sound strange, but these women were lucky.

They survived. Meet Anela and Leslie, the college roommates on that 911 call. Tell me about the place you guys decided to live in. Cute little apartment, single story, two bedroom. Two bath. Yeah, it was really close to campus. You felt safe there? Yeah.

That was until they saw someone watching. We saw him in front of what was my window, and he quickly kind of glanced at us and then took off. You saw him looking into your window? Mm-hmm. Scary? Very scary. A couple of weeks later, Leslie saw the man again,

crouching below their window, peeking inside. And it continued that way for a while. Even when they couldn't see him, they knew he was there. We often heard him, like, bumping into the walls, rubbing up against the bushes, going over the rocks. So we heard him almost more than we saw him. No question it was the same guy. Not in our mind.

Yeah. And he's what, circling your apartment? Yeah, like we couldn't ever really tell what he was doing. No. We weren't going to go out and check. We had like a little backyard that was gated and we would find our gate to be open. We'd close it. We'd put a little rock just to make sure that nobody was coming in and going. And most of the times the gate was open or the rock was moved. It felt sporadic at first,

and then it got more and more consistent. I mean, this meets every definition of stalking. So they changed their routines. Anela even took a self-defense class. They notified the complex's security team and told their neighbors, but nothing ever came of it. And I think there was an aspect that because he never talked to us, he never approached us, that yes, we were frightened. But I think we also came to feel that he was just never going to do anything. Like he was just weird and creepy, but that was the extent of it. And maybe fixated on the two of you, but from a distance. Exactly.

Yeah. Well, you were wrong. Yeah. Very wrong. It happened on a rainy night, just two and a half months after Katie Sepich was murdered. Leslie did not know what was coming, but she had an uneasy feeling. I was actually talking to my boyfriend, who's now my husband, and I just told him, I'm frightened, I'm scared.

And I asked him if he could just stay on the line with me until I fell asleep. And so he did. I was able to fall asleep. Sometime later, she suddenly woke up. I don't know if it was a loud noise, or I really do feel like somebody was there telling me, like, get up and go, because I jolted out of bed, and I just ran down the hallway to Anela's bedroom. Somehow I just knew he was in the house. Anela was in her bedroom.

She saw Leslie coming her way. I see where the hallway bends. I can see like a silhouette there in the corner. And she comes in. I close the door. I lock it. And moments later, he's rattling the door. You saw him in the house?

Saw him in the house. Then he left, or he seemed to. But it wasn't over. We hear him go around the house and start doing something at our window. And so to us, we feel like he's trying to get into the window. So then we go into my bathroom, lock that door. And then I called 911. I was like, he picked the wrong girl. Like,

he is going to die tonight. I just was like, I am not a victim. This is not going to be happening. They locked themselves in the bathroom and stayed on the phone. And after three terrifying minutes, We have officers there, okay? Okay, sir. Are you sure? Yes, I'm sure that we're okay. Las Cruces PD showed up and arrested the suspect. He had a knife on him. There's no telling what would have happened that night, but the idea that the two of you could have ended up raped and murdered is clearly not outside the realm of possibility here. Everything was so, so precise in our favor. Yeah, I'm very lucky.

And to think that, you know, some victims, it's just a whole different story. Some people are on the losing side of those same odds. Yeah. 23-year-old Gabriel Avila was convicted several months later of aggravated burglary and resisting arrest. He faced a nine-year sentence. But for some unknown reason that baffles me to this day, the judge let him out. On bond. On bond to get his affairs in order.

And? And he absconded, of course. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I mean, he was convicted of some pretty heinous crimes. No one knew it then, but Gabriel Avila's burglary conviction held the key to solving Katie Sepich's murder. First, though, investigators needed to find him. Because Avila was somewhere in the wind.

Coming up. It looks like we have the person who killed our daughter. The revelation that stunned everyone. Katie's killer captured at last. To really stare evil in the face like that and confront it one-on-one. You had it. Yeah. Gabriel Avila was on the run, until suddenly he wasn't.

After more than a year as a fugitive, thanks to a tip, Avila was finally recaptured in 2005 and sent to prison to serve his nine-year sentence. It was in prison that Avila's DNA was finally taken. Still, processing DNA is far more cumbersome than TV dramas would lead you to believe. It took about a year for Detective Myers to receive the news he'd been waiting a long time to hear. It was a friend at the Sheriff's Department who called him. It's like, hey, we got a hit. And how soon can you come over to the office? I'll be right there. The Sepich's got the call too. He said,

I have some really good news for you. We've got a match. And I was just stunned. After three years of bad hunches and blind alleys, DNA had identified Katie Sepich's killer. You ever hear the name Gabriel Avila before that? We'd never heard it before. He wasn't in any of your files? None of our files. Name never came up, never ran across him at all. It was amazing. I mean, when they told us, we thought for sure that if we ever found out that it would be somebody connected somehow. And this was crazy. And it wasn't. No. A sense of relief for tracy this wasn't somebody you'd stood next to at a bar or in a photograph no i was so happy for her in that because for

someone that you know to hurt you has to be infinitely painful. So her last thoughts were not ones of betrayal. Not a feeling of betrayal. Myers went to interview Avila's ex-wife, who had divorced him after his conviction. Remember those tire tracks investigators had spent so long trying to identify? The ones they thought came from a pickup truck? We asked her about the truck, and she told us that it was sold and told us who they sold it to.

And so from there, we found the truck. The tires had been swapped. Eventually, investigators located the originals and matched them to the tracks found at the landfill. Avila's ex also told Detective Myers something else. She said that when she was cleaning out the truck, to make it presentable, that in the center console, she found a ring. It was not the ring Katie's boyfriend, Joe, had given her. However, it was another ring Katie had been wearing that same night.

Now Myers had more than he needed. He went to speak with Avila in prison. Now specifically what we're looking into is a homicide that occurred in August of 2003. Did you ever know a girl named Katie Seppich? The name didn't do it. Then Myers revealed he had DNA evidence linking Avila to Katie's murder. And he had Katie's ring. He slumped down in his chair and he just gave up at that point and told us what happened. It was, in the end, the most random of encounters. Two lives colliding in the middle of the night.

He said he was up in the neighborhood buying coke, and as he was leaving the neighborhood to go home, that he saw Katie walking across the street. Do you need anything else? I'm sure. No, I'm not sure. I live a couple blocks down here. I told her, I think you're right. I think you're right. She said, no, no, that's all right. Avila said he planned to head home, but then saw Katie again in front of her house and observed her without her keys,

struggling to open a window and get inside. That's when Avila said he struck and raped and strangled Katie. I mean, it's just a monster in the right place. Crossing paths with the victim. Literally, just a motivated offender crossing paths with a suitable victim. It's the right opportunity. She leaves the party five minutes earlier or five minutes later? Maybe they never meet.

Five minutes, probably 30 seconds. 30 seconds to a minute later or earlier, and he'd have never seen her. More than three years after Katie's murder, the Sepiches finally had that elusive answer. Today, we are rejoicing that it looks like we have the person who killed our daughter. We're so incredibly grateful for all of the hard work. Grateful, yes, but still faced with this harsh reality. Avila's arrest for breaking into the apartment didn't come until after Katie's murder.

So Katie's law wouldn't have saved Katie. Even so, it could have provided answers a lot faster. It would have identified her killer sooner, but it wouldn't have saved her. During the investigation, a psychic had told Jayanne and Dave Katie's killer would be caught right before Christmas. Of course, she didn't say what year. Yeah. So Christmas came and went, and we thought, well, that was wrong. It turned out maybe the psychic was correct.

The day after Christmas, on what would have been Katie's 26th birthday, Gabriel Avila was charged with murder and kidnapping. DA Susana Martinez prosecuted the case. She was later elected governor of New Mexico. We didn't drop a single charge. There was no plea bargaining in this case before. You had him. Yeah, and there was no way I could lose the trial. And he knew it.

And so he pled straight up a life sentence and he will die in prison where he should. The Sepiches were at the sentencing, of course. A.J. had waited for this moment to look his sister's killer in the eye and tell Avila how he'd stolen A.J.'s best friend, his protector. Being able to really stare evil in the face like that and address it, you know, and confront it one-on-one, it was cathartic. After the hearing was over, something surprising happened.

Avila requested to speak with the Sepiches to apologize. It was relieving to me when he apologized. And he said, I don't know why. He said it was just something I did. And he said if I ever had the chance to undo it, I would. And so in a way, we saw remorse, which kind of helped make it easier. You forgive him? I have. I don't want him out of prison. I don't want him to ever be able to hurt

anyone else. But I do believe that I'm supposed to forgive, and I want him to have salvation, because then God wins. The Sepiches have spent more than a decade championing Katie's killer turned out to be much more than that. It became bigger. It became, you know, all the other lives that could be saved, all the other rapes that wouldn't be committed. And you'll never know who those people are. No, no. But we know they're there. We know that for certain. It's hard to not know who they are. And, you know, I always tell Jan, I was like, you know, in a lot of ways, I can't wait to get to heaven so I can find out, you know, who they were and what the circumstances was and, you know, find out what we actually accomplished. But we're just going to keep after it.

Katie Sepich told her parents she wanted to change the world. In the end, her whole family did. That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.