WOMAN: You're ready, right? Okay, very good.
Tell me who you are. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
My name is Kelly Siegler.
I started as a prosecutor when I was 23 years old.
I know, having done a job as a prosecutor
and getting those phone calls from officers all over Texas
wanting help on their old cases, how many there are out there,
they're just waiting to be worked on.
And I think that if we can do that
and give them that assistance and expertise and time,
there's a lot of good and help we can do.
[men vocalizing]
WOMAN: * Once upon a time *
* When the sun still used to shine *
* I was young and innocent and I was green *
* Yeah *
* But now the skies are dark and gray *
I brought you all the way to Texas
to look at the 1992 murder case of Natasha Atchley,
probably the biggest unsolved case in this part of Texas.
There have been more theories here
than I can remember on any case I've worked in a long time.
I've always wanted to work this case.
I'm very stressed, and I'm glad you're here.
Ever since I first had the idea for this TV show,
I've always wanted to work one case--
the 30-year-old brutal murder of Natasha Atchley.
It got all kinds of national attention,
and that was because of the books and the podcast
and the national newspapers.
WOMAN: I think this case is crazy.
Her body was found dead inside her own trunk.
The scene was so gruesome,
Natasha's remains had been burned down to just her bones.
SIEGLER: Natasha's working at the Dairy Queen
and just got her a new apartment,
about to start going to college.
She was a popular girl. Everybody liked her.
Natasha was fun-loving,
and she was always the life of the party.
She had just gotten accepted to college,
which would have started that next chapter of her life
when it was tragically cut short.
The night she ends up being last seen, there's a party.
And everybody knew she could get kind of wild at times.
Alcohol. Maybe the use of LSD.
It certainly doesn't qualify
for somebody to wind up there at the end of the evening.
- Yeah. - It's just a bad way to go.
SIEGLER: On May 3, 1992, Natasha attended this party
where there was a lot of drug use and alcohol use.
And at some point that night, she just sped off intoxicated.
And the very next day, her body was found
in the rear of her smoldering car,
burned beyond recognition.
Rumors quickly spread
that someone from the party had killed her
and then set her car on fire to cover their tracks.
The body burned up.
We really don't have a cause of death.
Even the skull has got heat fractures
where that skull basically fragmented
and exploded in the back of that car.
So heat fractures or normal fractures
are gonna be hard to save.
It is.
Nothing destroys evidence quite like a fire.
And that unknown has created a mystery
around Natasha's murder.
For over 30 years, in a small town,
the rumor mill has gone wild with speculation and theories.
For the last 30 years,
the Texas Rangers were driving the investigation,
and now we have a brand-new sheriff
and a brand-new elected DA.
This is the first time ever
on the biggest case in this part of Texas
they have allowed anybody to read their whole file.
We gotta get somewhere, Steve, make something happen.
SPINGOLA: Hope so.
- Steve. - Charles Dougherty.
Nice to meet you, Charles.
- Martin Montalvo. - Nice to meet you, sir.
- Greg Capers. - Sheriff, I like your hat.
- Yes, sir. Thank you. - Man, it's good to see you.
- Yes, ma'am. My pleasure. - Y'all ready to get to work?
- Ready. - Yes, ma'am.
When I wanted to work this case all these years,
this is the picture that I see in my head.
The whole county's still affected
by the murder of Natasha Atchley.
SIEGLER: What's your favorite one, Martin?
Is that her little? That's kind of cute.
DOUGHERTY: For the last 30 years,
multiple law enforcement agencies
as well as the Texas Rangers got involved
and opened up a pretty intense investigation.
This is a very confusing case, but I'm looking forward
to reopening this investigation with a fresh set of eyes.
Natasha was 19 when this happened.
- She was popular. - SIEGLER: Had a lot of friends.
Everybody that talks about her describes her as fun,
the life of the party, ready to go, vivacious,
feisty and spunky.
DOUGHERTY: A young lady with her whole life ahead of her.
Can you start with the front of the story?
On May the 3rd of 1992,
a deputy with the San Jacinto County Sheriff's office
was originally dispatched to a car fire smoldering
in this rural area in the woods.
He assumed at the time
that maybe it was just an insurance job
or a stolen vehicle.
You know, that's not uncommon in this area.
The vehicle was towed to a tow yard.
They discovered that the license plate
was from Natasha's car.
It was Mother's Day weekend,
and Natasha didn't show up Sunday
to her mother's residence.
At that point, Natasha's mother was notified
that the vehicle was at the tow yard.
So Natasha's mother goes to the tow yard,
goes looking in the vehicle,
gets to the trunk of the vehicle,
and recognizes what she believes is a skull and some other bones.
After forensic testing comes back,
they, in fact, identified to be the body of Natasha.
A private lab was able to identify traces of an accelerant
in Natasha's car,
which they believe to be drip gas,
an unrefined byproduct of fuel drilling.
However, the rest of the crime scene was disturbed
after they towed her car prematurely.
This has been a major obstacle
in trying to figure out how this murder unfolded.
DOUGHERTY: We learned that Natasha had attended a party
on May the 2nd about a mile from where the vehicle was found.
And after talking to multiple partygoers,
it was determined that there was narcotics being used,
namely LSD, marijuana, as well as drinking beer,
huffing, and things of that nature.
Some point there in the party,
there was some sort of altercation
and Natasha gets mad.
She leaves the party with no explanation.
She drove off recklessly on or around 3 a.m. that morning.
Nobody seen her after the time she left the party.
I had no idea when I started reading this case
how many crazy rumors there were out there
and gossip and speculation.
Start looking through your notes.
They don't need to be any order, any rhyme or reason.
Let's just knock 'em all out, okay?
One of the rumors that's going around
is she's pregnant, he's married.
We gotta figure out if he was even at the party.
SPINGOLA: Right.
We heard about an angry baby daddy.
And what about his parents
interfered with the investigation.
We had a judge's son.
Elected officials rumored to be at the party.
So we got a cop interfering with your investigation.
Allegedly corrupt lawmen.
And even an organized crime hit.
That's a lot of rumors.
That's more than I've ever seen.
While it's been great fodder for podcasts and books...
Have y'all read this? So all these stickies,
these are even more rumors.
...the strongest rumors that keep popping up
revolve around the people that were at the party.
So at the party that night-- Jim Morton.
He was 19 at the time.
- And Cindy Henning. - She had just turned 17.
Somebody said that when Natasha got there,
she thought Morton was gonna hook up with her.
But then Morton says, "No, I'm going to bed with Cindy."
SIEGLER: Jim Morton and Cindy Henning were arrested
because a witness came forward,
claiming that they assaulted Natasha
after Natasha left the party.
However, that witness later recanted.
So Jim and Cindy were then released.
But is there a seed of truth to their involvement?
The story is Cindy is getting her ass kicked by Natasha
at this fight.
So Morton steps in and finishes the fight.
SIEGLER: Morton's kicking her in the head. That's a big rumor.
So if there's a motive that night
for Jim Morton to want Natasha dead,
it's gotta be revolving around Cindy.
SPINGOLA: Yeah.
She used to live with Natasha,
and it wasn't a happy roommate relationship.
Who's another witness against Jim Morton?
A guy who was in jail says that Morton confesses to him
that he's the one who killed Natasha.
- Okay. We got him on our list? - Yeah.
SIEGLER: Okay. Next. 17-year-old Kevin Malone.
SPINGOLA: Kevin Malone, 'cause he's with him.
Any issues between Natasha and Kevin at the party?
- He's supplying the LSD? - Right.
MONTALVO: He's the one that says she took three hits of LSD.
SPINGOLA: Jim and Cindy and Kevin leave the party
shortly after Natasha leaves.
The only people that leave the party are these three.
That's the thing. Did they catch up to her and kill her?
Yeah.
There's no evidence Kevin had any issues with Natasha.
But leaving with Jim and Cindy that night
leaves him in the middle of this investigation.
If there was an altercation between them and Natasha,
the heavy use of drugs and alcohol at the party
could've played a role
in escalating that tension into murder.
Now, who else in our party will need to go up here?
- Chad. - Chad McGregor.
I made Chad in my head our best suspect
because a witness said she saw him hiding down in the car
when Natasha drove off.
Why else would we have Chad up there?
Back in town before the party,
she had been talking to Chad's baby mama and ex
who was bad-mouthing Chad.
So when she pulls up to the party,
she comes out swinging at Chad.
Just came up and punched him and kicked him.
SIEGLER: "Why are you being so [bleep] to my friend?"
The most logical explanation is that the killer or killers
were at the party.
But what's rumor and what's fact?
We'll need to first sort through all the speculation
to figure out if we have enough evidence
to build a circumstantial case
against whoever is responsible for Natasha's murder.
WOMAN: * Somebody said *
* It's all in your head *
* There's no one to save you *
A lot of the people in Natasha's family have passed away.
Her mom is gone. Her dad's gone. Her grandparents are gone.
So who are we gonna go meet with today?
Chad and Natasha's half-brother.
I think he'll like it that after 30 years,
y'all are still working so hard on it.
It'll let him know how motivate you are.
That'll make him focus, too.
For the last nine years of her life,
Natasha's mother fought for her daughter's justice.
- You must be Chad. I'm Kelly. - Nice to meet you.
- Charles Dougherty. - Nice to meet you.
Hopefully we can bring Natasha's little brother
the answers this family has desperately been waiting for.
I guess a good starting point would be,
what can you tell me about Natasha?
She was a typical teenager in a small country town.
Very fun-loving.
Loved going full speed. Loved to party.
'Cause she was wild. There is no denying that.
Of course being eight-years difference
I didn't get to spend a lot of that time with her.
'Cause who wants her little brother tagging along?
When she did involve me, it was fun.
I don't recall us ever really fighting.
Natasha was always fun, supportive.
Liked to push you past your limits.
So that was the main sparkle about her--
that no fear, that love for life.
So, do you remember the day
that y'all found out what happened?
Yeah. Mom was kind of in hysterics that day.
I think she found out about the car missing.
Why was her car burned?
Why was she not at her house that morning?
That's when she went with my aunt
to the wrecker yard.
She was searching the car,
and she saw her jewelry on the front,
and then she went back to the back of the car.
She first saw a bone.
She thought some kind of animal was in the back of the car
until she looked up and saw the skull,
realizing that that's my daughter's skull.
She's pretty much in hysterics at that point.
Yeah.
As a mother, I can't even imagine
the horror that Natasha's mother felt
when she looked into that car and saw her baby's skull.
And then never getting to know
who's responsible for doing that
had to have magnified that pain by a thousand times.
And it just--it just broke her.
From that moment on, she changed.
We were taken care of, but at the same time,
she kind of wasn't there.
You could see her mind
was always concentrating on Natasha
and the why, what happened.
So, you didn't just lose your sister.
You kind of lost your mom, too.
Yeah. It definitely shook the family up.
I bet. This is an article praying for the truth
written by your mom.
"Is there a rainbow after the rain?"
[Siegler continues reading]
What do you remember about why your mom
would write articles like this?
To not let the case die.
That, I think, was an emotional release for her.
Lieutenant Dougherty and I and our partners
are gonna try and get to the bottom of everything we can.
I'm just thankful that y'all are even taking the time.
The amount of people that remained
pushing for her justice truly is heartwarming,
This is involving the Natasha Atchley case.
You know, 30 years later,
we're looking through these reports,
and I'm contacting everybody and anybody that was there.
The last time 19-year-old Natasha Atchley was seen alive,
she was driving away recklessly from a party.
Refreshing to see that people are looking into it again.
- Steve. - Nice to meet you.
SIEGLER: It's always gonna be a challenge
when your most important witnesses were kids back then,
especially when they were using alcohol and drugs.
But if Natasha did have an altercation at the party
or if there's evidence supporting any of these rumors,
So, Natasha and I were very close growing up.
- Really? - She was like a sister to me.
DOUGHERTY: Right.
Right.
What kind of vibe was at the party?
Natasha, is she intoxicated when she shows up?
She was drinking what?
Straight Crown Royal?
And she showed me her bottle of Crown she was drinking.
Do you remember how much was in the Crown?
There wasn't a ton left in the bottle.
I know for a fact that Natasha took acid,
'cause I know that Kevin Malone was out there and gave her some.
But some of these gossip things have gotten kind of outlandish.
I was like-- And there was no type
of authority figure there.
And I feel like a politician
would have really stood out to me
and made me feel uncomfortable.
Did you ever hear that she might have been pregnant?
Did Natasha ever tell you
she might have been pregnant that night?
MAN:
Okay.
Were there any problems between Natasha
and any other partygoers that night,
pushing, fighting, that you can remember?
Did you ever see any arguments or any type of fights going on
at the party?
I do remember that Chad McGregor
unzipped her, like, vest or something,
and I think she slapped him or something like that.
But that was more like a joking kind of thing.
Right.
- More of a horseplay type? - Yeah.
MAN:
You remember when she left, was she upset?
WOMAN: It sounded like she was a little just frustrated.
She kind left out of there aggressively.
WOMAN: She was hotheaded. She was most certainly hotheaded.
And if everyone was drinking and doing drugs at that time,
they could've hit her and then freaked out.
It's possible that with the passage of time
and the partying that night
has left the witnesses with foggy memories.
Or maybe nothing happened that actually stood out.
Whatever the case, we don't have any concrete evidence
of foul play between our suspects and Natasha.
But connecting one of them to the accelerant
used in this fire could be it.
What did y'all know about drip gas?
MAN:
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you know what drip gas is?
Anything at that party at all where anybody's doing bonfires,
using drip gas or anything outside?
Anything that you remember.
I don't even remember a fire outside.
- Nothing outside? - Yeah. No.
I would assume that you didn't know
there was old tanks out there.
- I have no idea. - Or no knowledge of that?
MAN:
Can you turn that music down
that's playing in the background?
I can barely hear you.
MAN:
Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
We reached out to an inmate
who was incarcerated with Jim Morton
shortly after the murder.
He claims Jim actually admitted to being involved.
And now we wanna see if there's any credibility
to this alleged jailhouse confession.
DOUGHERTY: It says here that you wanted to talk
on an inmate named Morton,
that you had some information about this case.
Can you kind of fill me in on what it was
that you were wanting to talk law enforcement about
at that time?
MAN:
Yeah.
Anything else that stuck out that...
This witness has certainly changed his tune 30 years later.
This is a prime example of why you always have to be skeptical
of a jailhouse informant.
That Texas flag right there on that mailbox.
- This is her? - Yep. Right here.
While we've cleared up some of the rumors,
we still haven't found any evidence
that directly points to our party suspects.
Can you come in the car, Miss Birmingham,
so we can record it and we have all of our notes in there?
You can get in the front, and I'll hop in the back.
- Sure. - Is that okay?
That's fine.
Dena Birmingham attended the party that night
and was a close friend of our suspect Cindy.
She may be able to shed some light on what she saw
or if Cindy had said anything incriminating
in the last 30 years.
When Natasha left the party that night,
what made her leave?
I don't know. I mean, she sped off.
I remember that clearly, I mean, to this day.
She sped off and that was it.
But I don't remember why or-- I-I don't.
Did you ever see her actually get into it
with anybody physically?
- No. - Did you ever see her
actually get into it with anybody arguing?
No.
What do you remember about the fact
that Jim and Cindy and Kevin left the party?
DENA: So, they were taking Kevin home.
They asked me to go.
I was like, "No, I'm not going anywhere."
So, they asked you to go and said right then,
"We're taking Kevin home"?
- Right. - That's important
because that shows they weren't going after Natasha
'cause somebody was pissed off.
Yeah. No. None of 'em were mad. No.
SIEGLER: Okay.
And it was, I don't know, really early in the morning
whenever they took Kevin home.
How long after Natasha left do you remember them leaving?
- More than an hour. - Okay.
- Yeah. - When Jim and Cindy came back,
did you see anything unusual? Did they act unusual,
like they've been in the middle of some kind of thing like that?
- No. - Nothing.
The case against Cindy Henning is looking more and more
like it's based just on rumors and hearsay rather than fact.
Maybe it's time we talked to Cindy.
DOUGHERTY: I wanna see if she's even gonna answer us.
I know.
[line ringing]
We gave Cindy a call,
but she is not willing to speak to us again.
- I tried. - You did a good job.
However, she did respectfully explain to us
that she has said all she wanted to say back then
and she has nothing more to add to that today.
The most important thing is that you asked her
if everything that she said back then was true,
which is the same thing you had asked her in person.
And when you read all the stuff out there,
do you blame her for not wanting to come down here?
Her position is, "I'm done talking to law enforcement."
Is that because she has something to hide?
Is that because she's frustrated
after 30 years of rumors pointing at her?
There's a lot of reasons why she could be hesitant,
but I'm kind of disappointed
because she won't answer our specific questions.
- Hi. I'm Dr. Pinneri. - Charles Dougherty.
- Nice to meet you. - Yes, ma'am.
We know that an accelerant was determined
to be in the front of Natasha's car
while her remains were scattered in the back.
The fact that Natasha's car was towed prematurely
has posed problems in determining
whether her bones somehow moved in transit.
We're hoping that Dr. Pinneri can provide some insight.
The set of remains are very incomplete,
and they're completely fragmented and charred.
I've seen a lot of car fires.
This is cremated type of fire.
So that is a testament to how hot this fire is.
Basically, all we have are fragments,
part of the skull,
a bunch of fragments of the face,
fragments of long bones, and this chunk area.
The skull is here,
but skulls are somewhat round and they can roll.
So where a skull is doesn't tell you
where the body started necessarily.
But what we have here are a bunch of the vertebrae,
the bones of the spine.
Typically where you find the most vertebrae,
that's where the body was.
You have the ribs going next to them, too.
You're not gonna get this appearance
if these bones are being washed here.
You're not gonna get all the vertebrae
to stay in this little area here.
They're gonna be scattered around.
She wasn't in one of the passenger's seats
or the driver's seat.
She was in the back of the vehicle when this fire happened.
She's for sure in the back of the car?
She's in the hatchback area of the car?
It's not any movement or shifting
with the tow truck driver?
No. And we can't tell if she was alive at the time of the fire,
she had trauma.
All of that's out the window
because of the condition of the remains.
So the cause and means of death are gonna be undetermined.
SPINGOLA: According to Dr. Pinneri,
Natasha's body was in the rear of her car
while the fire actually started in the front.
You would think that if the intent of the arson
was to hide evidence of the murder
that the body itself would have been lit.
But that's not what happened in this case.
It kind of feels like we're missing something here.
So, we're saying that our arsonist
set the fire on the passenger side
and then shut the door and her bones and remains
are gonna end up back at the hatchback.
Right? What am I saying wrong?
'Cause that's not making any sense to me.
[woman vocalizing]
* Listen, we could be heroes *
Well, this is definitely one of the focal points
of this whole...
No kidding. Going out here might be more important
than any single witness that we're talking to.
We're headed to the dirt road
where Natasha's car was discovered
to try and piece together what we think happened.
We brought in a Camaro similar to Natasha's
as well as a San Jacinto County DA and an ADA and other experts
to join us to help with their areas of expertise.
Okay, so, let's talk about the road surface back then,
30 years ago.
This place was just a rutted dirt trail,
not very different from this.
It had rained the night before.
It rained the night the car was found.
- Okay. - You see a bunch of sago palms
and stuff like that in the side.
That means there's a lot of water retention here.
The rear wheels are stuck in some sort of mud,
some sort of puddle.
SIEGLER: Anybody wanna talk about how deep
we think this hole is.
'Cause we're acknowledging that some of this water
could have come from the firemen,
and some of the rain could have come after she was stuck.
But still, the depth of the hole--what do we think?
In a rut, easily a foot.
- That deep? - Yeah.
I thought y'all were gonna say three inches.
- Dang. - That could have been it.
What does "it" mean? She can't get out of the hole?
- She's stuck. - She's stuck. Okay.
One other thing I wanted to take a look at, too,
is look at the door sill.
This is where the door actually opens.
So, how many of y'all have ever driven this kind of car?
I have, too.
So y'all remember when you would drive these cars
and you would park too close to a curb,
you couldn't open the door and get out. Right?
It wouldn't open because of this.
Speaking of that, she may have high-centered.
High-centered being--
Both wheels--All wheels are off the ground.
All wheels are off the ground.
- On the ground. - On the ground.
This wheel's spinning, which is the right rear wheel.
Spinning. That's why it looks deeper on this side.
And this one's not moving because it's high-centered.
It just stays there.
And this one's constantly spinning.
- And it digs a hole. - And it digs a hole.
Basically, the drive wheels
are no longer in contact with the ground.
- So you're getting more stuck. - Okay.
When Natasha's car became high-centered,
a wall of mud along the sides of the car
likely blocked the doors from opening,
trapping her inside
and not allowing anyone else access to that vehicle.
So, how would our killer pull this off?
One of the theories was she got into a fight here,
got her ass kicked.
They threw her in a car and set it on fire.
If the car is high-centered,
how are we gonna open the door and take her this way?
The cops show up here.
They find no footprints anywhere around the outside of the car.
There's no indications of cars going out of here.
- One set of tracks. - That comes and stops.
There's no indication she ever got of that car.
The other thing is if that's the theory
and we think it's high-centered and the doors won't open,
how are those killers gonna open the door to set the fire
if the door won't open?
SPINGOLA: They've got in their report
the windows were up at the time of the fire.
There's obvious problems with the theory
that Natasha was murdered.
Number one, the killer would have no way
of opening the black doors, attack Natasha
and set fire to the front seat.
And number two, there's no tracks or footprints
from another perpetrator outside of Natasha's vehicle.
So how could a killer have followed her here
or escaped after it was done?
Okay, so, is it possible
that Natasha's sitting in the front seat of her car,
trying, trying, trying to get it to go 'cause she's stuck.
Panicked and high, whatever you wanna call it.
Her doors won't open. She can't get unstuck.
And she climbs in the back to get out this way.
And then there's the fire. Oh, my God.
All of a sudden, there's the fire.
And it's too late. And now she's stuck back here.
And she can't get out. Why can't that work?
She's drunk on whiskey, marijuana, LSD.
She's hallucinating. She's seeing things that aren't there.
Trying to roll the window down. It's not coming down.
The vehicle's off. It's electric.
"Hey. I think-- Let me go through the trunk."
And then by this time...
- It's too late. - It's too late.
- Is there a release back here? - No, sir.
If you climbed in the back--
There's no way you can get out.
You couldn't pull a release.
You can't pull a release on this vehicle.
And that would take a lot of--
No, you're not breaking this glass.
She sets the fire inside with all the windows closed.
- Closed. - And if this
starts burning those seats, car pit, or the accelerant,
it's gonna quickly fill up with super-heated toxic gas,
carbon monoxide, robbing of all the oxygen inside.
She's not gonna have a lot of time.
It could be anywhere from seconds to minutes
depending on the amount of heat.
I don't think she could crawl back here
if the fire was started in the vehicle
and she's trying to get over those back seats.
I can do it. Look. Lookee here.
If you're in this car and you wanna get out,
you can come through here.
It's gonna be a squeeze.
You can get out. You're gonna get out or you're gonna die
trying to get out.
You can do it. I'm not saying it's easy.
But what else do we have? There's anybody else involved?
But how does the accelerant get in her vehicle?
Is there something in that car?
Does she run out of gas and carry gas with her?
But we don't have any residue of a melted container.
She might have had that drip gas in her tank,
and the rear end with her sitting in there spinning.
Heat up enough to set it off.
There's no evidence of the tank rupturing
in an explosion.
Hitting a bunch of bumps before she hit the final bump
wouldn't do it?
We're confident the fire started in the passenger floorboard,
only because of articles we have from the lab at the time
that show drip gas.
- If this is drip gas, right-- - If it is.
If it is, it's an incendiary fire. I agree.
I can't explain this in there. It's not there naturally.
And that leads back to a suspect.
'Cause right now we have no evidence of a second person.
SIEGLER: The lab report and experts say
that there has to be an accelerant involved
in this fire for it to be this intense.
The other evidence suggests that there's no way
we can even show
how an accelerant got inside Natasha's car.
And we haven't talked to one single person from this party
that ever even knew what drip gas was.
Arson investigation has greatly evolved
over the last 30 years.
But it's still not a perfect science.
So I hear what the experts are saying,
but it does not make any sense to me.
We're trying to start with the fact that she's dead.
The fact that it got stuck
is what starts this chain of events.
If you're the killer and you bring the car out here
'cause you wanna burn her in it.
Then you get stuck. Your plan didn't work very well.
- True. - If you're her
and you think you're looking for your right road
and you only got this far, that makes a lot more sense.
Oh, I agree.
I think it's crazy that on a case this well known
when we've been talking about it for 30 years
and I'm sitting here going,
"Damn, is this even a murder case?"
We still have a whole lot to go through
and talk about and figure out,
but whatever the final answer is,
SIEGLER: Throughout the years,
the Texas Rangers and multiple agencies
have been puzzled by Natasha Atchley's case.
This is the cold case
that I've wanted to work on my whole career.
And now that we have been able to examine all of the evidence
and the crime scene and the forensics,
I'm having serious doubts that this is even a murder.
Hey, how you doing?
- Good. - I'm Steve.
We can talk wherever you wanna talk.
- Yeah. Just come sit down. - Come sit down.
SIEGLER: We tried to talk to Cindy,
and now we're gonna try and talk to our remaining suspects--
Jim, Kevin, and Chad.
The only thing that could convince me
that this was a murder
is a huge new piece of information or a confession.
We have been looking at it pretty hard and heavy.
I have nothing to hide,
so whatever questions you guys have, I'll answer 'em.
- How well do you know Natasha? - We were good friends.
I know that you apparently had rode to the party with Natasha.
Absolutely.
I go with her. I let her know, I guess, that I had acid.
She gets a hit from me.
I think most times I gave her one that wasn't that strong,
'cause she was already messed up.
- Right. - So, we get there,
and there was nothing that made me believe
she was there for ill intentions.
She was just there for a good time.
I do remember Natasha showing up.
Is she fighting, arguing with you, talking to you?
Not with me. Like I said, we sat there and talked a little bit.
That's why I got confused about people saying
that me and her got in an argument.
Her and Chad got in an argument.
- Right. - It wasn't me and Natasha.
Do you know what that argument was about
- between her and Chad? - I don't.
Natasha came there. Pulled in there in her car.
She was always kind of known as a wild child, hell-raiser.
She got out of the car. She sees me, gets angry,
starts hitting me. I'm like, what the hell? What's going on?
She said, [bleep].
Your girlfriend at the time.
She said, "She told me what you've been saying about me."
"I ain't said [bleep] about you. I don't know what--"
She calmed down after I was like,
"I don't know what you're talking about."
And it was really more her that came at you...
- Oh, yeah. - ...for whatever reason.
Yeah. It was over pretty fast if I recall.
SIEGLER: Did you ever see her get into it verbally
with anybody at the party besides you?
- Not that I recall. - Not that you recall?
Was Cindy your girlfriend that night, on and off?
Yeah. On and off.
Is Cindy upset with Natasha
'cause Natasha wants to sleep with you?
Honestly? Not that I remember.
SPINGOLA: There's no fight at the party at all
between the girls, between you, nothing else?
No, sir. I don't know how long she was there.
She wasn't there that long, I don't think.
Maybe 45 minutes to an hour.
I was standing on the porch,
and her and Chad were over there talking.
She tried to leave.
Nobody got in the passenger seat of the car.
At least once if not twice,
I put the shifter back into "park,"
trying to keep her from driving off,
'cause she was so [bleep] up.
- Why was she leaving? - I don't know.
You don't remember?
Maybe I knew back then, but I don't--
Okay. What happened after that?
- I at one point just got out. - Okay.
And she [bleep] left.
And I seen Natasha kind of take off,
getting on the road sliding sideways.
And I remember Chad saying, "She's [bleep] crazy.
She's [bleep] crazy."
And that was the last time I saw her.
She fishtails out. She says something
and she leaves like she's mad. She's, like, pissed off.
I'm, "What the [bleep] is going on?"
I have no clue at this point.
I'm like, "Well, what the [bleep]? That's my ride.
That's how I got here."
And everybody's like, "Just let her go."
"Okay."
One of the witnesses says,
as Natasha took off in her car,
she saw you hiding down in the passenger seat.
That's so 100% false,
'cause I never freaking left that property.
About an hour later, I'm like, "It's time for me to go."
And I asked Jim and Cindy.
I said, "Hey, can you give me a ride?"
And they said, "Yeah, we'll give you a ride."
So me, Cindy, and Kevin got in my car
and took Kevin back to his car at the bank.
Do you have any idea how long after that was
that Natasha left?
- Maybe two hours. - Okay.
You don't know how long after Natasha left
that Jim and Cindy left?
No. I don't think it was, like, right behind her.
Was there anything about their leaving
that had to do with Natasha?
- Nothing I know of. - Okay.
Do you know anything about drip gas?
Never heard of it until that day.
You remember seeing any kind of gas cans
or anything out there at the house?
No.
No. I don't know what the [bleep] is...
Nobody at that party [bleep]...
Did you know those wheels were back there?
No.
Did you talk to Jim or Cindy after the fact
when y'all found out what happened to Natasha?
Was there any conversation between you and Jim?
I don't think so.
What has Jim ever told you about that night?
Well, he's never told me anything.
No one has ever told me anything about being involved.
All three of these suspects continue to be forthcoming,
and the stories they're telling us today
matches what they said in the initial investigation
30 years ago.
- Did you kill Natasha? - No, sir.
Tell me why you wouldn't have killed Natasha.
Why would I? I've never hurt anything in my life.
So, you actually went to jail for, what, 30 days.
- Something like that, yeah. - Why didn't you make a deal?
I didn't--I wasn't guilty.
I put myself out there,
and I could've gotten in a lot of trouble.
I told the grand jury everything.
Do you remember taking a polygraph?
Yeah.
What was all that like?
'Cause back then, you were 20 years old.
I was very nervous. I mean, it's scary.
But you're still cooperating.
Yeah. I have nothing to hide.
Everybody in this town has been looking at these three guys
for the last 30 years like they were killers.
But after talking to them, I think everybody got it wrong.
I told the cops I was--
I could possibly be the reason this happened. You know?
I thought she committed suicide or had a bad trip.
That's what scared me. You know, I thought it was my fault.
If I knew anything, I would want to tell.
MONTALVO: Okay.
Because...
it sucks that somebody has to--
especially family-- has to live with that going on.
And that's what, you know, really got to me.
It's like how in the hell could somebody think I could do this.
And that's been eating me my whole life.
You know, I want my name out of this,
We wanna make sure that every question that you have,
- we try to answer. - Sure.
We've asked District Attorney Todd Dillon
and his assistant DA, Rob Freyer,
to join with us today
as we all go over everything that we've learned.
Why don't we start with the four suspects
that kept always coming up in the case file?
When you get back to this whole party thing,
I think we were all working under the theory
that there was a fight. Did we even completely confirm
there was any kind of physical altercation at the party?
This Chad McGregor-- When Natasha first arrived,
but it was with him.
She sees me, gets angry, starts hitting me.
I'm like, "What the hell?" She calmed down
after I was like, "I don't know what you're talking about."
After that happened, they were cool again.
Without the fight being corroborated by anyone,
we don't have a motive.
- Right. - There's no reason.
The thing that I thought was compelling
is you have three statements from all these party kids.
And other than Cindy Henning,
who didn't want us to come see her,
when we went back to talk to 'em again
and they're cooperative and they're happy to talk to us
and they wanna help, they're still consistent.
How in the hell could somebody think I could do this?
And that's been eating me my whole life.
I put myself out there. I told the grand jury everything.
If I knew anything, I would want to tell.
We know she was intoxicated with alcohol.
We know she was on LSD.
There was no other vehicle involved,
and there's no tire tracks.
There's no other people outside the car.
Their doors was up. Their windows was up.
If you're the killer and you bring the car out here,
'cause you wanna burn her in it, then you get stuck.
Your plan didn't work very well.
- True. - If you're her
and you think you're looking for your right road
and you only got this far, that makes a lot more sense.
Oh, I agree.
We can't prove that anybody with intent to do anything?
- Anybody out there at all. - At all.
For someone to be able to murder Natasha,
they would have had to have been able to follow her,
kill her, put her in the trunk of her car,
set fire to the front seat rather than her body,
all without even being able to open the vehicle
and then escape without leaving any tracks.
As crazy as it sounds that this fire was an accident,
someone else being able to set it sounds impossible.
And we felt confident
that we can eliminate all these suspects
and all these rumors.
These people are innocent.
And it's our job to say it loud and hard.
- Absolutely. - Even 30 years later.
- Absolutely. - I think the problem
that everybody here is gonna have--
you guys more than me because you live here in Texas--
you're putting your chin right out there.
You're gonna face criticism.
They're gonna tell you you don't know what you're talking about.
Remember, Rob, none of those guys
have read every word of this file like we have,
including the Rangers.
They haven't. They don't have time to.
- Right. - And I think
the simplest answer is right in front of us.
This was some type of a horrible accident.
I'm not entirely sure
that anybody's ever looked at this as an accident first.
Everybody kind of went to the conclusion
that this had to be a murder.
Are we ever gonna be able to say for sure
what happened in that car in her mind
to start the fire and make it burn for so long? No.
At the end of the day,
we just end up finding closure for a lot of people
that were being kids.
They ended up at a party and had no role in this
but were falsely accused for 30 years.
- And it's not even a murder. - Not even a murder.
And here we are because y'all let us look at everything.
So did the Sheriff's Department and the Rangers.
We're honored and privileged that y'all came and did it.
I think it's been a learning experience for all of us
and a very relieving experience
for the four folks that you got up there on that board
that have X's on 'em now.
Don't you think this is gonna make him feel good
to know that all of Natasha's friends were not involved?
I believe so.
Coming into this, I thought this was a murder,
and I wanted it to be a murder
so we could get justice for what happened to Natasha.
But based on my experience and all that I've seen,
the evidence is not there.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
Good morning, little Chad.
The last thing we wanna do is tell Natasha's brother
that nobody is responsible.
But we can't make sense of this by blaming an innocent person.
And it's just as important here to clear these suspects
so they can move on with their lives, too.
Well, it's been a busy two weeks since I talked to you.
And at the end of all of this,
I can honestly sit here and tell you
that anybody at that party did not have anything
to do with what happened to Natasha.
They are completely innocent.
And the other thing, I'll tell you,
I don't believe she was murdered.
I don't think it's a murder.
I wish we could tell you that we knew what started the fire.
We don't know. We're never gonna know.
I believe it was an accident inside that car,
and a lot of it was because of the state she was in that night.
I mean, that kind of makes sense.
I mean, I can see that happening.
I wonder where the fire started.
But it's gonna take a while to come to grasp with that.
I guess 'cause you don't have anybody to blame.
I just think it's very important for you to know
it's not like we didn't quite have enough evidence
against somebody.
I don't believe that there's anything
to look at anymore for any kind of murder investigation.
It's weird now,
considering this may have been an accidental death.
I can accept it.
Would have I expected it? No. No.
It's gonna take a little bit to process,
but I am glad that it's cleared a lot of people's names.
You're a victim here more than anybody but Natasha.
You and your mom and your brother, right?
You lost a lot of your life because of all this,
and I think that what we will both tell you today
is you need to move on.
Can you please try to move on and put this behind you?
There's no option there.
That's what we want you to do.
You handled it very well, you know.
Thank you.
Coming into this case
where everybody believed it was a murder
and figuring out that it was really just an accident
might not seem like justice,
but I think that being able to tell all these people,
especially Natasha's family,
that this is what happened and these are the answers,
that is justice.
* Yeah *
* I saw you grow *