[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[officer sniffs, sighs]
[Matt] It's a secluded area.
♪ ♪
We didn't know if maybe they got lost.
They're out there in the dark.
♪ ♪
[Matt] The victim, I didn't know her name.
I didn't know anything about her.
That is different than most cases.
- It's telling me that she's more likely
trying to run, rather than walk away.
- Where does he permanently live, your son?
- She wanted to tell the truth
but also wanted to protect her son.
[person] It's not looking like it's from the wreck.
- She had blunt force injuries all up and down her body.
♪ ♪
[narrator] For those most affected by a homicide,
the first 48 is just the beginning.
[Cassandra] She won't get to see her kids graduate
because she's no longer here.
[narrator] This is the story of the fight for justice...
- They say that one of the hardest people to represent
is an innocent man,
and that's probably more true with him than anyone else.
[John] When a defendant testifies,
really everything's on the line.
[narrator] In the weeks, months, and years
after the first 48.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
[line beeps]
[sirens wailing]
[narrator] First responders
find a young woman unconscious.
- She's got a pretty good-sized gash right here in the neck.
[officer] OK. - She's ice cold.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Paramedics try to revive her,
but she doesn't survive.
[indistinct chatter]
[officer] So I guess son,
whose name is Isaias Torres,
showed up here, banging on the door,
hollering for someone to come help him.
[narrator] The homeowner told paramedics his son, Isaias,
ran to his house after he and the woman crashed their car.
[officer] There's a car apparently parked
down in the water down in a ditch.
♪ ♪
- They picked her up, put her in here,
and they brought her to this house.
[narrator] The father said he and Isaias
got into a fistfight, and Isaias ran off.
- OK.
Somebody's going to need to go
with another officer out to this field.
- OK.
♪ ♪
[officer] Everyone told--
There is, in fact, a red Acura in the pond out here.
[officer] 10-4.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
♪ ♪
- Crazy place to end up. - Yeah.
♪ ♪
[Matt] And it looks like he drove right into it.
I was in Crime Scene for about 11 years.
There's a lot of things that I see going into a crime scene
that other people don't see.
♪ ♪
Victim name?
- Dad said they have no clue who she is.
- I knew that she was roughly about late 20s to early 30s.
I didn't know her name.
I didn't know anything about her.
So that in itself is different than most cases.
♪ ♪
- It's very key to get the victim identified
as quickly as possible, because the main reason is,
you got to notify the family.
They're missing their loved ones.
And they can kind of tell you what happened.
- So, basically, Isaiah runs to the house and gets Dad,
and then Dad comes over here to help?
OK. And Isaiah walks off.
[Max] All we really knew is, he arrived with the victim,
and something had happened prior to them arriving.
- He was definitely someone that we wanted to talk to.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Patrol is searching the area
for 28-year-old Isaias Torres...
[officer] So Dad comes out here with the truck,
and they take her back to the house.
That's when Fire gets called.
[Matt] Let me call Mark and see if he can bring Dad out here,
and he can show us exactly where she was at.
[narrator] As Farrell reaches out to Detective Kennedy...
♪ ♪
- OK, I appreciate your patience.
[narrator] Ryden speaks with Isaias's mother,
who called 911.
- A lot of unknowns at that point.
I needed to get a good rapport with her
and get as much information as I could from her
and where his whereabouts might be.
You said on the way down here
that you let him borrow your car.
[narrator] She says Isaias used the car a few days ago
to look for a new job.
- So what happened to your car?
♪ ♪
- OK.
So what time did you get called this morning?
- So was it your ex-husband that called you?
The mom,
you have to kind of put yourself in their shoes.
I'm a parent, so you got to treat them with respect
and understand they're going through a lot.
What was he telling you was going on?
[narrator] She says Isaias was sitting next to the victim.
[Max] OK.
- I didn't want to tell her that the victim was deceased.
That would definitely shut her down quicker.
♪ ♪
[Max] Did you notice any signs of trauma?
- OK.
So you call 911. Then what happened?
Does your son help you?
♪ ♪
- Do you know the status
of the girl that was in the truck that you helped out?
OK. Basically, she's passed away.
♪ ♪
So now you know how big this is.
When I told the mom that the victim had passed away,
I think she was in shock.
But all I really wanted to get from her was the truth.
Where does he permanently live, your son?
- Throughout the interview, it kept hitting her more and more.
♪ ♪
Isaias had fled the scene,
which is a big indicator that something's going on.
She wanted to tell the truth
but also wanted to protect her son.
And maybe she was less cooperative towards the end
because of that.
Here's what I think is going to happen.
Eventually, he's gonna wander back into your life, somehow.
And then that's when I want you to call my cell phone.
It's on the back.
And we'll get his side of the story.
♪ ♪
[narrator] One hour in,
about 200 yards from the scene of the car wreck...
[detective] This is lovers' lane back here.
[Matt] Isaias's dad
said that he would be willing to come out there
and show us the field
where he thought she was at when he found her
after the car wrecked into the pond.
- Back in there?
♪ ♪
- We didn't know if maybe they got lost.
They're out there in the dark.
♪ ♪
- We'd found a large pool of blood in some grass.
♪ ♪
Yeah, that looks pretty fresh.
- It's still unclear if the injuries,
the blood was from the crash.
♪ ♪
- We had to consider, did she die from this car wreck,
or did she die from some other reason?
There's a lot of questions
that need to be answered at this point.
[Matt] Yeah.
We're going to have to get him downtown
and get a statement from him.
There's more to this story.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Back at headquarters...
[cell phone rings]
[Matt] Hey.
[narrator] The medical examiner's office calls in.
[person] I mean, she's got contusions.
It's not looking like it's from the wreck.
[Matt] It's not looking like it's from a wreck.
[person] No.
She's got those.
And then she's got the two sharp forks on her neck.
- We became more aware that she had multiple lacerations
on both sides of her neck.
[person] One is longer than it's deep.
The other is deeper than it is long.
- OK. Thank you.
[person] Bye.
- She's got blunt force trauma,
as well as some stab wound,
laceration to the neck.
[Kennedy] That car just looks like it slid off into--
[Matt] Yeah, it's not like a violent crash.
[Kennedy] So I wonder if they fell into the pond.
They got out. She's pissed. She's mouthing off.
He got mad at her and freakin' they got disoriented,
walking the wrong direction.
[Matt] That's what I'm thinking.
At that point, given her injuries,
having the bloodstain 200 yards away
and the clothing...
♪ ♪
It's telling me that she's more likely trying to run
rather than trying to walk away.
♪ ♪
At that point, we became more aware
that this is probably going to be a homicide investigation.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[Matt] This is our suspect, Isaias.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Isaias Torres has prior convictions,
including domestic assault and battery,
attempted robbery, and malicious injury to property.
He works in construction and has a seven-year-old daughter
from a previous relationship.
- It is very unusual to have a suspect named in a case
prior to knowing who your victim is.
[indistinct chatter]
[narrator] 2 1/2 hours into the investigation,
Isaias's father agrees to speak with detectives again.
[Matt] The biggest question that I had was,
who she is, our victim,
and we're trying to figure out the details
as to what happened that night.
So I was hoping that I was going to learn more.
What time did he show up over there at your house
when he woke you up?
OK.
[Matt] Have you ever seen her before?
[Matt] Isaias's dad telling us that the victim
was named Monica,
that was a big help for us.
We just didn't know her last name.
Have you noticed any blood or anything around her
at this time?
- That concerned me, because at that point,
instead of getting help, he's fighting his son.
What did he say about what happened?
♪ ♪
- At what point did you realize
that maybe it's more than her just being drunk?
[Matt] OK.
♪ ♪
- He's obviously concerned because it's his son.
I can understand that.
At the same time, you know, we have this girl that's died.
I think that's why Isaias fled the scene.
♪ ♪
What made him walk away?
♪ ♪
- Mom lived 10, 15 miles away.
And so, for her to come all that way
and see that, oh, she's not breathing,
it's unfortunate that the other two didn't do that.
We're in the process of looking for him.
Where does he live at?
[Matt] I think Isaias's dad did realize
how serious it was at that point.
- [sighs]
- I think it finally clicked.
♪ ♪
[Matt] No, that's fine. We understand.
That's tough. It's your kid.
♪ ♪
I was hoping that maybe the kid told him,
hey, this is what happened.
But he didn't divulge any of that.
[Matt] The son was saying, Monica.
[detective] OK.
Well, that's a lead. Good.
- You know, we're doing our own research,
trying to figure out who she is.
These are all in the database,
as far as, you know, her tattoos.
We need to find this guy.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Six hours in...
♪ ♪
[Matt] The unfortunate thing is,
nobody seems to know who he hangs out with
or who he would call.
Me and Detective Kennedy have been out canvassing,
trying to figure out where Isaias would have gone.
It was pretty cold that night,
so we assumed he was probably pretty close by.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Four blocks away
from Isaias's father's house...
[Matt] Let's just go in here
and see if he happened to show up.
First place I'm going to go is the convenience store,
try to call somebody to get help.
♪ ♪
[narrator] While Farrell and Kennedy
speak with the clerk...
[line trilling]
- Hey, this is Detective Ryden.
Priority number one is, find Isaiah.
So I contacted his mom.
Has anybody heard anything from him?
If you hear from him, you let me know,
and I will do the same for you, OK?
When I found out that the suspect
hadn't contacted his mother, it didn't surprise me.
But I was able to identify one of his ex-girlfriends.
[line trilling]
[person] Hello?
- This is Detective Ryden, Tulsa Police.
I'd like to come talk to you in person.
[person] Yeah, sure. That's no problem.
[narrator] She gives Ryden her work address.
- OK, I'm headed your way.
[person] OK.
- How you doing?
♪ ♪
[narrator] The ex-girlfriend tells detectives
she hasn't heard from Isaias
but gives them his current address.
[detective Thank you, ma'am. Have a good one.
[car doors open, car beeping]
♪ ♪
[Max] She was really helpful.
I asked her if he'd ever been violent
towards her in the past,
and she said that there had been issues.
She filed a protective order against him back in the day.
Hopefully we'll find him
at this most recent address in Tulsa.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Back at the convenience store...
- Detective Ryden called me and was like,
you know, I got an address for him.
And it was basically right across from where we were.
♪ ♪
- Matt and I are going to get an eyeball on the apartment
until a better undercover gets over here.
♪ ♪
[Matt] It's this top corner one.
[Kennedy] Right here? [Matt] Yeah.
♪ ♪
- After a suspect has done something to a victim...
I don't think very few act rationally.
You never know what they're going to do.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[narrator] The team enters the apartment
using a key from the manager.
[narrator] But Isaias isn't there.
[Matt] We found fresh blood on the front door.
♪ ♪
We found phones.
- I don't know.
Maybe she had been there, or he took her phone from the scene
and brought it back.
♪ ♪
We found some wet boots
that had mud on the bottom of them.
♪ ♪
- We have probable cause at that point.
♪ ♪
We have enough to arrest him at that time.
♪ ♪
[narrator] 13 hours into the investigation...
- I came across a female
that matched the description of our victim.
[narrator] Sergeant Jeremy Stiles
has a lead on the victim's identity.
- Our victim had a male's name tattooed across her chest,
so I started looking through some of our databases
and city source and came across a female
that had a tattoo with that name,
had a son by that name.
Found an old report that listed an ex-husband,
and I was able to call him and get a phone number.
Called that female's phone number,
and the cell phone that we collected
from the suspect's apartment
started ringing at Matt Farrell's desk.
♪ ♪
Her name is Monica Deleon.
♪ ♪
[narrator] 32-year-old Monica Deleon
was born and raised in Tulsa.
She worked as a certified nursing assistant
in hospitals and assisted-living facilities.
Monica was a mother of three children.
♪ ♪
[Jeremy] Ex-husband let us know that Monica had sisters,
so we're going to want to speak to them.
[Matt] I was able to get a hold of the sister.
Found out an address, so we're going to go up there.
Anytime we have a death, more than likely,
we're going to go in person to notify people.
♪ ♪
You know, it's the right way to do it.
♪ ♪
And she had been assaulted.
[person sobbing] OK?
And she ended up dying this morning.
[sobbing continues]
Death notifications are, to me,
the most difficult part of the job.
It's never easy to go talk to a family member.
But it's something that we have to do.
We've been spending most of all today
looking for the guy that did it.
We know who he is.
We're trying to track him down right now.
[Matt] He's all over the news. That's him.
♪ ♪
I thought it was important to let them know
that we've been working the case
and we're still looking for the guy, but we know who it is.
Once you meet families,
I mean, it helps motivate you
and gives you reason behind what you're doing.
My goal is to figure out where Isaias is, bring him in,
and hopefully he can tell us what happened.
♪ ♪
For several days, we had looked for Isaias.
♪ ♪
We had speculated that the family knew where he was,
and they just weren't going to be too helpful.
And so we basically gave this over
to our Fugitive Warrants Unit.
♪ ♪
[narrator] After five days
of searching for their suspect...
♪ ♪
[Matt] Fugitive Warrants, they got a call
that Isaias was out at his sister's apartment
in East Tulsa.
[officer] Isaias Torres, open the passenger door!
♪ ♪
Isaias Torres, we have a warrant for your arrest!
Open the door!
- When he was found, it was great news.
♪ ♪
[officer] Yeah, we're working on it.
Hey.
[officer 2] We're about to pepper ball the car, man.
Please get out.
♪ ♪
[indistinct shouting]
[officer 3] Get out of the car!
- He hadn't been someone that we thought
was just going to turn himself in at this point,
so they deployed pepper ball into the car.
♪ ♪
[officer] Door's opening. Door's opening. Hands.
[officer 2] Keep those hands where we see them, both hands!
♪ ♪
I got him. I got him.
Isaiah, look at me, brother. Just walk to me.
Walk. Hands up. [officer 3] Keep your hands up.
Hands up. Hands up.
[officer] Keep walking. You're fine.
Hands behind your back.
- Suspect in custody, everybody.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[person sighs]
[soft music]
- And that's Alex and my sister Rosa,
my sister Virginia.
- There's eight of us.
There's five girls, three boys.
And Monica was second to the youngest.
This one up here is Monica when she was a baby.
- These is when she was in pageants.
- She was a very happy-go-lucky type of person.
♪ ♪
- She was outgoing. She was just a free spirit.
♪ ♪
Every time we invited her over to parties,
she would be playing with the kids, laughing and smiling.
♪ ♪
She had a big smile.
- I enjoy the memories that I do have of my sister,
but sometimes it's kind of bittersweet
because she's no longer here.
She won't get to see her kids graduate.
She won't get to have grandkids or anything like that.
♪ ♪
I love all my siblings, and I would never want to think...
[voice breaking] You know. something happened to them.
♪ ♪
It's been hard.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Five days after Monica's death...
♪ ♪
[Matt] What all happened?
- He's saying he can't go to prison, wanted us to kill him,
wanted me to open the door so he could jump into traffic.
♪ ♪
I was like, I can't do that, man.
We don't want to hurt you.
Then I had to remind him
that he has a seven-year-old daughter to live for.
♪ ♪
[Matt] How you doing? I'm Detective Farrell.
This is Detective Kennedy. [Kennedy] How you doing, buddy?
- OK, we're working the homicide
with Monica Deleon.
I was hoping that he would tell me,
you know, his history with Monica
and then, you know, what happened that day,
what caused everything to spiral out of control
the way that it did.
♪ ♪
- I'm just gonna wait for my attorney.
- You're gonna wait for your attorney?
OK.
You're being arrested for first-degree murder, OK?
So you're going to get booked into David L. Moss, all right?
Hang tight.
♪ ♪
Just based off of his background...
I learned that he would snap.
And so I think that's pretty much
what happened in this case.
He's upset that his mom's cars end up in the pond,
and so he takes it out on Monica.
- I was relieved that he was actually caught.
But we needed to make sure that she got justice.
♪ ♪
- There were only two people
that would be witnesses to this--
Monica and Isaias Torres.
And, obviously,
Monica is not going to be able to speak for herself.
And he did exercise, as is his right, to remain silent.
So there's a lot of mystery still at this point.
We knew there was severe blunt force trauma.
We knew she had slices on both sides of her neck.
But we didn't have a murder weapon.
We don't know how or why.
There was still a lot of investigation
that we still need to do.
[narrator] Two weeks after Isaias's arrest...
- The jail records all phone calls from inmates.
And Detective Farrell
had been monitoring Isaias' calls.
♪ ♪
- He knows he's got to explain the cuts to Monica.
And so here he is, trying to tell his mom
about some thin piece of sharp metal inside the car.
He told her that must have been what caused her injuries.
♪ ♪
- You know, they say that one of the hardest people
to represent is an innocent man.
And that's probably more true with Isaias than anyone else.
Isaias eventually told me what actually happened.
They were driving throughout the evening.
She had indicated she wished to drive.
Shortly thereafter, she drove their car into a pond.
♪ ♪
According to Isaias, she was jostled and not responsive.
♪ ♪
And his only reaction is,
I got to get Monica out of here.
He remembered that he had a knife in his car,
and he decided he was going to try to get her
out of the seat belt any way he could,
in this case, by cutting it.
He still could not get her out.
He realizes that somehow he does get her
out of the seat belt,
but he knows it wasn't from cutting the seat belt.
He's able to drag her out, and he needs to leave for help.
This is a situation in which a person didn't mean to act
or cause an actual injury.
- At this point, we didn't have the medical examiner's report
to tell us the full extent of the injuries.
And if the medical examiner wasn't able to determine
the cause and manner of death,
we couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt
whether or not Isaias Torres murdered Monica.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- After listening to the jail calls
and hearing Mr. Torres' explanation,
I think he wanted to try to lay cover
to keep his family on his side.
We believe the injuries didn't happen inside the car
because there was no blood found inside the car.
We knew the medical examiner's report
would really answer a lot of our questions.
♪ ♪
[narrator] 11 months before the trial...
[John] The medical examiner's report came out and concluded
she had bruising and abrasions and blunt force injuries
all up and down her body,
as well as sharp force injuries caused
Monica's death, specifically the slice
to her right jugular artery.
♪ ♪
[Greg] I made an appointment with the medical examiner
so that I could try to figure out a way to corroborate
the story Isaias told me...
because what Isaias was sure of
is that he didn't intentionally cause any harm to Monica.
♪ ♪
[Taylor] Mr. Lavender asked me if it was possible
that these incise wounds could have been caused accidentally
by someone trying to free up a seat belt
that the victim was trapped in.
[Greg] One of the things that was discussed
is these wounds were the incision variety,
meaning that they were along the long edge of the knife--
what you would expect
in the event of a sawing-type motion versus being stabbed.
That is exactly what Isaias said he did,
is that he attempted to saw the seat belt in half
so that he could free Monica.
♪ ♪
[Taylor] When Mr. Lavender
suggested this seat belt theory,
it didn't seem plausible.
If this was an accidental injury,
I need to have some due diligence
and follow up on it.
So I asked Detective Farrell and Tjeerdsma if they could get
photographs of the seat belt.
♪ ♪
[Matt] I knew the car had been sold to a guy
that owned a body shop,
and he still had the car.
He hadn't messed with the seat belt.
And so I went out there and photographed them.
♪ ♪
- And there were no cuts to the seat belt whatsoever.
♪ ♪
Knowing in advance was helpful because we were able
to be prepared for the story he was going with.
[narrator] A year and five months
after Monica's death,
the trial of Isaias Torres begins.
- Isaias indicated that there was a lot of anxiety
but also hope that he could have his story finally heard.
♪ ♪
- It was a small courtroom.
[Cassandra] We wasn't that far away from his family.
We were sitting right here,
and then maybe a few feet away, his family was sitting.
♪ ♪
[John] Emotions were high.
We had to make sure
that everybody stayed out of each other's way
to avoid any kind of blowup or confrontation.
♪ ♪
[narrator] After law-enforcement testimony,
the state calls Isaias's father to the stand.
- Isaias's father was critical in connecting him to the crime
and explaining how Monica was found.
♪ ♪
There was one particular thing that he told police
he refused to acknowledge that he ever said.
[John] I had to confront him with the video recording...
and making him agree that he had told police that.
♪ ♪
As more evidence came to light,
like the crime-scene documentation,
his story kept changing.
♪ ♪
[Greg] I believe that his father felt
that some of his words were turned against him
and not at all what he meant.
I think he felt that he was being used in a way
that was inappropriate.
♪ ♪
Now, all parents naturally are going to want
to protect their children.
That's something that I realize, the jury realize.
The fact is, though, that doesn't make
what you say untrue.
[narrator] To highlight factual actual evidence,
the defense turns to the medical examiner.
- I thought that Dr. Doane could really help lay out
how most of the physical injuries
were very consistent
with what would be Isaias's accounting of the events.
[Taylor] Lavender asked me
if the injuries on the victim's neck
could have been caused by a sawing motion.
And I explained to him, yes,
because there were several tails along the incised wound
that looked like it could have taken
multiple strokes of a blade.
♪ ♪
[John] What he tried to pose to Dr. Doane
is the hypothesis
of whether a sawing motion on the neck
would be consistent with the type of injuries Monica had.
And Dr. Doane had to admit that, yes,
but there are a lot of ways
that this injury could be caused.
But if you take everything in its totality,
it doesn't support his story
about trying to cut a seat belt.
But I don't know what the jury thought.
[Greg] I think this was a situation in which
you're having a low-pressure slow bleed
underneath large jacket.
No one notices until CPR is actually administered.
Dr. Doane's testimony paints a picture
that what Isaias says happened is very plausible.
♪ ♪
It was important to me that Isaias at least communicated
that full story to the jury.
Isaias had to testify.
- When defendants testify...
♪ ♪
You never know what they're going to say.
He could come out with a completely new story.
There could be things that sound plausible.
So, when a defendant testifies,
really everything's on the line.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Isaias has been waiting for this opportunity
since the day he was arrested.
The jury needed to hear him say what happened.
[narrator] The defense calls Isaias to the stand.
- I wanted them to get a picture
as to what his relationship looked like with Monica.
♪ ♪
[John] He testified
that they'd been drinking heavily all night.
They got into a previous car crash,
where he was driving,
where he went into a concrete gutter,
and the car got stuck,
and he was somehow able to reverse and get out of it.
Hearing about this first accident was news to me.
- The initial accident in this case
was extremely important for the jury to hear about
because there was a plausible reason
that could have caused bruises on Monica's body
that same night
that was unrelated to anything Isaias did.
♪ ♪
[John] And then he stuck with the seat belt story.
Monica was driving.
And they crashed into a pond.
He's struggling to try to unbuckle the seat belt,
and so he grabs a small knife
and starts trying to saw the seat belt to get her free.
And he didn't cut the seat belt.
He eventually got the car unbuckled.
And they ended up escaping that way.
[Greg] He was able to paint a pretty good picture
from his memory.
Here was somebody who was highly inebriated,
highly afraid, in pitch-black in the middle of a cold pond.
♪ ♪
That is not the perfect scenario
to exercise any kind of precision.
And because of that, we had a tragedy.
♪ ♪
[narrator] But on cross-examination...
- His story didn't add up.
He tried to make it seem like this prior accident
is what caused these extensive injuries.
♪ ♪
But there was no damage to the vehicle,
besides the front bumper.
And the only blood found was in this clearing
that was secluded, where her clothes were.
There's also the fact that there was
a female flip-flop found on the passenger side,
not the driver's side.
In Isaias' testimony,
he claimed that she was driving at that point.
He got pretty worked up,
and he tried to have an answer for everything.
His story just didn't make sense.
[narrator] Both sides give closing statements.
♪ ♪
And the jury begins deliberations.
- Just waiting and not knowing what was going on
and what are they going to take in consideration.
♪ ♪
- It was nerve-racking, you know,
because you never know what's going to happen.
♪ ♪
[narrator] Four hours later, the verdict.
♪ ♪
- They determined he was guilty
on second-degree murder.
♪ ♪
[John] What I take from that verdict
is that the jury clearly didn't believe his story.
♪ ♪
They did believe that the intoxication
played a role in it.
And they thought
that the punishment should be severe,
and so they gave him the maximum punishment
on murder in the second degree.
♪ ♪
- When the jury recommended life,
his father very audibly could just wail in sadness,
and so could his mother.
You could hear in their voices, they had lost their son.
♪ ♪
[Cassandra] You still have your son.
[Rosa] Exactly.
- You can still call him. You can still go visit him.
We can't do that with my sister.
We can't hear her voice no more.
- Isaias's case was one of those ones
that will stick with me kind of forever.
I do believe him when he tells me what happened.
I've represented people who were guilty as sin,
and I knew it,
and I don't feel that I'm sure of that in this case.
♪ ♪
- We'll never know exactly why what happened happened,
but I think that the impact is that Monica's family
and children are going to grow up missing her,
and she's going to be gone for the rest of their lives.
♪ ♪
[narrator] A year after the verdict...
♪ ♪
- There's people who are lost, and they tend to trust people.
This is what happened in this case.
She met somebody,
and she thought maybe she could trust him,
and it was not the right person.
♪ ♪
- Just to know that she was there all by herself
and wasn't surrounded by anybody who cared about her,
who loved her,
and I guess, in a way,
that still kind of messes with me, you know?
[sniffles] But at the same time,
I mean, I can't dwell on that.
♪ ♪
[Rosa] My brother-in-law and my sister Cassandra
have planted a tree in the backyard.
♪ ♪
It was something to remember her by.
- A lot of butterflies come over here and sometimes birds.
I think we just wanted to get something really pretty
to remember her by.
I said, this is Monica.
♪ ♪
I'll just come in here and sit sometimes.
And we got that angel. [Rosa] Angel.
[Cassandra] You know, I think when family members pass,
they do watch from afar.
I just kind of take peace in,
she's no longer here suffering in pain.
She's somewhere peaceful.
♪ ♪