[Narrator] A kindhearted young woman,
beloved by friends and family.
Samantha always had a smile on her face.
She loved people and people loved her,
and she loved her cats.
[Narrator] Found bludgeoned and strangled in her own home.
I noticed the cable wrapped
around her neck three or four times.
Military people use that knot fairly often,
it was a square knot.
[Narrator] Police explore whether her search
for love took a deadly turn.
He wanted to come over and see her,
told her to be blindfolded, topless.
She told me he parked in her driveway and just sat there.
He fit that mode of being a stalker.
[Narrator] Until a shocking discovery.
We found that he was more than just a friend,
that in fact, he had been a lover.
[Narrator] Reveals a killer no one saw coming.
He was a very unlikely killer.
He didn't fit the profile at all.
I was in shock.
Frankly, I'd never seen anything quite like this before.
[intense music]
[Narrator] Wichita Falls, Texas.
A former oil boom town that grew into a small city.
Wichita Falls is a town
of about a hundred thousand people.
About 130 miles west of Dallas.
It's quiet community.
We're very close knit community.
It does have a small town feel to it.
It's not difficult to get to know
just about everybody in town.
[Narrator] But the town's sense of security
is shattered on the morning of January 6th, 2003
when police get a call from a woman who says,
she's just discovered her friend's lifeless body
in the bedroom of her home.
I was a rookie police officer and we got this call.
That somebody found a body.
And we rushed over to the scene.
When we arrived, I remember seeing her friends,
they were very upset.
[Narrator] The frantic couple tell the officer,
the deceased woman is 28 year old Samantha Lezark.
At this time, I still don't know
what exactly was going on.
I arrived 30 seconds to a minute
after the first officer arrived.
So when he entered the residence, I was right behind him.
So with weapons drawn,
and we're clearing through the bottom of the house,
the kitchen.
We start going up the stairs,
and we have got down the hallway to her bedroom.
And that's when I realized we have a murder.
The victim was kind of in a prone position.
I noticed the pool of blood was around her head,
and I noticed the cable wrapped
around her neck three or four times.
I'd never seen a female that was murdered like this.
This was my first time to actually see that.
And it gets to you.
We had proceeded to establish a crime scene.
[Narrator] A few minutes later,
detectives and forensics arrive.
The victim had a ligature made of a coaxial cable
tied very tight around her throat.
It was a square knot.
There's a couple of places you learn knots like that.
Military people probably use that knot fairly often.
And so it told me that whoever killed Samantha
was versed in the knot based on some training.
[Narrator] The cable was not the only weapon
used by the killer.
There was a fire extinguisher a few feet away from her
that had hair and blood on it.
There was definitely blood at the back of her head.
A lot of it.
There were some hand print ridge detail
on the fire extinguisher that appeared to be in blood.
It looked like there was some fingerprint detail,
even on the coax.
A strangulation death has some up close
and personal aspect to it.
Based on what we saw, we thought there was a good chance
the killer actually knew the victim.
[Narrator] Detectives examined the rest of the room
for any other clues.
In the middle of the bed was a laser pointer.
On top of the laser pointer was some blood spatter.
So we figured that the pointer had to have been on the bed
when the injuries occurred to the victim.
In looking around the house in general,
none of the windows were broken,
and all the doors were intact.
Whenever you don't have forceable entry,
your first thought is that it's someone that she knows.
[Narrator] Police immediately begin the process
of interviewing Samantha's neighbors.
One of the neighbors had written down
that a car with California tags was
at Samantha's home on about January the first.
[Narrator] The car from California
had been seen five days prior,
but a different neighbor noticed another suspicious vehicle
less than 24 hours before Samantha was found dead.
There was a 12 year old young man
who noticed a motorcycle at Samantha's home.
He said it was red and black,
and so the information about the motorcycle was noted.
[Narrator] Soon news of the murder
reaches Samantha's loved ones.
I had just barely got to work
when my husband calls and he tells me to come home.
And he said that someone
had killed Samantha the night before.
I went into instant shock.
That's just not something you comprehend.
I mean, is this really happening?
I got a phone call from a friend,
and he told me to turn the news on.
And her house
was on the news with police tape all around it.
I went numb. I fell to the ground.
'Cause I mean, Samantha, why would someone wanna hurt her?
[Narrator] Samantha Lezark grew up
in a small town of Terrell, Texas,
and was the oldest of three children.
Samantha had two brothers, Joe Jr.,
and Lance, he was the baby.
And Samantha practically raised him when I could work.
She was very responsible.
She could cook, she could wash clothes,
and she loved little kids,
and she loved elderly people.
She was one of them late bloomers.
She didn't really care that much
about boys until she met John.
[Narrator] Samantha married her high school sweetheart,
John Lezark at age 20.
John, he went to school to be a refrigerator repair man.
And Samantha worked at the grocery store,
and her job was real important to her.
I met her when I worked at Albertson's.
And Samantha was everyone's favorite cashier.
And you may be having a bad day,
and she'd just make you happy.
She was very high spirited. She loved her cats.
She loved music, and she just loved her tattoos.
Everything she had had a meaning.
She had her fairies on both arms.
Then she had one on her chest right here
that was for John, said always in my heart.
[Narrator] A devoted wife, Samantha was blindsided
when after eight years of marriage,
John left her for another woman.
She just kept trying to make him happy.
And she was so devastated when he left.
[Narrator] Samantha picked herself up,
and several months later she began dating again.
Samantha's confidence definitely changed.
I think Samantha was just trying to have fun.
Get out back into the world, try new things.
[Narrator] Who killed this vibrant,
and kind young woman and why?
To try to answer these questions,
police interview the couple who found the body,
Lori and Donny Nieves.
With Lori and Donny, as they were the last ones
in the home before the police arrived.
We certainly needed to make sure
that there was no information that would tie either one
of them to the actual murder.
[Narrator] Detectives start with Lori,
who says she and Samantha were coworkers.
Lori described herself as being a good friend
of Samantha's.
And she said Samantha didn't come to work,
which was very unusual.
She didn't answer the phone.
Donny had taken Lori to work that morning.
And so he came back to get her,
and take her to Samantha's home to check on her.
Lori said they knocked on the door and didn't get an answer,
but the door was unlocked.
And so they went in and looked around,
and they went upstairs and found Samantha deceased.
[Narrator] Investigators speak to Donnie next.
And he confirms Lori's statement.
Donny characterized Samantha as being his wife's friend.
He said that he was only there
because he gave his wife a ride to go check on Samantha.
[Narrator] Detectives ask the couple
if they know anyone who would wanna harm Samantha.
Lori pointed her finger at Samantha's estranged husband,
John Lezark.
Lori said that John was upset with Samantha
because she was about to end his health insurance coverage
that she'd been paying for.
And he had an injury that was going
to be very expensive if he didn't have insurance.
[Narrator] Investigators learn that this ongoing conflict
had recently escalated.
Lori said Samantha told her in the couple of weeks
before the murder, Samantha and John argued
about the health insurance.
And John told her something to the effect of,
I want to take everything you have away from you.
And so that threat certainly raised a red flag for us,
and made us wonder if John Lezark had anything
to do with this murder.
[Narrator] Coming up.
Police unearth a hidden online world.
Samantha signed up for one of the chat rooms.
Her username was Meow Mix 28.
The information on the chat was pretty sexual in nature.
I warned her plenty of times,
watch who you're giving your address out to.
[Narrator] And hunt a bold killer with sinister motives.
The fact that he couldn't take no for an answer
made us wanna figure out exactly who he was.
He pressured her to meet in person.
And she said, what if you're a serial killer?
There's only one person that could put the DNA
in the fingerprints on the murder weapon.
[Narrator] Until investigators close in
on an unlikely suspect.
He looked like a decent, clean cut, all American kid.
One of the most evil human beings.
I was seriously afraid that there would be another victim.
[intense music]
[Narrator] Police are investigating the violent murder
of 28 year old Samantha Lezark.
Detectives have learned that Samantha
and her estranged husband, John, were in a bitter dispute.
She had threatened to take him
off her health insurance policy.
And Samantha's friend said he did
make a threat at one point.
That made us want to know more about John,
and the relationship with Samantha.
[Narrator] Investigators learned the marriage
had only ended six months prior.
They ask those close to Samantha
about what led to the breakup.
Her best friend was going through a divorce,
and Samantha being the kindhearted person she was,
let her move in.
Samantha noticed that her friend
and John seemed to be a lot closer perhaps
than what she was comfortable with.
Finally, she asked them if they were having a affair,
and they said, yeah, they were in love.
I remember how upset she was.
I mean, how else could you feel
when your husband leaves you for your best friend?
[Narrator] John moved out with his new girlfriend,
but remained in Samantha's life.
They were separated,
but John would move back in with Samantha.
When he kept moving in and out, it was hell,
because he wouldn't leave her alone.
[Narrator] Samantha finally told John
to move out for good, so she could get on with her life.
But John was still dependent on her health insurance.
John, when he was 18, a car fell on him,
when his working underneath it, and messed up his back.
He was really anxious about the insurance.
[Narrator] Investigators bring John in to the station.
During the interview with John Lezark,
he said that he and Samantha had sorted out the insurance
and that she was not going
to terminate his healthcare coverage.
[Narrator] John also denies
that he threatened Samantha like her friend claimed.
But as he talks, detectives notice a suspicious detail.
He had some small injuries to his hands
that we wanted to talk to him about.
John explained that he cut his hands while moving a table.
The night of the murder, John said that he was
with his girlfriend and that she
in fact confirmed his alibi.
If I were in love with somebody,
and they'd killed somebody else, I may lie for them.
But there wasn't anything to contradict what he said.
We asked John for fingerprints and a sample of his DNA.
And he agreed to do that.
[Narrator] Police have nothing concrete
to tie John to the murder.
But before they let him go,
detectives ask who he thinks might want Samantha dead.
John Lezark told us that his estranged wife
was online dating.
John said he told her it was risky,
and might run into some dangerous people.
[Narrator] Investigators set out to verify John's claim.
We interviewed Samantha's friend,
Lisa, and Lisa told us that she knew
that Samantha was in fact online dating.
Samantha told me one day that she signed up
for one of the chat rooms.
It was so new back then.
She just made a username and started meeting guys.
Her username was Meow Mix 28.
It was her love of cats, and she was 28 years old.
When she started meeting these guys online,
I said, you don't know these people.
You're not letting 'em come to the house, are you?
And I could tell she didn't want me to know
because she knew it was gonna upset me really bad.
The computer forensics lab
examined Samantha's conversations with people online,
making arrangements to meet people
that she'd chatted with online.
[Narrator] Investigators compare the messages
with details of Samantha's dating life
provided by her friends.
Lisa that told us that Samantha
was dating a man named Kris.
And she'd spoken with Samantha
the evening of the murder, in fact,
and that Kris was at Samantha's home visiting with her.
I did not know Kris. I never met him.
I know she really liked him and liked hanging out with him.
She said, Kris was over at her house
that evening when she called me.
I had bought her the latest season of Friends
that was out on DVD.
And she said, we're gonna watch Friends.
I'll call you tomorrow.
And that's the last time I talked to her.
[Narrator] Police determined that the call with Lisa,
around 6:00 PM, was the last contact
anyone had with Samantha.
She was found dead the following morning,
just before 10:00 AM.
Because Kris was with Samantha shortly before she died,
we really wanted to look at to see who Kris was,
and where he was.
[Narrator] Investigators search for Kris
in Samantha's online chats.
However, they find her most recent correspondence
only two days before the murder is with a man
who goes by the username I Am Elliot.
I Am Elliot said that he had recently lost his wife,
and Samantha said, well, I've recently lost my husband
to my best friend.
I Am Elliot seemed very sympathetic
to her in their messages, and she seemed to respond to that.
We weren't sure who I Am Elliot was.
Her conversations with I Am Elliot
had seemed pretty innocent,
and there was no association with the name Kris.
So the investigation went and moved on from there.
[Narrator] Detectives dig deeper into Samantha's chats,
looking for messages with a darker tone.
So the forensic lab was able
to retrieve a chat with somebody initialed KS.
And the information on the chat was pretty sexual in nature.
This individual pressured her to meet
in person almost immediately.
And so that raised red flags about him.
He wanted to come over and see her,
told her to be blindfolded, topless.
And ironically, she says, "What if you're a serial killer?"
But in the end, she went along with it.
[Narrator] Detective's suspicion only grows
when they realize the chat between KS
and Samantha is dated January 1st,
just five days before the murder.
One of the neighborhood watch people
had seen a Mercedes with California license plates
on it that had been at her house January 1st.
It had all of the signs that we were
on the right track with this guy.
So we ran the license plate number,
and the tag came back to Kristoff Slora.
Could Kristoff Slora, KS, be the Kris who was
with Samantha just hours before she was found dead?
Samantha's best friend said that the night she was killed,
she was with somebody named Kris.
So we said, hey, maybe this is the Kris
that we're looking for.
[intense music]
[Narrator] Three days after the murder of Samantha Lezark,
police have linked her online chat to the owner
of a car with California plates,
seen parked at her house just days before she was killed.
The neighbor had written down the license plate number
of Kristoff Slora's car.
[Narrator] Police believe that Kristoff
is the man behind the username KS.
When we looked at the online chat between KS and Samantha,
they were obviously involved with each other sexually.
And as we were looking for a Kris,
we were really interested in finding that person.
Samantha did tell her friend that she was hanging out
with a guy named Kris the night of her murder.
[Narrator] Alarm bells ring when they dig deeper
into their suspect's background.
Kristoff was stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base
here in Wichita Falls.
Kristoff wound up being somebody that was in the military.
There was a perfect square knot
in the ligature that killed Samantha.
And I have already thought that somebody perhaps
with a military background knew that square knot.
[Narrator] While officers are sent
to bring Kristoff in to the PD,
detectives received Samantha's autopsy reports.
The cause of death was strangulation.
And that the coax was the means.
[Narrator] The report also shows significant
blunt force trauma to the back of Samantha's head.
I think it would be really hard
to just strangle somebody with a cable.
And I suspect that the fire extinguisher
was used to incapacitate Samantha
so that she couldn't fight back.
There was no evidence found during the autopsy,
or any other testing that showed there
was any kind of sign of a sexual assault.
[Narrator] Forensic analysis of the murder weapons
gives investigators hope that the killer will be identified.
From the lab, we learned that the coax had,
and that the fire extinguisher also had DNA
from who we believe would be the killer.
The evidence that came back from the lab
was very powerful.
Fingerprints were on both the weapons.
So it's pretty clear that if we could find one person
that matched all these pieces of evidence,
that we had the person that committed this crime,
not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt.
[Narrator] Armed with new insights into the murder,
police head to the local air force base
to look for their number one suspect.
When we tracked down Kris Slora,
we asked him if he would come in for an interview,
and he agreed to do that.
He admitted that he had had a sexual relationship
with Samantha, but they didn't have a whole lot else
in common, and he said he hadn't seen her for some time.
[Narrator] Investigators ask him to explain
why witnesses saw his car outside Samantha's home
on January 1st, just five days before she was killed.
At that point, he did not have anything to do
with her death or being over there the day of the murder.
[Narrator] Police want to know where Kris was
the night Samantha was killed.
Kris Slora said that he spent the day with some friends
at a batting cage and offered up the names of his friends.
We followed up that information
by interviewing his friends and they assured us,
in fact, Kris Slora had been with them during the day
and into the evening that day.
[Narrator] Detectives conclude that Kris Slora
was not the Kris that Samantha was with
when she called her friend at 6:00 PM,
but they can't rule him out as the perpetrator,
since the exact time of her death is unknown.
Even though his alibi was pretty good,
it wasn't air tight.
And so Kris Slora provided prints and DNA sample for us.
[Narrator] With no hard evidence against Kris Slora,
he's free to go.
Four days after her murder,
family and friends gather to lay Samantha to rest.
Samantha's funeral, it was packed.
It was full of people that loved her.
It was beautiful.
She had a really big funeral. It was just hard.
Nobody should have to bury their child.
And the way she died was so violent,
and I couldn't stand the thought
of what actually happened to her.
I had to take all of her pictures down for a while.
I just couldn't deal with it.
[Narrator] The next day,
detectives ask Samantha's friends if they know
of any other men she may have been involved with,
and received stunning new information.
Lisa raised the name Donny Nieves as somebody
that she thought that had an affair with Samantha.
Lori and Donny Nieves were the last ones in the home
before the police arrived.
They'd found Samantha deceased.
I was surprised because when we interviewed Donny
at the time, Donny characterized his relationship
with Samantha as being his wife's friend.
But after the funeral, Samantha's friend Lisa,
said that Donny was more than just a friend,
that in fact, he had been a lover.
Lori was a good friend of Samantha's, and also a coworker.
But Samantha told me that Donny
and her had a short, intimate relationship
shortly before she was killed.
Samantha definitely felt guilty about it.
Once we realized that he had been a lover of Samantha's,
we had to look at him more closely now.
He had not been forthcoming before about this affair.
So it makes you suspicious
that this person has something to hide.
And maybe what they have to hide
is they're involved in the crime.
That is a red flag. [intense music]
[Narrator] It's been one week
since 28 year old Samantha Lezark
was found bludgeoned and strangled to death in her home.
Now investigators have learned that Samantha
had an affair with the man who discovered her body.
When Donny Nieves was first interviewed,
he failed to mention that he
had been intimate with Samantha.
When we interviewed Donny again
and confronted him with the question,
were you lovers with the victim?
He admitted that he was.
And that it had been a very brief, intense relationship.
[Narrator] Detectives asked Donny why he didn't tell them
about the relationship before.
He said he didn't want his wife
to find out about this affair
because he knew she wouldn't be happy about it.
[Narrator] Had Donny killed Samantha to keep her
from telling his wife, Lori, about their affair?
We kept digging into him,
and seeing if there's anything
that would connect him to the murder.
[Narrator] Donny insists he did not kill Samantha
and begs investigators not to tell his wife
about his infidelity.
We ask him if he'd give DNA
and fingerprints and he cooperated.
[Narrator] Police let Donny go.
And while they wait for his DNA and fingerprint results,
investigators uncover another suspicious exchange
with an online suitor in Samantha's chatroom history.
His username was Death Metal.
Samantha formed a relationship with Death Metal
based on their mutual enjoyment of that kind of music.
[Narrator] The messages suggest the pair
had been on several dates, but then something changed.
From the correspondence,
he thought it was a pretty good relationship.
And then all of a sudden, without warning,
she told him she wanted to break it off.
[Narrator] The relationship may have been over,
but the man continued to send Samantha messages.
The fact that Death Metal couldn't take no for an answer,
certainly made us wanna look at him pretty close
and figure out exactly who he was, and interview him.
[Narrator] Had the man been so enraged
by the rejection that he murdered Samantha?
Police asked Samantha's friend, Lisa,
if she can help identify Death Metal.
Samantha's friend, Lisa, said it was a guy
by the name of Connor Dayes.
Connor was the one that really got to her,
made her nervous.
I warned her plenty of times, like meeting people online,
watch her back, watch who you're giving your address out to,
your phone number.
And he was the only one that really stands out
in my mind that he scared her.
He just wouldn't stay away.
He left notes on her door,
even though Samantha told Connor that she didn't want
to have anything to do with him any longer.
And that kind of freaked her out a little bit.
Samantha told me one day he parked in her driveway,
and just sat there.
And she'd call me, and she wouldn't know what to do.
Connor would fit that mode of being a stalker,
coming around the lady's house all times
of the day or night.
And that stalker profile is the one
that can lead to someone in a murder.
Connor looked really good for this.
Not only he wasn't a Kris,
but Samantha dated him shortly before the murder.
And we certainly knew that we had to find him.
[Narrator] Investigators track down Connor
and bring him in for questioning.
When we interviewed Connor Dayes,
he was pretty nonchalant about the whole thing.
He didn't seem to have a lot of interest
in the fact that she was dead.
And that was either a, absolutely didn't do this,
or I'm trying to throw you off.
And we weren't sure which one it was.
[Narrator] Police ask Connor
why he wouldn't leave Samantha alone
after she broke off the relationship.
Connor admitted that he had kept coming back around,
even though she didn't wanna see him any longer.
And it wasn't until she pressed the issue
that he actually left her alone.
And so when asked for his whereabouts
at the time of the murder,
Connor said that he was home alone,
and he didn't have anyone else to substantiate that claim.
And that's a problem.
Connor was asked during the interview
to provide a sample of his DNA and prints for us.
[Narrator] With no hard evidence linking Connor
to the murder, he is released.
Three weeks have passed since Samantha was found dead,
and investigators still haven't found the elusive Kris
that was with Samantha the evening she was killed.
There had been an awful lot of work done,
and we still hadn't solved the case.
There was kind of a frustrated feeling
that the person hadn't been caught yet.
[Narrator] As they await news of an arrest,
those closest to Samantha struggle
with the pain of losing her.
The mental images, imagining her maybe crying out
for her mom or her dad, or even me,
somebody to come help her.
It just makes me sick knowing someone could do that.
Like one of the most evil human beings.
I couldn't grasp the thought that my daughter was gone
and she wasn't coming back.
[Narrator] One month into the investigation,
police are running out of leads,
but then they receive the forensic results
they hope will blow the case wide open.
When you get information about whose prints
and who's DNA is on that coaxial cord
that was around her throat.
That's just the place where you work to be.
There's only one person that could have put the DNA
and the fingerprints on the murder weapon.
And that was the killer.
[intense music]
[Narrator] It's been one month since Samantha Lezark
was killed and detectives have just received lab results
from evidence found on the murder weapons.
We'd had all these suspects,
and were able to obtain possession
of DNA samples and fingerprints.
[Narrator] Will the results match John Lezark,
Samantha's estranged husband, Donny Nieves,
who had an affair with Samantha and also found her body,
or one of her online suitors,
Connor Dayes, or Kristoff Slora?
It did seem like we were on the brink of solving the case,
but the results came back,
and it did exonerate all these people.
[Narrator] Investigators are stunned.
The DNA and fingerprints don't belong
to any of their suspects,
or even anyone in the police database.
We were hoping for the match,
and it's a little disheartening
when you think maybe you've got something,
and then it turns out not to be at all.
I talked to the DA and the lead detective,
but I didn't know what to do. I was in shock.
It did concern me that Samantha
was never gonna get the justice that she deserved.
[Narrator] With the investigation back to square one,
police review all the evidence
and statements they've collected so far
in their hunt for Samantha's killer.
While we were looking back through the notes,
we remembered that there was a youngster in the neighborhood
that said something about a motorcycle
having been around the night that Samantha died.
So we asked the computer forensics people
to look for the keyword motorcycle,
and they came back with information that in fact,
I Am Elliot said that he had a motorcycle.
[Narrator] When detectives previously looked at chats
between Samantha and I Am Elliot,
they didn't find any red flags in the correspondence,
or any indication his name was Kris,
so they moved on to other leads.
Her conversations with I Am Elliot
had seemed pretty innocent.
And during the correspondence,
he told her he worked out at Metro Photo.
Metro Photo was a camera shop in Wichita Falls.
[Narrator] Investigators rush to the store,
hoping to locate their new suspect.
The 12 year old said the motorcycle's red and black,
and we went by the camera shop,
and there was a red and black Harley Davidson motorcycle.
It was an aha moment, if you will.
We ran the plates on the motorcycle.
We found out it did belong
to a person named Kristopher Kyle Russell.
The tag came back to Kris Russell.
And we said, ah, Kris, ah-ha.
It made it even a bigger ah-ha moment for us.
And that's when we decided it was time
to know more about Kris.
And Kris Russell was enrolled
at Midwestern State University here in Wichita Falls,
taking some criminal justice classes.
He looked like he came from a good home,
and he was a decent, clean cut, all American kid.
His family was well to do,
respected members of a large church here in town.
His profile was almost too good to be true.
Our first interview with Kris,
it was a trip to Metro Photo,
where we went in and asked him to come with us and he did.
[Narrator] At the station, investigators begin
by asking the 21 year old if he was
with Samantha on the night of her murder.
He was polite, but he declined to give an interview.
He was asked to give his DNA samples and fingerprints,
and he said he needed to talk
to a lawyer before he did anything.
Even though it's Kris's right to tell us no,
maybe it's because he had something
he didn't want us to know.
So we served Kris a search warrant
in order to obtain prints and DNA from him.
[Narrator] As detectives wait for results,
they continue to look into Kris Russell's past,
and discover he served in the armed forces.
Kris had it in fact, been in the Marine Corps,
but only for a matter of days.
They sent him packing after they got a good look at him.
That was a large red flag
that the Marine Corps didn't want him.
[Narrator] With Kris looking increasingly suspicious,
what detectives discover next is chilling.
In the chat between Kris and Samantha,
he said that he had recently lost his wife.
And we looked into this,
and found some frankly rather terrifying information.
[Narrator] Investigators learned that Kris lived
in the small town of Chadron, Nebraska with his wife,
Tara, who died only 10 weeks before Samantha's murder.
It was a short time after she had passed away.
One night, he packed up his belongings,
and moved back to Wichita Falls from Chadron.
[Narrator] Police contact law enforcement in Nebraska
for information about the death of their suspect's wife.
Kris Russell's wife died under circumstances
that at first was real, pneumonia.
However, when the autopsy came back,
and there was noted some bruising on the neck,
that tells me that probably wasn't pneumonia.
That sounds to me like a strangulation.
[Narrator] But by the time the autopsy information
was released, Kris had already had his wife cremated
and left the state.
I think the original autopsy didn't go into enough detail
for authorities to charge Kris with that murder.
And now that she had been cremated,
that was never gonna happen.
[Narrator] Police fear they have an emerging
serial killer on their hands.
Detectives obtain a search warrant for Kris's residence.
Kris lived with his parents here in Wichita Falls.
While we were executing the search warrant,
we noticed in Kris's bedroom,
a photograph that we thought was Samantha,
but that was his deceased wife, Tara.
Kris Russell's wife died,
and weeks later Samantha's now dead.
And she looks incredibly like Kris Russell's wife.
[Narrator] Police uncover more disturbing clues
in Kris Russell's bedroom.
We found a book and it was a book about knots.
And had I not known that there was a square knot
around Samantha's neck,
I probably wouldn't have looked twice at that book.
And we also found some laser pointers.
[Narrator] The laser pointers found in Kris's bedroom
were nearly identical to the one found at the crime scene.
There wasn't actually a smoking gun found
during that search warrant, but there were certainly bullets
to load that gun with.
[Narrator] Investigators seize Kris's computer
and confirm that he's the man behind the username,
I Am Elliot.
But as they start reviewing his chat logs,
police discover another troubling detail.
We found that Kris, not only was he seeing Samantha,
but he was seeing another young lady
in Wichita Falls as well.
[Narrator] Fearing that their killer could strike again,
police rush to track the woman down.
I was terrified about her.
I was seriously afraid that she would be another victim
in what looked like a continuing pattern from Kris Russell.
[intense music]
[Narrator] Police investigating the murder
of Samantha Lezark have learned
that their prime suspect's wife died
under suspicious circumstances,
and believed that his new girlfriend is in grave danger.
I was worried he would do something else again.
This nice young lady that has no idea
what she's involved with.
We were certainly worried
that she might be another victim in this case.
[Narrator] Detectives locate the woman,
and inform her that Kris is under investigation.
She was surprised to find that Kris
perhaps was involved with a murder here in Wichita Falls.
When we interviewed her,
she said that Kris had brought her a DVD of Friends
to her home and that it was open when she got it.
[Narrator] Investigators believe it's the same DVD
Kris had watched with Samantha on the night of her murder.
Samantha told her friend, Lisa,
that she and Kris had watched
that DVD of Friends at her home.
But when we searched the crime scene at Samantha's house,
the Friends DVD was not there.
[Narrator] With the evidence against Kris growing,
police receive his DNA and fingerprint results.
In the end, there was only one person with DNA
and fingerprints on the murder weapon.
And that would be who killed Samantha.
And that was
Kris Russell.
We arrested him at work.
As I recall, he didn't seem surprised we were there at all.
In fact, he didn't have anything to say about it.
[Narrator] At trial, prosecutors put forward their theory
about how the murder unfolded.
The day of the murder,
they were having a nice Sunday afternoon together,
and went out to her house,
and her friend Lisa talked to her on the phone.
And things were still going good
when he was there evidently.
Maybe Kris brought her a laser pointer
so that she could play with her cats.
Then something happened that caused him to be angry.
The first thing was a surprise attack from behind
'cause the bruises were all in the back of her head,
and he knocked her to the floor.
At that point, the coaxial cable was in connection
with the television set,
and he had evidently ripped it out,
which indicated a person who was very angry.
And she's desperately trying to fight him off.
At the same time he starts looping that coaxial cable
around her throat, once, twice, and then a third time.
And then he ties the knot there.
And all the time she's getting weaker
as blood is flowing out of her body.
Then he strangles the life out of her.
[Narrator] With no confession from Kris,
no one knows his motive for murdering Samantha.
You'd always like to know exactly
what happened at the Lezark home that night,
but something caused him to decide
that he was gonna kill her that night.
[Narrator] The jury finds Kris Russell guilty,
and the judge gives him the maximum sentence
of 99 years in prison.
There was an overwhelming sense of relief
that we had taken somebody from society
and put them someplace
where they weren't gonna harm anybody.
And that's that big, deep sigh you get
when you know in your heart that you did a good job.
When you look at Kris Russell at first glance,
you see a nice, clean cut young man
who was going to college to better himself,
and who was a regular churchgoer.
He was a very unlikely killer.
He didn't fit the profile at all.
Well, I guess what we should take away
from a case like this is that we need to take caution
when we meet people online.
You can't be too careful.
[Narrator] An investigation is later opened
into the death of Kris Russell's wife,
but no charges have been laid.
For Samantha's family and friends,
the pain of losing her will never go away.
I want my daughter back,
which I know it's not ever gonna happen.
And she was special, she really was.
She loved everybody and she loved her mama the best.
But,
I just,
I don't know what to say.
I don't know. We can't get her back.
That day, Kris took my best friend, an amazing person,
a person that could never be replaced in your life.
I know she's watching down on me.
I know she tries to protect me,
and Samantha inspired me to definitely not take things
for granted and to just live each day.
Make it the best I can.
She's just made me a better person.
[somber music]