Dateline NBC - Unmasking the Monster

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

A sexual assault survivor’s decades-long fight for justice takes an unexpected turn when her daughter helps reignite the case. Blayne Alexander reports.If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or go to rainn.org  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tonight on Dateline. To this day, I call him the monster, because that is exactly what he is. He took the butcher knife, took it to my throat, and he just said, shh, I knew what was going to happen next. This is an unbelievably brutal crime. The worst I've ever investigated. He was waiting in the shadows when she came in. It was just so frightening.

There was a handwritten note. It said, no police, I'll be back. IBM. Shear terror. He knows that I work for IBM. I'm like, oh my God, do I know him? Months turned into years. No arrests. There was no trace. You are the one who got this case reopened. If you know my mom, it's impossible not to fight for her. Somebody has to like light a fire. There was one Hail Mary that we could try. Hand sweating, heart beating. It had all come down to this. Did you know her? You didn't see her that day. It feels like you're investigating me.

Never, ever, a million years would have thought it would have been him. A harrowing attack, a haunting crime, and the mother and daughter bond that solved the mystery at last. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Here's Blaine Alexander with Unmasking The Monster. Here she is. Here's a best of the world. First day on a beach. For as long as she can remember, Andrea Beatty has felt lucky to have a mom like hers.

That's perfect, sweet. Look at that. Loving and just kind of the kindest person I know. And that was always apparent just in spite of everything. Everything. As a little girl, Andrea never quite knew what that meant, but she did feel it. A dark chapter from her mother's past

that managed to creep into their everyday lives. We were the only family I knew that locked all of our doors and closed the garage and set our alarm. The mystery loomed over her childhood, not knowing exactly what had stolen so much from her mom, from all of them. I definitely remember thinking, there's no way I leave this world,

not knowing the answer to that question. Because sometimes a daughter doesn't just carry her mother. story, sometimes she has the power to rewrite it. Somebody has to light a fire. And you lit that fire. Yeah. Cincinnati, 1989. What was life looking like for you back then? It was an opportunity to grow up. Dana was 29 and living on her own.

I got very involved in the city. It felt like home to me. I was always outside running. I was a big aerobics girl. And she was excelling in her career at IBM. In the late 80s, early 90s, you could easily impress somebody by saying you worked at IBM. It honestly was the Facebook, the meta, the Google of today. Dana was one of just a few women in the sales division. She was a rock star. She was the friend that if anyone was going to be the CEO of their company, it was going to be her.

Nancy I. Colts met Dana while volunteering. We were both career women at a time where, you know, most of our friends have gotten married right out of college. And so we kind of watched out for each other. Would you say that Dana had a lot of admirers? Oh, she did. Male and female in a good way. And Dana is Nancy. Call me when you get back from exercising.

Dana's answering machine captured a life in full swing. I thought maybe we could just get together for a pizza or a beer or Whatever. Hello, Dana. Remember me? I was living an incredible life. I was having the time of my life. And then that came to a screeching hall.

And then my life took the most horrific and tragic turn that I would have never in a million years ever imagined. It happened on August 1, 1989. How did that day start? you. It was a gorgeous summer, sunny blue sky day. Dana left work a little early. Many of her friends, in fact, most of Cincinnati, it seemed, were headed to a Jimmy Buffett concert that night. Dana had been invited to, but she was consumed with work and decided not to go. Instead, she went home to her condo, where she lived on the second floor of this house. She planned to change clothes, hit an aerobics class, and get a good night's sleep. And I came up the stairs and I

unlocked the door. And I noticed immediately that there was a very strange smell in my home. What did that smell smell like? It smelled like pot. And I turned to use the restroom and I noticed the light was on. The toilet seat was up and I'm thinking, who has been in my house? She could barely finish the thought before a man jumped out at her. He was dressed in black from head to toe, a full mask, gloves, and a Lycra body suit. There was not one piece of skin exposed. The Lycra was skin tight. He was in exceptional shape.

He was very slender. He was strong. And he was holding a butcher knife. Oh, God. He immediately grabbed me. He took the butcher knife, took it to my throat. And I said to him very quietly, I said, You can have anything in this condo that you want.

You can have anything in my purse you want. You can take anything you want. And he just said, Shh. He was carrying a black duffel bag and pulled out what looked like medical tape. Keeping the knife under my neck, he began to take the tape and roll it around my head, around my face, around my eyes, around my nose,

covering me so I couldn't see. Almost like a mummy. Like, he's like wrapping this tape around your face? Yes. He covered Dana's nose and mouth with a cloth that smelled like a chemical. He dragged her to the bedroom and, with her panty hose, tied her wrists and legs to the bed. And he put me in such a contorted, stretched, uncomfortable position. And I knew what was going to happen next.

I screamed in pain because it was so painful what he did. And I started to cry. And he immediately, from I'm sure his duffel back, took this huge gag and just jammed it into my throat, into my mouth. For the next five and a half hours, Dana Beatty lived through hell as her attacker raped her over and over. The way I survived was I told myself, if I survive, because I didn't know if I would.

I have to remember every second of what he's done to me if I do have the opportunity. to get the police involved. And Dana, you're telling yourself this while this is happening to you. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever drug cloth he put over your face.

It didn't work. I felt every minute. I felt every touch. I felt it all. And through it all, Dana says her attacker never said a word. He raped me at least five times. In between, I would have the little brain.

and he would leave me there. She couldn't see, but she heard him during those breaks, shuffling through her papers and playing her answering machine. He was listening to messages? Just listening to my messages. I'm like, what is he doing? Why is he care? And through a small crack in the tape on her face,

she caught the faintest glimpse. My bedroom was quite large, and there was a rocking chair in the corner. and he was sitting there. Oh, God. I could see that he had taken the mask off his head, but I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out. Make out a space.

Anyway, in shape or form. More than five hours of sheer torture. And then? All of a sudden, I feel him unbounding one of my hands from the bed. And I'm like, oh, God, what's going to happen now? Silence hung in the air. Minutes ticked by, she couldn't tell if her attacker was still there or not. But she took a chance, untied herself, and ran for her life.

Dana prayed the worst was over, but there was no way to outrun what still lay ahead. This is a clear threat. Clear threat. You know, if he's capable of something like that, what else is he capable of? Oh, my God, oh, my God. My heart was racing. This really was a long shot. It's our last chance, and if it fails, then he walks away.

Never would have thought it would have been him. Were you planning on doing this again? Dana Beatty had just endured the unthinkable. I didn't look at anything in the house. I just ran for the door, ran down the stairs, and immediately went to these incredible people that were becoming so dear to me. It was a young husband and wife. Your neighbors.

My neighbors. We heard the banging at the door, and Bob got to the door first. Bob and Jeannie Grown lived one floor down from Dana. Dana stepped through the door as Bob opened it and just collapsed into his arms as she said, Call 911, I've been raped. Oh, gosh. She was disheveled, tape on her head. Mascara.

Her mascara had run all down her face. She had on a beautiful silk dress that was torn halfway up. She was in bad shape. Jeannie called 911 and a female officer drove Dana to the hospital. I was so scared that when she put me in the back seat, I laid down because I thought he was following me. So as you're riding to the hospital, you're literally hiding. I am hiding. Jeannie also went to the hospital and sat with Dana until her parents arrived.

What was it like once you and Dana were there in the hospital? She was frightened and trembling and pale. They were examining her and taking pictures. As they evaluate me, put me back together again, take tons of tests, blood tests. They asked me if I wanted what's called the morning after pill. I didn't even know what that was. They collected Dana's clothing and completed a sexual assault kid.

I mean, this is an unbelievable. brutal crime. Extremely brutal. This is the worst I've ever investigated in my career. Charlie Beaver was a detective with the Cincinnati PD. He spent more than 30 years on the force. Were they able to find any DNA? Yeah, they were able to recover evidence of semen. But this was 1989. DNA as a crime-solving tool was still in its infancy and its use was limited. Back at Dana's condo, police were searching for more clues. Was there any sign? of how this guy might have been able to get inside? No, none at all.

Dana's purse lay open on the dining room table and on the kitchen counter, the knife. Dana tentatively identified that as being from her kitchen set. He used one of her own knives. One of her own knives, yes. They go into the bedroom where she said it happened. Her panty hose are still tied to the brass headboard. There's some medical tape left there.

Investigators collected the bed sheets and dusted for prints. They process subsequently. They get a couple of fingerprints off the bedpost. They discovered Dana's attacker had unplugged her phones. And on a piece of newspaper,

he'd written a note. It said no police, or I'll be back, Miss IBM. Correct. This is a clear threat. Clear threat. What else did they notice from the crime scene?

The answering machine had been pulled away from the wall. Dana made comment that she thought he was going through her answering machine. like maybe trying to remove a voice message that was on there or not. Unfortunately, we didn't have the cloud back then, so there's no way of determining if he did or did not erase anything from that answering machine.

Still, that answering machine was a perfect place for police to start their investigation. They compiled a list of every mail caller on Dana's machine. That was essentially a time capsule that really was able to show you every person who was connected. Correct. You go through that, you listen to what they got to say, and you make a determination if they're a person of interest, or this is just a social call. One of the messages was from a guy, Dana briefly dated, who was now a friend. Hi, Dana, this is Steve. Give me a call when you get a chance. He'd had plans to take Dana to the Jimmy Buffet concert that day. Yeah, and he never followed through or called her back and let her know definitely one way or the other.

Did that raise some suspicion? That did, only for the fact being, hey, is this his chance? of basically maybe setting her up. Police checked out his alibi. He had, in fact, gone to the concert, and he didn't match the physical description. Another voice on the machine belonged to Mike, Dana's boyfriend. Hey, Dan, it's Mike on. Just wanted to get with you if you were doing.

Dana was sure he wasn't her attacker, but police still needed to rule him out. Was he able to give an alibi? Yeah, he was at dinner, I believe, with his parents, which we were able to corroborate via a receipt. And then there was this man. Hi, Dana. Yet another call.

Wish I could think of how sweet he to say. I'll try you again later. Have a nice day. Bye. It was a voice investigators couldn't ignore, the voice of one of their own. I was convinced it was him. Dana Beatty knew she couldn't stay in Cincinnati, that she'd have to have. to restart her life, what was left of it, in a new place. She went to live at her parents' home

nearly two hours away in Columbus. I'm just struck by the fact that he did not end your life that day, but a very big piece of you died that day. Yes, the life that you knew before. It was gone. It was black. It was done. Dana was terrified her attacker would come for revenge after she called police. Still, she didn't back down. You were going to do whatever you could to help police move this investigation forward. Yes.

Of any drive I had, that was my strongest. I've had rape victims before. Normally, they would draw. The last thing they want to do is talk about it. They want to put it out of their mind. They want to forget. Understandably so.

Oh, yeah, definitely. I mean, I find nothing wrong with that. Believe me. But Dana, she was going to help in any way possible for us to try to help identify the guy that did this to her. Investigators quickly focused on one of the men on Dana's answering machine. He'd left five messages. Hi, Dana. Hi, Dana. Me again. Hi, Dana. She had another call. And he was someone they knew, a Cincinnati police officer. He and Dana first met a month and a half earlier. I come home from work and there is a Cincinnati policeman looking up at the

sky, seeing a bunch of birds flying in a circle. And he approaches me and he says, do you see those birds out there? And I said, yeah. And he said, something's not right over there. The fact that they're circling like that makes me wonder if something isn't dead or going on. And he says, I'm going to go check it out. I didn't think a whole lot of it. Then she came home one day to a letter. He said something to the fact it was so nice meeting you, you're a very nice person. Maybe sometime, you know, we can have a beer or something, and I'm thinking, wow. Dana wasn't interested, but he was persistent and started showing up at her home. I finally relented one time. I thought, what would it hurt to go meet him for a beer and just

get it out of his system and just be friends? And I thought to myself, naively, that maybe that would kind of cut things down and he kind of settled down a little bit. It did not happen that way. It escalated. Of course it did, right? I mean, looking back now, being a smarter woman now, it escalated. Dana told the officer she had a boyfriend, but that didn't stop him. He called her, dropped another note in her mailbox, and even followed her while she was on a run, pulling up alongside her. He slowed his car down and he was like doing one of these things while I'm running because I wouldn't stop running.

Was he in his police car when he pulled up? Oh, of course. Yes. He was dressed in his police outfit in his police car. He was basically stalking me. And I was starting to get extremely uncomfortable and really unsettled. That was just a few days before the attack. And there was something else.

He had the exact body fit. He was thin. He was strong. He was tall. Everything fit him perfectly. I mean, not an ounce of fat on him. And so I thought that's a lot of fat on him. And so I thought that's who did it to me.

And so I told the detectives, I think it's him. I was convinced it was him. The policeman, and I don't think Dana is aware of how frequently he did come up here looking for her. A couple days after the attack, police spoke to neighbors at the condo and found out they'd seen him hanging around too. And he goes, I know it seems odd to be coming here on the job, but can you tell me anything about it? And he said, I want to ask you some questions about the girl upstairs. And so we thought, oh, this is cute. Yeah, you know, we told him a little bit about her.

I said she works for IBM, but just for your information, he was up here again last night. Okay. What did you do last night? Well, I was going to talk to him, but I was just going to mention that his friend, Dana, upstairs, have been assaulted. But he backed on and out down the hill. That was it. Everyone in Dana's circle knew about the cop. I do remember her letting her friends know that he was.

was making her uncomfortable. I remember just thinking, well, that's rotten. He's a police officer. You know, we're supposed to be able to trust them. He was our only suspect. We all immediately thought it's that police officer. We were all just certain it was him. The officer knew where Dana worked. He knew where she lived. And his fascination with her was unsettling. You couldn't ask for a better circumstantial case. Not so fast. In this case, nothing was guaranteed. That was shocking to me. When police first responded to reports that a young woman had been savagely raped,

they never imagined they would have to look in-house. But now, they had every reason to. I mean, he got moved to the top of the definite suspect list. A cop with an unrelenting crush, who fit the physical disson. description. It seemed like the perfect lead until it wasn't. We were able to verify this police officer was in what they call regional crime information center training, as well as making radio runs during the time of the offense occurred. So there is no way he could have physically been the attacker of Dana.

Yeah, an alibi. Perfect alibi. Verified. That was shocking to me. and sad to me and devastating to me because I'm like, well, then if it's not him, who in the world could it be? Dana asked us not to use the officer's name because the whole experience with him still makes her uncomfortable. He told Dateline, he understands why he was a potential suspect, saying he was not in a good place back then and that he has remorse for causing Dana distress. He was cleared. And with her attacker still on the loose, fear remained Dana's constant companion.

I was living a very reclusive, very terrified life. My friends were my godsends. They were my lifeline. What changes did you see in her? Yeah, she was totally independent, came and went. traveled, fearless, and all of a sudden she's living at her parents' house. Can't even take a shower without somebody in the bathroom with her. Her mother had to sleep with her in her bed.

And the fear was contagious. Within three months, we had relocated to a different city and state. You moved out of town. We moved out of town. You couldn't stand to live here. No. The local news reported tips like this one, about a young man spotted on the street right after the attack.

The neighbors saw the man get into a 1984-1985 yellow Nissan that was parked nearby. They said he walked down the street and he got into a yellow car. They weren't able to get a license number. Investigators kept mining Dana's answering machine for leads. There was a message left by somebody who was calling to offer condolences. Correct. That guy was, we identified as a person named Fred. I called to let's now thinking of you, and I started to hear about your grandfather passed on.

And I hope everything's going on all care of your family and stuff. He was a medical resident, and someone Dana had known for years. She ruled him out right away, basically saying that that's the husband of my best friend. And the fact that he didn't fit the description. There was also a soccer player that Dana had dated that did match the physical description. Yes. Hello, Dana. This is Bill?

remember me last night. He readily agreed to give his fingerprints. They didn't match. So you checked him off the list. Yes. Pretty quickly. Then there was a doctor. Yes.

Who did fit the description, and this was somebody that Dana had at some point dated him a little bit. He too was ruled out. Police went back to Dana and asked her to think of anyone else. Is it terrifying to have to just scrutinize literally every person? person in your life? It was terrifying and it was also so painful. There were so many different people that I was forced to put down in suspects that I did not want to, but I

knew I had to because I wanted to know who did this to me. At time after time, you're getting cleared, cleared, cleared. Correct. Yes. Then, about five weeks into the investigation, police got a tip. A woman shared a story about a guy she went on a date with. A guy she said, said, who seemed way too focused on what had happened to Dana. And he started asking questions about the rape. And according to her, he acted extremely overly interested in it. He was making comments about specific details about the rape.

He even mentioned the fact that they heard the cop, a cop did it. And he's talking about all of this while he's on a date? While he's on a date, yes. Sounds like a horrible date. He was a young man who lived so close to Dana. he could see her condo from his house, and he fit the description Dana gave. He also knew somebody that used to live in Dana's building. You put that all together, and you're starting to line some ducks up in a row again.

Did Dana know this guy? No, she did not know this guy. Police gave him a call, and he agreed to talk with them. An officer then goes to speak with this guy at his house. The officer went inside and saw something that looked like it might be the break they were hoping for. And there's a bicycle inside. Stretch across the bicycle is a pair of black lacquer pants. Right out in the open.

Right out in the open. It was one of the first things the officer noticed inside the home of Dana's neighbor, a man named Andy Raiden, Black lacra pants, just like those worn by Dana's attacker. And there was more. There's some black gym shoes and there's also a black gym bug laying there. His clothing, his proximity, his appearance, and his and his interest in the case all raised some questions. Still, he was cooperative.

And after their conversation, the officer recorded some notes inside his car. He was agreeable and said that if I needed to talk to him, I could re-contact him. But later, when police asked him to come down to the station, he kind of hem-hauled and said, no, I don't think I'm going to come in. He goes, I'm done talking. So decided less cooperative. Correct. And he said he's not going to do it.

it. He said, I'm calling my attorney. Police told his lawyer they wanted a blood sample. He refused. They took him to court, where a judge ordered him to comply. He refused that. Are you looking at him and saying, this is clearly... Checking off boxes saying he's looking better and better and better. Yes. So subsequently, Judge Matthews locks him up for contempt to court, and of course he makes bond. In the end, he complied with a search warrant and went to a lab to give blood and saliva samples, which could be compared against bodily fluids found at the scene.

After all of this legal process, you finally get these samples. What do you get? It's not him. No match? No match. I bet you couldn't even believe it. It's kind of like the same situation with the cop. I can't believe it. Radin was cleared. He told Dateline that during the investigation, he felt out of his element and was following the advice of his attorney. Another dead end for investigators. was Detective Beaver's partner. He focused on that warning note, the scrawled Miss IBM the attacker had left behind. Well, that note meant a lot to both of us because Miss IBM, somebody had to know where Dana worked.

At the time of the attack, Dana was preparing a major presentation for a competitive contract. Detectives wondered, could that have made her a target? Talk to me about why you thought that. All the competitors would know that she's competing against them, get this contract. So what better way to kind of remove her, traumatize her, and get her kind of out of the way? It wasn't the most logical of motives. Far-fetched. I mean, that would be a hell of a type of revenge. But possible. But it's very possible. I've seen people do some weird stuff in my career. Investigators spoke with managers at IBM, including Dana's direct boss.

Have you ever heard of anybody calling her in this IBM? No. He couldn't identify any potential suspects, but her colleagues were mostly men, some of whom fit the physical description. There was one guy who had made her feel uneasy, and Dana sent office supplies from his desk to detectives to test for fingerprints. And on one weekend, she quietly took investigators into the office. I brought the police in to fingerprint some of the desks. And this is where you're showing them, okay, here's where this male colleague works. Here's where this male colleague works. It's just different desks, different computers. Yes, people that I got very highly have.

The fingerprints didn't lead anywhere. A year went by and then another. Detective Charlie Beaver was promoted to homicide and had to move on. Charlie, was it hard for you to walk away from that case? Yes, it eats at you when you have to walk away when you see a brutal crime like this and somebody getting away with it. When Detective Carney took over the case, he was just as determined, largely because he felt Dana's attacker could strike again or already had. They're not going to sit back and say, you know, I don't think I'll do that anymore.

They're going to continue, especially if they were successful, and you have to find them. And so he tried everything, even some of Dana's more unconventional ideas. Well, at one point, I believe her mother told Dana about this psychic, and Dana called me. What do you think about this guy? And I said, if you want me to talk to him, I'll be more than happy to. The psychic described a location, one possibly linked to the attacker. He lived in an area of Bracalb that's near a brewery that's shut down. After talking to him, it sent me down an avenue looking into breweries.

I didn't see anything. You even tried hypnosis at some point. I tried hypnosis. It was even on tape. Tell me what the girl sees. She sees a fairly tall man dressed in black from head to tell. What was that experience like? It was eerie and bizarre.

Nothing came back that moved the needle. Carney pursued every lead, but then he got promoted and moved to another unit. Still, he used his own time to check in. One of the leads that I actively pursued was the yellow car. I made sure that on the anniversary of Dana's rape, that I would set up a surveillance in case his person would come back to the scene. Never happened, but I did that for several years. Were you starting to think this person will never be found? Oh, many times.

Many, many, many times. But Dana was still fighting. In the years to come, someone knew would take the lead. I was very aware of that from the very beginning, that I was making a choice that could be very difficult for everyone. In getting to the truth. Yes. Dana Beatty had survived, but she longed to truly live again. I said to myself, whoever this was that did this, I cannot let them ruin my life.

I will not let them ruin my life. In the comfort of her family's home, Dana began to rebuild her life, and then someone new showed up. I was living with my sister next door to her parents. His name is Dick Beatty, and he really liked Dana. She's kind, she's strong. As you get to know her, it's really kind of almost like a velvet hammer. A velvet hammer.

Yeah. I've never heard anyone describe that one. It was so strong but with such a soft touch. They started as friends, going on walks, talking, and the conversation went deep. I asked her to explain to me exactly what happened if I was actually going to understand her and try to help her anyway. And she told me in detail pretty early on, I actually went back to where I was saying, and I wrote it out and typed it out. Wow. And I gave it back to her.

It was a big gesture, and it's... sparked a relationship, one where Dana felt safe. In January of 1992, two and a half years after the attack, Dana took a giant step toward the life she wanted. She married Dick Beatty. For that man to actively choose to want to walk into a marriage and a relationship that he knew was going to be no picnic because of the damage that had been caused to me, that's an incredible man.

Dick worked in insurance. Dana returned to IBM, where she says the company went to great lengths to support her, and her career soared, even though sometimes everyday things felt overwhelming. There were times when I would have to turn down dinners with friends, parties, trips I was invited to. Because you just couldn't. I couldn't do it. Dana and Dick's life together demanded special care and certain rules. I can't look at a butcher knife.

I can't be in the room of a butcher knife. If I know she's coming in and I'm doing something with a large kitchen knife, I'll just say hang on a bit. He will never walk behind me. He will never surprise me from behind. So he always announces himself. He announces, literally announces himself when he's saying, I'm coming around the corner up the stairs.

Dana had dreamed of a loving marriage, and that came true. So did another dream. And then how many years later did you become a mom? In March of 1994. I had a girl. Wow. I am really lucky, I think, to be an only child because both of my parents have so much to give, and I got all of it. It was really neat to have a mom who was both so loving and kind,

who was also so incredibly intelligent and successful. But even when she was little, Dana's daughter. daughter Andrea knew all about those special rules. We were the only family I knew that locked all of our doors and closed the garage and set our alarm. I knew when I was young, like, we don't use kitchen knives in front of mom. We don't surprise mom. But she didn't know why. There was a lot of unknowns, a lot of secrets, a lot of things that I couldn't know and that were kept from me.

Do you remember when you found? found out what happened to your mom? Yeah. Andrea was about eight years old when she came across a book. And it was called If She Was Rape. And in the front cover, there was a note to my dad. It was a book for partners of victims. And when I found that, I wrote about it in my journal that I was keeping at the time.

Dana found that entry in her little girl. She's diary. You're realizing, okay, I have to tell my daughter. Yes, I have to say something. She sat me down. I remember, like, sitting in our living room on the couch. And I probably told her way more than she deserved to hear. There's no, like, great way to tell an eight-year-old about something horrific that happened to the person they love most in the world. Did she also tell you that the person who did this hadn't been caught? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. There were times Andrea felt like her mother's child and protector. But like her mother, she was tough and passionate.

She fell in love with theater. And when she grew up, she got hooked on something else. At some point, true crime. Podcasts become a real interest of yours. Yeah. Do you think that that was colored by knowing what happened to your mom? Yeah, definitely. I think I wasn't getting all of the information that I really desired.

about what had happened. And through the true crime stuff, I got a taste of, like, what happened in that space in terms of the criminal justice system. She had discovered a world where victims found justice. And it opened a new possibility.

Maybe her mother could, too. Years after the brutal attack, Dana's daughter would begin a quest to, once and for all, unmask the monster. It's just somebody has to, like, light a fire. I don't believe you are being truthful with us.

Prosecutors believe that you have other victims out there. Did you do this to anybody else? Andrew Beatty always knew the man who attacked her mom would not remain a ghost. I definitely remember thinking, there's no way I leave this world not knowing the answer to that question. You were determined, even from a young age.

Yeah, I was like, no. Like, that's not going to be the story. Andra was now almost 29, the same age her mother had been when she was raped. As Andrea immersed herself in true crime, she was learning more and more about different ways cases were being solved. And she came across a recently solved case involving a serial rapist right there in Cincinnati. And at the bottom of the article, there was a call out saying, if you think you know anything about this or you know of another victim come forward. And I didn't know if it quite fit, but there was enough there where it was to me worthwhile to say, like, maybe.

She took the leap and sent an email. I was nervous because I felt that I was making another choice for my mom that she didn't have a saint. And that weighed really heavily on me. Does this take her power away? Am I doing that? Andrea's email made its way to the Cincinnati Police Department, where all the officers who'd worked Dana's case had either retired or passed away.

She got a response from Detective Jeff Smallwood, the lead investigator on that serial rape case. I just said, hey, I understand that you're interested in seeing if this case could be linked to your moms. He was ready to dive in, but Andrea had a few conditions. It said that it's very important to me that this not get to my mom unless there is a chance that something could happen. She didn't want to get her hopes up.

Yeah, it had been a number of years and you don't want to kind of rip off that band-aid unless you have to. Can we take a look? Sure, yeah. Detective Smallwood's first call was to police archives. Suspects, records and photos, close tip sheets, VHS tape. I just asked for, you know, hey, do we even have anything from 1989? And the response that I got back was we had one box. And sure enough, this entire box is Dana's case.

The dress Dana wore, the panty hose used to bind her. And the knife. Evidence that could now be retested using modern technology. And he was like, I have the box. It has been preserved. And it's like a miracle. It's still here. Wow.

I think there is a chance that this could be solved. How shocked are you hearing this? I don't think the word is shocked. I think I had known, like, I think this is still there and there's just no one working on it. It's just somebody has to, like, light a fire. Yeah. Yeah. And you lit that fire.

Yeah. Detective Smallwood first looked at that serial rapist whose case prompted Andrea to send that email. DNA extracted from Dana's dress quickly ruled him out. But Detective Smallwood believed Dana's case could be solved with forensic genetic genealogy, which uses DNA from the crime scene to identify a suspect's relatives, then traces the family tree to find the offender. It's an expensive process, but Smallwood was determined. He applied for a grant from a nonprofit to pay for the lab work and got the green light from prosecutors.

But before going any further, he wanted Dana's blessing. I said, I understand, but I don't want her to know that it was me. I want her to think that you initiated this at this point. I'm just not ready. Andrea didn't want us to tell her mom that Andrea was the one that reached out to us because she didn't want her mom to know how much what happened to her mom had affected her life. So how are you explaining to Dana that you're reopening this case? Yeah, I just said that, yeah, I was going through some cases that were similar to the one we had said. solved and stumbled across hers. And he said, are you interested in using this technology to solve your crime? And I about dropped the phone on the floor. I'm like, are you kidding me? Because you weren't expecting this at all. This is zero. Of course, I was, I mean, ecstatic is an understatement. I was kind of freaked out too, but I was beyond ecstatic. How did you feel when you hung up?

after that call. No, that we absolutely had to solve this one. As things started to get real, Andrea realized it was time to come clean to her parents. I knew I had to tell them. I said, I have something to tell you. It's not bad. It's not good,

but it's not like bad. She says, I really need to talk to you about something important and I hope you're not mad at me. I said, you know how this is all happening? You know, I want you to know that a few months ago it was me that reached out initially.

And I'm looking at her. I am in complete and total shock. I'm crying. And she starts crying. And she says, I really hope you're not mad at me because I hope I didn't overstep my boundaries. And I hope I didn't do something you didn't want. I looked at her and I said, if this is not the most unbelievable act of love to your parents, to your mother, I'm speechless. I mean, I just was so blown away by her.

She knows how much this has impacted you. She's lived this sadly and horribly and tragically. Yes, she did. But she's felt this impact, yes. Now she's old enough to do something. And that something was now on the fast track, moving at warp speed to a place Dana never could have imagined. I'm sorry, I just have to isolate the time right now. 34 years after Dana Beatty was raped, the investigation had new life.

Genetic genealogy meant there was a real possibility Dana's case could be solved. To have this DNA evidence back in 1989 really wouldn't have gotten investigators that far, but that same DNA evidence today is like a golden ticket. Yes, the things that we're doing now would have been complete science fiction to the officers that were cases in 1989. In the fall of 2023, Detective Smallwood uploaded the suspect's DNA profile to two genealogical databases. Almost immediately, he got a lead. The heritage based on what we were seeing, all of the names appear to be Jewish. He calls me and says, do you know anyone from Cincinnati from that time that was Jewish?

I said, well, there's only one person I know. That person was named Fred Tanzer. A doctor who, back in 1989, was married to Dana's best friend, a woman she had known since high school. He was one of the voices on Dana's answering machine. Dana, this is Fred Sanders. I've already heard about your grandfather passed on. Police had asked Dana about him years ago and ruled him out. I explained to them, this is my best friend's husband, and there is absolutely no way that...

You told police. Oh, yeah. Don't even go down this road. Right. And she told Smallwood the same thing about Fred Tanzer now. The next day, Detective Smallwood got the results from the second database, and they were stunning. Usually, genetic genealogy points to distant relatives, which means searching a long chain of family members to identify the suspect. But this time, that chain was quite short.

We've worked some cases where it's taken upwards of two years to go through everything, and this one, It was the easiest one that we've worked so far. The results pointed very clearly in one direction. This is an extraordinary moment. After more than 30 years of nothing, now, finally, you have a name. What's the first thing you do? So the first thing, we now know, okay, we have to meet with Dana in person. Anywhere, it's more comfortable for you, you just relax and we're going to kind of fill in.

I can tell Jeff's pretty excited and even a little tiny bit nervous. I'm pretty confident that we have, based on the matches that we have, I think we have a very good idea of who the offender is. So based on what we see, I believe very strongly that it is Fred Tancor, whose DNA is present. I was flattened, devastated, shocked, beyond belief. You had been searching now for more than 30 years for this person. and you learn who it is, it was your best friend's husband. Yeah. Oh, my God.

It is, I mean, that says all. I'm sorry, I just have to. No, no. You're, I mean, like. I feel like I'm in the toilet somewhere now, but that says it all. This was so much closer to home than you ever expected. Ever, ever, ever. A million years.

Never would have thought it would have been him. Oh, my gosh. No. Oh, my. God, oh my God, God, that's it. Dana asked us not to report her friend's name to protect her privacy. Her friend and Tanzer divorced in 2008, almost 20 years after Dana's attack. And as Dana absorbed the news, old memories came flooding back.

She recalled Tanzer was heavy set, not nearly as physically fit as her attacker, but later learned he had started exercising a lot. back then. And she thought about how seven years before the attack, she let him spend the night in her home while he was interviewing from medical school. He brought me a album to thank me. So this is somebody you've basically helped along the way. I did. Giving him a free place to stay, opened your home to him. I did. And here he was during one of the most special moments of her life, her wedding day. It was an intimate ceremony at her parents' home, just family and a few close friends.

Receive his ring. Tanzer's demeanor struck her even back then. As I'm looking up and seeing everyone, everyone's got this huge smile on their face. They're so happy. And he is just like looking at me, like studying me, not smiling, not anything. And I'm looking at him like, why are you looking at me like that? Even at the time, you thought this is weird. I thought that was so weird.

Here on the left side of the screen, you can see Tanzer giving Dana a hug after the the ceremony. And later, when the family socialized, she thought Tanzer was moody and had a short temper, like during a basketball game with his kids. He started getting angry because he was not making baskets, and the kids were. He's getting mad that he's losing to his kids? He gets so mad that he not only lashes out at his kids, he kicks the puppy, hard. And I looked at my best friend. Oh, gosh. And I said, I can't be. here anymore. I'm sorry. The two friends had always shared everything, which made this moment the break in the case all the more painful for Dana. I was not allowed to tell anybody who did this to me,

except for my daughter could know and my husband could know. Otherwise, you had to keep it entirely to yourself. Entirely to myself. Investigators told her the secret would be out soon enough. How close are you at this point to being able to move in and make an arrangement? rest. Yeah, I feel like we're pretty close. But not so fast. Devastation's an understatement. They would have to abandon the playbook and try something completely outside the box. It's your last chance. It's our last chance. After more than three decades, Dana's rapist finally had a face. He was the ex-husband of her best friend. It was both a feeling of like, oh my gosh, I'm so grateful that we know. And also,

this makes things so much more complicated and heavier and way more messed up. You had memories of this person. Yeah. I remember he had a big personality, charismatic, but not nice. Detective Smallwood set up surveillance on Fred Tanzer. He learned Tanzer was now in his 60s and had been a doctor for more than 30 years. He'd practiced in Ohio, then later. moved around for work with stops in Colorado and Kansas.

He'd remarried, and he and his wife were back in Cincinnati, where he worked at a hospital and lived in a nice neighborhood with two range rovers parked out front. So you package it all up, everything that you got so far, you take it to the DA. Yes. What do they say? They say, yeah, we made a mistake that we were unable to prosecute this case. It is beyond the statute of limitations, and thanks for playing.

but yeah, no prize at this one. Yeah. That mistake came down to a misreading of the law. At the time of Dana's rape, Ohio's statute of limitations for sex crimes was six years. That law later changed to 25 years with an extension when DNA evidence identified a suspect. Prosecutors thought Dana's case was covered, but because the statute of limitations on her case had expired before the change, it didn't apply. You are outside the statute of limitations. You cannot prosecute him for what he did to you. Even though they knew this is the person, without a doubt, who raped you and attacked you?

That's correct. They could not arrest him. That's correct. Devastation's an understatement. But Detective Smallwood wasn't giving up. He approached the FBI and was connected to two federal prosecutors with a reputation for thinking outside. the box. When I heard the facts of the case, my jaw just hit the floor. Assistant U.S. attorneys Kelly Rossi and Julie Garcia. It was a case where the facts were so egregious and the

injustice that would occur if this man walked free was just unfathomable. A new federal team, including the FBI, took on the case and set out to confirm the forensic genetic genealogy results with a new DNA sample. They followed Tanzer. after he left a Starbucks, watched him drink a coffee, and grabbed the cup when he tossed it. Just as they suspected, the DNA was a match. But they still had to manage Dana's expectations. We said to her, we are going to do everything that we can to get justice for you. But we want to let you know right now, the state prosecutors were right. He can never be prosecuted for the rape. It's too late. It's beyond the statute of limitations.

Have you been surprised? by a lot of what you've learned about these laws? Disbelief, it's been so disappointing. I do not understand why there even would be a statute of limitations. I don't understand what the value in that is. Do you believe that there are other rapists out there, like Fred Tanzer, who have committed these crimes, but because of the statute of limitations are walking around free

and may never be prosecuted for these crimes? We know that for a fact. Statutes of limitations are vastly different from state to state. Neighboring Kentucky, for instance, doesn't have a statute of limitations on rape. Dana's condo overlooked the Ohio River and looked into Kentucky. And if she had just been on the other side of the river, we wouldn't be having this conversation because Dr. Tanzer would have been able to be prosecuted. They had to find another way to build a case and started quietly,

searching for any crime they could prosecute. We'd just brainstormed and spitballed a lot of different things to try to see if there was something that would apply. We had checked with the Ohio Department of Health to see if there were any medical board issues, any complaints or anything like that. And he was coming up with a clean record. This is a person who holds a position of authority in the community. This is a doctor. How high were the stakes here? It felt like there was a real urgency. As we were sitting there, he had access potentially to female patients' addresses. He had access to controlled substances and drugs.

Investigators also dug into the other states where he'd practiced medicine. We thought, can we tie him to other rapes that have happened within the statute of limitations? You guys were what, just calling, I mean, local police departments in every city where he lived to see, do you have any unsolved rape cases in this area? Yes.

Nothing panned out. They decided it was time to talk with Tanzer's ex-wife, Dana's friend. We learned some pretty disturbing things. Special agent Eric McIntosh was leading the case for the FBI. She described him having a very high sex drive and demanding sex almost daily, and then her fears that during their marriage, Fred had drugged her and had sex with her when she was unconscious. What made her believe that?

The main instance she recalled was waking up, feeling groggy and really out of it, and noticing she had an IV hooked to her, just hung from a coat hanger in the bedroom. At the house? At the house. She had memories of being barely conscious for up to four days. Days that she just doesn't remember. Right. Was this finally something they could prosecute?

Once again, Ohio's laws said no. Unfortunately, as we looked into that, we determined that it was actually not a crime to drug and rape your spouse in Ohio when those rapes occurred. There was an exception in the law for when the victim was a spouse, and that loophole was not closed until 2024. I want to ask you about that to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly, that here in the state of Ohio, up until 2024, it was perfectly legal for a man to drug and rape his spouse. until just two years ago. Yeah. Perfectly legal. It was actually an exception that was built into the statute itself.

Prosecutors had run through every option, but there was one idea left. This really was a long shot. Absolutely. Very long shot. But it's your last chance. It's our last chance. And if it fails, then he walks away. My name's Detective Smallwood.

Is Mr. Tanzer home by any chance? For investigators, the evidence was overwhelming. Dr. Fred Tanzer was the man who has... had raped Dana Beatty. But due to the statute of limitations, he would never spend a day in prison for the crime. They were down to their last move. We decided that there was one Hail Mary that we could try, and that was just to go knock on his door. The plan was to get Tanzer talking, most importantly to Eric McIntosh, who was, of course, an FBI agent. You know, introduce Eric as a federal agent and interview him about the case. And if he liked, he.

lied, then that would be lying to a federal agent. And there's your criminal charge. There's our criminal charge. But the tricky part is everyone has a right to remain silent. And he would have been well within his rights to say, I don't want to talk to you. And that would have been it. That would have been it. You try to plan as best you can.

On a December day in 2024, Agent McIntosh and Detective Smallwood, both secretly recording, walked up to Fred Tanzer's door. We did have agents and support people helping us staged and hidden away close by. They were ready with a fake story. They planned to ask him about that police officer who once had a crush on Dana and say they were investigating a fictional police cover-up. Tanzer would be approached as a helpful witness, not as a suspect. Everything hinged on, can they get in the door? Kelly and I were listening live on an audio feed, and we heard them walking up.

We heard the muffled sounds of the microphone on them. They rang the bell. They knocked. And we're finally greeted by Tanzer's wife. Hey there. How are you? I'm sorry to bother you. My name's Detective Smallwood.

I'm with Cincinnati police. Is Mr. Tanzer home by any chance? Is everything okay? Yeah, nobody's hurt. Hey, Fred. Will you get your clothes on and come down? I remember being relieved that she shouted up to him to come down, and that was our first win. Hey, sir. How are you?

Hi. My name is Detective Smallwood. I'm with Cincinnati Police. I was hoping that you can maybe help us out with something. Okay. Do you mind if we sit down for a second? No, come on in. So they sat and launched into their made-up story. Somebody more recently made a complaint about an uninvestigated offense into a police officer.

This guy was suspected of a sexual assault, I guess, of an acquaintance of yours back in the 80s. Okay. Do you even kind of remotely recall what I'm talking about? They had that list of names from Dana's answering machine and said they were interviewing anyone who'd called her back then. We're going through. We're talking with everybody involved, asking some simple questions. Okay. But before you jumped into it, there was something that you had.

had to say. Yeah. Anytime I talk to someone, I advise them that it is a crime to lie to a federal agent, so whenever we're talking, just be honest. Okay. So I guess the, the, the, the, the complainant on this, the one by the name of Bena Bady. Uh-huh. Did, did you know her? Sure. Did your wife know her? No, she was a friend of ours. He was primarily my wife's friend. Okay. And so what was the nature of your guys' relationship? My ex was, you know, they were like good friends. Okay. So we were over at her place sometimes. She was over at our place sometimes, but not on a regular basis. About 10 minutes in, the questions got more pointed. So again, just as far as any relationship with Dana, you guys never dated or anything like that beforehand or anything? There was never any

sexual relationship between you and Dana. Okay. Just to clarify, again, I believe you've answered it, but there was no reason you were not at her apartment on that day on August 1, 1989. No. You didn't see her that day? Danny didn't see it, didn't speak with her at all, communicate with her at all that day? I don't remember the specific day, but no. And you knew that was a lie? We knew those were all lies.

And that was a federal crime. The plan was for prosecutors, listening in, to call when they heard enough to make an arrest. But that phone's not ringing. Yeah. And that was a long, a long stretch there. So I remember texting Kelly and Julie, are we good? Call me, call me. And as the investigators kept the conversation going,

Tanzer's wife started to get antsy. I'm just trying to enter, you know, this feels a little bit more. Right. About the police officer. Yeah. But we just have to make sure. So, but, you know, I think for us, we're feeling a little bit like what's really going on. here. That's really kind of what I'm a little confused here. Yeah. It feels like you're

investigating me. That's the vibe I'm getting. Right. And not the police officer. I just, you know, I've watched too much daylight. Does that make sense? It does. He did make that comment that he'd seen a lot of, a lot of dateline, but apparently not enough. Because the prosecutors had what they needed. We said, we have it. We feel comfortable charging him today. You can arrest him, go ahead and confront him with the DNA. All right. Well, Dr. Tanzer, at this point, I think we are going to tell you a little bit more about what we know. I don't believe you are being truthful with us. I think at this point I want to get a lawyer.

Stand up for me? Stand out. Please respect. 35 years after the rape of Dana Beatty, Fred Tanzer was under arrest. I don't know. We've got to find a great lawyer. I don't know what's going on. Dana was in the middle of an airport waiting for her luggage when she got the call.

We got him. We got him. I said, are you, I mean, tears, you know, just coming down my face, are you kidding me? But it was one of the best moments of my life. ran to my husband, whispered in his ear, he is under arrest, and just gave me the biggest hug. We were just two people standing together, shaking in the middle of an airport.

I just held her as long as she wanted to be held. I remember just hearing my mom say, like, it worked, like they got him. And was really grateful, I think, too, that they, I mean, nobody in this whole thing wanted to give up. Dana had spent 35 years fighting to get to this moment. But for the woman heard on that tape, Tanzer's wife, a frightening new chapter was just beginning. Something felt off. Yes, and I couldn't remember. I kept blacking out.

Fred Tanzer was finally under arrest, not for rape, but for lying about it to the FBI. Now investigators were shifting their attention to his wife, Don Tanzer. I just tell you, he's one of the most amazing doctors. I just got the most amazing people. I immediately just went into some sort of shock of, this isn't real. It's just not real. She married Fred Tanzer in 2008, a committed doctor, a man of integrity, or so she thought.

He would be the guy who would come in on a Saturday. He would be the person who would say, I don't need that copay. because what I already have is enough. Investigators sat down with Dawn right after her husband was arrested, and they had a very specific question. One of the FBI agents had asked me had I ever felt like I've been drugged or drowsy or any of those type of things. The conversation went a bit like, no.

And then they asked me a couple more questions, and then I finally said to the FBI agent, we need to go back to that question. You took them back. Yeah. I need to tell you that, yes, I had had an experience. She said she first noticed it 10 years into their marriage. I started feeling like I wasn't handling my alcohol.

Something felt off. Yes, and I couldn't remember. I kept blacking out. She suspected he was drugging her before sex, and she confronted him. I said, I have reason to believe that you're putting things in my drink, and I need you to tell me. I need you to tell me if that's what you're doing. And he did. He admitted it.

He absolutely admitted it. I said, how often have you done that? And he said 15 times. 15 times. He's admitted that he's drugged you. He's had sex with you without your consent. Why did you choose to stay? Because I thought he was going to.

through a dark period. And I didn't know about everything else. And I thought that love was to stay and get help and make sure this doesn't happen again. So you have these two women who were married to him who told remarkably similar stories. What did you think? I think we both felt that this was further proof that he was a serial offender. And then there was this. After Tanzer's arrest and after police searched the home, Don found some strange items left behind on the bedroom floor. I took a picture of them. I called the FBI agent.

There was a restraint, a ball gag, a black hat, and some zip ties. Zip ties? What did you believe those were used for? My concern was either he used those on Dawn and she was not conscious and or both he used those on. other victims. This is Tanzer's attorney, Chris Busio. I mean, he had been a spectacular doctor, not a good doctor, an award-winning doctor,

somebody who everybody respected. You know, the great irony in all of this is that if Tanzer had admitted what he'd done, there would be no case. Your question is exactly what I presented to the judge. Think about it, if he would have just said, you know what, I did this, I'm guilty, handcuffed me, handcuffed me now. they couldn't have done anything. Tanzer himself clearly knew the statute of limitations would protect him.

In fact, that's what he told Dawn on a phone call from jail, when she asked if he'd ever worried about getting caught. I mean, you always had to know it would be a possibility, right? No, because the statute of limitation had gone by. How did you know that? Well, I knew, I mean, a while ago, I looked it up. When did you look up the statute? Honey, I don't know.

Could have been 10 years ago. I don't know. I don't remember. I hear you ask him several times, like, when did you look this up? I mean, in your mind, are you thinking, you've been thinking about this? You've been watching the clock. Yeah. I just couldn't believe this was the human that I'm now dealing with.

The prosecutors are very clear. They say this was not the only crime. They say that he is a serial rapist. What serial rapist do you know has never been charged with raping somebody? A successful one. It could be, but again, you have his DNA. DNA, he points out, that does not match any other cold case in law enforcement databases. In September of 2025, 36 years after he raped Dana Beatty, Fred Tanzer pleaded guilty

to three counts of lying to a federal agent. In a document submitted to the court, Tanzer attempted an explanation. It all started, he said, with a famous and sexually explicit movie from the 19th 70s. No, no, I don't want to know your name. So he, as a 14-year-old, was taken to watch Last Tango in Paris. After he watched that movie, he believed that he developed abnormal sexual fantasies. And it developed from there.

As she walked into Tanzer's sentencing hearing in January of 2026, Dana knew he was facing a maximum sentence of 15 years. She also knew the judge could give him less. I am nervous. I'm terrified. However, I have hope. Dana refused to look at him in court, but she did unload decades of pain and trauma in her victim impact statement.

He was finally hearing your voice, but he was cuffed on his hands and his feet. He was bound. Just like what he did to you. Wow, I never thought about it that way, but you're absolutely right. Danzer made his own statement. He apologized to Dana, adding that over the years he had hoped she wouldn't give up her efforts to find him.

I almost wish you would have found me. I hoped you would have found me. All I could think about was he's saying all this to the judge to get brownie points. You didn't buy a word of it. How could I? It was manipulation. It was narcissism. I looked at him and I saw such a visible wretch of a human being.

he wasn't worth my hate and I didn't want to hate anymore. The judge gave Tanzer the maximum sentence, 15 years. Does it feel like justice? No, but it feels like the best option we have. Fred Tanzer has now traded in his white doctor's coat for prison scrubs, but he still has something to say. Are you sitting here asking people to feel sorry for you? Fred Tanzer is now behind bars, which is where we met him.

He came into our interview trying to tell us how it was going to go. If we're not keeping this within the scope of what I was convicted of, then I'm not going to do this. We didn't agree. I'm going to ask you some questions. You can choose how you answer them, whether you answer them. And he stayed put, and we started talking. And to be clear, you do. not deny that you raped Dana Bady?

No. What reason could you possibly have for this? So there is no reason that possibly have, and I'm working on the why. He talked about that movie, he says, affected him as a teen, last tango in Paris. That's where the rape fantasy started. Just listening to you say that, millions of people saw that movie. Certainly millions of people didn't go on to become rapist. Right.

It feels like a flimsy explanation. So there aren't millions of 14-year-olds that saw that movie. And like I said, it's just the way it affected me. You said in court to Dana, you said you hoped that she would never stop looking for you. Yeah. What did you mean by that? That she kept the fight alive, that it didn't die in her, that she kept pushing and fighting for finding out who did that to her. Well, if you had that desire all these years, why?

Why not just turn yourself in? At least save her some suffering on the back end so she didn't have to spend those decades wondering who did this to her. Yeah. I had a family that I was protecting. But yet inside, you're saying you wanted someone to find you. Yeah. Why? So that there can be, I don't know.

I think I had nobody to talk to about it. And I knew I'd done something very bad. And I'm so sorry. You know, you're sitting here, Fred, you're crying in front of me, you're telling me how sorry you are, but you had a phone call with your second wife, and you told her that you believed that you were clear because you've looked up the statute of limitations. So these tears, I've got to say, these tears do not in the least strike me as genuine. Are you sitting here asking people to feel sorry for you? Oh, absolutely not. But explain that for me, square that for me. You knew on the one hand that you wanted somebody to find out, but on the other hand, you knew that you wouldn't face it. legal consequence for it. So did you want someone to find out to absolve your guilty conscience, knowing that you wouldn't have to face the consequences? No. Sure, I wanted to get it out there, but what I wanted was for Dana to have closure and things like that. Fred, do you think the statute

of limitations is fair? Dana had no statute of limitations on the pain that she felt over this time. I don't think anybody in the law system thinks the statute of limitation is fair. Including you, you don't think that it's fair that you escaped prosecution for this rape. Yeah, you're right. I want to show you something. Police found this when they searched your house. Okay, yeah. Zip ties, hats, yes, a black hat, gags.

Were you planning on doing this again? No, okay. He told me the zip ties were to secure wires in his bedroom closet, and the rest were just personal safety. Sex toys. Prosecutors believe that you have other victims out there. Did you do this to anybody else? Mm-mm.

Absolutely not. Fred, that just doesn't pass the smell test, that you are living a perfectly fine life, you commit a crime that heinous, and then you go back to living a perfectly fine life. How in the world do you expect anybody to believe that? I'm glad to take a lie detector test. You can size it up however you want.

So let me ask you this. I want to ask you about your two former wives. Your first wife told police... That's where we stop. Your first wife told police that you allegedly drugged her. Did you do that? That wasn't nice. And that's when Fred Tanzer stopped talking.

I don't have anything else to say. Fred, you're not denying either of those things that your first and your second wife said against you. To be clear. I'm ready to get out. Tanzer's first wife is now remarried. She and Dana remain friends. Don Tanzer began journaling after her husband was arrested and later turned her writing into a book.

You said that you think about Dana every day. Every day. Bitter Sweet is a great word. For decades, Dana shouldered the weight of the past. She says she expected to feel lighter after Tans are sentencing. My anticipation was that I would wake up and feel like I could finally breathe again. For the first time, since I was 29 years old, I could breathe again. They were expecting the sense of relief.

Yes, such relief. And that's not what happened. Dana is working with a therapist, unpacking the layers of trauma. She's terrified Tanzer will get out of prison in much less than 15 years. He's eligible for a federal early release program because he was convicted of lying, not rape. I am hoping, and this is one of the major reasons I'm here today, that if there are other victims that they come forward and helping add, to the charges and elevating his censor beyond what it already is.

And Dana wants the laws around sexual assault to finally change. Currently, more than half the states in the U.S. have some form of statute of limitations on rape. If we could get rid of the statute of limitations so that these criminals get the punishment they deserve, to me, that will be relief. True belief. Nothing will ever be able to erase the darkest chapter of Dana's life. But thanks to Andrea, it now has a new ending. Even after everything that happened to you,

it was your beautiful daughter that you brought into this world who ended up being the one to solve this for you. She's a gift from God. She's an incredible, incredible individual. I mean, she's truly a hero in this case. Your mom has said that you're a hero. She's done so much more than I have. You're saying she's the hero.

Yeah. If you know my mom, you love her. And it's impossible not to fight for her. And that's what got her that justice was who she is. And that's all for this edition of Dateline. And don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast in which we go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9 8th Central.

I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.