- I'm craig melvin,
And this is "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
- This could have been anybody's child, anybody's sister.
She just disappears.
- Aj's wallet was sitting on the couch.
Something has happened abruptly.
- She would never run away.
- There's a lot of suspects in this case.
- Yeah.
- They were just asking questions nonstop.
- They said "we need you to tell us where aj is."
- I said "I know what you did."
- We found ammunition hidden in a vent
In his hotel room.
- Do you think aj is in the van still alive?
- Yes, I do.
It was very much an abandoned-looking home.
- It's like out of the movies.
- It had a very creepy feel to it.
It kind of all came crashing down at that moment.
The reality of it.
Heartbreaking, but also a sense of...
Now there are some answers.
♪♪
- Hello, and welcome to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
Her name was angelica hadsell,
But most people called her aj.
A star softball player,
She was as smart as she was reliable,
Which was why her loved ones were so baffled
When she vanished.
Investigators quickly uncovered a wealth of evidence,
But the secret behind aj's disappearance
Was more devious than anyone expected.
Here's andrea canning with "the jacket."
♪♪
- Norfolk, virginia,
Home to the nation's largest naval base,
Where ships of war crowd the harbor,
Symbols of safety and security.
Life here is tied to the slow, predictable ebb and flow
Of the surrounding waters.
But in March of 2015, a crime hit this seaside community
Like a hurricane and upended its sense of security.
- This was a massive story.
You know, an 18-year-old girl, a beautiful girl who grew up
In this community, just disappears
Basically out of nowhere.
- The investigation that followed
Was anything but predictable.
- It quickly spiraled into something much, much larger.
- And revealed how evil penetrated an inner circle
Of friends and family,
Sowing seeds of lies, betrayal, deception,
And proving how sometimes those closest to us
Can hurt us the most.
It's just horribly tragic that somebody could do something
To someone who trusted them so very much.
♪♪
It all started when angelica hadsell,
Also known as aj, came home from college on spring break
And simply vanished.
- This could have been anybody's child.
This could have been anybody's sister.
- Reporter kayla gaskins covered the story
For nbc affiliate wavy-tv.
Was there thought in the community
That maybe aj ran away?
- Every single person that knows her has said
This is extremely out of character.
This is not what we expect from aj.
She doesn't just fall off the face of the earth.
- It was mid-afternoon when aj's dad, wesley hadsell,
Said he got a text from his wife.
- Her words were,
"have you heard from aj?"
And I says, "no. Why?"
She said, I texted her and she said
She was out with friends.
- That was surprising.
- If she went somewhere,
She would normally tell us where she was going.
- So wesley said he sent aj a text of his own.
- I've asked her very specific, "where are you?
"what are you doing?"
- Did you get any response? - I got responses,
But she wouldn't tell us where she was at.
She said she needed time. She needed space.
- Later that evening, aj's mom returned home from work.
Aj wasn't there, but a note in her handwriting was.
What did it say?
- It said, "dear madre,
"with everything that's going on,
"it's a lot to deal with."
- Both parents knew aj was dealing with a lot of stress.
It was her freshman year in college,
Which proved to be harder than she thought.
Plus, she was breaking up with her boyfriend, josh campbell.
Was she in love with this boy?
- She was head over heels. He was the one.
- Could you see that she was hurting from the breakup?
- Yes. She was devastated.
- Also devastating, right before spring break,
Aj learned her dad, wesley, had started abusing drugs.
Aj's mom asked him to leave the house,
Forcing him to move into a nearby hotel.
Aj took the news hard.
- She looked at me and she had some tears in her eyes.
I went to give her my hand and she's like, you know,
"just get away from me.
"I don't want to talk to you right now."
- You could see the disappointment
In aj's eyes? - Yes, ma'am. Yes.
- This is not a good time for aj.
- It was just piling on.
- Aj's parents reached out to her friends.
No one had seen or heard from her.
By mid-afternoon the next day,
The texts from her phone stopped coming altogether.
- My wife's got off of work.
I had asked her if she had heard from aj.
She said no. She's like, "what do you want to do?"
I was like, "well, we need to go to the police."
- Norfolk police detective david benjamin got the case.
After speaking to her parents,
He constructed a timeline of the day she went missing.
- Timeline begins on March 2nd at 7:00 in the morning,
- According to her mom, that's when she left aj at home
So she could take her other daughters to school
And then had to work.
Aj seemed fine.
Her dad, wesley, said he last saw her
Shortly after noon that day, when he met her
At this gas station to give her money.
- He stated that he gave her $200,
And then spoke with her for about a half an hour.
She didn't say why she needed the money.
She seemed to be okay.
He said that she was wearing her university jacket.
It's like a blue jacket.
Had her name embroidered on it.
- He also said that when the two parted,
Aj headed home.
But a couple of hours later, when her sisters returned
From school, she wasn't there.
- The door was unlocked.
There was half-folded laundry in the living room.
Aj's wallet, with money in it,
Was sitting on the couch.
All very odd.
Angelica would typically not leave things undone,
So she would have finished the laundry.
She would have taken her wallet if she was going to leave.
- What does that say to you when you're trying
To put this puzzle together?
- It said that something has happened abruptly.
Are you starting to fear the worst?
That something has happened to aj?
- I'm not fearing the worst, but I was scared.
I was scared for her safety. I didn't know what was going on.
♪♪
- A daughter seemingly in distress.
Had aj reached the breaking point,
Or was something more sinister at work?
- Where is aj?
The search gets underway and clues pile up.
Coming up...
That note her mom found was supposedly from aj,
But did aj write it?
- It looked like her daughter's handwriting, but it was very odd
That she would leave a note.
That's not something she ever did.
- And the first break in the case.
This was a little suspicious, too.
- I saw a little white rectangle
On the ground. I saw her name on it.
- Did any alarm bells go off that, here,
This is her ex-boyfriend,
Who happens to find her credit card?
I mean, that's a pretty big coincidence.
- It did seem like a big coincidence.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Aj hadsell had been missing for over 24 hours.
Text messages from her cell phone indicated
She was stressed out,
Overwhelmed, and in need of some time alone.
But to detective benjamin, none of it made sense.
Had anyone seen her? - Nobody's seen her.
- Nothing? - No.
- What did you learn about aj? Who was she?
- She was an athlete. She's very outgoing.
Good kid.
No issues with drugs or alcohol.
Really was kind of flying straight.
- She was a star on the softball diamond.
It's where she developed a reputation for being tough.
What was aj's personality like?
- She was quiet and reserved, you know.
But when she was in her element, she was hell on wheels.
She did everything that the boys did.
She had more guy friends than girlfriends.
- Corey french was one of those friends.
They dated briefly in junior high.
What was it about aj that drew you to her?
When I met her, she just had this-this thing about her,
And I just couldn't stop wanting to see her more.
She was just-- she had something about her.
I just couldn't steer away.
- She was gorgeous. - Yeah.
- I mean, I'm sure you must have noticed that.
[chuckling] oh, yeah. She was...
Beautiful.
- Aj grew up relying mostly on her mom
And caring for her two younger half sisters.
She never knew her biological dad,
And a bitter divorce put a wedge between aj
And her first stepfather.
Then, wesley married aj's mom,
Wesley and aj quickly hit it off.
Eventually, he asked to adopt aj.
- I adored angelica.
She was my daughter, you know, she was my family.
So it felt right to just make it official.
- What did she say to you?
- She said if I was being serious,
That she would like to... Take my name.
The feelings that I felt were overwhelming.
- She felt happy.
Like, she got the father figure that she had wanted.
I think it was something that she had been missing
For a while.
She felt like that part of her family was now complete.
- When aj was 17,
She left norfolk and headed to college.
What were her dreams?
- She had lot of aspirations.
She was definitely an overachiever.
She was trying to graduate with a double major in three years.
- But all the recent stress in aj's life
Left the detective wondering if the young overachiever
Had pushed herself to the breaking point.
Did you think that maybe she ran away?
- Initially, that was one of the possible theories.
- Just overwhelmed.
Just possibly could have just said,
I can't deal with this anymore. - Correct.
- But the more people benjamin talked to,
The more he learned that simply wasn't aj.
Was she the type who would ever run away
If things got too heavy? - No, she's a fighter.
She would take things head on. She would never run away.
She wouldn't run away from anything.
Aj's friend andre bar felt the same way.
- Nobody thought she had just ran away.
- Why? - Aj wouldn't have done that
Without telling at least one of us.
- But it seemed aj was trying to reach out to her parents.
After all, she left that note for her mom at the house.
But there was something peculiar about it.
- It looked like her daughter's handwriting.
But it was very odd that she would leave a note.
It's not something she ever did.
- As for those text messages,
There was something odd about them, too.
- One, she refused to say where she was or who she was with.
Two, she was using language that was inconsistent
With how she would normally send text messages.
I became more and more concerned that she was in danger.
- It was looking more and more like an abduction.
But who would want to kidnap aj?
The detective started to build a list of suspects
Working from the inside out.
High on that list was her boyfriend, josh campbell.
Remember, they were breaking up.
- When I first met josh,
I felt like his affect was strange,
And a little inconsistent with what he should be like
Based on the situation.
- Meaning what? He should have been more upset, or...?
- More upset and perhaps more involved
In the search process.
- Did you think that there could be a motive there?
That maybe aj broke up with him?
He was unhappy with her? - Absolutely.
- But josh had a strong alibi,
And he said the breakup with aj was mutual.
Was he cleared or was he set aside?
- He was set aside.
There were very few people that were completely eliminated.
- Then three days into detective benjamin's investigation,
The first significant clue.
- And it wasn't actually us that found it,
It was a friend of angelica's, corey french.
- You make a big discovery. - Yes.
- Corey said that while walking home from work,
He spotted a piece of a credit card on the side of the road.
- I saw a little white rectangle on the ground,
So I went toward it.
And when I picked it up to flip it over,
I saw her name on it.
- It was aj's.
Police searched the area and found several more pieces.
Did any alarm bells go off that, here,
This is her ex-boyfriend who happens to
Find her credit card?
I mean, that's a pretty big coincidence.
- It did seem like a big coincidence.
- When investigators questioned corey,
He told them he and aj were close,
But that he hadn't seen her for months.
- He had reached out to aj when she was home
For spring break and wanted to see her,
And kept asking to see her.
But wesley told police this was far more than a coincidence.
He insisted they needed to investigate corey.
- We had gotten some information from wesley
That corey was obsessive in reference to angelica,
And that he really wanted to be with her again.
- Corey french was the ex-boyfriend.
They had a bad breakup. Even for kids at that age,
It was considered bad, where he just hung around,
Made his presence known.
- You're thinking at this point that corey french
Had something to do with his disappearance?
- Correct.
- Then the next day, a game changer.
Aj's other friend,
Andre bar, called police and said he found
Another piece of the puzzle.
There it was. - Plain sight
♪♪
- Coming up.
- This is huge. - It is huge.
- Another clue linked to corey french.
- Does your mind jump to...
Maybe corey did this? - It did. It's trophy behavior.
Someone who kills someone and wants a trophy
To remember that event.
- It's making me look really bad.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
- Almost a week had passed since aj hadsell disappeared.
By now, practically everyone in norfolk
Had heard about the missing teen.
Her close-knit community rallied
Behind her desperate family to offer its support.
How was aj's family holding up?
- They were constantly talking to the media.
They were doing the interviews.
We got the impression they wanted to do everything
In their power to find aj and to bring her back.
- Reporter kayla gaskins...
- Her family and her friends held a balloon release.
[air horns blowing]
- Aj's mom, jennifer, was there.
- Everybody has her in their prayers and, um,
You know, everybody's got hope and praying for her
To come home every day.
- Jennifer worked behind the scenes,
But wesley seemed to be everywhere.
- She didn't go on her own.
You know, she's not just sittin' somewhere happy
Watching tv, watching this.
I became the leader at that point.
- You're driving around, talking to people...
- Correct.
- Trying to see if anyone's seen her.
- Correct. - He is the person
Organizing everyone to go and find his daughter.
He is helping pass out fliers.
- Family and friends spread the word
Throughout norfolk to be on the lookout for aj.
Her story even went national when we featured it in our
"missing in america" series.
Meanwhile, detective benjamin called in help.
- We involved the state. We involved federal agents.
We involved the center for missing and exploited children.
- The clock was ticking in this case.
- Correct.
- Then the investigation went into overdrive
After andre barr found a stunning new clue.
- He observed...
Aj's longwood university jacket,
The item that she was last seen alive in
By wesley hadsell.
- It was found in the house where corey french lived.
This is huge. - It is huge.
- Remember, aj's middle school boyfriend had just told police
It had been months since he last saw her.
They hadn't seen each other. - They had not seen each other.
- Aj and corey. She never met up with him.
- Correct.
- So there would be no reason. - Correct.
- When you saw the jacket there, what are you thinking?
- Just angry, more than anything.
Nothing made sense.
- Andre didn't tell corey what he saw.
Instead, he left the jacket where it was,
And immediately called the police.
Does your mind jump to... Maybe corey did this?
- It did. It's trophy behavior.
You know, someone who kills someone and wants a trophy
To remember that event.
- So benjamin wanted to talk to corey again,
This time as a suspect.
Investigators brought corey to police headquarters
While they searched the teen's home.
- We're wondering what other pieces of evidence
Might be found, or is angelica there?
Is it possible we're going to find her body in the house?
- They didn't find aj, but they did find her jacket
Behind a couch cushion, just as andre described.
Back at the station,
Benjamin turned up the heat on corey french.
- We did begin to lean on him pretty hard.
You know, we went through a basic interview
And then we started to get more and more accusatory
As the interview progressed.
- They were asking questions.
They were asking my relationship with angelica,
How much I cared about her.
And then eventually they hit me with
"we know you had something to do with it,
"and we need you to let us know what it is you did."
- What did you say to them? - "I don't know where she is."
I don't. I don't. Why are you asking me this?
- Then, the big reveal.
Benjamin pulled out the jacket.
- He had an extreme reaction to seeing the jacket.
He physically pulled away.
Came up out of his chair a little bit.
He swore.
- They said "we found this in your house
"behind your couch cushion."
- Had you ever seen that jacket before?
- No.
- How did that jacket get in the house, then?
- My mind was asking that...
Over and over and over and over again.
- Corey continued to deny having anything to do
With aj's disappearance.
- My answers were always the same.
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know what you're talking about. It kept going.
It just was a tennis match the whole time,
And I kept losing. - You found the credit card,
And the jacket is now found in your house?
- Yes. It's making me look really bad.
- But at the end of a lengthy interrogation,
Detective benjamin let corey go home.
- We had the jacket. But that's all we had.
We were in that very uncomfortable gray zone
Where we've got someone who looks very bad
In terms of, you know, being a suspect,
But not enough to charge them for it
And to get them off the street.
- After learning police released corey,
Wesley took matters into his own hands.
- I felt corey french was definitely involved,
So I thought that something drastic needed to happen
To get some answers.
- Wesley really did go after corey.
He posted himself up across the street
From corey's house, and he got a air horn,
And he was blowing the air horn repeatedly throughout the night.
- Wesley even sent corey a pizza with a message on the box.
- I said, "I know what you did."
That was it. Just big black letters.
"I know what you did."
And I said, hey, go deliver that to their house.
- To some in the community, wesley's vigilante behavior
Crossed a line.
To others, it was understandable.
- I think people gave him a pass for that behavior
Because of the situation.
I think people related to him as a dad,
A father in pain,
Who wants to know what happened.
- Despite wesley's insistence
That police look no further than corey french,
Detective benjamin expanded his focus.
He now set his sights on yet a third person,
Aj's first stepfather, zach hoffer.
- We really, really looked carefully at him.
♪♪
- Coming up,
- Was your gut telling you we're going to find this person
In her inner circle?
- We felt so, because she had a very kind of
Defined group of folks that she stuck with.
- But wesley was growing frustrated with the pace
Of the investigation.
- He was accusing us
Of not looking in the right places,
Essentially not being as committed
To the case as we should be.
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
♪♪
Welcome back to "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin.
Police suspected aj hadsell's ex-boyfriend corey french
Was involved in her abduction.
On a tip, they found the jacket aj was wearing
The day she disappeared inside corey's home.
It seemed like just the break detectives needed.
But this investigation was far from over.
They were about to uncover a big secret.
Back to andrea canning with "the jacket."
♪♪
- The search for aj hadsell was well into its second week.
Her father was now telling anyone who would listen
That he knew who was responsible for her disappearance...
Corey french.
Was the community really zeroing in as well on corey french?
- Aj's friends were. Aj's family was.
His own friends started to... Spy on him.
- Still, no one knew for sure what had happened to aj.
There must have been such frustration
From the family and friends,
As each day goes by and no sighting of aj.
- They're frustrated, but determined.
They were going to do their own work aside from police.
They were going to organize their own searches.
- Like this one for aj's phone.
Wesley said he got a tip that it was in this field,
So he rallied the troops to search for it,
But they found nothing.
You were taking charge of searching,
Reaching out to people... - I was reaching out.
If I knew something, I heard something.
I reached out to people.
- How did you feel about how the police were handling this?
- I had no feelings other than helplessness.
They weren't telling us anything.
- He was becoming quite frustrated with us.
He was accusing us of not looking in the right places,
Essentially not being as committed to the case
As we should be.
- Detective benjamin ignored wesley's complaints
And continued to focus on those closest to aj.
Was your gut telling you anything?
Like, "I feel like we're going to find this person
"in her inner circle."
- We felt so because she had a very kind of
Defined group of folks that she stuck with.
- Next on investigators' list of suspects
Was zach hoffer, aj's first stepdad.
They learned that zach's relationship
With aj had become strained.
It was a relationship that began when she was a toddler.
- She ultimately started calling me daddy
When she was, like, probably two.
Something like that. And I became daddy.
So she became my child.
I mean, it was just that simple.
- Soon after marrying,
Aj's mom and zach had two daughters of their own.
- Angelica was an amazing big sister.
They were my life, my three daughters,
My three cubs, as I called them. You know?
- When aj was eight years old,
Things between zach and aj's mom started to fall apart.
- At the same time, the relationship between aj
And zach also started to fall apart.
A divorce happened.
There was a lot of strife between the family.
- Then wesley came along.
Even though zach wasn't the biological dad,
He fought for custody of aj and lost.
- Zach was feeling marginalized from the family,
His girls, and from anjelica.
- It must have stung when wesley adopted aj.
Now he's officially her dad.
- Yes. She was anjelica hoffer her whole life before that.
That was what everybody knew her as.
I was angry and hurt,
So it felt like it was a stab in the heart.
- Detective benjamin wondered, could zach have felt betrayed,
Leading him to ultimately harm aj?
Did you bring zach in multiple times?
- Multiple interviews, some very lengthy ones,
Some very-- some accusatory.
- How was zach acting as you're interviewing him?
- He seemed to be overly interested
In the progression of the case.
- But the harder they looked, the less suspicious he seemed.
They determined he was nowhere near aj
At the time she went missing.
Still, as it was with almost everyone he looked at,
Benjamin wasn't yet willing to clear zach.
- He was not put on a back burner.
He was always kind of right there.
- He was on the burner? - Yes.
- As the investigation headed into its third week,
Benjamin learned wesley and a friend of aj's
Made another major discovery.
Wesley said a tip led them to articles of clothing
Along the side of the road. Turns out they were aj's.
But to the detective,
There was something unsettling about the discovery.
The friend who helped find the clothing
Was andre barr.
- So andre finds the jacket in corey french's house,
And he happens to also find the next
Large piece of evidence,
Which is anjelica's clothing strewn about
On south battlefield boulevard.
- Are you starting to think andre
Might have something to do with it?
- It just seemed very odd that, you know, two of the three
Major pieces of evidence so far in this case
Was found by andre barr.
- Would he have a possible motive?
He's in her inner circle, too. - He is in her circle.
- So did you bring andre in for questioning?
- We did.
Well, we point out how none of this makes sense.
He finally cracks that the story that he gave us
About how he found the jacket in corey french's house
Was not how it actually happened.
- The plot thickens.
- Coming up...
- He was constantly receiving tips
That would require us to follow up, finding evidence.
- Wesley keeps police busy with tips.
- We did come to believe that he was inserting himself
Too much in the investigation.
- And a gray day at an abandoned house.
- Little furniture, if any, overgrown.
- It had a very creepy feel to it.
- When "dateline" secrets uncovered" continues.
- Andre barr was now the latest person
On detective benjamin's radar.
Andre had helped find not one, but two key pieces of evidence.
First, aj's jacket,
And now more pieces of aj's clothing.
- We're not sure what dynamics are playing out at this point,
But we do think it's odd that he was involved
In-in the finding of both of these pieces of evidence.
- So detective benjamin sat andre down
For an intensive grilling.
- They were just asking questions nonstop.
Did you ask andre, "did you have anything to do
"with aj's disappearance?"
- Oh, of course. - What did he say?
- He denied, obviously, anything like that.
Was shocked that we were even going down that pathway.
- That's when andre revealed something startling
About how he found aj's jacket at corey's house.
Wesley had told him where to look for it.
How did wesley know where it was?
- Andre tells us that wesley hadsell approaches him
And says that he broke in to corey french's house
In an attempt to look for aj and to look for any evidence
Because he so strongly suspected corey french of being involved,
And that while he was in the house,
He found aj's jacket.
- Wesley said he didn't tell police about his discovery
Because he feared they would arrest him
For breaking and entering.
- He says to andre, "I want you
"to get into corey french's house,
"use some kind of ruse, and find the jacket,
"and then report it to the police."
He wants to make it look like you found it,
- Yeah. - And he wants to keep
That story alive. - Right.
- This is a crazy story. - It is a crazy story.
- To benjamin, it also made a lot of sense.
Early on in the investigation, he learned there was more
In wesley's checkered past than just drug abuse.
Wesley had an extensive criminal record
That included what else? Breaking and entering.
- He had a fairly lengthy criminal past,
Starting from when he was a juvenile.
He had robbed a bank at one point.
He had burglarized several businesses.
- But it wasn't just wesley's past that raised a flag.
Benjamin said he'd been acting strange
Ever since the investigation started.
- He was constantly receiving tips
That would require us to follow up, finding evidence.
- Isn't that something a dad would or should do
If their daughter was missing?
- Yes, to an extent.
But we did come to believe or feel, rather,
That he was inserting himself too much in the investigation,
Which is a red flag for us,
As if he wants to know what we're doing, what we know.
- Even more troubling, investigators couldn't verify
Wesley's account of where he last saw aj.
- He was insistent that he met her
At a gas station off of tidewater drive.
What he didn't know was that we had obtained
The surveillance video from the gas station
For several hours prior to the time
That he says he met her,
To several hours after the time that he says he left her there.
- Was he on that video with aj?
- He was not on their video at all.
- Wasn't even at the gas station.
- So this story totally isn't adding up.
- Not at all. That didn't sit right with us
And was pointing towards him as a suspect.
- It was hard to believe. After weeks of talking
To numerous people inside aj's circle,
It was aj's adoptive father,
The person adamant about finding her,
Who would now become benjamin's number one suspect.
The detective didn't have enough to accuse him of abducting aj,
But he did have enough to arrest wesley
For breaking into corey's house.
- We thought we had enough, at least for a burglary charge.
- The arrest stunned the norfolk community.
- A strange turn of events. 10 on your side has learned
The missing girl's father, wesley hadsell,
Was arrested by norfolk police overnight.
- Toni colvin was a south hampton county
Commonwealth assistant attorney.
- When aj went missing, I was aware.
I remember seeing the searches and started to see
What was going on with mr. Hadsell
When he got arrested for that burglary charge.
- Wesley's arrest gave them probable cause
To search his property, starting with his hotel room.
- We found ammunition. Now, he's a convicted felon.
He's not supposed to have ammunition,
And it was hidden in a vent in his hotel room.
- Benjamin then moved on to wesley's work van.
- Inside his work van, we see a garmin gps device
That's in the dash of the vehicle.
- Investigators painstakingly analyzed the data
From that device, focusing on the several days
Before and after aj went missing.
- He turns on his gps
And he goes to some location in suffolk,
And then he just keeps the gps on.
- And we got this wonderful track
Of every place that that gps unit had been.
It's pinging off the satellite
And leaving breadcrumbs very close together.
Most of wesley's movements during that period of time
Could be explained.
But there was one unusual detour wesley took
That seemed very suspicious.
It led investigators to this abandoned house
In a remote rural area about an hour west of norfolk.
- It was very much an abandoned looking home.
Little furniture, if any, overgrown.
- That doesn't sound good. - It didn't sound good
And it didn't make a lot of sense.
- The detective immediately gathered his team
And raced out to the location.
- It was gray and misty out.
It had a very creepy feel to it.
- As investigators slowly walked the property,
Benjamin made his way to an area in the back.
- And I'm looking at this little waterway.
It's like a drainage ditch, and somebody had placed
A sheet of plywood
To bridge this little waterway.
So I put my right toe underneath the piece of wood,
And I pulled up on it
And kind of leaned over and looked underneath it.
- It was there detective benjamin found aj.
It had been five weeks since she disappeared.
She was lying face down in the water,
Her body badly decomposed.
- There were some telltale signs that were very disturbing.
Her pants had obviously been pulled down.
So what this is saying to us
Is that she had been sexually assaulted.
It kind of all came crashing down at that moment for us.
We were always holding out hope that she was alive.
And now it just-- the reality of it.
Here she was, in a ditch.
- News quickly spread that aj had been found
Such a sad ending.
The community must have just been in a state of shock.
- Heartbreaking, but also a sense of
Now, there are some answers.
- With the discovery of aj's body in her county,
Toni colvin would prosecute the case.
- Any time you have a circumstantial case,
You always are concerned that you can paint
An adequate picture for the jury to understand what happened,
And that they can put all of those pieces together.
- Coming up...
- There are people who think you're a monster.
- Well... People have opinions.
I never did anything wrong to that kid.
- What will the jury's opinion be?
- We, the jury, find the defendant,
Wesley paul hadsell--
- When "dateline: Secrets uncovered" continues.
- Welcome back. Aj hadsell's hometown was reeling.
The teenager was dead.
Her body found face down in a ditch.
Investigators were convinced her stepfather,
Wesley hadsell, killed her.
Now, wesley was headed to court,
Where prosecutors planned to prove
Both how and why he murdered aj.
But would jurors believe
He could do something so cruel?
Here's andrea canning with the conclusion of "the jacket."
- The search for aj lasted more than five weeks.
Multiple police agencies had answered the call,
As did an entire community. Now it was over
With the discovery of aj's body behind an abandoned home.
- That's when I just lost it. And I felt like--
In that moment, I felt like I just kind of died.
- I couldn't-I couldn't believe what had happened.
I couldn't believe that--
That she was now gone.
- Prosecutor colvin and detective benjamin began
Building their case against aj's father, wesley hadsell.
Are you convinced in this moment that wesley did this?
- Yes. His gps led us to her body.
There is no getting around it whatsoever.
- So they went back to the beginning,
To the morning aj went missing.
On a hunch, the detective had his investigators
Comb through hours of footage from a 7-eleven security camera
That captured traffic near the hadsell residence.
The tedious work paid off when they spotted wesley
Driving to the house around noon.
- We were able to determine that wesley hadsell
Left his work, went to the residence
Knowing that anjelica was going to be home alone,
And that something happened when he was there.
- So our theory is that's when he abducted her.
We believe that he forced her to write that note.
The note was out of character for aj.
- Investigators then saw him on that same security footage
Driving his van away from the house at 1:27 p.M..
Are you thinking she's in that van?
- At that point, most likely, because there would have been
No other place to hide her.
- Although they can't say exactly
When or where it happened,
Benjamin believes at some point over the next several hours,
Wesley killed aj.
- And then he drove her out to an abandoned house,
Took her behind the house, and dumped her
Face down in a ditch,
- And then went and joined the family.
- And acted like nothing happened,
That he had no involvement in it.
- Not only that, acted as a very concerned father.
- Correct.
- That's when they say wesley started covering his tracks.
He sent those cryptic text messages from aj's phone.
He also began planting evidence.
First, pieces of aj's credit card, then her jacket.
You're now thinking that wesley broke into
Corey french's house and planted aj's jacket?
- That's exactly what we thought.
- It's like out of the movies. - It is.
- Framing somebody for murder. - Yep.
Corey french was the perfect patsy for this.
He had been in a relationship with anjelica, and it had ended,
And he obviously still had feelings for her.
- You were framed for murder. - Yeah, I was.
- Or at least someone attempted to frame you for murder.
- Yeah, it still affects me to this day.
Every good moment I had growing up in norfolk,
Anything like that, all of it's-all of it's gone.
It broke me down to-to almost nothing.
- Colvin believes that of all the evidence against wesley,
The most damning is aj's cause of death.
The medical examiner determined
That she died of heroin poisoning.
- She was not a drug user.
There was no evidence that showed
That she would have been able to have access to heroin.
The only evidence of anybody that had that access to heroin
Is the defendant.
- Police located wesley's drug dealer.
He told them he sold wesley heroin
Soon after aj went missing.
And in another search of wesley's hotel room,
Police found heroin hidden in the ceiling.
- So he's the individual that was able to obtain heroin.
He did obtain heroin, and then he forced her to consume it.
- But the question remained. Why?
Why would this seemingly loving stepfather
Who ultimately adopted aj want to kill her?
The detective had a theory.
- I think he had maybe an unhealthy
Attraction to anjelica.
He might have tried something. She might have resisted.
With his drugs, everything unraveling in his life,
I think he lost control.
- Almost seven years after aj disappeared,
Her father, wesley hadsell, faced a jury of his peers.
Defense attorney james ellenson
Knew he had his work cut out for him,
But he also believed that as strong
As the commonwealth's case was,
It still couldn't prove how and when
Wesley poisoned aj with the heroin.
- I would challenge anybody
As to how did she actually die.
- There's no solid evidence. - No, I don't--
- --That puts him there with killing her.
- I-- no, I don't see whether it was proof
Beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Ellenson also pointed out the commonwealth
Couldn't say for certain why wesley killed aj.
Was there any evidence to show that wesley was in love with aj,
That wesley was obsessed with aj?
- Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
There is absolutely not a shred of evidence of any of that.
- After two weeks of testimony,
Jurors left the courtroom to deliberate.
They didn't need much time.
- 40 minutes for a almost three week trial.
To come to a decision that quickly
Is not something anybody thought was going to happen.
- We, the jury, find the defendant,
Wesley paul hadsell,
Guilty as charged in the indictment.
- Were you just so surprised?
- I think it showed us how strong
Of a case that we had.
- Wesley hadsell chose not to testify in court,
But he did speak to us from jail.
He maintained his innocence
Despite all the evidence indicating otherwise.
Wesley denied planting the credit card and the clothes.
And as for the jacket...
- That jacket, it wasn't there by my means.
I didn't plant that jacket.
- What about the garment that led investigators
To the abandoned house?
It's your gps. - It's my gps.
You know, I can't explain why it was there.
I definitely know that I wasn't there.
- What do you say to anyone who's hearing this
Who's saying this guy is telling lie after lie after lie,
That he is the worst kind of human being
That would do this to his own daughter
And try to cover it up? - That's their opinion.
I mean, I have not hurt anjelica ever.
- Were you obsessed with her? - No, ma'am.
- Were you harboring secret feelings for her?
- No. No, ma'am.
- Did you sexually assault aj? - No, ma'am.
- There are people who think you're a monster.
- Well, people have opinions.
- Would you like to confess here today
That you killed aj? - No, ma'am. No, ma'am.
I never did anything wrong to that kid.
- He denied it to us
That he had anything to do with aj's death.
- The evidence is overwhelming. Absolutely overwhelming.
I feel 100% confident that we got the right person
And that he got the appropriate punishment.
- Prosecutors never brought sexual assault charges
Against wesley.
His sentence for murder, life in prison,
Which was vindication for the many people
Caught in his web of deceit, including zach hoffer,
Aj's first step father, whose deep love for her
Was questioned as something sinister.
- You were the caring parent here.
You obviously cared a lot about her.
- That's all it was. It's just that simple.
I just cared about her. Cared about my children.
And that's it.
- Like zach hoffer, andre barr became a suspect, too.
Worse, he was used by wesley to try and frame a close friend.
- Wes was just good at manipulating people.
He played everybody in his game of chess, and he lost.
- As for corey french,
The young man wesley tried to frame for aj's murder,
He says his life will never be the same.
- The only thing I really have to say to him
Is basically just (bleep) you, dude.
That's-that's all I can say.
I just-- I hope that he sees her
Every single day in that--
In the way that he left her.
- Aj hadsell left an indelible mark
On her family and all her many friends.
Through them, her memory will live on.
- I just hope that everyone is aware
Of how great she was,
Of how amazing she was, how smart she was,
How dedicated she was.
Yeah, I just...
I just miss her.
And I just...
I know I'll never forget her.
- That's all for this edition
Of "dateline: Secrets uncovered."
I'm craig melvin. Thank you for watching.