Morbid - The Murder of Angela Samota

Episode Date: May 24, 2019

I know we have slammed you with a couple of truly heavy cases and this one is definitely tough as well, but what sets this one apart is the ending. While it’s by no means a truly happy tale, there is a sense of satisfaction in the end. Angela Samota was a brilliant and vivacious college student whose life was tragically cut short when she was raped and murdered in her home in 1984. The investigation that follows takes some twists and turns before ending up at a shocking conclusion that proves no one can stop a determined best friend. Sources: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2016/04/13/man-on-death-row-for-1984-rape-murder-of-smu-student-loses-appeal/ https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-44470377 https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/crime/man-found-guilty-in-1984-slaying-of-smu-student/287-411182273 Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is morbid. Sure is. I'm standing really close to the mic today so that I blow your eardrums out because I just always feel like I can't hear myself and I'm working on it. And she's actually sitting really close to the mic. She's not standing.

She's lying to you right now. Whatever. She just lied to you. What the fuck ever, Elena. So hi everybody. How is your week, bitch? go in. We hope you enjoyed your really intense two-parter

last weekend. I feel like you guys did. That case was fucking bananas. It really was bananas. And we've been obsessed with the Facebook group coming up with new ways for Jasmine to like have a bad day every day for life. I love the Facebook group. When I'm having a bad day

I'm like, I'm going to go into the Facebook group and I'm going to read that shit. Because it makes me smile. So keep doing that stuff because we read it and we absolutely love it. It makes my day. You guys are the best. You really are. And you know what?

We want to give you something for being the best. So why don't you go on over to murderapparel.com and fucking buy yourself a shirt and get 20, is it 25% percent? That sounds good. 25% off if you use our code morbid. M-O-R-B-I-D. You can get whatever shirt you want for 25% off, but we suggest that you get our shirt because it's fucking dope. It's just a suggestion. It's just us throwing a light suggestion out there.

our shirt or I'll burn you alive. Get our shirt. I'm kidding. Get whatever the fuck you want. Because they have great shirts. Like we've said before, they have ones that say, The husband did it. That's enough. Dead inside. I just got a shirt from them that says basically a detective and it's great. Oh, shit.

Yeah. I need to stop buying things online, but I'm addicted to murder apparel. And you should be too. Go on over to their Instagram at M-U-R-D-E-R-A-P-P-A-R-E-L. The link to the website is in their bio. And again, use our code by morbid. I was on a fucking roll there. You were really.

Use our code morbid. M-O-R-B-I-D for 25, question mark, percent off. That was a good segue. Thank you. I really like that. I'm really good at segways. I was very impressed by that. It's because I fucking make small talk every day of my life.

So there's really, we have just one thing we wanted to mention because it's all over the news and it's kind of bonkers. And we're really fucking confused. Yeah, and we feel like you guys are probably going to be equally as confused, but also intrigued. So here in good old Massachusetts, I'm town, what up? There was this Amesbury girl, 13 years old. Yep. Her name is Chloe Ricard, I believe.

Yep. At Monday afternoon at like 4.47 p.m. She was just dropped off at Lawrence General Hospital, and they drove away. But when she was dropped off, she was dead. So they dropped a dead girl off at the emergency room. They just dropped a dead 13-year-old girl off at the emergency room. And now they're like, what the hell is going on? And we don't know who they is, right?

Like we don't know who dropped her off. Nobody knows who they are. Nobody knows. And she's at the medical examiner's office right now to do an autopsy, but we probably won't find out a lot for a little while. I think they, on the news tonight, I think they said they did the autopsy, but they didn't release anything yet. Yeah.

I mean, who knows? I want to fucking know. But that's like a bonkers thing. So when we find out any updates, we'll let you guys know. But I just wanted to share that one because that was a crazy bit of true crime news that's happening in our state. So after we let you guys know that happy news, let's go into our case for today, shall we? This week we're going to be talking about we are going to be talking about the rape and murder of Angela, Angie, Somoda. Now, I know this sounds like it's going to be a super bummer, and it is.

Obviously. But there's like a little bit of like a silver lining at the end that might give you a little bit of like a boost. Because I know Jasmine and Jeremy was real rough. Israel Keys was real rough. Rough as fun. Wasn't a lot of levity at the end, especially Jasmine's sentence. It was like made everybody angry and it made us angry. So we figured we wanted to pick a case that at least had some little like glimmer.

of hope at the end for you. Alimmer of hope for humanity. Yeah. So without further ado, let's talk about the murder of Angie Samota. So Angela Angie, which is what she liked to be called by her friends, Samota was born in 1964 in Pennsylvania.

She was raised by a single mother. She had a pretty typical childhood. She was, she decided she wanted to attend Southern Methodist University after high school. And that is where she, She met her roommate, Sheila Wysaki. Is that how I say that?

Cool. So, yeah, they met during freshman year of college at the Southern Methodist University in Texas. So at first they weren't best friends because the first semester that they were paired as roommates, Sheila remembered that they, like, didn't really get along because Angie had a boyfriend that Sheila wasn't really a fan of. But once Angie broke up with the boyfriend, her and Sheila became like so much closer. They were like opposites in pretty much every way, but they bonded over the fact that they both grew up without the father in their life. Well, their father is in their lives. The father.

The heavenly father. You know, Jesus Christ. That father. I'm just kidding. Sheila struggled with dyslexia and she was like really just hoping to make it through college where Angie was. I mean, I fucking dropped out. where Angela was very academically focused, and she used to pull like all-nighters studying. Sheila remembers that Angela was the life of the party, and people loved her.

She was beautiful and bubbly. She was the social chairman of her sorority. Chairman. Chairman. Chairwoman. And actually, this is kind of weird because in one source, I found that she was a psych major, but then in another source, I found out that she was studying computer science and electrical engineering. So Sheila was the psych major.

Oh, okay. And so I read it too fast. Angela was getting a degree in computer science and mechanical engineering. Bad bitch alert. Oh, yeah. Because that was not common for women to go into that field back then. So already, Angela is a bad bitch. She's a boss bitch.

She had a boyfriend at the time. Angela did named Ben McCall. Is that the one that Sheila didn't like? No, this is the one that at the time of her murder, unfortunately. Ben McCall was a construction worker. He was a little older than her. You know, so that kind of made Angela want to, she wanted to be a little more independent, not live in the dorms anymore because she was dating an older guy and she started to feel like she was moving forward. Right. So that's when her and Sheila kind of like broke apart as roommates, but they remained really close. Okay. And Angela ended up getting an off campus condo. Wow, that's pretty dope. Which like good for her. And her boyfriend, Bend, was at actually a construction site manager. So he was actually like super important in his job. I think they make like bank.

Who knows? I don't know. Construction workers make pretty good money. Either way. He was an important dude. For realzy. So we're going to skip right to the night of October 12th, 1984. There was a huge game that day between University of Texas and University of Oklahoma.

Big game, big deal. It was actually called the Red River Showdown. Friday Night Lights. That's exactly. it. I'm saying Friday night lights. I miss that shit. I miss that shit so hard. You miss that shit? What shit? Friday night lights. What does that mean? Going to the football games on Friday nights. Yeah, me too. Okay. So much.

Fuck you. You're a dick. You're such an ass. We had very different high school experiences. We say this all the time. I went to football games. It was fun. I did not. I didn't know what the fuck was happening. The one year that I was a cheerleader, I fucking would be like, what are we on? defense. Did you guys hear that? Ash was a football cheerleader in high school. So either way, big huge game. You know, they're in the south. These are huge football places. So at the same time, now that's a big enough deal to begin with. Tons of people come in from that from out of state, all that good stuff, huge draw. The same day, the same weekend, there was also the state fair of Texas, which is an annual state fair held in Dallas. And it's one of the most highly

attended state fairs in the country. Oh, carnivals are never good for murders. Yeah, no, it's no good. And it can bring something like two million people at a time. Holy shit. Yeah. So that was going on and also the football game. So it was just like bonkers in this area.

Angela was going out that weekend because she wasn't going to miss all this, but Sheila did not. It's us. I was going to say it's kind of us. But so she was going out with a girlfriend named Anita Kadala, I believe it's pronounced. And then also a guy named Russell Buchanan. Russell Buchanan was a dude that Angela had actually met before at a bar. And Russell was already graduated with a degree in architecture. He was 23 and he was getting ready to start grad school and become like a full-fledged architect.

Like he was on like a really successful path. I think the two of them had planned to like go out to lunch at one point. And then I think she was like dating her boyfriend. So she was like, yeah, no, we're not going to do that. Right. But then she called him. like, do you want to come out with us? Okay. Her boyfriend, Ben, did not come out with them that night, but knew that Russell was coming was fine. Like, it wasn't some, like, salacious thing or anything.

And the only reason he didn't come out was because he's a construction worker and he had to wake up super early. So he was like, yeah, I'm not going bar hopping. It's not happening. He was like, I'm an adult. But at the same time, he was like, have fun, though. Love that. Bye. Support your fucking person. Exactly. Let them do what they want. I mean, within reason. Yeah. So the gang went bar hopping for much of the night. According to Russell, they ended up at Lakewood's Boardwalk Beach Club, which is now called Mi Kosina.

Yes. That's a fun name. Right? Mi Kosina. He said it was like a big, huge crowd in there. It was a lot of fun. He said, after that they headed over to Shannon Wins' Nostromo restaurant on Travis. which I don't know where this is.

I'm like, cool. People who are familiar with the area. And that's where Angie actually got them into an upstairs club called the Rio room. Yeah, she did. She got in, I mean, basically Russell said, quote, she was going from table to table talking to people. She literally knew everyone. Oh.

So she was, she was just like a friendly, like life of the party. Yeah. And she was what everyone said she was. She was just life of the party, bubbly, friendly, everyone liked her. So they had drinks, they danced at the Rio room, all until about 1 a.m. Nothing good happens after midnight. No, but they were all just being good people, though. That's good.

It's 1 a.m. All right, we did our thing. Let's go home. Yeah. So Angela dropped Russell off at his house on Matilda Street, which was about five minutes from her condo on Amesbury Drive. Oh, that's weird. Oh, shit.

That's happened in Amesbury, Massachusetts. That's really weird. Yeah, that was a weird connection. The case I mentioned in the beginning happened in Amesbury, Massachusetts. That's just a weird little coincidence. That is weird. So she dropped Russell off at his place. Again, he lived about five minutes away from her condo.

She then dropped Anita off at her place. And then she decided to just stop by her boyfriend Ben's place, which was a full half hour away just to say good night. Oh. And he said, and according to Ben, he said, like, we stood in the doorway. We said our good nights. And then she went home. Like, she just wanted to stop and say good night to me. Oh, that's horrible.

So then she went home to go to sleep. Yeah. Now, shortly after she left her boyfriend at around 1.45 a.m., he got a phone call from her phone, from her condo. No. And she was basically saying, like, coded things to him. But he had just been woken up so he wasn't understanding. Like, he was like, wait, what are you trying to tell me right now?

So she finally said, I need you to just talk to me. Just talk to me. And he was like, what is going? on right now. She said, I need you to talk to me. I'm freaked out. And she told him a dude knocked on her door and asked if he could come in to use the bathroom and the phone. So she said she was really scared and she thought if she had hung out on the phone with him, that she would be safe. And he was like, what is going on? Like, are you kidding me? So he started asking questions like, who the fuck is this guy? How do you know? Like, what's going on? Are you okay? Right. And she can't

answer any of this because out of nowhere the call got disconnected. Oh my god, no. So he freaks out the poor guy. He calls her back but gets nothing. So he's freaking out. He drives to her place, like jumps in his car and drives to her place. What a good boyfriend. He

uses his car phone, which is crazy for this era, because it's in the 80s. But he was a construction site manager so he happened to have a truck equipped with like a huge car phone. Like Zach Morris. Yeah, I wanted to say Zach Efron. Like Zach Ephron.

But he uses it the whole way there to call her over and over and over. He gets to her place. He knocks. He calls her name, but no one's coming out and no one's answering. Oh my God. This is gut-wrenching. So he calls the police from his truck.

This was before 911 was like widely used as the... Like established. So he had to call information to call the police. Damn. Now, police show up at the apartment right away. Oh. One of the investigators was a 20-year-old, female rookie cop.

Jesus. Senior Corporal Janice Crouther, I think her name was. Uh-huh. She said as soon as she came to that condo, she said she just knew something was off. She had a feeling. She had a feeling. She said there was dread in the air. Contacted the condo manager to unlock the door because they still weren't getting any answer.

At 2.17 a.m., they entered the apartment, and they found Angela naked on her bed, lying next to a giant stuffed bunny. Oh my God. And with her eyes wide open. Oh. She had been brutally raped and stabbed 18 times. Oh my God. Yes.

One of the things that I believe that same rookie detective said was that she had like brilliant blue eyes. And she said, I just remember her eyes because they were wide open. That's like I hate that. I hate that. I think of my mind. Now, the medical examiner said the fatal wound was to her heart. And this wound to her heart was so brutal, in fact, that the heart was actually stabbed entirely outside of its cavity.

So it, like, jolted it? Basically, it was pulled out of her chest. What? Detective Krauther said, quote, we found Angela lying on her bed with her heart basically cut out. It was lying on top of her chest. Oh my God. Yeah. So he like pulled it out with the knife?

He must have just brutally. I mean, she must have just been demolished and he just yanked it out. Yeah. This dude is a monster. And this all happened like literally right when she got home. Yeah. I mean, this was a very short period of time that this happened. In fact, and I'll go over it in a second, they think that it might have happened while her boyfriend was outside.

I know. It's terrible. It's like really bad. I don't even have words for that. I know. This is definitely brutal. And if I was him, I wouldn't want to fucking know that. No, I wouldn't want to know that at all.

I mean, even with it being in the mid, early 80s, they were able to get some samples collected of blood and semen and scrapings from under fingernails. They couldn't do a lot with them, but they got them. Yeah. And it ended up being great later. Exactly. At the time, they weren't able to do a whole ton with them. it, but it does end up being a huge help later. So when they did test the samples that they could test, it was discovered that they were working with a non-secreter. This means that the fluids

belong to an individual who does not leave the antigens that distinguish their particular blood type in any of their fluids. Interesting. Yeah. So their semen won't give you their blood type because the antigens are not present. So they just have like dickhead semen too. Pretty much. Dickhead and then their team is a dickhead too. Exactly. Awesome. Yeah. So immediately this, they immediately had some suspects that they wanted to work right off the bat. Was her boyfriend, one of them. The guy she was out with that night, Russell Buchanan became a suspect right away. Yeah. I just think of Tom Buchanan. He is five minutes away. I know right. I picture him with like a mustache. Me too. I keep thinking about it. Her ex-boyfriend who Sheila hated. Yeah. He had cut up her clothing in a rage once and threatened her with a knife when they broke up.

Wow. So the police. least were like, he looks good. He probably did it. Yeah, they were like, that might be, right? People are fucked. They also looked at her current boyfriend, Ben, unfortunately. Meanwhile, he was, like, distraught as all hell. Well, luckily, Ben and the ex-boyfriend were found to be secreters.

Oh, okay. So they didn't do it. So they were cleared pretty quickly because you don't fluctuate between being a secretor and a non-screter. That's a really, you are one of the other. This left Russell Buchanan. Mm. He lived five minutes away.

He was out with them that night. And he was a non-secreter. Oh, no. So mind you, about 80% of the world population are secretors. Can we stop? Can we come up with a different word? I don't think secretor is bad. It is.

Secreter. Could you not? I don't like it. I don't like it. I kind of love it. It'd be a good band name though. It would. The secreters?

No, just like non-secreter. Ew. That'd be great. I just, I hate, I don't know why I don't like it. Well, get used to it, man, because it's part of this. Like I said, about 80% of the world population are secreters. So he is part of the approximately 20% of the world that isn't.

Which by comparison, that's a small percentage. And you live five minutes away. Yeah, and with everything else, you're like, uh-oh, Russell. Yikesies. So when they went to interview Russell, Monday night around 6 p.m. was when they did this. And he was still in his suit from working his first job, which was like an internship with HKS Architects.

Okay. In a downtown Dallas, I believe. They claimed he was acting kind of strange because he was, they were like, he, he was claiming he had no idea that, that Angela was dead. And this was after we had, it had already been all over the news for like a day or two. So they were like, that's weird. Like, why are you being like, what? And you live like five minutes away from her and you're like kind of friends with her.

Well, he claimed early the morning after they went out, he said he was. went immediately to his friend's wedding the next morning. Oh. And then went immediately to his family in Houston to visit, which was already a pre-dearned planned visit. Okay. And he was like, I literally didn't stop that I went to Houston to visit my family right after. And then he went straight home Sunday night and he did a ton of work for grad school

and said he never even peaked at the news. Mind you, this is before smartphones. So it was believable. And it's kind of believable to me only. because, and I wrote this down because I was just thinking about it, I was like, sometimes I'll ask Ash her opinion on a new story. And she hasn't seen it, and this is in the age of smart cell phone.

I am a busy person. But that's what I'm saying. So it, yeah, it's believable. I can't completely be like, well, that's bullshit. Nobody would. I'm like, you know what? The whole time I was about to say that, but I tend to like circulate things back to myself too much,

so I decided not to. I just thought. Thanks for doing it for me. Yeah, you're welcome. So he never called a lawyer while they were talking to him because he was trying to remain chill. Yeah. And they searched his apartment. And this is kind of a funny aside. He said the apartment was filled with a bunch of knives and old spears because his roommate had just returned from a two-week African safari.

Shut the fuck up. And he was like considering how Angela was killed, this was a really bad look for me. Oh, no. Spears around my fucking house. They gave him a polygraph. He passed it. Okay. They were still hanging on him being the guy, though, because they were like, it's just too much just pointing to him.

Too convenient. So they put him on surveillance. Now, for the next six months, they would bring him in periodically just to question him again. And they would give him more, like, polygraph tests. They were trying to catch inconsistencies in his stories. Nothing was changing. He was telling the same story over and over again. Right, because it's like what happened.

Eventually he was forced to get a lawyer because they were claiming his polygraph was actually inconclusive now in that he didn't pass. Oh. So he could kind of see like where this was going. They're going to try to charge me no matter what. So I need help. So he did get a lawyer because actually it was his parents who were like get a lawyer to like. And at one point he said they unexpectedly held up graphic crime scene photos of Angela's body

and demanded he confess. And he was like it was horrific. I will never get overseeing those. Yeah, that's so sad. Because again, remember, she was stabbed 18 times. She was lying naked on a bed next to a stuffed bunny with her heart outside of her chest. That's what they showed him. Thank you.

You're welcome. So now Russell has a problem because he was accepted to grad school in London. But he can't leave. And he planned to go. Oh, that's shitty. Well, so the police are now freaking out because they can't stop him from going because they haven't charged him with anything. Oh, shit. So he's leaving the country.

Like that's bad. I just feel like he didn't do it though. I don't know. Let's see. All right. So now they're desperate and they interview Angela's friends and family and they're trying to get more information about Russell, who he is, anybody who he knows him.

They speak to Sheila. Okay. Shella, the BFF. The BFF from freshman year who was the psych major and didn't drink and didn't party. Elena. Me. So Sheila, Sheila was a badass from the jump because they, They ask her if she feels, they basically tell her the whole story about Russell and how they feel.

And then they ask her if she feels comfortable going to dinner with Russell wired. And she's like, fuck yeah, I do. And they basically are like, we need you to try to get him to confess. So now before they did this, like I said, they told her he failed his polygraph and they implied that he intentionally fled the area after the crime that weekend. Oh, so they like convinced her that he did it. So basically they, she said, she said, I thought I was going to dinner with the murderer. Jesus. With somebody who murdered my best friend.

Right. Like that's bonkers. Damn, how do you act natural? So this whole thing was unsuccessful for the police because his story didn't change. Right. Like she asked him about it. She brought it up. Story stayed the same.

He was like, it's awful. I don't know what to tell you. So he left for grad school in London. Yep. Case went cold. Shit. So Russell finished grad school. He interned in shit, then moved back to Dallas, and he started a very successful architecture career.

Okay. He married his wife, Karen, in the early 1990s. Aw. He said he mentioned to her about what had happened in his, you know, that he was like, by the way. Sheila Wysaki also moved on, but she was also not ready to give up on this whole thing. Because that was her best friend. Because she, like, Sheila left college immediately after this. She said she couldn't handle it.

I couldn't stay there. Not only was she just absolutely traumatized by losing her best friend and former roommate, but she said she was just scared. She didn't feel safe anywhere. That person, she said as far as I knew, if it wasn't Russell, which we still didn't know if it was Russell, this person could be walking around. Right. And I was like I could know them.

I was best friends with her. Exactly. I wouldn't get the fuck out of there too. Yeah. Now, Sheila moved to Nashville. She became a mom to two sons. but she became really, really frustrated that there was no justice for Angela. Yeah.

She said, quote, I did not like the fact that Russell got to be this big deal architect and lived his life when he had taken the life of my roommate. That bothered me. Oh. So she's convinced it's Russell. Okay. So she said one day, so she like fixated on this case, but she just didn't feel like she could do anything about it.

So one day in 2004, she said she was sitting there. studying for Bible classes. And Angela just appeared to her. Okay. And she said, I know it sounds crazy. I know it sounds ridiculous. It wasn't a hallucination or a voice or a feeling. She said, Angela was standing at the end of my bed.

Wow. I believe that shit, though. And she said she was terrified. Yeah, duh. But she said, I also knew exactly what I had to do. Wow. Like she was like she was telling me. that I needed to fight this because the person was fucking walking around.

Angela was telling Sheila like this person is out there and this person can get caught. Yeah. To make it happen. So she was like, all right, I got to do this. So she started obsessively calling the Dallas police to try to get someone to reopen the case. They all were telling her, no, it's, you know, some cases can't be fixed. It can't be solved. It's just the way it is.

We're sorry. We did everything we can. we're not going to reopen it. And Shaila was like, yeah, fuck that. Within one year, she called over 750 times about reopening the case. Yes, she did. I would do that for my best friend. Right?

And some of Angela's friends and former sorority sisters also started calling too to back her up. Good. Now, Sheila said she even set up a, quote, war room in her house where she would just pour over evidence. Like, I bet she had like a big wall with like the red string like going everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, that's how I picture it, at least. And she just wasn't going to give this up. So at one time, Sheila's husband commented to her while she was in the midst of obsessing over the case.

She came up with some connection that it was, she said it wasn't like a meaningful one, but it was something. And her husband was like, man, you would make a great private investigator. And he just said it like, yeah, you just be, that's something you would be great at. So she was like, huh, I'll do that. I'm going to do that. Yes. And she literally got her private investigator's license to try to get access to the evidence that was in storage for Angela's murder. So she could go through it all.

Crazy. So she said, and she said, quote, the FBI has nothing on a worried mother. Oh, my God. Yes. And to get this license, she had to take, like, a test, obviously. And she had her sons, like, quizzing her every night. Like, she was really intense about it. And now while she was trying to get.

Angela's case reopened as a private investigator. Right. Because she figured as a private citizen, they're not listening to me. If I'm a private investigator, maybe they will take me slightly more seriously. So in the meantime, she started taking on cases, like private investigation cases for neighbors and people. To like build her portfolio. Like cheating scandals and all this shit. She said something I read said like we had to stop going to cocktail parties because I was sitting

next to people who I was like investigating their husband. Oh my God. And she's like, it just got a little weird. I had to like break myself. Wow, this would make a really good Netflix show. It really would. So finally, she says, in 2006, the Dallas police finally talked to her seriously. And they did this because they had put a woman detective, Detective Linda Crum, in the lead role for this case.

And they reopened it. Because they finally took her fucking seriously. Because Linda Crum was like, I'm really. Detective Linda Crum was like, I'm going to reopen this for you. Yes. So it was like, I kind of loved that it was like two women being like, fuck this, we're going to solve it. And they were, so at first she was like, we're going to reopen this. I don't know how much we're going to have here.

We're going to do what we can. Right. But she found out that the evidence in storage did contain enough material for modern DNA testing. Which is so fucking annoying because it's like if it did, why couldn't it have been opened like way long ago? Oh yeah. It definitely could have done it. They were just like, sorry. Yeah, they were just sitting there being like, we don't know where to start here.

Somewhere. In 2008, so that was in 2006 that they reopened it. Right. In 2008, they got a hit. Oh. And Linda Crum called Sheila and said, quote, we got him. Yes. So Sheila says, quote, the next words I expected to hear were Russell Buchanan.

But that's not what she said. She named this guy Donald Andrew Bess. I could feel my world turning upside down. For 23 years in my mind, Russell Buchanan was the murderer. And in one split second, everything I thought I knew was no longer correct. I had made it my life goal to get this man behind bars and suddenly I felt so guilty. Oh. Now that's why Angela appeared in front of her though.

She was like, no. Because she was like, you're going in the wrong direction. Yeah. You've got to reopen this. Because something is showing that it's not him. Right. If you just reopen it, it's going to prove that he didn't do it. Oh, my God.

So I know it, isn't it? I have goosebumps. That's like chilly, willy, spooky, wooky. It's like an episode of ghost. It is a fucking love that show. Of ghost? Yeah. What was that show?

With Jennifer Love Hewitt. Ghost whisper. Yeah. Whatever. Just straight up ghost. Ghost whisper. You know that show, ghost. You know that movie?

That is a good movie. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean the show. Yeah. I feel you. Thank you. You know, Russell was also pretty stunned at this news because he was like, thank you.

I can finally live my fucking life to the fullest. I've been trying to scream it from the rooftops. He got a phone call from the police. They actually, he called, he actually, I think it was his wife who picked up the phone, but they got him back. And a sergeant with the Dallas Police Department said, hey, we caught Angela Samota's killer and it wasn't you. Is that what they said?

And he was like, hey, told you so. Yeah. Now, so, and actually, Russell says that the sergeant did officially apologize. Oh, that's good. He said, quote, I'm looking through your file. And boy, Mr. Buchanan, you went through quite an ordeal. That's nice that they recognized that. And he says at this time, he holds no bitterness for the Dallas police.

Wow. He said, quote, it wasn't their fault. If that was your daughter that had been killed, wouldn't you want the police department to use whatever means necessary to find the truth? I would. As far as I'm concerned, the Dallas Police Department does not owe me an apology. They never did. I'm grateful for the work and the service they did.

That's it. Period. Wow. Like, he sounds like a really good guy. He does. He does. He does. Like, shit.

You spent so long just like being dodging fucking murder claims. As this brutal rapist and murderer and you're just like this good guy that's like, yeah, I get it, guys. Also, like, check out my box houses. Yeah, look at my boxy houses. They're great. So, let's talk about Donald Andrew Bess. Oh, yeah. The fucking monster who did this.

At this point in time, he was about 60 years old. Oh, wow. He was about 350, now 60 years old when they found out that he was the killer. Yeah. He was about 350 pounds. Wow. Which is much bigger than Angela. Yeah.

he was twice convicted of rape. How the fuck did he get out again? At the time that they found out that he was the killer, he was serving a life sentence in a state prison in Huntsville. For rape? For two rapes. Now, the police theorized that he was, because he was out on parole in 1984.

Oh, my God. They said, they said he must have become like obsessed and fixated on Angela after seeing her at the bar. Oh, no. And her friends do say, like, she constantly had, like, because she was a beautiful girl.

Right. Very vivacious, very perky, you know, life of the party, like we were saying. So she had a lot of dudes that would end up, like, kind of becoming, like, annoying her. Yeah, like becoming fixated on her. Right. So police think that Donald Andrew Bess followed her home that night. And they think he probably,

probably began stabbing her with a kitchen knife to silence her when Ben knocked on the door. Oh, my God. He may have finished the whole thing while Ben was calling the police from his truck. No, no, no, no, no. Which that theory hurts me to my soul. I don't want that to be the theory. I truly, truly hope that is not what happened. Well, don't you think that it kind of wouldn't be because she'd be screaming if she was getting stabbed?

I mean, maybe. Not necessarily. Well, I'm going to tell myself that. If you hit somebody in like the windpipe or something like that, they're not going to get the sound out. No, I think she was screaming. I don't think that's what happened. And I mean, I hope that, again, there's no good scenario here, but that is a really, really dark

scenario. But then it's also like they were together. Oh, I know. This is really hurting my whole. And I don't have a lot of update on Ben and I wish I did, but I hope Ben's doing okay. Oh my God, me too. Because how the fuck do you ever do okay after that? I really hope that Ben is doing okay.

they didn't tell him this theory. Like, yeah, man, I think that, uh, oh, well, Donald Bess's capital murder trial began in June 2010. And Russell Buchanan testified against him. Yes. Yeah, good for him. Wow. Yeah. So, uh, and again, at the time, so in the, in the, at the time when he killed Angela,

he was out on parole for aggravated rape and aggravated kidnapping. Jeez. And he raped another woman. after or before, it must have been after he killed Angela, and that's when he was sentenced to life in prison. Because they caught him for that one. Exactly. So, yeah, so basically this fucker got away with murdering Angela,

but then was put in prison for life for aggravated rape and kidnapping for violating his parole. Wow. Yeah. And he was already in prison for two rapes. So this guy is a literal monster. He's just a monster. So when they try to make him,

again for Angela. He was found guilty and later sentenced to death for her murder. The jury deliberated for less than an hour. Good. He currently remains on death row. Ugh. But the case was on appeal and there's no execution date that

has been set yet. Why was it being appealed? Well, he gets his appeals. You always get appeals with the death penalty. In summer 2010 while the trial was going on, Sheila said that she and her oldest son drove 600 50 miles from Nashville, the Dallas for the trial.

Wow. And she said she just wouldn't miss it. She was like, I had to be there. And she's like, I knew. She's like, Angela came to me for a reason. I had to go and see this through. She said she wasn't there for the sentence of death sentencing because she was like, I didn't need to see that.

I'm fine. No. I know he did it. So Donald Best did appeal his death sentence in 2016, but he lost the appeal. Good. Fuck him. Yeah, he won't get any appeals like through. So Russell Buchanan now, like we said, he's a celebrated architect.

He has super boxy contemporary homes that he is like known for. Yes, Russell. But they're beautiful. They're like modern contemporary kind of thing. Cool. He's won a ton of prestigious awards. He fucking deserves it after all that. Right?

He's been an architectural digest. He also designs furniture and is an artist. And he has, he is in a permanent collection at the Dallas Museum of Art. Shit. So he's killing it. Killing it. And honestly, yeah, like, he's owed a good hand in life. Yeah.

In February of, I think, last year, Russell actually met with Sheila again. No way. Because the two of them came to Dallas to film an interview for an NBC Dateline show about the case. I fucking love Dateline. Don't we all? Was our friend on it? Keith Morrison. Keith Morrison?

To his voice. Hold on. I had to get back. I was going to, like, jump into his soul. Russell and... Russell and Sheila met for lunch. So they meet again. Tricky, tricky.

I feel like he just says that. He does. He does. And so does... The guy from Homicide Hunter says that a lot, too, I think. Yeah. They have a similar vibe. But, yeah, so Keith Morrison might have been there. I don't know. I bet he was. And Sheila... told him and his wife when they met,

Keith, I need your forgiveness. She said that to Russell. Oh. And she said she was like, I have to explain to you. Because Russell was like, what now? Because like, I don't think he knew. Because he probably had no idea. Yeah.

And so she explained to him everything she had done to basically try to convict him. Oh my God. That must have been wild for him to be like, oh, when you were at dinner, you were fucking wired. What now? And she was like, oh yeah, I spent decades trying to get you like charged for this. Wow. She was like, I was convinced it was you.

And he said, quote, you were just doing what you thought was right for your friend. Wow. Are there more like him in the world? Russell. Where are they? Holy hell, Russell, do you have a brother? Russell's great. He's young.

So in the meantime, Sheila has founded a nonprofit group called Without Warning, Fight Back. And it's to educate women about rape prevention and self-defense. her and Russell still have a very close friendship Oh, I love that. And she said she initially intended to retire once she saw, once she freaking solved her best friend's murder. Yes. But then she started receiving tons of letters from people that were like just desperate for her help.

Like they wanted information about loved ones deaths, you know, all kinds of stuff. Like just people being like, you need to help me. I know you can do this. So she said she just kept going with it. I love this. Yeah, and she's like, I just, I want to help people. So she now has her own firm called Without Warning Private Investigation. Wow.

She's currently back in Dallas and working on a 2014 case in which a 27-year-old man died from being shot in the chest. And his family just wants answers. So they asked her for help. And that's what she's working on currently. This is a glow up for Sheila. Yeah. So this one, you know, has like a happy-ish ending. It has a nice, like, feel at the end.

Like, you feel like... It's like a light at the end of the tunnel because, like, it, like, was really sad, but something good happened from it. Exactly. A couple of good things happened from it. Yeah. Because, like, Russell's a successful architect now. We found out that Russell's a super forgiving human being who's wonderful. Sheila is this badass, like, persevering human who... excited to become a private investigator, which is obviously her calling in life.

Clearly. She can credit that to Angela, like, appearing to her, which must be comforting. I mean, the dude is Donald Best is behind bars forever and is going to die. What a shit bag. A fat shit behind bars. So that's great. Win, win, win, win. So, yeah, we hope you guys enjoyed that one.

It was a little fluffier. Yeah, we need a, I mean, not all fluffy. There's definitely some real dark shit in there, but we left you with the fluff. Yeah. Enjoy the fluff another. Be sure to check out our other episode that will be coming out this week. It's going to be an Elena Solo mini-ish morbid. It's never going to be a mini morbid with you, M. Girl.

I'm not going to tell you guys what it's about, so just hang on to your butts. And don't miss me too much. Don't miss Ash too much, because next week we're right back to our regular. scheduled programming. Thank you. So, before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming, you could follow us on Instagram at Morbid Podcast. Follow us on Twitter.

A Morbid Podcast. Send us an email. Morvidpodcast.com. Join the Facebook group. It's fucking awesome. Morbid, colon, a true crime podcast. Check out the lovely website that my lovely co-host so greatly designed. Woo! Morbidpodcast.com minus the woo. Donate to our Patreon if you feel so inclined. Patreon. slash morbid podcast. We hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it. Weird.

But not so weird that you're a non-secreting, ripping out the hard person of a mean guy and, no, it's not going to work. It's just not going to work. You gave it a shot. I did. That's pretty weird. It just, it doesn't work. It doesn't with this one. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. See, they're in weird, so. Bye.