Woman: ♪ the shadows of a man ♪
♪ will keep you guessing ♪
♪ the shadows of a man ♪
♪ will take their toll ♪
♪ and the shadows of a man... ♪
- Hey, jeff. - Hey, how's it going?
- How are you? - Good. How was your flight?
It was good. Don't you like this montana air, man?
It is beautiful. These mountains, it's surreal.
- Let's go. - All right.
Kelly siegler: I'm here in kalispell, montana,
With detective jeff cowan, who's leading a new cold case unit
For the abilene police department in texas.
We're on our way now to meet with the family
Of jennifer servo,
A beautiful and talented young lady
Whose 2002 murder devastated the town of abilene.
Steve is really fired up about this case,
And he's already down in abilene lining up witnesses.
We'll meet up with him soon.
Jeff, why'd you want to work this case foremost?
It's probably the highest profile case abilene has.
Young, attractive female in the news world.
She got called by a news station to come to abilene and work.
What I read in the case file
Was she wanted to be the next katie couric.
Good evening. I'm jennifer servo.
Montana heart center, the newest addition...
So it sounded like she had her goals set really, really high.
Very, very career driven.
She moved to abilene in July.
Yeah, her mom moves her into her apartment,
Drives home, and her baby's dead, what, two months later?
Just a tragedy.
One of our reporters, jennifer servo,
Was found dead in her apartment today,
And police suspect foul play.
Siegler: In the early morning hours
Of September 16th, 2002,
22-year-old jennifer servo was alone in her new apartment,
Chatting with a friend on the telephone.
She said goodbye to that friend
A little before 2:00 in the morning,
And that was the last time anyone has ever talked to her.
Two days later, jennifer's body was found
Slumped over her bathtub.
She had been beaten and was strangled to death.
You know, I always get more nervous
When I meet moms that have lost their babies.
I gotta tell you, I'm pretty nervous
About meeting jennifer's mom
Just because all she's been through.
- How do you lose your kid? - I don't know.
The family, they have wanted justice for a long time.
They've been a big advocate for this.
Never given up hope.
My daughter mallory was born a week
After jen had moved down to texas.
Right after, this happened.
That was the hardest part for me.
She never got to meet mallory.
The investigation focused on two primary suspects--
Her recent ex, 35-year-old ralph sepulveda,
A former army ranger,
And tv weatherman brian travers,
Who was the last person to see her alive.
Cowan: They're hoping, I think, one day, to get that phone call
Of "hey, we've got this thing solved.
We've got somebody in custody."
- Hi. - Hello.
- How you doing? - Hi. Good.
How are you guys?
Thanks for coming. I'm krista.
Nice to meet you.
- Hi. Sherry. - Nice to meet you.
Sherry: So glad to meet you.
Cowan: Well, thank you, folks, for meeting with us.
Thank you for being interested in this.
I wanna hear about jennifer.
We were close. We were four years apart in age.
As the little sister, she kind of liked to tag along
With whatever things my friends and I were doing.
Just fun-loving and happy. Had lots of friends.
She was in cross country. She was a cheerleader.
Everybody really liked her.
How did the army reserve thing happen?
She watched pauly shore's "in the army now."
Oh, god, that's funny.
So she had to go down once a month for training
While she was in high school.
She got excited when she could take her army gun apart
In so many seconds and put it back together again.
Jen was working on her journalism degree.
She started working at the news station in missoula.
I'm here on big mountain
Overlooking the moose creek fire.
After college, she applied at abilene
And got word that they wanted to hire her.
So she and mom drove down to abilene with a u-haul trailer.
She had a romantic vision of texas.
It's going to be full of cowboys,
Cowboy hats, and cowboy boots.
And she was excited.
These men and women of the 39th airlift squadron
Knew they would be deployed to central command,
But they didn't realize just how soon.
I'm jennifer servo, krbc 9.
I had a funny feeling in my heart for several days
Before I got notified that she was gone.
There was a knock on my door,
And I couldn't figure out why a police officer was at my door.
And I opened up the door and I said, "it's jen, isn't it?"
And he said, "yes, ma'am. We gotta get your husband home."
I said, "is she dead?"
And he said, "yes, ma'am. I'm sorry."
Something like this you think always happens to somebody else,
And when it happens to you or your family,
You're just devastated.
The file kind of hints that some of y'all were talking
To her harder about this new relationship.
- Mm-hmm. - Christa: That was me.
She had told us just fairly recently
That this person, ralph, was going to move down with her.
And I had never met ralph,
And she hadn't known him for very long.
They had met at an army reserve training session.
It was a brand-new relationship. She's kind of infatuated.
What did she see in him, do you think?
Maybe the toughness that he was an army ranger,
And she thought that was pretty cool.
He was quite a bit older than her,
And maybe it was a little bit of security.
She was afraid to go to a new place.
And I said that to her, and she was mad and argued with me.
But I think she told ralph that maybe "you shouldn't come."
And he talked her into it. He says, "I'll help you.
I won't stay. I'll just help you.
I've already quit my job.
I've already got a u-haul truck rented."
He just, you know, made her feel guilty
For making him change all his plans.
Siegler: He got there pretty quickly, too.
Yeah, I think he was there, like, the day after,
Probably when we got there.
Okay. So he spent at least a day or two with you,
Watching him interact, before you came back.
He seemed okay. He seemed nice to her.
And I thought, well, maybe I have to give him a chance.
Siegler: Jennifer and ralph had instant chemistry.
They only knew each other about a month
Before he decided to uproot his life
And aggressively pursue her.
But within weeks, jennifer realized she'd made a mistake.
They got down there.
She was already not happy with him,
But then she found out that he had been engaged
And that he had had a child.
That's when she really-- she was done.
Obviously misled. And then he's down there,
And it kind of just throws gas in the fire.
Right.
Siegler: Jennifer broke up with ralph, kicked him out,
And then he moved into a nearby apartment.
She then had a brief fling with a co-worker
And one of our other suspects, brian travers.
So, how did ralph feel about jennifer moving on?
I think I felt more at ease that he had moved out.
And I hoped and, of course, prayed
That he would not hurt her in any way.
And I mentioned it to jen.
"are you worried that he might retaliate or something?"
But she said, "no, we're still friends."
But as far as up to that moment, he hadn't said anything
Or did anything to alarm you that, hey,
This person is possibly going to do something to my daughter?
No.
But the mother intuition was there.
That's what you're kind of insinuating.
Yeah. When I left jen's apartment
The day that they were taking me to the airport...
- Uh-huh. - ...We were leaving,
And I turned around, just said,
"hey, let me get a picture of you guys."
In the back of my mind, I want a picture of him
In case I needed to show the police someday
If he ever hurts a hair on her head.
And that was the last picture of her
And the last picture of him.
Do you know who the brian is
She's hanging out with from abilene? Y'all do?
He's this other suspect.
And he came to the funeral. So you got to meet him then.
Mm-hmm.
- And? - Nice enough kid.
But I wasn't sure if I should trust him or not
Because I knew that he liked jen.
But jen wanted to be footloose and fancy-free
And enjoy her new life.
But, uh...
So he was always in the back of my mind.
You wondered.
I don't know how they've done it.
I don't know how they still have it together,
How they deal with losing a 22-year-old sister
And, worse, a 22-year-old child.
It's unbelievable.
This is a hard case with witnesses and suspects
Scattered all across the country.
The pressure for poor jeff and the police department,
If it wasn't enough already,
'cause this is abilene police department's
Biggest unsolved case--
The pressure doesn't really get any bigger than this, honestly,
On a cold case.
I'm gonna feel really, really bad
If we do all this and don't get anywhere.
Steve spingola: When I first read the jennifer servo case,
It actually broke my heart.
I'm the father of two daughters,
And as a parent, this is your worst nightmare.
Jennifer servo, a young woman
Who had just graduated from college,
Her mother got that phone call
That every parent dreads. Truly a tragic case,
Probably one of the more vicious that I've ever investigated.
- Thank you, sir. - Yes, ma'am.
- Ooh. How y'all been? - What's up?
I'm glad kelly's back from montana
So we can dive right into this case.
Start off by telling us what you can, mr. Jeff.
What I understand happened
Is she'd not been heard from in a few days.
So the news station she worked at
Actually called the apartment complex
And asked for a check welfare.
The apartment complex employees go over to the apartment.
By the bed, you see what looks like obvious blood,
And then you can see drag marks through the living room.
And they find ms. Servo in the bathroom,
Face down in the tub.
There's no water in her lungs,
So she's dead before she goes into that tub.
Spingola: Jennifer's autopsy revealed
Multiple blunt force injuries,
Though she died of manual strangulation.
She also had a large area of bruising around her genitals,
But no internal injuries.
There's no blood. There's no semen in her vagina
From the sexual assault kit.
So it's unclear if she was actually sexually assaulted.
She had a t-shirt on, plaid boxer shorts.
Having worked many sexual assault investigations,
They don't re-dress their victims.
That's really rare.
And I gotta say, that crime scene
Is very confusing to me as to exactly how it happened,
Where, and how she ends up in that bathroom.
Investigators found no evidence of forced entry.
And even though her purse was never located, it doesn't appear
That jennifer's apartment was burglarized.
Okay, so, first of all, we got our unknown suspect up here.
Cowan: You have the apartment complex.
You have a lot of people coming and going.
Fingerprints, blood, fluid, and hair samples
Collected from the scene did not point to any new leads.
We still need to consider that an unknown intruder
Might have killed jennifer, but we're also taking
A hard look at her two recent exes.
Brian travers.
How long had they known each other?
Two months. 'cause he was already there working
The news station when she showed up.
Siegler: We know they had sex at least once.
At least once, possibly twice.
I think he's infatuated with her.
You know, she's a new hot commodity.
She mentions her relationship with brian
As being three days or so.
Siegler: And according to her diary,
She told him "you're not my type.
We need to just be friends."
What raises him on my radar
Is you're the last person seen with her.
Spingola: On the night of September 15th,
Jennifer and brian left work at around 11 p.M.
And went to run errands together.
She said goodbye to him about 12:30 a.M.,
Drove herself home, and then talked on a telephone
To a friend until about 1:39 a.M.,
Making brian the last person to see her alive.
I think he's cooperative initially, travers.
Two detectives go to the apartment
To do a walkthrough,
And they're using travers as the person
To see if anything's missing from the apartment.
Have they asked him for a buccal swab or anything at this point?
They do acquire a buccal swab.
Spingola: While processing the crime scene,
Officers collected the bedsheets and sent them to the crime lab.
They found semen stains on the sheets
And the dna matched brian.
But since they had a prior sexual relationship,
It's not proof that he's the one who attacked her.
But it doesn't rule him out either.
From that point on, how is he acting
And how's his interview go?
His interviews, I think, are pretty good.
The questions being asked of him,
Was anything off that night?
He gives the officers a statement
Saying, "oh, when we were out, we saw this car"
And possibly that vehicle following them.
- Right. - Brian tells investigators
That there was a car following him and jennifer that night.
He's cooperated with police from the very beginning.
But is his cooperation genuine
Or a ploy to steer the cops away from himself as a suspect?
Okay, ralph sepulveda was how old?
- 35. - An army ranger.
They're not just kind of hanging out.
They're together day and night from the very beginning.
What bothers me is the fact that when she gets her job,
It's like, "hey, I'll go with you. I'll move with you."
Siegler: It's all moving at warp speed.
How long does he get to be in texas
Before she says "I don't think this is such a great idea"?
- Three weeks or less. - Yeah, it's fast.
He moved out on August the 6th. He got his own apartment.
August. So he'd been out a little over a month.
So he's got a timeline here, the 15th.
"wrote and worked on my apology letter
To my ex-girlfriend." back in montana.
Watched the raiders game, went to bed at 10:30.
He puts himself in bed at 10:30.
- So he's got no alibi, right? - Correct.
Also, why is he writing an apology letter to an ex?
I'm gonna just put her name up here,
Question mark, because we gotta find her.
Ralph was a quiet and reserved guy,
Kind of a loner who kept to himself.
So talking to his ex-girlfriend,
Who he broke up with for jennifer back in montana,
Might help us better understand
His state of mind around the time of jennifer's death.
- Hello, guys. - How are you?
You'll have a seat right here, guys.
Siegler: In the meantime,
Retired detectives jeff bell and david atkins,
Two of the first investigators on the case, came in
To give us their firsthand account of how he acted.
I actually was called to the scene the day of.
Ralph sepulveda's name came up
As an immediate person that we needed to speak with.
What were your first impressions of him?
Very matter of fact.
He was not emotional in any form or fashion.
Just didn't ask the right questions.
"jennifer's dead,"
And he was like, "oh, that sucks."
He never asked how did she die,
What happened to her.
Never asked for the details
That you would expect someone to ask.
Seemed strange to me at the time.
He moved away from abilene in just a few weeks.
Well, then later on, we found out that he had rejoined
The active duty military.
We were asking what type of military training had he had
That he had training to defend somebody
Interrogating him, and he denied that.
But when we were talking to him,
Jeff can tell you he sat extremely stoic
To where there was no body language to read.
- Huh. - We talked to family,
And family even said that after this happened,
He just cut ties and didn't communicate with anyone.
- Okay. - I am a firm believer
Everybody's a suspect until they're crossed off.
But it is just important to rule people out
As it is to find the actual perpetrator.
You know, it's very important to get justice for jennifer.
Not only jennifer, but her family.
And we're gonna hold this person accountable,
Or we're damn sure gonna give it one hell of a try.
- Siegler: Welcome back. - Kathryn pinneri: Thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
- You remember dr. Pinneri. - How you doing?
We're investigating whether jennifer servo was murdered
By one of the two men in her life.
Army ranger ralph sepulveda or tv weatherman brian travers.
Or if an unknown suspect
Found his way into her apartment and attacked her.
Dr. Kathy pinneri, our forensic pathologist,
Is here to help us interpret the autopsy report
And the crime scene evidence.
There's a lot of things going on in this scene
That are very unusual.
This is looking right in through the front door.
The bed is in the living room, so that was a little odd.
But you can see there's a big blood stain
Next to this sheet on the ground.
Jennifer's got head injuries.
One is right here, and one is right here.
There's also an injury to the right side of the forehead.
The skin is broken in the center,
So something hit hard enough to cause the skin to split open.
The autopsy showed signs of manual strangulation,
Meaning that a hand was used
To compress the blood vessels enough
To cause death.
If you're gonna strangle me to death,
How long does that take?
There's still oxygen in your brain,
But it can be a few seconds to a minute or two.
Okay.
Pinneri: This is the fingernail, completely broken off.
It's clear to me that she's conscious
And fighting back at some point.
So then there was mention of sexual assault.
The injuries are described as contusions
Of the labia and outer genitalia.
The sexual assault kit, though, is negative.
There's no internal trauma at all.
The guy downstairs, his apartment mirrors hers exactly.
He says it sounds like somebody's in the kitchen,
And then there's some running into the living room.
And then he says it's a rhythmic pounding.
He says it's like constant for a few minutes,
And he thinks somebody's having sex.
But instead, I'm wondering
If he's straddling her with his knee in the groin
While he's choking her out.
I can't discount that. It could be, perhaps,
That this is some sort of injury through the clothes
That would have impacted the outer genitalia
But not penetrate.
Do you have access to that apartment?
- Mm-hmm. - Y'all wanna go
To the apartment and talk through all this?
Yeah, we can do that.
Siegler: I cannot imagine what jennifer went through
Those last few minutes, beaten and strangled to death
As she tried to fight off her attacker.
What more horrible way is there to die?
Whether it was brian or ralph or an unknown attacker,
We have a better appreciation now
Of how this murder was a very close and intimate ordeal.
Jennifer servo moved to abilene.
Her mom drove her down here,
And they went looking for her a new place to live,
And they found this apartment.
So we're gonna go to that apartment complex
To hopefully figure some of this stuff out.
I'd really like to see the spatial relationship
Between the bedroom that she was dragged in
And then the bathroom, because I imagine
It's probably smaller than it looks.
Until you get there, you don't know what you're looking for,
So it's going to be interesting.
Siegler: Where do you wanna start
With the front of the story of the attack?
So we know she receives a phone call,
And that phone call ended around 1:39 a.M.
All is right in her world at 1:39 a.M.,
Because she says a normal goodbye, right?
Yep. There's no forced entry.
This deadbolt does not have a key.
It has to be thrown.
Being a female alone, she's likely to have locked
All three locks on that front door,
One of which was locked from the inside.
So we know she would have to open
The inside deadbolt to let that suspect in.
So he gets in, even if she just opens it.
"what do you want?" he forces his way in.
The witness who lived downstairs,
Indicating around 2 a.M.
He hears what he thought is arguing.
Potentially something happens here
That leads to our incident here.
So y'all think he hit her with something.
He knocks her down.
She's down, and then he does this.
Could that be a punch?
Maybe that's what knocked her down on the ground.
And then he gets on top of her, lays his elbow into her throat
And starts strangling her.
Show us what you just said. Do it.
We're arguing or whatever, and then I just punch her.
She goes down to the ground, and then he's on top.
Left arm right here.
I mean, you can really put your body weight in.
- Siegler: Yeah. Yeah. - And then he strikes her.
Boom.
Pinneri: And then the cast off would be consistent
With the blood spatter that we see on the bed frame.
And the injury to her genital area.
Like, when I'm right here, she can't go anywhere.
My knees got her locked in. She's not moving.
Okay. And maybe even when you have
Your knee down there like that, could that be the rhythmic
That her head's hitting the headboard, too?
If it was on the bed, then that could.
Siegler: Okay.
So then she gets dragged to the tub.
Okay. I don't wanna make you mess your clothes all up
And I don't care if mine get dirty.
Okay, so I'm back down here.
Cowan: Drag marks originate from here,
Through this way here.
And then the blood trail stops here.
And then if your idea is to go submerge her in a tub,
Now you have to basically flip her around
And you're dragging by the hands. Flip her over...
Siegler: And she hits her head here.
And then she just goes all the way down.
Crime scene looks chaotic, like somebody's panicking.
They're grabbing stuff from here and there
And trying to figure out what they're going to do.
Obviously there's a lot of manipulation
Going on with this body. It suggests a lack of planning.
Okay, so he takes her into the bathroom
To put her in the tub, 'cause why?
I don't know if it's just an extra layer of security
Just to make sure she is deceased.
Well, there's no reason to hang around this apartment
And run the risk of being caught any more than you want to.
So the only reason you would take the time
To move her and do all that
Is to make sure any evidence that you left behind is gone.
I guess the only reason I would argue that
Is the fact that she's not completely put in the tub.
All the evidence is right here.
- Right. - Making sure
That any of this evidence or this evidence
Or kissing or whatever it could be is gone.
What a violent, horrible crime.
I don't know if the person who did this
Came over here intending to hurt jennifer
Or if this is an unplanned action
Of an obsessive, jilted lover.
It's time for us to start talking to witnesses
To see what we can find out.
So, how did you meet jennifer?
We were in school together in missoula.
She was one of my best friends in college.
She had her own apartment
And just was very on her own two feet.
In her 22 short years,
Jennifer servo collected
A world of friends and co-workers that adored her.
Yeah.
It's never easy to ask friends to go over painful memories,
But this case is not gonna get solved
By dna or a brand-new witness, so we need their help.
Montgomery: She tell you who she went
To get her cat food and whatnot with?
What can you tell us about him?
[man speaking]
[woman speaking]
Siegler: While brian had a potential motive
Because jennifer did call off their short little romance,
It feels like everybody in brian's world
Did not think that he had it in him to kill jennifer.
[woman speaking]
Spingola: You never met ralph?
What'd you think of him?
Okay.
She really wanted to have this huge career path.
Spingola: Did she ever tell you
That she found out that ralph had a child?
This could be the biggest thing
That we find out this whole week.
Did you ever see any bruises on her at all
When she talked about sex with ralph?
Jennifer told not one, but two of her best girlfriends
That he was into strangling her during sex,
Which she definitely never liked and did not want.
Since jennifer was strangled to death, I think that's huge.
And when ralph is asked about rough sex back then,
He completely denied it.
He acted like somebody's saying that they're lying on him,
And there's no way anybody would find
These two girls as not credible.
They're crushing it, and so are we.
God's watching over you, jeff. You know that, right?
Got my back.
You're not gonna get better witnesses than these.
These girls, college educated, they didn't get involved
In anything high risk in their life then or since.
Oh, my god.
I can't imagine how sweet,
Naive, young jennifer servo started to feel
When it dawned on her
That this fun fling with a bad boy, older guy
Was turning into a situation out of her control.
In her diary, jennifer describes how an obsessive ralph
Bullied his way into her brand-new life in texas
And was taking advantage of her financially and emotionally.
And when she finally worked up her courage
To put her foot down and kick him out for good,
Could that have been enough for a man to snap?
Could that car that jennifer and brian noticed was following them
Around that night been ralph,
Jealous that she was out with another man?
Montgomery: Oh, this is her calling.
- You ready? - Yeah.
Hey, thanks for calling me back.
Siegler: In the days around jennifer's murder,
Ralph wrote this long love letter to his ex-girlfriend
That he had left behind in montana,
Begging her to take him back.
We wanna hear if he said anything to his ex
About jennifer's death.
How long would you say y'all were together?
Siegler: Wow.
Did you ever receive a letter from him
Any time after all of this? Never?
Hearing that ralph
Never even contacted this ex-girlfriend
After writing this letter, that's crazy.
Montgomery: Well, I appreciate you calling me today.
- Thanks. - Bye-bye.
I don't think he ever meant to send her the letter.
- No. - He just wants to act
Like there is somebody else out there.
Jennifer's not that big of a deal. He's not that invested.
- He's got other plans. - Exactly.
We're gonna have to ask him about that when we confront him.
It's time we go talk to both of our suspects.
You kind of got drafted to come and talk
- With me and travers, eh? - I know. I'm the lucky guy.
Spingola: For the past 21 years, there's been two main suspects
In the death of jennifer servo,
And we're gonna travel all over the country
To try to track them down and interview them.
Detectives cowan and montgomery are flying to hawaii
To interview ralph sepulveda at his home
While abilene detective, roger romero, and myself
Are traveling to iowa to interview brian travers.
So far, we haven't been able to uncover
Any physical evidence that links brian to this case,
And he's always been cooperative.
Let's see if he adds anything
That would either incriminate him
Or clear him in this case once and for all.
[line ringing]
Automated voice: Please leave your message for...
Man: Brian travers.
Mr. Travers, this is detective romero
With the abilene police department.
If I can get you to give me a call back
On this number, please, that'd be great. Thank you.
Spingola: I don't know if he's working, you know.
So far, we haven't had any luck trying to contact brian travers.
We're gonna try to track down his business address
And see if we can surprise him there.
He was in tennessee for a while.
- [cell phone ringing] - hmm.
Is that him there?
Hmm.
Detective romero.
Hey, mr. Travers. Appreciate you calling me back.
Just to sit down and have a chat.
I'd like to do it right now if you're available.
Yeah. All right. Thank you, sir.
All right, thank you.
- He's gonna make us wait. - Yep.
Detectives cowan and montgomery have a lot of good questions
To confront our suspect, ralph sepulveda, with.
We wanna know where was he on the night she was killed,
Why he told detectives
That he and jennifer were not very serious
When so many friends say he was very obsessed with her,
Why he never contacted that ex-girlfriend from montana
That he was supposedly gonna beg to take him back.
And, most importantly, we wanna see what he says
About choking jennifer during sex.
- Hey, how's it going? - Hey, sir, how you doing?
- I'm jeff cowan. - I'm ralph.
- Hey, how you doing, sir? - Shawn montgomery.
- How are you? - Good.
Hey, so, I work cold cases here in abilene.
- Okay. - And the case file,
Your name's all in it,
And you know the case file I'm talking about.
If you can give us insight, man, I'd be appreciative of it.
You know, it's been so long.
I haven't talked to anybody in a long time.
- Okay. - But, um,
I really--there's nothing else I could add to that.
- Okay. - Absolutely nothing.
He was very matter of fact.
He was very stoic. He was guarded.
I spoke, you know, to the detectives there plenty.
Gave 'em everything I had.
Gave 'em my side of the story, whatever.
But, yeah, I have nothing else to add. Sorry.
Okay.
I have no idea.
He wouldn't divulge any new information to us.
He gave us nothing.
Whatever I wrote back then, that's it.
He strikes me as--like, he still doesn't give a ----.
Sorry you guys had to come all this way.
Like, he never asked us how's the case coming,
Are there any leads, who's your main suspect.
I think because he knows that he is the main suspect.
And if this was a person that he loved and cared for
The way he said he did 21 years ago,
He sure has a funny way of showing it.
Appreciate you, sir.
Just like in the past, brian is willing to talk to us,
But he wants his attorney present,
And we're not gonna be able to record our conversation.
Take care.
Brian's attorney advised him not to answer any questions
And advised him to stay with the statement
He gave us 21 years ago.
But he did answer a few questions.
He cooperated as much as his attorney would allow him to.
You go to your attorney and I tell you
The first question they ask is, "did you do this?"
If he had any type of guilt, I think that attorney would say,
"we're not answering," but he's letting him talk.
So that kind of tells me that he didn't do it.
Morning.
- Morning. - How y'all doing?
- Good. - Wonderful.
It's been a long, tough week,
And we have talked to so many of the most credible witnesses
You could ever hope to find.
And now we're gonna review everything we've learned
About our suspects.
Okay, let's do "unknown suspect."
Jeff, what are you thinking about
There's an unknown random person that strangled her
And killed her and put her in the bathtub?
I don't think so.
The original officers noted
That there was no signs of forced entry.
I would think you'd hear screaming.
And we know there was conversation
From our downstairs neighbor. It was arguing,
And it lasted sound like for a decent amount of time.
I think there'd be a different screams,
And the police would have been called.
So everybody good with taking unknown suspect off?
Yes.
Okay, so we got brian travers up here.
He knows that when you google his name,
He comes up as a suspect for jennifer servo,
And he's been living with that his whole life.
He gets thrown into this
Because, a, he's the last person that's seen her.
The relationship is on the downslide.
He is a very meek, dependent personality.
He's a little bit awkward socially.
The other thing, he's got no record.
I just do not see this guy seriously.
He's calling the police department,
He's telling what he knows,
And he's still trying to help solve jennifer servo's case.
Brian travers has cooperated
With the police department since day one
Even against the advice of his own lawyers.
He's given his dna.
He flew up to montana to her funeral
And grieved there with her family and friends
And has continued to email jennifer's mom about the case.
So many of his friends and co-workers
Have vouched for his character.
The only thing brian travers did wrong
Was fall way too hard for jennifer years ago,
And he's been paying for that ever since.
I think he needs to be cleared off the board.
- Clear him. - Without a doubt.
Siegler: It feels kind of good to finally let him know
Once and for all he's cleared in all this.
Okay, so we got ralph sepulveda left up here standing.
Jennifer made it very clear that "my career comes first."
Jennifer told him, "I don't want you to come to texas.
I need to focus on my career." and he didn't listen to her.
He did the exact opposite and followed her.
Like, once he went there and followed her,
And this wasn't really what she wanted.
She didn't really know how to get out of it.
He doesn't have a job,
And he's living with her and mooching off of her,
And he doesn't leave until she forces him out.
He says he moved out August the 2nd.
That's six whole weeks of sitting in his apartment
With no furniture.
So, what do you think's happening
Inside the brain of this 35-year-old army ranger
When he realizes "this isn't quite working out how I like"?
He doesn't go back home.
He's still trying to talk her into it.
And he may have even seen her with travers earlier that day,
Which didn't really help his frame of mind, too.
He doesn't want her with anybody else.
Yep. This is an obsession.
This isn't just love. This is an obsession.
And jennifer finds out he's got a kid and he was engaged.
Spingola: This whole relationship is based on a lie.
The fact that she's deceased less than 10 days,
He packs up and leaves.
Siegler: He joined the real army again.
Montgomery: Never went to the funeral.
Didn't contact family or friends of jennifer.
It's like he just disappeared.
Thank god y'all found that apology letter.
'cause that thing was beautiful. And he says in his letter
He's going back to the girl he was engaged to.
Jennifer apparently was very open and honest
With her girlfriends about their relationship.
Strangling, to me, is huge.
He didn't just like rough sex. He liked strangling during sex.
Before she ends up dead, strangled to death.
What are you hoping happens today
When you meet with your prosecutors?
I think, based on what we have,
All roads lead back to ralph.
Siegler: Detectives cowan and montgomery
Are gonna present their case to their prosecutor,
Seeking charges for the murder of jennifer servo
Against ralph sepulveda.
Can you imagine how they slept last night,
Waiting to hear what you gotta tell 'em?
I bet they didn't sleep at all.
- Good morning, ladies. - Good morning.
- Y'all doing okay today? - Yes.
- Hello. - Hi.
- How was the flight? - It was good.
So, it has been a, uh--
A very lengthy process.
- Very daunting. - Mm-hmm.
But exhilarating at the same time on our end.
- Uh-huh. - Shawn and I went to hawaii
And spoke with ralph.
- And he would talk to you? - For a brief moment.
But we weren't anticipating anything other than that.
- Yeah. - We had a meeting
With our da's office, ran the case down to them,
And they're looking at taking this case.
- Ah. - Whether it be seeking charges
Or go to grand jury on ralph sepulveda.
Yay.
We've got a few things to kind of clean up.
I don't know when that'll all occur,
But we'll be in contact for sure.
I finally feel we're gonna have some justice for jen.
It won't bring her back.
But everything they've been through,
Doing the investigations, I appreciate all of it.
The police department feels like family.
I'm sorry for all y'all had to go through.
Y'all been so patient for 21 years.
This is what I was hoping for.
Christa: We're just so thankful to all of the investigators.
It means a lot that people didn't give up
And they--they didn't stop trying, ever.
- We're all here for you, okay? - We know you are.
- Thank you so much. - Give me a hug.
Siegler: Jennifer servo
Was a very special 22-year-old young lady
Taken from this world way too soon.
And her mom and sister have been waiting all these years
For something to be done about that.
And our hope is that now
They can finally get the justice that they deserve.
♪ cast myself ♪
♪ as ghosts in the rain ♪