Everything She Knew

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Speaker 2 She was so alive

Speaker 2 to hear that news and realizing that it's Amber.

Speaker 2 How could that be?

Speaker 2 Her life was just beginning.

Speaker 3 Amber made friends for life.

Speaker 2 There was just no trying with our friendship, it just was.

Speaker 3 But that life didn't last long.

Speaker 5 Amber's on the floor, face down, and she has a plastic bag wrapped around her head.

Speaker 4 The till's open, the drawers open. Most people that rob a store don't kill anybody.

Speaker 6 My whole world just...

Speaker 8 died right there.

Speaker 3 For months, the murder stayed cold.

Speaker 4 Didn't have witnesses, didn't have video, didn't have DNA. We had everything going against us.

Speaker 9 We'd go down and talk to the detective. We wouldn't let it go.

Speaker 1 Then a break.

Speaker 3 Another victim.

Speaker 10 He would duct tape me, duct tape my mouth.

Speaker 3 And she knew a secret. Could she risk revealing it?

Speaker 10 Something's going to happen tonight.

Speaker 3 A killer ready to run, face to face with the one person who might be able to stop him.

Speaker 11 He just reached over the club compartment.

Speaker 13 He put out the gun. I said, please don't kill me.

Speaker 12 Why did you get out of there alive?

Speaker 3 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 3 Here's Keith Morrison with everything she knew.

Speaker 1 It was a Monday morning in January, 2007, 9.08 a.m. A young woman in San Antonio texted her boyfriend.

Speaker 1 I love you.

Speaker 1 That's all it said. I love you, nothing more.

Speaker 1 Downtown, the Alamo had just opened its doors. A few tourists began boarding little boats to gaze at remnants of Texas history along urban stretches of the San Antonio River.

Speaker 1 And several miles away in the farther reaches of the modern city, the manager of a video game store began his daily ritual. His name was Mariano Rivera.

Speaker 5 The store opens at 10, but the managers typically get to at 9 in the morning, get tills ready, grab the money, take it with you, and go to the bank.

Speaker 1 Similar process in a sister's store. Same company, not far away.
That one managed by the woman who sent the text to her boyfriend. Except, this was strange.

Speaker 1 As the morning slipped by, her store remained closed. Mariano got a call from the district manager.

Speaker 5 Can you go over there and maybe

Speaker 5 you can see something, see what's going on?

Speaker 1 He did.

Speaker 1 He saw a white car in the parking lot. Looked like the young woman's car.
He peered into the store window. Nobody there.

Speaker 5 And I thought, man, this is strange. Like, where is she? So I kept calling nothing.

Speaker 1 Her name was Amber Belkin. Tiny, just 5'2 ⁇ , 100 pounds, but energetic, ambitious, and very much in charge.

Speaker 14 She was a firecracker. That's the easiest way to put it.

Speaker 1 Matt Pena is in Texas politics nowadays, but back then he worked in Amber Belkin's store.

Speaker 14 She would let you know know what she wanted, but I think she was one of the kindest souls ever that I've ever met. So I guess it depended on what side you met her on and how much you made her mad.

Speaker 4 She could be tough.

Speaker 14 Oh, most certainly.

Speaker 15 She loved her job.

Speaker 16 She did.

Speaker 1 Monica Peck and Ashley Flores were Amber's best friends. Was she cut out to be a manager?

Speaker 6 Yeah. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh yeah.

Speaker 15 She was fierce.

Speaker 15 But she still was friendly.

Speaker 15 She loved all her employees. Yeah.
And she loved all of her customers.

Speaker 2 She was only 25. She was a store manager and so it was a very good sense of she's doing it.
She's making something of her life.

Speaker 2 Like she had goals, she had ambitions and then she wanted to go back to school. She wanted all of it.

Speaker 1 Not that she set out to work in a game store. She wanted to be a veterinarian.

Speaker 15 She was just so loving. We couldn't pass a turtle on the road.
She had to turn around and pick it up and take it to her house.

Speaker 2 She would find these random animals on the side of the road. It's like, how did you find that animal?

Speaker 1 Like her little dog, Buddy.

Speaker 1 Amber's parents, Lee and Randy.

Speaker 9 She actually ran for Buddy across the expressway. And the hair was all matted up, looked like dreadlocks.

Speaker 19 And she said, well, I can't put it back out on the road.

Speaker 7 It'll be cute.

Speaker 9 So I just opened the door and let it in.

Speaker 1 Amber was their only child. They doted on her.
from the day she was born and she

Speaker 1 was good in return.

Speaker 12 She helped anybody

Speaker 7 that needed it. They didn't even have to ask.

Speaker 2 She was going to make sure that you were protected.

Speaker 1 But now, where was Amber? Why was her store not open? Why didn't she answer the phone? Early afternoon, still no sign of Amber. So again, the district manager called Mariano.

Speaker 5 Something is just strange.

Speaker 1 and sent him back for a second look. So again, Mariano looked in through the big front window.
But this time he saw someone. Amber's assistant manager Brandon just standing there behind the counter.

Speaker 5 I knock on the door and so he lets me in and I said Brandon have you seen Amber? He's like no. He goes but something is strange.
There's money on the floor.

Speaker 5 There's just, you know, it looks like there was some kind of struggle or something happened. Something, things got knocked over.
My first thought was, where's Amber? And so he said he didn't know.

Speaker 5 And, you know, of course, right away I'm thinking, you know, what is going on with this guy? He clearly sees there's something wrong. He must have known recognized the car.

Speaker 5 I'm thinking, that's her car outside. You see it.
You see there's things on the floor. Why haven't you reacted right away and call someone or check the rest of the store?

Speaker 1 But he hadn't.

Speaker 1 So Mariano ran to the back office, the only other room of the store. Not a moment he'll ever forget.
Not for the rest of his life.

Speaker 5 And when I run to the back, I find that Amber is on the floor, face down, and she has a plastic bag wrapped around her head. And instantly, I knew what happened.

Speaker 3 One mystery solved. Amber was no longer missing.
But a much bigger mystery remained.

Speaker 4 When we returned, most people that rob a store don't kill anybody.

Speaker 3 Maybe the robbery was just a cover for murder.

Speaker 4 He had the classic motive that does kind of seem personal.

Speaker 1 There are some things which, once seen, can never be unseen.

Speaker 1 Amber Belkin sprawled in death in the back office of a video game store, her head wrapped in a plastic bag. Mariano Rivera dialed 911, his mind a horrified confusion.

Speaker 1 He stared at Amber's assistant manager, Brandon Beale.

Speaker 5 I was angry, I was upset.

Speaker 5 You know, and then I'm looking at Brandon like, I don't understand, like, how did this happen? And, you know, I don't want to blame anybody, but your first thought is, who is around?

Speaker 5 Who can you look at and say maybe he had something to do with it?

Speaker 1 It's got to be a pretty shocking thing to discover.

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 5 it's hard to describe. You just have a million emotions just running through and you just don't know what to make of them.

Speaker 1 The police came, took one look, and called San Antonio Police Detective Raymond Ray Bob Roberts.

Speaker 4 It looks like a robbery gone bad.

Speaker 4 store's in disarray.

Speaker 4 The clerk is found in the back office. She's dead.
Try to get some information. Are there any witnesses? No, sir.

Speaker 4 So you tell them, you know, hold the scene down and get the crime scene detectives out there.

Speaker 1 The news, indistinct, unconfirmed, spread through the Texas afternoon. Somebody dead in Amber's store.
But most people did not know who,

Speaker 1 including Amber's father. as he headed over there.

Speaker 9 I jumped in my truck and I called a friend of mine who is a defense attorney and I said, I need you to call anybody that you can and see what you can find out.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 9 I was just about there and he

Speaker 9 called me and he said, well, how far are you from there?

Speaker 1 That's when he realized it wasn't that Amber found someone dead.

Speaker 6 They found her.

Speaker 8 And my name's just buckled and I just

Speaker 8 My whole world just died right there.

Speaker 1 That's a pretty dreadful feeling, isn't it?

Speaker 6 It's the worst feeling in the world because you totally realize

Speaker 6 no one can fix this.

Speaker 7 Nobody can bring her back.

Speaker 1 Not for them. Not for her friends.

Speaker 2 And then everything just stopped. Disbelief.

Speaker 2 Disbelief.

Speaker 6 Your earth shatters.

Speaker 15 I sat on the curb and cried. Everything around me was just a blur.

Speaker 1 Inside the store, Detective Roberts had a look around.

Speaker 4 There's a bunch of DVD games on the ground.

Speaker 4 Where the cash register was right there by the front.

Speaker 4 The till's open, the drawers open. There was some change just kind of laying around.

Speaker 4 There's more DVDs on the ground in the back.

Speaker 1 Like somebody came in, ransacked it.

Speaker 4 Ransacked the place, took off, yeah.

Speaker 1 You went round to the back alley. Was this an escape route?

Speaker 4 Probably stacked all the games up here,

Speaker 4 either had their car here in the alley or had it parked over there, put the boxes out here, picked them up, and took off.

Speaker 1 You wouldn't think robbing a game store would be worth killing somebody in the process.

Speaker 4 Well, you wouldn't think anybody would rob a game store.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 normally during robberies, you know, it's just a robbery.

Speaker 20 There's no murder.

Speaker 1 And this was certainly a robbery, given the mess and the empty safe.

Speaker 4 We checked the bank. There was no deposit made for that mortar.
There was $1,900 stolen. Three or four big video games, PlayStations and PS3s and DVD games.

Speaker 4 All that was taken.

Speaker 1 The haul totaled just under $6,000.

Speaker 1 Maybe the store surveillance cameras could tell the detective who took it. Except...

Speaker 4 There's no surveillance video in the store. There's none in the strip center that the store's located in.
There's no video anywhere.

Speaker 4 There was video at the Starbucks next door, but it only showed the front door. And that's it.
You don't see anything.

Speaker 1 Who would know that? Who would know it was the video game company's only store in San Antonio not equipped with cameras? Answer was obvious, thought the detective.

Speaker 1 An employee would know, just like an employee would know Amber hadn't taken the cash to the bank yet.

Speaker 1 Then Mariano told the detective about encountering Brandon and that he couldn't understand why Brandon didn't look for Amber until he, Mariano, arrived.

Speaker 5 His first thought should have been, I think there might have been a robbery. Let me make sure, first of all, the robbers are not still in here and can hurt me, but also let me see where Amber is.

Speaker 1 Just what the detective was thinking. He talked to Amber's co-workers.
They said she had issues with Brandon.

Speaker 14 They had never learned to work together yet.

Speaker 1 And it's just,

Speaker 14 when you have a guy like that who's not really the same type of attitude or mentality that the rest of us were, it causes some problems.

Speaker 1 Did she trust him? You know, I don't know.

Speaker 14 I think at some instances, with some things, no.

Speaker 1 Even Amber's parents said they knew she was dissatisfied with Brandon.

Speaker 7 Because

Speaker 7 she had written him up.

Speaker 1 She'd prepared a negative work review.

Speaker 9 She was going to turn it in that day.

Speaker 7 It's just his last chance, Mom. She said,

Speaker 7 I can't allow him to continue to make these mistakes.

Speaker 1 So motive, opportunity, behavior that didn't seem innocent?

Speaker 1 I mean, he had the classic motive. He didn't want her to write him up.

Speaker 1 He didn't want to get fired. He wouldn't get fired.
Well, this seemed like a personal crime, right?

Speaker 4 Could have been. Most people that go in and rob a store don't go with the intentions of killing anybody.
They just go in there, do the robbery, and leave. Putting a plastic bag on their head.

Speaker 1 Squeezing it tight and holding it. Squeezing it tight.

Speaker 4 It takes

Speaker 4 four or five minutes, probably. It takes commitment.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no kidding. She knows she's struggling.
You know, she's just not laying there.

Speaker 4 That takes a while. So that takes, it does kind of seem personal.

Speaker 1 They had Brandon in the back seat of a patrol car. Detective went to talk to him.

Speaker 4 He tells me a story, and it's just not making any sense.

Speaker 1 So he had Brandon taken downtown and questioned by a colleague known for her special interviewing skills.

Speaker 4 She's a real good detective. She has a way with

Speaker 4 getting stuff out of people. About an hour later, I'm still at the scene.
She calls me back and says, yeah, something's up with this guy.

Speaker 3 Coming up, Amber's parents were convinced it was Brandon.

Speaker 9 Everything pointed to him.

Speaker 3 Would that explain what Amber's mom says she saw at the funeral?

Speaker 7 He put one of the GameStop

Speaker 7 tag holders that had their ID on it. He put one of those in her casket.

Speaker 3 When Dateline continues

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Speaker 1 It was four days after that awful morning in the video game store. Amber Belkin's funeral was huge, as if in death she'd been adopted by the community around her.

Speaker 7 Over 600 people and the ones that couldn't get into the chapel waited in the lobby and in the parking lot.

Speaker 1 Was that a comfort?

Speaker 8 A very big comfort

Speaker 7 that she touched that many lives.

Speaker 4 They loved Amber.

Speaker 9 They said, We love Amber.

Speaker 1 As Amber's parents watched, they could not stop seeing in their heads another scene, the one in the back room of the video game store, the way she was killed.

Speaker 9 They told me it was personal.

Speaker 19 She had to be so frightened.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 19 when she tried to pick up the phone, I know it was to call us.

Speaker 19 And he yanked the phone out of the wall.

Speaker 1 Was it Brandon Beale? By the day of the funeral, they were sure.

Speaker 2 We definitely thought Brandon did it.

Speaker 9 Everything pointed to him.

Speaker 1 And then, as mourners filed by to pay their respects, suddenly, There he was at the funeral. In front of them, Brandon Beale.
Did you think, my God, her killer has come to the funeral?

Speaker 7 Oh, he came in and shook my hand, and I got up, and my knees just felt weak, and I just fell.

Speaker 1 Then, said Amber's mother, she was sure she saw Brandon walk right up to the casket and put something into it.

Speaker 7 He put one of the GameStop

Speaker 7 tag holders that had their ID on it.

Speaker 7 He put one of those in her casket, and I got that thing out of there as fast as I could and put it in a tissue and put it in my purse because I thought that's the last thing I want buried with my daughter.

Speaker 1 Was that ID potential evidence, she wondered. Was Brandon trying to bury evidence with Amber's body?

Speaker 4 So mom was automatically thinking Brandon dead.

Speaker 1 It's got to be Brandon, you know. A week after the murder, Detective Roberts questioned Brandon on videotape.

Speaker 21 I'm going back over everybody we talked to.

Speaker 21 Trying to figure this thing out.

Speaker 1 Brandon repeated the story he'd been telling from the start. He was nowhere near the store that morning.

Speaker 22 I just got up, let my dog out,

Speaker 23 march Fort Center.

Speaker 22 Then

Speaker 24 at 9.45 I left because I had to go help my fiancé's parents move out

Speaker 23 this big island that goes in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 He didn't get to the store, he said, until after 2 p.m. for afternoon shift.
And when he got there, he insisted it was still closed. So he panicked.
Was he supposed to open that morning?

Speaker 22 So I'm about to put my stuff in so I can check the computer.

Speaker 4 He looks around and sees the

Speaker 4 DVDs on the floor, the cashier's drawer open. He sees all this and thought, hmm.
So he starts going about to open the store.

Speaker 8 He thought, hmm, yeah.

Speaker 4 So, you know, he's not looking for Amber or not looking for anybody that's supposed to be working.

Speaker 1 Brandon told Detective Roberts he had no idea Amber was in the store, No idea Amber intended to submit a negative work review about him that very day.

Speaker 1 Didn't notice her car in the parking lot, he said. Didn't think the obvious mess in the store meant they'd been robbed.

Speaker 4 Wait a minute, you saw the disarray.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 If an employee saw that disarray, a normal person you would think would go in and start looking something up.

Speaker 1 Something's wrong here. Yeah.
So Roberts got a search warrant for Brandon's house and car. Maybe they'd find some of the stolen DVDs and game consoles there.
They did not.

Speaker 1 But there had to be something. For weeks, the detective looked for evidence on Brandon Beale.

Speaker 4 Randy and mama called me

Speaker 4 24-7 every day, two, three times a day. Brandon is Brandon, Brandon, Brandon, Brandon.

Speaker 1 Detectives questioned his fiancé, her parents. They scoured his phone records.

Speaker 4 We did everything we could to try to get some kind of evidence on Brandon, and there was none there.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And there was none there because he didn't do it.

Speaker 1 That alibi about helping his fiancé's parents checked out and his phone records revealed he was miles from the store when Amber was murdered. Finally, Brandon Beale was cleared.

Speaker 1 Did you at some point think I'm going to be charged with murder?

Speaker 25 Yes, I did.

Speaker 1 The memory's still fresh.

Speaker 4 Had nightmares of going to jail.

Speaker 25 You know, it was hard for me to sleep.

Speaker 1 That terrible day?

Speaker 25 My whole thought process was, can we get this store open? Because, you know.

Speaker 3 I think I screwed up.

Speaker 25 Right, I screwed up.

Speaker 1 Why didn't he notice they'd been robbed?

Speaker 25 You know, some stores are a little messier than others. Sure.

Speaker 1 So maybe that meant that whoever was on the night before didn't put things away from it.

Speaker 25 That was my thought process, totally opposite of, hey, there's somebody dead here or there was a robbery.

Speaker 1 Brandon was 23 then and terrified.

Speaker 25 I'm just thinking, you know, just

Speaker 25 they're really just trying to put this on this young black man, you know. When they questioned his fiancé, They was trying to convince her that I did it.

Speaker 25 They would say things to her like, you know, how can you sleep with a murderer? You know, you know, he did it. You know, you're possibly next.

Speaker 1 When they searched his house.

Speaker 25 It seemed like it's seen out of the movie. It just going through drawers, throwing our clothes.
They left my house already.

Speaker 1 Even when he was finally cleared, he said, no one told him. Nor, he said, was he told Amber had written him up, though he agreed they hadn't always seen eye to eye on some things.

Speaker 1 And until we spoke with him, he said, he had no idea Amber's mother believed she saw him put something into Amber's coffin. Did you walk over to the casket and put in a lanyard or something?

Speaker 25 That's the most absurd thing I've heard.

Speaker 8 No,

Speaker 6 no.

Speaker 25 That was my very first funeral, so I didn't even get that close to the casket.

Speaker 1 But...

Speaker 1 Brandon is a father now.

Speaker 1 So he told us. He thinks of Amber's parents and understands.

Speaker 25 I couldn't imagine, you know, losing one of my children.

Speaker 1 But if Brandon Beale didn't kill Amber Belkin,

Speaker 1 then who did?

Speaker 1 Coming up,

Speaker 4 I'm sitting at the office and the phone rings.

Speaker 3 A caller, reluctant to give his name, but gives up someone else's.

Speaker 4 Say, well, I know who killed this girl.

Speaker 1 That Brandon Beale did not kill his boss, Amber Belkin, was very clear, which meant that Detective Ray Bob Roberts had a big problem.

Speaker 4 We had everything going against us. Didn't have witnesses, didn't have video, didn't have DNA, didn't have fingerprints, didn't have

Speaker 1 nothing.

Speaker 1 He went public then. Had to.

Speaker 4 We held a big news conference with the parents, mom and dad,

Speaker 4 pleading for help. Crime Stoppers put up a lot of money.

Speaker 4 Nothing. I was hoping, you know, money talks.

Speaker 1 100 grand rewards. 100 grand rewards, a lot of money.

Speaker 4 Nothing.

Speaker 7 We put flyers up all over San Antonio.

Speaker 9 We wouldn't let it go.

Speaker 1 But as months went by without a single solid lead, Detective Roberts sank through frustration and into a kind of despair.

Speaker 4 This little girl, she looked like my baby, my girl.

Speaker 4 And she resembled my daughter. Same build, same color of hair.
Amber's favorite book as a baby was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.

Speaker 3 I read that to my daughter a million times.

Speaker 4 You know, you do this for an extended period of time.

Speaker 4 You try to distance yourself. Sure.

Speaker 1 You got it.

Speaker 4 And the worst stake we can make

Speaker 4 is getting too close to it. Yeah.
Not close to the family

Speaker 4 mentally, physically

Speaker 4 for the detective.

Speaker 4 If you do that every case,

Speaker 1 you're no good. You're no good.

Speaker 4 You're burnt out.

Speaker 1 And then, about seven months after Amber's murder, I'm sitting at the office and the phone rings. The caller claimed to know something.

Speaker 4 Okay, what's your name?

Speaker 4 I don't want to tell you my name. Just call me Joe.
Okay, Joe. What do you got? I said, well, I know who killed this girl.
I said, okay, who? He said, a guy named Giovanni.

Speaker 4 I said okay what makes you think this guy did it well he asked me if I wanted to do a robbery with him

Speaker 4 you know before

Speaker 1 I said okay fascinating he says

Speaker 4 we used to both work for EB Games I said well why you know why did he want to do this robbery well he wanted to do the robbery at this store because there's no cameras hang up with him I call EB Games yeah both of them did work

Speaker 4 for EB Games. Yeah.
So I'm thinking, I finally got a break.

Speaker 1 The detective asked asked Joe to come in for a talk. Joe told him that at first he didn't think Giovanni's request was serious.

Speaker 21 I just kind of knew it off. I didn't, you know, you don't think your best friend's going to actually want to go fix up deep.

Speaker 1 But after he heard about Amber, said Joe, it all clicked. Giovanni must have killed her.
But how much stock could Roberts put in this guy, Joe, who initially wouldn't even give his full name?

Speaker 1 And who was this Giovanni anyway? The detective checked for priors. There wasn't much.

Speaker 4 Had a record as a juvenile. Get his fingerprints, get the fingerprints that we lifted from the crime scene.
There's hardly any that are legible.

Speaker 1 And none was a match.

Speaker 4 Now you're stuck as an investigator. This is all you got.
You got this one witness, and you want to tie this suspect to the scene, but there's nothing to tie him. I mean, there's nothing.

Speaker 4 I have nothing to hit him on.

Speaker 1 But worth a try. You brought Giovanni in for an interview.

Speaker 21 Water, Coke.

Speaker 23 Oh, it'll do damage to my stomach right now without food.

Speaker 4 Of course, he denies it.

Speaker 21 I'm real comfortable thinking that you're responsible for this murder. That's crazy, sir.

Speaker 1 Was it crazy?

Speaker 1 No way to prove, really.

Speaker 1 And then a couple of days later, Detective Roberts brought the tipster, Joe, back in. And this time, Joe poured it all out, said Giovanni actually told him straight out that he killed someone.

Speaker 22 I just was in shock when he told me that.

Speaker 21 I was like, well, I was scared too because, like, I was in a car alone with it thinking, like,

Speaker 1 you know, if I freaked out, like, what's he gonna do to me you know now that was huge if Joe was telling the truth but

Speaker 1 just one guy's accusation no idea how credible it might be wasn't much to go on

Speaker 1 still

Speaker 1 was all they had so

Speaker 4 so I draft out an arrest warrant and I draft out a search warrant bring it to the magistrate She reads it, says it's about time.

Speaker 4 Because this is in the news, you know, this is a high-profile case for Santona. You know, rich white girl dies at work.

Speaker 1 You know, people went crazy.

Speaker 4 It shouldn't have mattered, but people went crazy. You know, they want justice.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Go get the search warrant signed. Go get the arrest warrant signed.

Speaker 4 It's my birthday. Oh, man.

Speaker 4 I said, man, it's the best birthday present ever.

Speaker 1 But then he got a call from his sergeant.

Speaker 4 He says, Ray, Bob, I want you to keep your mouth shut.

Speaker 4 Don't say anything. I just want you to do what I'm telling you to do.
He said, I need you to get that arrest warrant quashed.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 Giovanni would not be arrested after all. Just not enough evidence.
The prosecutor had made it clear he didn't want to try him and fail in court.

Speaker 1 But the detective still had a warrant for Giovanni's DNA. So they went to his house unannounced.

Speaker 4 He opens the door. I said, got a warrant for you.
Didn't say search warrant, didn't say arrest warrant. And he sinks.
And he turned back to his wife and says, I'm going with them. And he was defeated.

Speaker 4 He put his head down. Head down,

Speaker 4 shoulders sank down.

Speaker 4 He put his hands behind his back like he was like getting ready to be caught like he was getting ready to be handcuffed he thought he was gonna go to jail that's certainly a tell oh yeah

Speaker 1 giovanni gave them a dna sample but afterwards he clammed up wouldn't say a word i was disgusted so i had somebody else take him back home but i called my friends in swat i said hey you keep an eye on this guy and sure enough just hours later He got a call.

Speaker 4 SWAT calls me and says, hey, Ray Bob, he's loading everything up in a car. He's moving.

Speaker 1 They pulled Giovanni over. Traffic stopped.
Asked him, where was he headed?

Speaker 4 I'm going to Laredo. I'm getting the hell out of here.

Speaker 1 Giovanni was going to Laredo, Texas, along the Mexican border. Nothing Ray Bob could do about it.
And the case went pretty much nowhere after that for many months. Until

Speaker 1 there was a woman. She was terrified.
And did she have a story to tell?

Speaker 1 Coming up, a young mother locked in with a killer.

Speaker 11 He just reached over the club compartment.

Speaker 13 He put out the gun.

Speaker 13 Please don't kill me.

Speaker 3 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 1 Late June, almost a year and a half after the murder of Amber Belkin, Detective Ray Bob Roberts roared down the highway to Laredo. He had just gotten a call from the police there.

Speaker 1 Giovanni's wife wife wanted to talk. Her name was Veronica.
And what a story she told.

Speaker 10 I made a dumb choice. I was really young, and I got pregnant really young.

Speaker 6 So in households.

Speaker 10 Yeah.

Speaker 1 She tried to resist him, she said. Wasn't attracted that way, but he was so insistent.
And once she was pregnant...

Speaker 10 Our family would insist that we get married. Because they did not want us to have a baby out of wedlock.
And

Speaker 10 I listened to everyone except my own feelings.

Speaker 1 And once they were married, she said he demanded sex whenever he wanted it.

Speaker 10 Whenever he like touched me, I would feel sick and I would tell him to stop. There were times when he would get angry or frustrated, and then he would force himself on me.

Speaker 1 And right beside sleeping children in their one small bedroom.

Speaker 10 He would duct tape me,

Speaker 10 duct tape my mouth,

Speaker 10 duct tape, you you know, my wrists to the leg of a chair,

Speaker 10 and just to keep me quiet. I was very afraid.
And again, I was young.

Speaker 1 Much too afraid to tell.

Speaker 28 And while detectives searched for more clues in Amber's death, he...

Speaker 1 Then one day in late January 2007, as she watched TV, she saw the news of Amber's murder.

Speaker 10 And I said, look at this. Wow, isn't that crazy? And he just looked and he just said, wow, that's...
He mirrored

Speaker 10 my reaction to it. Like, wow, that's, that's, wow, I can't believe it.
I never thought for one second, like,

Speaker 10 like, he just acted normal that whole time.

Speaker 1 That is until after the police knocked at their door in the fall of 2007. After Joe reported Giovanni, after Detective Roberts got that search warrant for Giovanni's DNA.

Speaker 10 We were asleep.

Speaker 10 And it was early in the morning. And then we hear a

Speaker 10 pounding at the door. Boom, boom, boom like just

Speaker 10 and we know that woke us up that woke me up and we're like what's that and he got up first and he went to go check and then he returned and told her it's the police they think I killed someone I was like did you did you they want to talk to me because they think I killed someone what's it like to hear that I was shocked and mortified and he says

Speaker 10 it's because I did kill someone and that's all he said he said I killed someone who who why And I'm assuming it was maybe he had like an altercation with someone, like maybe a friend or some guy down the street.

Speaker 10 I don't know.

Speaker 1 But Giovanni only said, We're going to move to Laredo.

Speaker 10 Let's just go.

Speaker 1 That very day?

Speaker 10 The next day.

Speaker 10 A very rapid move. Unprepared.
It's just fast.

Speaker 1 Veronica was beside herself, paralyzed by fear.

Speaker 10 How do I tell somebody? Do I call the police? Do I tell a family member?

Speaker 10 What do I do? And

Speaker 10 I just stayed quiet and I was so afraid to say something.

Speaker 1 And then one night, she worked up the courage to ask him a question.

Speaker 10 I asked him, Did this have anything to do with what I saw in the news that day? And he said, Yes, I did that. That was me.

Speaker 1 What was that like to hear?

Speaker 10 Just started crying.

Speaker 29 He saw me and I think, oh my god.

Speaker 12 I go, Why? Why?

Speaker 11 Why did you do that?

Speaker 12 He said, We, we,

Speaker 10 we needed, we needed the the money.

Speaker 1 She begged him, turn yourself in.

Speaker 1 Instead, he went to his mother.

Speaker 10 She would cry to him. It's like, no, don't, please don't go.
You don't want to leave your children. They're never going to see you again.

Speaker 11 And I'm just there, like, crying away, like, inside.

Speaker 10 Like, I'm just, I'm trying to do it as peacefully as I can without making him angry toward me.

Speaker 1 And then, around dinner time one evening, Veronica finally told him she'd had enough. The marriage was over.

Speaker 10 Then he said, you know what, let's go for a drive. Let's go get the kids something to eat.

Speaker 1 Instead, he drove her to a secluded area.

Speaker 10 It was just dirt all around,

Speaker 10 empty.

Speaker 10 And

Speaker 10 no people,

Speaker 10 no one inside. That's when he pushed the auto, the lock.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the car lock. The car locked.

Speaker 10 And it locked all the doors. And that's when I was like, okay, like...

Speaker 10 Something's gonna happen tonight. Something's gonna happen.

Speaker 6 Because we were in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 8 And I didn't know if he was gonna kill me.

Speaker 30 I was already crying. I was looking out the window.

Speaker 6 And I was thinking, we're gonna get out of this.

Speaker 11 And I look over and he just reached over the glove compartment.

Speaker 13 He put out the gun. I said, please don't kill me.
He said, don't worry, I'll just do what I say.

Speaker 1 Get into the back seat, he ordered. He followed her.

Speaker 30 And then he raped me back there.

Speaker 8 And I started crying. I just started praying.

Speaker 11 As he was doing, I started praying.

Speaker 13 I just started calling out to God.

Speaker 12 God, please

Speaker 12 wanted to get out of there alive.

Speaker 1 But it wasn't Veronica who would die. It was Giovanni.
He pulled her out of the car. Take the gun, he said.
Shoot me.

Speaker 8 I was like, I can't do that.

Speaker 13 He's like, yes, you're going to do it.

Speaker 11 Because if you don't do it, I'm going to come after you.

Speaker 30 I'm going to come after the children. I'm going to come after your family.

Speaker 30 And whoever you end up with, I'm gonna come after him too.

Speaker 13 And if you don't do it, I'm gonna come and hurt your children.

Speaker 12 And I'm gonna hurt everybody. So you need to hand my life tonight.

Speaker 11 Joe, I can't do this.

Speaker 12 I can't kill you.

Speaker 30 I cannot be like you.

Speaker 12 I can't do this.

Speaker 1 She tried to reason with him, she said. Told him, if she killed him and went to prison, Their children would have no parents.

Speaker 10 I just said anything I could say just to get him out of this mentality.

Speaker 1 And it worked. He drove home, told her what she had to do.

Speaker 10 He had me lay down next to him. He made sure that I was right there.

Speaker 10 I was awake the whole night because I was afraid that he would do something while I was asleep or to the children or just do something crazy.

Speaker 10 Then the next morning he said, I'm just going to disappear.

Speaker 1 He drove Veronica and the kids to her mother's house and he took off.

Speaker 4 What did it feel like to walk away from him?

Speaker 10 Like I'm almost there.

Speaker 6 It's almost over.

Speaker 8 And I run in there and I said, I need to make a phone call.

Speaker 6 I need to tell the police when I come.

Speaker 1 And she did.

Speaker 29 They told me they asked me the same, why it should take so long.

Speaker 11 I was just so afraid.

Speaker 12 But I'm here now and I'm telling you everything I know, everything that he told me.

Speaker 1 But now, he was truly gone.

Speaker 1 Coming up.

Speaker 4 We're in a jail. A cold, stinky, loud jail.

Speaker 1 Confronting a killer, healing a wound.

Speaker 10 They were grateful that I said something, that I did the right thing.

Speaker 1 The day Veronica called the police was the beginning of the end for Giovanni Rivera.

Speaker 4 I'm drafting an arrest warrant if I'm going to get some of the bitch, you know.

Speaker 1 Not that easy. All they knew was he'd gone somewhere.
Probably Mexico.

Speaker 1 But it was a full six weeks before they tracked him down, surprised him at a relative's house, sure enough, in Mexico, as he played one of the video games he stole from Amber's store.

Speaker 1 Detective Roberts finally got his suspect exactly where he wanted him.

Speaker 4 We're in a jail. A cold, stinky, loud jail.

Speaker 23 I'm Detective Roberts, Raymond Roberts, San Antonio Police Department.

Speaker 4 All this background noise, we read Giovanni's rights. You have the right to remain silent.
And he starts talking.

Speaker 24 I've had this kill for a long time.

Speaker 24 I've been wanting to turn myself in, so

Speaker 24 but I always put the needs of others before me.

Speaker 1 Wait, put the needs of others before me?

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 4 He says, Just past Christmas. He says, I need money.
EB Games. He said, I'm going to do the one on San Pedro because there's no

Speaker 4 video. He drives there, he tells me, he says, I had tape and a knife.
And what's the tape for? Tie him up.

Speaker 1 He claimed he didn't know it was tiny Amber Belkin running the store that day.

Speaker 4 In my heart, I think he knew.

Speaker 1 After all, Giovanni had worked for the game store company, knew who managed the stores, and he knew Amber.

Speaker 1 If he was going to pick somebody to rob, why wouldn't he pick this five foot two, 100-pound young woman?

Speaker 1 Instead of Brandon, who's big and tough.

Speaker 4 Big, big guy, instead of all these.

Speaker 1 He knew.

Speaker 1 When he got there, said Giovanni.

Speaker 24 She recognized me.

Speaker 24 When I was in there,

Speaker 24 I asked for the money and I tried to explain it to her, look, I'm having some problems. And

Speaker 24 she said, just take the money.

Speaker 1 But then, he claimed, she reached for the phone. So he took her down, taped her wrists with duct tape.

Speaker 1 Like he had often done to his wife.

Speaker 24 And then that's when she panicked and she wanted to scream. And I just covered her mouth and just saying please don't scream, don't scream like that.
And now I'm I'm based and I'm like saying I can't

Speaker 24 I can't lose everything I gain my family and I've already hit the point of no return and I just grab a bag and I just told her just be quiet, just be quiet.

Speaker 1 He put a bag on her head, he said. He squeezed it tight round her neck.
He held it there.

Speaker 20 And

Speaker 24 when she stopped moving, I just heard her gurgling and I

Speaker 24 I didn't hear her screaming. I just stopped and I said, no, but

Speaker 24 okay. And I turned her around and I untied her.
I said, are you okay? And she wasn't breathing. And I heard her gasp, but she didn't respond anymore.
And that's when I left.

Speaker 24 I had already had the money and I put the stuff that I wanted to pick up so I could sell.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 24 I left out the back door.

Speaker 1 Giovanni's story would not be tested in court. He took a plea deal, murder,

Speaker 1 life in prison, with parole possible possible beginning in the year 2038.

Speaker 1 At the sentencing, the Belcons finally confronted the killer of their only child, their darling daughter.

Speaker 8 Was it helpful to do that?

Speaker 7 It is.

Speaker 16 It is.

Speaker 9 No.

Speaker 4 Not for you?

Speaker 9 He sat back on the constable's desk, tapping his foot,

Speaker 9 just looking around.

Speaker 7 Mike, you're wasting my time.

Speaker 12 It would have been

Speaker 6 beneficial if I had heard him say,

Speaker 6 I am really sorry.

Speaker 7 I am so sorry, Mr. and Miss Belkin.

Speaker 7 You know, Amber didn't deserve to die. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 22 What did he say?

Speaker 6 Nothing.

Speaker 1 But the Belkins did get an apology from someone else. Giovanni's now ex-wife, Veronica.

Speaker 1 They met for the very first time when we shot this story.

Speaker 10 I've blamed myself for

Speaker 10 not saying something sooner, for waiting too long. And I always felt like they had maybe some anger towards me.

Speaker 1 But blame her?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 1 They knew she was a victim too. In fact, Giovanni pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting Veronica.

Speaker 10 They were really nice. They were grateful that I said something,

Speaker 10 that I did the right thing.

Speaker 7 We don't have any ill feelings at all. She's a wonderful girl.

Speaker 1 They are, they told us, broken still, and always will be. And they cling now to Amber's best friends, Ashley and Monica.

Speaker 7 Her daughters, her adopted daughters, which are Amber's friends through thick and thin.

Speaker 1 They have each named daughters after Amber.

Speaker 1 And they hang on to memories like gold.

Speaker 2 It's like you have to put it in a box and then just keep it there for safekeeping because that's what you have and that's what you hold on to.

Speaker 15 It hurts.

Speaker 7 It hurts.

Speaker 15 Life will never be what it was with her.

Speaker 3 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

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