A loving mother with a selfless spirit.
I remember her laughter.
You could hear Mother laughing from two rooms away.
She was really representative of the goodness in people.
She loved her community. They loved her.
Is stabbed to death in a horrifying attack.
It was gruesome crime scene. There was a lot of blood.
Perpetrator left the victim with a two pronged
serving fork sticking out of her throat.
The amount of devastation led us to believe
that it definitely was a crime of passion.
Suspicion falls on those closest to her.
He was the husband that last saw her alive.
He didn't really show any signs of grieving.
He failed the polygraph.
My first thought was that it was a domestic assault.
Her son had had an argument
with his mother that morning.
A neighbor had seen a teenager running away
from the home that day.
Months go by without an arrest.
We kept wondering why is it so hard to capture
a murderer in this small town?
Then, just as the case is in danger
of going cold, police uncover a dire warning.
The note threatened more violence.
That leads to a deranged killer
no one could have predicted.
Wow. We didn't see that coming.
Shenandoah, Iowa is a close-knit farming
community home to just 5,500 people.
Shenandoah is your typical small town.
It's just beautiful.
The corn surrounding the towns.
Everybody knows one another.
You just are almost shocked at how nice folks are.
It's a small peaceful community.
People know their neighbors, take care of each other.
You don't have a lot of violent crime of any nature.
The peace is shattered on September 6th, 1988,
when police get a disturbing call from local pastor,
Robert Borton, at 3:40 PM.
He tells police his wife of 19 years, Cindy, is dead.
He found her body in the kitchen
lying in a pool of her own blood.
He called authorities who arrived immediately
and kept him outside of the house.
It was gruesome crime scene.
We found a female on the kitchen floor.
There was a lot of blood everywhere.
This person had been stabbed many, many times.
Perpetrator left the victim
lying on her back in a pool of blood with a two pronged
serving fork sticking out of her throat.
That image stayed with me
because it was remarkable in its gruesomeness.
There were four instruments that appeared to come from her
kitchen that were weapons of convenience for the killer.
There were two forks, a large two prong fork,
a four prong fork, as well as two knives.
There was a struggle.
There was some cuts on her hand where
she had fought the person,
and she had tried to get away from the person.
The phone had been ripped off of the wall and it was obvious
that a lot of activity went on while Cindy was being killed.
Detectives observed that the pool of blood
is not yet dry.
Meaning the murder likely happened
in the late morning or early afternoon.
In addition to the blood in the kitchen,
there were also some blood stains found in the bathroom.
It was obvious that the person
had cleaned up in the bathroom
because there wasn't any visible pools of blood,
just blood that looked like it had been washed off
of hands or clothing.
We did not have the benefit of DNA testing back in the 80s.
Blood would've been collected still
because you can't type the blood.
And that was one thing that we'd be looking at.
And of course, fingerprints,
obviously throughout the crime scene.
There was no forced entry.
We were 99% sure that she knew who the perpetrator was.
My first thought was that
it was a family assault.
The amount of devastation that was there
at the crime scene led us to believe
that it definitely was a crime of passion.
Detectives had to speak with Cindy's husband,
Robert, but are beaten to it by a new arrival at the scene,
the couple's 18-year-old son.
I seen an ambulance parked in front of my house
and my father was leaning against the front
of my mother's car crying.
And...
I just knew deep down inside me
that my world was never going to be the same.
I dropped my backpack there in the middle of the yard
and went running up to my father.
And he then informed me that mama was gone.
- - 39- - Year-old Cynthia Borden was a born
and bred Iowa girl.
She and her brother were raised by loving parents
just outside Des Moines.
My mother and my uncle would always tell me
about the adventures that they had around the farm.
Life was good for them.
Everybody had to laugh according to mama.
I remember her laughter.
You could hear mother laughing from two rooms away.
You would have to rush in there to find out what it was
that was so funny that made mama laugh.
As a teen, Cindy worked at a local restaurant,
and soon after would meet her future husband.
My father wound up coming in there
and doing the whole phone number exchange thing.
And then they started going out
and one thing led to another.
The couple married in 1969.
When the family moved to Shenandoah,
Cindy had her hands full.
Mama just kind of assumed the role
of the pastor's wife.
She also worked at a donut place there.
Mama always did what she had to do
to take care of the family.
I was her everything.
I was very much a mama's boy.
My mother was love personified.
Cindy's warm heart also extended
to those outside the family.
Mama always had an open door policy for all of my friends.
They always knew that my mother was there
to be a second mother to them,
somebody that they could talk to,
that she never passed judgment on anybody.
She was also very good with giving out the hugs.
Mama was always there to give you a hand back up
if life knocked you down.
Cindy loved her community. They loved her.
She was really representative of a small town in Iowa.
The goodness in people.
Cindy's death leaves many in the community
wondering who could have killed her.
Investigators have an idea on where to start.
Back in that time,
about 85% of all homicides in the state of Iowa were
committed by someone close to the victim.
A husband is always a major suspect
at the time we see a homicide like this,
especially one with so much rage involved.
Robert was interviewed and gave the following timeline.
He had gone to work that morning at Select Motors
where he was a part-time worker
because preaching to a small rural congregation
is not lucrative employment.
Robert returned home at noon as was his habit.
His wife served him spaghetti for lunch,
and at one o'clock he returned to work.
Cindy worked at a local bakery.
Her shift was to start at two o'clock that day.
When she didn't show up for work,
her employer became concerned and called Robert.
He indicated that he thought perhaps she had simply
taken a nap and overslept.
Approximately an hour or so later when she still
had not shown up for work,
he got the second phone call from his wife's employer.
He went home at about 3:30 in the afternoon to discover
Cindy dead on the kitchen floor.
What Robert says he did next
raises a red flag to detectives.
After finding his wife and then calling to get some help,
he took the dog out instead of being there for his wife
or trying to do something for his wife.
He said he wanted it to be tied up so that the ambulance
people wouldn't have to deal with his pets.
That was very unusual and very strange.
Then, Robert offers up a theory
investigators find completely ludicrous.
Bob was saying that his wife could have just tripped
and felt onto this fork.
That was totally not plausible
and it didn't make any sense whatsoever.
It was just...
I can't imagine anyone ending up in a situation
and certainly not with the amount of blood
that was found there at the scene too.
He thought that it was an accident,
and that really raised eyebrows.
How could you possibly think that someone had just fallen?
You just think, well, this is someone who snapped.
Bob Borton was our prime suspect
immediately after the death of Cynthia Borton,
because first of all,
he was the last person to see her alive,
and then he also was the one that found her.
Coming up.
Suspicion swells around Cindy's husband.
His work clothing was laundered before investigators
had an opportunity to examine it for blood spatter.
What does Robert Borton have to hide?
The only thing I want him to say is I did it.
While police dig for evidence
against their top suspect,
a threatening clue sends shockwaves through the town.
There were great many different
and wild rumors leaving notes at the scene.
Cindy Borton ain't nothing compared to what's coming,
and hints such as the NS Night Stalker.
This story just got even more crazy
and more sensational and more scary.
Police in Shenandoah, Iowa are investigating
the gruesome murder of 39-year-old Cynthia Borton.
Her husband Robert's erratic behavior is putting him
in detective's spotlight.
Robert commented that his wife had simply fallen on
a serving fork and died an accidental death.
These comments were certainly
unusual and suspicious.
Police bring Robert to the station
for a formal interview.
Bob did have a very strange personality
and strange mannerisms about him when he was interviewed.
He didn't really show any signs of grieving.
You would've expected that a man having just lost
his wife would be very emotional at the time
he was being interviewed.
But we didn't see that with Bob Borton.
He was very matter of fact.
He was just so casual in talking
even about finding his wife.
He acted like that was just everyday thing.
It was just like talking about, well,
what's the weather gonna be like today?
Detectives question Robert
about his relationship with Cindy.
He told us about having arguments once in a while.
He went in kind of a defensive mode about the questioning.
When they're reacting like that,
it does put up a red flag like that.
Investigators try to provoke
a telling reaction out of Robert.
He didn't get upset when I accused him of being the one
responsible for his wife's death.
He didn't show sadness. He didn't cry.
His stoic but unemotional denials
only increased their suspicions.
At that point in time, Bob Borton couldn't be held at all.
We had no evidence to show that he was responsible.
We had no information other than
his matter of fact attitude.
Robert provides fingerprint samples,
but with nothing concrete linking him to the murder,
investigators must let him go.
This frankly was frustrating to some of the investigators
involved in the case.
Cindy's body has been sent
to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy.
While police wait to learn a specific time of death,
they look to verify Robert's whereabouts.
His boss alibied him for the time that he said
that he was at work that day.
Knowing it's still possible
Robert killed Cindy when he went home
on his lunch break at noon,
what his boss tells detectives next rings alarm bells.
He changed his clothes when he went back to work.
Before the body was found,
he dropped off his work clothing.
It was laundered before investigators had an opportunity
to examine it for blood spatter.
Had this all been part
of Robert's well executed plan?
There isn't always transfer of blood from a victim
to a perpetrator, even in an extremely bloody killing
such as this one.
But of course the likelihood that there would be made it
important to examine the clothing,
and that was impossible because those clothes,
as it happened, were very quickly laundered.
That certainly was a little detail that made us
think that it was him.
Investigators conducted a great deal of background
interviews with neighbors, friends, coworkers.
We did look into the relationship between Robert
and Cynthia Borton to see if it was a good marriage.
And we did determine that they did have some problems,
everything wasn't roses and everything wasn't
as you might think.
There was corralling in the house.
We thought maybe he had a lot of rage
that he wanted to get rid of.
And he was taking it out on Cindy,
but we had never been called there
for family disturbance or anything.
Needing to verify information about Cindy
and Robert's relationship,
detectives seek out their son, John,
but the teen has vanished.
On the day she passed, all I did was shut down.
My best friend, Jim, and his mother and father
came driving by in their car,
and attempted to speak with me.
I was not in the mood to talk.
And then I just kept on walking.
When John arrives back home that night,
detectives are there waiting.
They wanted everything that I could tell them while it was
still all fresh in my mind.
My father and I were still of the impression that it could
have been accidental.
When asked about his parents' relationship,
John admits there were problems.
There was some disagreements
and a little bit of an argument.
And then they realized that could I actually
find anybody better for me?
The answer they came up with was no.
So it's like we were happy one time.
We need to figure this out, get it worked out.
That whole part of the wedding bounds of
til death do us part,
they both took that very seriously.
John is too upset to say much more.
Police end their conversation,
but plan to talk with him again when he is less distraught.
Officers are then dispatched to canvas the area
around the Borton home.
They talked to the neighbors and tried to find out if
there's anybody who witnessed anything suspicious.
The neighbor had seen a teenager running away
from the home that day actually in the afternoon.
The neighbor's description of the teen
sounds strikingly familiar.
John Borton, Cynthia's son, fit the description
of the person that had run away from the house.
Had John come home early from school
to murder his own mother?
It was a fascinating story.
It was a mystery.
He seemed like your typical teenager.
Bob Borton and also John Borton
were the main and only suspects.
That in itself was the shocking part.
Detectives investigating the vicious slaying
of Cynthia Borton have two prime suspects,
her husband, Robert, who found her dead,
and now their 18-year-old son who matches
the description of a teen seen fleeing the area
around the time of the murder.
John Borton, even though he was scheduled to have been
at school that day, might have come home early.
So John Borton early on was a person
that we wanted to talk with
and get more details about where he was on that day.
The day after the murder,
John is brought to the police department
for another interview.
They started with the questions about
the home life and everything else.
I told them my mother was literally my whole world.
When detectives asked John about the last time
he saw his mother, he makes a startling admission.
John indicated in his interview that he had,
had an argument with his mother that morning.
That of course was interesting and relevant information.
Mother and I did disagree
because I was not in the mood to go to school that day.
My last words to my mother that day
were a bit harsh.
I have zero pride or pleasure
that I can take from that particular morning.
John maintains he was at school the entire day,
but he didn't have any classes between noon and 3:00 PM,
the approximate window of time when detectives
suspect Cindy was murdered.
The whole tone of the investigation changed.
They were considering me personally to be a suspect.
Who on earth could think that I would do
this to my mother?
In a household with three people,
the two surviving occupants would always be interviewed
and looked at to see if they had an alibi.
We tried to determine with anybody at the school to make
sure that they saw him there and to make sure that
he was in fact in school,
not just that he was supposed to be in school,
but that people actually did see him there during that day.
Investigators took aside two of John's friends,
Jim and Jackson,
to find out if there was anything that might cause them to
be concerned about John as a suspect.
The teens can't confirm John was at school
the entire day, but they're adamant he's not the killer.
One of the first people to console him
about his mother's death was Jim Bettis.
Friends of John Borton said Cynthia Borton's murder
had been true devastation for John.
I heard some of my teachers kind of speaking in kind
of a low hushed tone thing that the detectives
had come by and questioned them as to
whether or not I was actually at school.
Could anybody verify that I was there all day
like I was supposed to be.
Eventually they were able to
reconstruct my alibi for the entire afternoon.
Detectives talked with his teachers
who verified that he had spent that full day at school.
Cynthia's son, John, is ruled out as a suspect.
Three days later,
the autopsy report comes in and police look for any insight
into what exactly happened that gruesome day.
Cindy suffered a horrifying death.
The medical examiner found that
Cindy had been stabbed 29 times
with at least four different instruments,
two knives and two serving forks.
In addition to stab wounds
that directly led to her death by puncturing vital organs,
she had defensive wounds on her hands and forearms.
She struggled with her assailant.
She had to know that she was dying at the hands
of her killer.
The autopsy report also provides
a detail crucial to the investigation.
Based upon his finding of a stomach full
of completely undigested spaghetti,
the medical examiner estimated the time of death
as one o'clock in the afternoon.
Cindy and Robert had shared a meal of spaghetti
between 12 and one o'clock.
Robert placed himself in that home alone
in his wife's company at the estimated time of death.
It really made Bob Borton our prime suspect.
He was the husband that last saw her alive.
He was the husband that was the first to find her dead on
the kitchen floor.
He and his wife had, had difficulties
throughout their marriage, had, had problems.
Investigators decided that it was important
to keep working on Robert.
He was really their only feasible suspect.
Based on the findings of the autopsy report
and mounting circumstantial evidence,
Robert is called back in for another interview.
One of our agents was very aggressive
in interrogating Bob Borton about his wife's murder
and accusing him of being the murderer.
And Bob again, sat very calm and still,
and was not irate about being accused
of having taken his wife's life.
The investigators decided to give me a call and ask me
to conduct a polygraph examination of Bob Borton
and do that right away before he had a chance
to think twice about it.
The relevant questions that I've asked Bob Borton is,
were you responsible for your wife's death?
Did you cause your wife's death? Did you stab your wife?
He was just very humdrum, very relaxed,
and very well, you know, I guess you'll have to do
what you have to do because I didn't do it.
The polygraph results tell a different story.
He failed the polygraph.
The results were that he was lying and that he was culpable
in this crime.
So investigators were in fact,
increasingly convinced that Robert had killed his wife.
One week after the gruesome murder
of Cindy Borton, her husband, Robert,
the prime suspect in her murder has just failed a polygraph.
When I did see those results,
the thing that next happens is for me to go in
and interrogate him and try to determine
why he was being deceptive.
I needed to try to get the confession from him.
When I confronted him with the results
of the polygraph examination,
he didn't shake his head no that he didn't do it.
He didn't try to respond to me in any way, shape or form.
He just basically sat in the chair and didn't move.
The only thing I want him to say is I did it.
And so we were very aggressive in interrogating
Bob Borton about his wife's murder.
Robert Borton never wavered in his denial
that he was responsible for this.
Robert's behavior under questioning
becomes even more unusual.
He did in fact, fall asleep in the chair.
The only time that anybody has ever fallen asleep
in the middle of one of my interrogations.
Bob Borton's reactions were not what
we would've considered to be normal.
Despite failing the polygraph,
the evidence against Robert is purely circumstantial.
So detectives have no choice but to let him go.
At that point in time,
we're thinking we must have missed something.
There must be something more involved
that we're not aware of.
The lack of an arrest
unsettles the town further.
The people of the community
really are concerned when there is an immediate suspect,
why that person's not apprehended and taken to jail.
But we need more information. We need more evidence.
The members of the community were increasingly convinced
that Robert had killed his wife.
They expressed those concerns.
They brought a great deal of pressure
on the Chief of police.
The public was just as anxious to get it solved
as the police was.
We wanted to get this case cleared up
so gossip and things would die down.
After of course this happened,
he wasn't preaching for a while.
And then people just quit attending.
There was a real change.
My father noticed people who were open
and friendly with him all of a sudden
they quite often would go as far as to cross the street
so that they would not have to walk near him,
would not have to speak with him.
I did my best to at least attempt to continue my life
as well as I could.
Laying Cindy to rest is tough
on the young teen.
The only time I can remember my mother having
a brand new dress was the one bought for her
to bury her in.
It's the only brand new dress I ever recall her having.
Two months after Cindy's murder,
Robert and John leave Shenandoah.
It was unbearable for my father
to continue to live there.
People who he thought had been friends
before had shut him out.
He moved to a town three hours away,
and we watched his movements,
where he went, who he was meeting with.
The police were really struggling
because they had nothing.
They had no one else.
Two and a half months later
when the state crime lab sends investigators the results
of the fingerprint analysis,
they hope it'll be the crucial evidence
for which they've been waiting.
Robert's fingerprints were not found
on any of the murder weapons or the phone.
This frankly was frustrating to some of the investigators
involved in the case.
It was solid evidence
that someone other than Robert Borton
was very possibly the guilty party in this murder.
The news is a huge blow to the investigation.
It's concerning whenever cases
are not immediately solvable, and as time passes,
the prospects for solving them become smaller and smaller.
We just waited for authorities to make an arrest.
And when they didn't make an arrest
in the months that were gone by,
that's when we started to realize this is somebody
that they don't know who it is.
Three months after the murder,
as detectives redouble their efforts
to unearth new suspects,
another crime in Shenandoah comes to their attention.
In the weeks preceding and following
the murder of Cindy Borton,
there were arsons in the town of Shenandoah.
Even though arson is a different crime than murder,
it's a violent crime.
And when one has a series of violent crimes,
this case, the arsons and a murder all occurring
within a matter of weeks,
it would be only normal to at least examine the possibility
of a connection between the two.
On November 30th
another arson occurs and a clue found at the scene
leaves investigators stunned.
The arsonist left a note referring to the two prior arsons
and Cynthia Borton.
And in fact, threatened more violence in that community,
saying that the arsons and Cynthia Borton
ain't nothing compared to what's coming.
Oh my gosh, this story just got even more crazy
and more sensational and more scary.
Detectives hunting the killer of Cindy Borton
have just received a mysterious clue linking her murder
to a series of arson fires across town.
There was a note that was in fact, very intriguing.
And the note referred to all three arsons and
Cindy Borton,
obviously raising the possibility that the perpetrator of
the arsons was also the perpetrator of
the Cindy Borton murder.
The note in question was signed
the Night Stalker, NS,
which copied the name of a highly publicized
murderer in California.
At the time,
the Night Stalker had already been arrested.
So this was clearly a copy cat killer.
It was rather apparent that the perpetrator
was someone who used that name
out of convenience and imitation.
He was calling himself the Night Stalker.
Wow, he's just crazy.
There were great many different and wild rumors,
leaving notes at the scene and hints
such as the NS, Night Stalker,
were quite possibly a cry for attention.
This would have to be investigated.
The note was examined for fingerprints and then indeed some
latent fingerprint Ridge detail was found on the note.
The prints are sent
to the crime lab for analysis.
It was important not only to continue
investigating the murder,
but also to investigate the arsons for purpose of developing
a suspect on the murder.
There had been three arsons in the community.
One had been at the Broad Street School.
The letters "NS" were found slashed on a bridge
near the Broad Street School fire.
There was another fire set in a school teacher's pickup.
And there was a note, "The Night Stalker strikes again."
This case was a genuine who done it,
even though we had the Night Stalker note,
investigators didn't know who had authored it
or who had committed the arsons.
I never really would've expected this case
to go where it went.
It wasn't something that we were expected
from the beginning at all.
Several days later,
detectives get the fingerprint result from the note
and they don't match back to anyone in their database.
There was in fact, a killer at loose in their community.
As every week went by and then the months,
we kept wondering why is it so hard to
capture a murderer in this small town who committed a murder
in such a shocking, unbelievable manner.
On January 31st, 1989,
police finally get a break in the case.
Five months after this murder, a young man named Jackson,
a high school student came into the police department
and informed authorities
the previous day he'd had a visit from a friend,
another teenager, and that in the course of their afternoon
visiting with each other,
this friend had told him that he had some very shocking
information and something that was bothering him,
more specifically, that he murdered Cynthia Borton.
This information was a shock
that shed an entirely new light on the investigation.
When Jackson came into the Shenandoah Police Department,
yes, that definitely was a big break.
His friend had told him things that happened at the crime
scene that only the killer would know.
Jackson's friend described the murder
that he had committed and even went so far
as to draw a small diagram indicating exactly where
the body had been left in the house.
Jackson shared this drawing as well with the authorities,
which was important and surprising
because it appeared quite accurate.
He told Jackson, I'm gonna show you where the knife is.
And he did that.
And that's when Jackson realized, oh, he's really done this.
And later that day, even though he was sworn to secrecy,
he thought about his own mom and how the killer
had been a guest in their house.
And he thought, wow, that could have been my mom.
So it wasn't hard for him to go to the police after that.
At this point,
investigators were aware that Jackson had indeed very likely
spoken to Cindy Borton's murderer.
Jackson said that James Bettis was the one responsible
for killing Cynthia Burton.
Jim Bettis was a close friend of John Burton.
They were classmates until Jimmy dropped out of high school.
He was close enough to John and interacted with the Bortons
so much that Cindy was very involved in Jim's life.
He even thought of Cindy as a second mother to him.
She tried to help him,
tried to persuade him to return to school
and get an education.
She was a very good friend and mother figure
to the young man.
Jim was certainly not a suspect up to this point,
but his statement to Jackson rang true.
It was amazement at that point in time
because we talked to James Bettis previously.
James Bettis became the prime suspect because of his
admissions to his friend, but we need more corroboration.
Jim was taken to the Shenandoah Police Department
and he was interviewed.
Jim did confess to the arsons as a matter of fact,
but denied ever having said anything to Jackson
about Cynthia Burton's murder or having any involvement
in Cynthia Burton's murder.
Jim agrees to have his fingerprints collected.
He's also willing to undergo a polygraph.
During the polygraph examination
the questions I would asked were
was he involved in the death of Cynthia Borton,
specifically whether he was the one
that committed the crime.
Jimmy Bettis insisted throughout
that he did not kill Cynthia Borton.
When I quantified the polygraph examinations
and I actually gave a numerical figure
to each of his reactions.
If they're over a minus six,
that strongly in indicates to us that he's deceptive.
James Bettis came up a minus 23.
So there was absolutely no question
he was specifically was the one involved
in Cynthia Borton's murder.
It was a big shock and it really left us
and I think everyone scratching their head.
Wow, we didn't see that coming.
Five months after the horrific slaying
of Cindy Borton, detectives get their biggest break.
when her son's friend fails a polygraph.
Jim Bettis' polygraph, according to
Agent McCleary, showed deception on his denial
that he had murdered Cindy Borton.
It was very unusual that all of a sudden
this person would become a suspect who was a teenager.
And also he was good friends with Cynthia's son.
And he had been in Cynthia's house many occasions.
Investigators confront Jim with the results.
The very next thing I said was we all know exactly what
happened on September 6th.
You were the one responsible
for having killed Cynthia Borton.
There's no question in anybody's mind now.
And he came out and said, "I did it.
Okay. I did it."
Jim Bettis had not been on our radar at all.
We never dreamed that he might be capable
of something like this.
James Bettis told me that on September 6th, 1988,
he was walking around town.
He was thinking about his father.
He was thinking about how he hated his father.
His dad was always telling him that he was no good.
He wasn't gonna amount to anything. It was terrible.
He hated his dad.
He needed to be able to get that rage out and how he was
going to do that was by seeing if he could actually kill.
His statement was that he wanted to kill his father,
but that he knew he couldn't get that job done.
And so he killed someone who was far more vulnerable,
and that Cynthia Borton
was a victim of convenience.
Police believed Jim showed up
at the Borton household,
just narrowly missing Robert who had gone back
to work after lunch.
Cynthia Borton answered the door
and allowed him to come in
because he had been there many times previously.
During his confession,
Jimmy Bettis indicated that he had asked Cindy
for a glass of water,
which led her to walk into the kitchen.
He followed her there,
approaching her from behind and grabbing a knife,
immediately slashed her throat from behind.
He stated he had used a pocket knife of his own
in addition to Cynthia Borton's kitchen utensils.
And then after the crime,
he took his pocket knife stained with Cindy Borton's blood
and threw it under a bridge.
This was important information.
It would corroborate his confession
if in fact that knife could be found
and if in fact it had Cindy Borton's blood on it.
Investigators scoured the area,
found the knife where Jimmy Bettis described that they would
find it, and when it was tested at the laboratory,
indeed it had not only Cindy Borton's blood,
but also Jimmy Bettis' fingerprint.
On February 2nd, 1989,
detectives charge 18-year-old Jim Bettis with first degree
murder and three counts of arson.
The investigator
told me that Jim had been arrested
and he had confessed repeatedly.
My first response was no, he did not do this.
He was my best friend.
He was the first person that I trusted
that was not an actual blood relative.
It occurred to me that in at least some way I am responsible
for this because I am the reason
that he came into my house,
that he was accepting into my house,
and my mother is gone.
There is nothing I can do to get her back.
At trial,
Jim is convicted, and on November 13th, 1989,
he's sentenced to life in prison.
Jimmy Bettis was a very troubled and angry
and rage filled young man.
Had this crime not been solved when it was,
there's every reason to be concerned
that there would've been more fires, if not more murders.
My best friend committed this heinous crime of murder
against somebody who trusted him,
supported him and cared for him.
He frequently told me that we were brothers forever
and I honestly felt the same thing for him.
And then for him to turn around
and do such horrific action,
there is a bit of relief knowing that
he will never be
out again for the rest of his life.
I want as many people
as possible to know and understand
what a wonderful, wonderful person my mother was,
which is why I share her with as many people
as I possibly can.
I only miss her on days that end in Y .
I am still waiting for my pain to go away.
I don't know that it ever will.