Killing Time

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Speaker 12 Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 14 To be betrayed like that feels like somebody's stabbing you through the heart and stabbing you in the back at the same time.

Speaker 15 My brother's killers would pay for this.

Speaker 15 And we walked upstairs. She's lying on the ground, people breathing.

Speaker 14 She was such a mess. She falls against the door screaming.

Speaker 16 You see it, you feel sorry for these girls. They're all traumatized.

Speaker 17 I ran down the street yelling, Ricky.

Speaker 18 I just was like, oh my god.

Speaker 19 Did you shoot yourself?

Speaker 20 No.

Speaker 15 Who did it? We didn't know who did this, you know. Is this a robbery?

Speaker 16 Did he owe anybody money?

Speaker 21 I think they were at a loss.

Speaker 14 Fingers were pointed everywhere at everybody.

Speaker 15 I started putting things together, you know, like, oh my gosh, the boy that was in the house.

Speaker 16 They started investigating the girls.

Speaker 23 But what were they doing, those girls? Do you know?

Speaker 15 Only thing I knew that they were doing that night was trying to hide out.

Speaker 24 We all made our choices.

Speaker 14 We all did what we did. If it's somebody in our circle, something's wrong.

Speaker 16 Ruthless was obviously good performance.

Speaker 22 Teenagers tangled up in a murder mystery.

Speaker 27 Who was behind it?

Speaker 28 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dadline.

Speaker 12 Here's Keith Morrison with Killing Time.

Speaker 29 Where is the line beyond which redemption is not possible?

Speaker 2 Does it even exist?

Speaker 31 Or does it move?

Speaker 32 Does it shift as time goes by?

Speaker 15 She is the master manipulator of this whole case. She wanted my brother to spoil her.

Speaker 21 This is a story about a murder.

Speaker 31 And it's also about ugly stupidity, calculating evil, and maybe

Speaker 34 official absolution.

Speaker 25 It's not fair.

Speaker 35 How often do you think about it?

Speaker 15 Every day. Pretty much.

Speaker 36 Of course she does.

Speaker 4 Shaylin Cowles has struggled with it more than half her life, has suffered under the weight of loss and the question that has tormented her.

Speaker 39 Was there something she could have, should have done?

Speaker 41 It was a scorching day in the middle of August. The year was 1997.

Speaker 41 Shaylin's big brother, Ricky Cowles, had gone to work early at Edwards Air Force Base up in the high desert northeast of LA,

Speaker 44 where their family's electric company helped maintain the power grid.

Speaker 29 Ricky hoped to knock off early too, finally spend some much-needed time alone with his living girlfriend, Amy Priestmeyer.

Speaker 46 But plans

Speaker 11 don't always go just the way you'd expect.

Speaker 46 Here are Shay Lynn and Ricky's parents, Debbie and Rick Sr.

Speaker 49 Didn't you guys do two jobs that day, one at Edwards and then went over to the fairground?

Speaker 17 We volunteered a lot of our time with the fairgrounds doing their, hooking up their installations and stuff.

Speaker 51 We had to wait till dark to make sure the lights would turn on automatically.

Speaker 52 Which wouldn't happen until a little before eight that night.

Speaker 53 Ricky would be late.

Speaker 52 Across town, his girlfriend, Amy Priestmeier, was waiting impatiently.

Speaker 47 Ricky had promised they could spend the evening together alone, and Amy had prepared, even dropped by the McDonald's where Shaylin worked to tell her.

Speaker 15 Amy said, don't come by tonight because me and your brother are going to try to talk things out and stuff.

Speaker 58 But now Ricky was late and Amy wanted someone to hang out with, so she called up her pal Sarah Chapin and they drove around, killing time.

Speaker 14 Two different cars.

Speaker 14 Amy's vehicle and my vehicle. There was just a bunch of chasing around.
We finally ended up in the same complex that Amy and Ricky had lived on, somebody's house right around the corner.

Speaker 45 Amy used the phone there to see if Ricky was home yet.

Speaker 12 He wasn't.

Speaker 14 After that, she said, well, I'm hungry. So we went to Burger King.

Speaker 46 Back at the fairgrounds, the sun finally set, and the cows, father and son, finished their work.

Speaker 5 And then Ricky bolted and quickly stopped back at his parents' house to pick up his car.

Speaker 17 And I said, stay, let's have dinner. And he goes, no, I got to go.
I'm supposed to be home right now, you know, and I got to leave. Bye, Mom.
I'd love you. See you later.

Speaker 11 Just before 10, Amy, with Sarah in tow, headed home to see if Ricky was finally there.

Speaker 40 But when they arrived, was he home or not?

Speaker 55 Ricky always locked the door behind him when he got in.

Speaker 40 Always.

Speaker 40 But when the girls tried the door, it was open.

Speaker 14 We both had to go to the bathroom, but I let her go first.

Speaker 14 And she said, well, why don't you go upstairs and see if Ricky's up there?

Speaker 9 Sarah headed upstairs.

Speaker 14 So I took about two steps up and I smelled something horrible.

Speaker 64 Smell what? What?

Speaker 14 It just was a rotten smell. I don't know what that is, but I'm not going up there.
She said, oh, don't be a baby, and she shoved me aside. She goes pounding up the stairs.

Speaker 14 She turns on the light in the bedroom. She stands there for a second.
And then she looks down and falls against the door, screaming. And I go running up the stairs.

Speaker 48 Someone was lying on the floor, a twisted, bloody mess, badly injured, but still alive.

Speaker 59 It was Ricky.

Speaker 14 911, what's your emergency?

Speaker 14 She had dialed 911, and she was such a mess.

Speaker 14 I can't hear what you're saying. And I grabbed the phone from her,

Speaker 14 and I'm like, hello.

Speaker 14 Can you tell me what's happening? We just got back into the apartment, and we've been calling all night long, and we haven't been able to get a hold of our boyfriend.

Speaker 14 And we walked upstairs he's lying on the ground he's all bleeding

Speaker 14 he's bleeding he's not moving or anything we just turned on the light we saw we came to the house

Speaker 5 i'm sending some transmission care mags okay by then another close friend had arrived jennifer kellog and jennifer kept saying i want to see ricky and i'm like why

Speaker 14 You don't need to see this.

Speaker 27 Sarah tried to keep everybody calm and as far away from the bloody scene upstairs as possible.

Speaker 27 He's twitching and convulsing a little that it looks like something went through his head.

Speaker 59 Paramedics and law enforcement showed up quickly.

Speaker 14 And they carried him downstairs on his bed sheet.

Speaker 14 and

Speaker 14 worked on him in the living room.

Speaker 62 A sheriff's camera was rolling as they tried to find out what exactly had happened to 21-year-old Ricky Cowles.

Speaker 14 They came in the house and next thing you know, they're shoving all of us into the kitchen.

Speaker 2 Amazingly, Ricky could talk.

Speaker 19 Did you shoot yourself? No. Who did it?

Speaker 19 Who did it? My neck.

Speaker 3 It was a scene out of hell.

Speaker 38 Paramedics trying to keep Ricky alive.

Speaker 67 The best friends struggling with hysteria hysteria as they talked to the police.

Speaker 19 Looking like Ransack Ricky.

Speaker 69 A deputy asked the girls to call Ricky's parents.

Speaker 14 They said, well, one of you is going to have to call them. Amy couldn't talk.
So they handed the phone to me. And I said, something's happened to Ricky.
You need to come down here.

Speaker 33 Seven miles away.

Speaker 70 It never took so long.

Speaker 17 Police were there, ambulances, all this stuff. And I ran down the street yelling, Ricky.

Speaker 17 I just was like, oh my God. And when I got there, they had already brought him downstairs and he was laying there.
And I just looked at him and I just was like, oh my God.

Speaker 38 The paramedic said they'd take him to a local hospital in an ambulance.

Speaker 49 Ricky's parents begged them to fly their son to an LA trauma center and fast.

Speaker 15 My dad was saying,

Speaker 15 you know,

Speaker 73 He was saying, we can't, he's not going to make it if we have to transmit him to the hospital, so we need to get a helicopter here right now.

Speaker 33 They got one, and Rick Sr.

Speaker 46 rode with his son.

Speaker 51 He couldn't really speak. He couldn't say what happened or anything.

Speaker 56 But he squeezed his dad's hand, so his dad kept talking.

Speaker 3 At the hospital, they stayed by his bed.

Speaker 11 as the doctors worked and they prayed he'd survive and they waited and waited and waited.

Speaker 15 I don't even think our family

Speaker 15 even ate anything for those days we were in the hospital. You are just in shock and you're just trying

Speaker 15 to figure out if the doctors you know can

Speaker 25 help him.

Speaker 75 Help him

Speaker 52 and find out what happened to him in that condo.

Speaker 28 From the helicopter, Ricky Cowles, barely clinging to life, was rushed into the OR.

Speaker 17 By the time I got there, it was already in surgery.

Speaker 34 The first of two surgeries.

Speaker 76 The cows held a vigil at the hospital.

Speaker 62 Ricky's girlfriend, Amy, was there, too.

Speaker 29 Georgia and Larry are Amy's parents.

Speaker 31 Did you folks go to the hospital?

Speaker 60 I did. I was the one who went inside.

Speaker 60 Larry stayed outside and I went inside because they had said that Amy was hysterical.

Speaker 21 Shaylin was very upset too.

Speaker 49 Did you get to see him?

Speaker 73 That was hard.

Speaker 49 He was suffering. He'd been shot through the forehead and his skull had been smashed by some blunt object.

Speaker 21 The doctors fought for days to save his life.

Speaker 15 When someone has such a bad brain injury, the pressure in your brain, you go through so much. The surgeries he went through, just trying to get him maybe to know we're there, you know.

Speaker 17 They told us to go into his room and

Speaker 17 talk to him about stuff about the past and about how much we loved him and sing the songs that he liked and all that.

Speaker 71 And

Speaker 17 to try to maybe jog him a little bit, but

Speaker 69 still, he hung on as his family tried to understand who could have done this to him and why Ricky didn't have an enemy in the world.

Speaker 22 Hi, Rickaroo.

Speaker 2 Ricky had grown up in Colorado until the cows moved to California when he was in high school.

Speaker 4 The cows had always been so close.

Speaker 59 But then Amy came along.

Speaker 69 At first, it all seemed very sweet, innocent, if a little naive.

Speaker 38 At least as Sarah Chapin saw it back then, early 1997, when she and Jennifer Kellogg and Amy Priestmeyer, her high school buddies, were up for anything.

Speaker 78 High school in Lancaster, California, what's that like?

Speaker 14 Just like any high school anywhere in America.

Speaker 14 A bunch of teenagers running crazy.

Speaker 80 Good evening. My name is Sarah Chapin.

Speaker 21 Back then, Sarah Chapin was a local beauty pageant queen.

Speaker 8 You were a pretty popular kid in high school.

Speaker 14 I wasn't really popular, but I was a cheerleader.

Speaker 34 Which helps.

Speaker 81 Yes. Yes.

Speaker 45 Her friend Amy Priestmire, 16 at the time, was popular too.

Speaker 14 Amy was more the goofy, fun one.

Speaker 14 She always wanted to go out dancing or

Speaker 14 she actually got me into church again.

Speaker 82 Like you're talking about two different things.

Speaker 49 She got you to church, but she was a fun one.

Speaker 14 She was fun. I mean, fun, like, innocent fun in the beginning.

Speaker 32 Their friend, Jennifer Kellogg, was 17 then, wasn't quite as innocent, maybe.

Speaker 79 She was the one your parents warned you about.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 14 Jennifer was the wild child.

Speaker 14 She was on the dance team in high school, and she always, she was the bolder one of any of us, and she was always there for you if you needed her, and especially if you got in trouble, she helped you get in trouble.

Speaker 54 Just after New Year's, 1997, Amy's parents went out of town, and well, you know what happened next?

Speaker 77 The besties threw a house party.

Speaker 14 And so Amy said, let's just invite some people over, have a good time.

Speaker 33 Here they were that night.

Speaker 61 There was a little drinking, a little smoking, and some general rowdiness.

Speaker 77 Shay Lynn Cowles was there too, 16 at the time.

Speaker 45 She remembers Amy from back then.

Speaker 21 What was she like?

Speaker 73 She was

Speaker 15 a party girl, you know.

Speaker 36 One of the people at that party was almost the grown-up.

Speaker 21 That was Ricky, then 20.

Speaker 2 Shay Lynn's big brother. By then, he was done with school and working full-time at his family's electricity business.

Speaker 27 And though he still lived at home, he was mature for his years.

Speaker 5 But that part of it didn't matter a bit to the girls at the house party.

Speaker 48 To them, he was tall and good-looking, and what else mattered?

Speaker 14 Amy and one of our other friends were kind of fighting over him. They both had a little thing for him.
And I guess Amy won.

Speaker 82 But right away, boom,

Speaker 79 she wanted him, huh?

Speaker 14 Well, when you're a teenage girl and you see a cute guy, of course,

Speaker 14 everything falls into place.

Speaker 82 How did it progress?

Speaker 14 It progressed pretty quickly. They got together and everything just started going really fast.

Speaker 27 They were together from that very first night.

Speaker 85 It didn't seem to matter to Ricky that Amy was still in high school, was just 16 years old.

Speaker 14 I remember he took her to her prom.

Speaker 39 He took her away on trips.

Speaker 3 bought her lots of gifts.

Speaker 86 Jay Lynn said Ricky even helped out Amy's friends.

Speaker 15 Anything those girls needed when my brother went to the mall with her, they went too. He gave them money, he would do anything for her.

Speaker 87 But Ricky's mother, Debbie, wasn't so enamored with young Amy.

Speaker 45 It was just a feeling, but it was a strong feeling.

Speaker 17 I told him, Junior, you got to just find a new girlfriend. She's too young for you.
She's 16.

Speaker 40 Young love.

Speaker 42 So intoxicating, so blind.

Speaker 84 Ricky Cowles just couldn't see what his mother saw or what was coming.

Speaker 2 coming.

Speaker 29 The spark that was lit when Amy met Ricky back at the start of 1997 was white-hot by springtime.

Speaker 21 Cold water from Ricky's parents had no effect whatsoever.

Speaker 33 Even though they certainly tried.

Speaker 11 She was only 16, they kept saying, as if to a brick wall.

Speaker 17 We warned him she could charge you with rape. Yeah.
But think about this. You know, she wouldn't do that.
I mean, we had many, many conversations.

Speaker 72 It didn't make a difference.

Speaker 56 It was true love.

Speaker 37 In March of 1997, after three months of bliss, Ricky turned 21. His parents had planned a celebration in Las Vegas, and Amy wasn't about to miss a party.

Speaker 17 She always found a way to do whatever she wanted. Even though she was only 16, she had to go.

Speaker 17 So

Speaker 17 he was out with his friends, 21. I don't know what she did.
I never saw her the whole time, I don't think. I don't remember seeing her.
Do you?

Speaker 51 No.

Speaker 17 But she was there.

Speaker 38 Debbie and Rick Sr.

Speaker 7 were convinced this relationship wasn't going to end well, so Debbie called Amy's parents looking for allies.

Speaker 85 They were anything but.

Speaker 17 Her parents didn't care. They let her do whatever she wanted.
She, you know, was doing whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. They had no control over her.

Speaker 90 It's a whole different kind of parenting style in the two families.

Speaker 71 Oh, oh, yeah.

Speaker 72 Amy's parents, Georgia and Larry Priestmeyer, told us they had a very different perspective on the relationship, and for a good reason.

Speaker 60 I was 17 when I met Larry.

Speaker 79 How were you, Larry?

Speaker 60 24.

Speaker 60 So there was six years difference.

Speaker 30 And that worked out.

Speaker 38 So the age difference didn't worry them.

Speaker 33 And they liked Ricky.

Speaker 10 He was good to their daughter.

Speaker 33 Anyway, they said they couldn't do much about it. She had made up her mind.

Speaker 60 She always pushed.

Speaker 12 Amy pushed the envelope.

Speaker 19 Always.

Speaker 47 There was no stopping Amy.

Speaker 17 Well, we told him he lived in this little house that we had on our property at that time. And we said, she's not staying.
We will not have her stay here. Gave her all these rules and all that.

Speaker 17 It didn't matter. She still came around.

Speaker 42 Finally, Ricky's parents said, that is enough.

Speaker 17 I said, we can't have her doing this anymore. You know, this isn't right.

Speaker 77 So, did Ricky tell Amy to stay away?

Speaker 87 No, he did not.

Speaker 11 Instead, he moved out, rented his own place.

Speaker 87 Later, Debbie wondered if that had been Amy's plan all along.

Speaker 33 Within a week, Amy was living there too.

Speaker 38 Her parents said that didn't make them happy, but they had no choice.

Speaker 60 We did not want her to move out to the house.

Speaker 4 Didn't want them to move in together?

Speaker 60 No, but Amy said, too bad, you know, I'm leaving. I'm going to go and I'm going to move in with Ricky.
And Ricky promised. He says, he says, Georgia, I know you're not happy with this.

Speaker 60 He says, but I swear I'll take care of her. I love her.

Speaker 28 So the happy couple set up house.

Speaker 40 But then Amy's two best friends moved in, Sarah and Jennifer.

Speaker 15 Well, her friends didn't want to live with their parents anymore either, so they were like, you know, she wanted to move her friends in. So that's what she did.

Speaker 43 Meet at the Constant Party House.

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 87 It was summer by then.

Speaker 33 No school.

Speaker 38 Amy's mother thought Amy just wanted her friends around to keep her from being lonely.

Speaker 60 Ricky worked long hours and she didn't like to be at home alone. Amy was the type of child that always had to have somebody to play with and always, you know, needed people to be with her.

Speaker 32 But Amy was now a teenager, living unparented with two best friends, one of whom was a notorious wild child.

Speaker 79 Jennifer was the troublemaker.

Speaker 14 She was bringing her party friends over. She was in and out at all hours of the night.

Speaker 33 With Jennifer came drugs.

Speaker 78 Was she dealing? Was she using and selling?

Speaker 14 At the time, yes.

Speaker 35 What was it, you know?

Speaker 14 I know she was at least helping to deal pot.

Speaker 14 But she herself was on methamphetames.

Speaker 82 That's how Sarah remembered it, which was not exactly what Ricky had in mind when Amy moved in with him.

Speaker 29 But then, a lot of things were not exactly what either one of them had in mind.

Speaker 26 What did they fight about?

Speaker 14 They fought like any other couple would fight, about stupid things about, you know, maybe the house not being cleaned or

Speaker 14 spending too much time with her friends, not being home enough.

Speaker 72 And pretty soon, he grew tired of Amy's friends and all that came with them.

Speaker 60 Ricky decided that he was done, that he needed them gone.

Speaker 27 Amy herself was torn.

Speaker 45 This love thing was a little more complicated than she'd bargained for.

Speaker 60 I know that Amy had said he was upset that they were there and that she didn't want to break her friendships.

Speaker 38 Eventually, Amy told Sarah and Jennifer they had to go.

Speaker 14 Amy had originally come to me.

Speaker 14 and said that Ricky would like for us to leave. And then after that, Ricky approached me and he said,

Speaker 14 You didn't do anything wrong. I'm fine with you.
I just wanted Jennifer out of the house.

Speaker 25 He didn't want Jennifer around.

Speaker 14 He did not want Jennifer around. And he had asked her numerous times to move all her stuff out.

Speaker 14 And she

Speaker 14 did.

Speaker 14 She had taken little bits here and there, but the guest bedroom still had her stuff in it.

Speaker 50 Jennifer was one of those gifts that kept on giving, huh?

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 45 Sarah took her things home anyway, but still hung around with Amy.

Speaker 48 And the young couple?

Speaker 29 Their romance once burned so fast and so hot

Speaker 40 and now seemed to be cooling rapidly.

Speaker 11 At least that's what Debbie hoped.

Speaker 69 But then Ricky told her there was something else and she wasn't going to be happy about it.

Speaker 17 He was smart, he was good looking. Why would you want to get in a situation?

Speaker 27 Quite a situation.

Speaker 59 Now, what would Ricky do?

Speaker 1 What could he do?

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Speaker 21 In the summer of 1997, Ricky Cowles was up before the sun every workday.

Speaker 19 He and his dad had a big project at the base.

Speaker 98 We had about 60 poles to put in, plus cable to put up.

Speaker 12 It was hot, always.

Speaker 3 But Ricky was good with all that.

Speaker 28 He liked the job.

Speaker 88 It's hard work, too, huh?

Speaker 17 It's hard work.

Speaker 27 Dangerous work.

Speaker 71 Yeah, he loved it.

Speaker 17 He worked with his dad since he was 12 years old every summer.

Speaker 82 At the end of every day, he'd drop off his work truck at his parents' house, and before heading home, he'd spend a little time with his mother.

Speaker 56 Debbie told us, way back first time we met, that one of those evenings, Ricky came to her all serious and said he had news, something big, something difficult.

Speaker 17 He was really serious, and I'm thinking it's some really bad thing, you know. And he tells me, well, Amy's pregnant, and I said, no, no, no.

Speaker 11 It was just what Debbie had feared.

Speaker 48 Even Amy's more permissive parents were thrown by it.

Speaker 60 I was disappointed, to be honest with you, because my kids knew about contraceptives. They knew that if they wanted,

Speaker 60 if they thought at all that they were going to be sexually active even though they were raised, not to be abstinent until they were married.

Speaker 21 Amy's friend Sarah was concerned too, but for quite different reasons.

Speaker 14 It shocked me the most that number one she was 16 and she was always very outgoing and

Speaker 14 liked having her independence as not, you know, not being a mom. Well, a party girl becoming pregnant, it's kind of hard because everything stops.

Speaker 41 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Especially when you're 16, you're still in high school.

Speaker 25 You're not grown up yet.

Speaker 57 But Ricky said he was ready.

Speaker 75 He'd welcome the baby and all that came with that.

Speaker 49 Ricky was happy.

Speaker 14 Ricky really was looking forward to being a daddy.

Speaker 100 Because, you know, a lot of guys 20 or 21 years old who just met a girl and got her pregnant right away would not be reacting that way.

Speaker 14 No, but Ricky was a little different from everybody. He seemed more grown up in that aspect.
He had had a lot of fun in his younger years.

Speaker 79 He'd already done his

Speaker 14 got it done and over with.

Speaker 5 But he was worried, if not about the baby, it was Amy, he told his parents.

Speaker 53 He could see now she might not be quite right for him.

Speaker 17 I just need a way to tell Amy that I want to take care of the baby, but we can't be what she wants us to be. I need a way to tell her.
And I said, well, you have to figure out.

Speaker 43 She can't be what she wants us to be.

Speaker 17 She wanted to be with him.

Speaker 79 She wanted wanted to be married. He didn't want to do that.

Speaker 43 Now he had this big problem-just the problem you worried about all along.

Speaker 3 And then it turned out Ricky wasn't the only one whose passions were cooling.

Speaker 10 Amy told Sarah all about it.

Speaker 36 What once seemed perfect just wasn't anymore.

Speaker 14 There was a point where she had told me that she was not very happy and that they'd been fighting a lot. She just broke down and cried and said, I don't know what to do.

Speaker 76 The second weekend of August, 1997, Ricky and his parents headed to Lake Havasu where they had a boat.

Speaker 29 Ricky invited Amy to come too,

Speaker 37 but she said no.

Speaker 14 Amy couldn't be on the boat because she was so far pregnant that

Speaker 14 she was showing.

Speaker 20 Okay.

Speaker 14 And she couldn't go on the boat. It just wasn't good to be jostled around like that.
So she said she would stay home.

Speaker 33 Meaning, no Amy.

Speaker 57 Which didn't keep Ricky from having fun.

Speaker 17 We went to gambled, he won $1,000, had the great weekend. We went on the boat.

Speaker 38 Did Amy sit home alone?

Speaker 40 No.

Speaker 21 What happened that weekend while he was away?

Speaker 14 She had called one of her ex-boyfriends to come down from Covina.

Speaker 11 I mean, was she

Speaker 45 still playing the field or what?

Speaker 14 I couldn't understand why she wanted him to come down. We all just joked around.
It was just like old times, but Amy's now pregnant and lives with her fiancé. fiancé.

Speaker 23 Would he have been happy about that situation? Did she tell him about it?

Speaker 14 Nope. No.

Speaker 14 Nobody would be happy with that.

Speaker 101 In any relationship.

Speaker 3 Would Ricky have been happy with any of it?

Speaker 1 Jennifer showed up, along with a friend, a party boy.

Speaker 33 She was handing out acid to anyone who wanted it.

Speaker 56 Shay Lin had skipped the Lake Havasu trip, so she popped in too.

Speaker 67 But despite all that, when Ricky returned returned from his weekend away, it looked like everything was going to be all right.

Speaker 2 So maybe time apart was just what they needed.

Speaker 14 The day Ricky came back, I went over there and I sat on the porch with him and we had a beer and a cigarette. And he said, you know, I really needed this trip.
I'm so excited for our life now.

Speaker 14 And I've just thought about everything and everything's just going to be fine. We're going to make it work.

Speaker 72 Amy had a change of heart too.

Speaker 14 She said, I'm going to make this work.

Speaker 14 It's worth making work. I want my daughter to grow up with her daddy here.

Speaker 40 Amy and Ricky decided they needed to spend time together alone if they wanted their relationship to work.

Speaker 29 And that was the plan the night Ricky had to work late hooking up lights at the fairgrounds.

Speaker 47 The night Amy came home to find him writhing on the floor in a pool of blood, a gunshot to his head, and one small piece of evidence

Speaker 40 who would shoot Ricky Cowles.

Speaker 77 Ricky Cowles was in and out of surgeries.

Speaker 76 Do you think he knew that you were there?

Speaker 15 Yeah, I think he knew we were there with him.

Speaker 15 Yeah. I do.

Speaker 11 Until finally it was clear there was no saving him.

Speaker 3 He was comatose now.

Speaker 29 Only the machines kept him alive.

Speaker 11 His family went to his bedside to say their goodbyes.

Speaker 17 Rick and I would not let anybody in to see Ricky, but

Speaker 17 our family, that's it, because I didn't want anybody to disturb him in any way or say anything that would make him not wake up at all. But finally, when they told us that he was not with us anymore,

Speaker 17 Amy said, can I go in and talk to him?

Speaker 11 She was beside herself, Amy was.

Speaker 84 Just had to talk to him.

Speaker 17 She goes in and tells him, why did you have to die? You know, you promised you'd buy me a car for my birthday and all this, and I just...

Speaker 63 Promised you'd buy me a car for my birthday.

Speaker 17 I lost it. I just started crying.
I just could not believe she said that.

Speaker 46 Especially when Ricky's loved ones, mom, dad, sister, were saying their last goodbyes.

Speaker 53 At 11.35 on the morning of August 14th, they let Ricky go.

Speaker 85 His heart, kidneys, liver were donated to people in need.

Speaker 17 Five people lived because of him.

Speaker 3 For Ricky's family, time had been standing still at the hospital.

Speaker 49 But outside, law enforcement had been busy trying to figure out who attacked Ricky.

Speaker 11 It was a murder case now.

Speaker 94 We found a shell casing. 25 auto, I believe.
Okay.

Speaker 11 There wasn't much evidence in Ricky's condo, just that shell casing.

Speaker 3 No fingerprints, no useful DNA, nothing missing from the place.

Speaker 3 And police weren't finding out anything about Ricky Cowles that would make him an obvious murder target.

Speaker 38 Ricky didn't seem to lead the kind of life which would lead to his being, you know, killed by a gang or something, did he?

Speaker 16 No. He was a hardworking kid with his father.

Speaker 42 Retired Los Angeles Sheriff's Detective Larry Brandenburg.

Speaker 16 Ricky wasn't involved in criminal activity. I mean, he drank a little beer and maybe smoked a little pot, but I think that was the extent of it.

Speaker 11 The detectives were stumped.

Speaker 39 But at Amy's High School and around town, everyone seemed to be talking about those girls who were always at Ricky's apartment.

Speaker 14 From the beginning, it was finger pointing here and here and here. Well, Jennifer's all.
Well, Shaylin's involved. She was pissed at her brother.
Or Amy was involved. Or somebody else was involved.

Speaker 14 Or it was this, or it was a home invasion. It just fingers were pointed everywhere at everybody.

Speaker 4 By

Speaker 14 everybody else.

Speaker 38 Rumors were flying where Shaylin went to school, too.

Speaker 15 I was still in high school, so everyone was saying a lot of things anyway. You know, who they thought did it and everything.

Speaker 49 Who did people suspect?

Speaker 15 The main person that I always heard was Jennifer Kellogg's brother.

Speaker 40 That would be Brian Kellogg, a young man with a reputation.

Speaker 52 Not a good one.

Speaker 36 He'd been in trouble with the law before and would be again.

Speaker 3 But if investigators did look at him, they got nowhere.

Speaker 33 Lots of rumors, but maybe that's all they were.

Speaker 85 And as the months passed with no arrest, a killer still out there, the triumvirate of happy-go-lucky best friends, frayed.

Speaker 29 Pretty soon, Amy wasn't talking to Jennifer and Jennifer wasn't talking to Sarah.

Speaker 86 They had been inseparable and then suddenly they couldn't be far enough apart from each other.

Speaker 17 They couldn't be far enough apart from each other.

Speaker 39 Or so she heard.

Speaker 21 Ricky's parents weren't in touch with any of them.

Speaker 72 Until there was something Debbie wanted from Amy.

Speaker 85 So she made a phone call and she asked to meet.

Speaker 17 Amy,

Speaker 17 she had his picture taken, professionally taken, and she had the picture blown up into like an 18 by 20 and framed.

Speaker 37 Debbie met up with Amy and her mother.

Speaker 17 I gave them the money for the picture and I said, well, what are your plans?

Speaker 17 What are your plans? Are you going to have this baby? Are you going to have an abortion? I mean, Ricky's not here anymore. I just didn't know.

Speaker 17 And her mother blew up and said, our family does not believe in abortion. Didn't even give me a chance to say, we don't either, but I didn't know her enough to know if she would or not.

Speaker 21 And that was the last Ricky's family heard from Amy.

Speaker 49 So she just disappeared out of your life.

Speaker 17 Yeah.

Speaker 45 With Amy went their grandchild.

Speaker 17 Come January, a friend was at the hospital and she called me and she said, I think your baby's going to be born today. Her name's on the board and she's in the maternity ward.
I

Speaker 17 resolved myself to,

Speaker 17 this is my first grandchild, but I'm never going to see it.

Speaker 11 The birth of a baby is supposed to be a moment of unbridled joy.

Speaker 10 But Debbie and Rick Cowles just felt loss.

Speaker 27 And Amy's family?

Speaker 45 They had a different emotion.

Speaker 28 Fear.

Speaker 21 There There was still a killer on the loose.

Speaker 22 I'm at the hospital guarding the door.

Speaker 33 Five months after Ricky Cowles breathed his last and they pulled the plug and let him slip away, his daughter was born.

Speaker 11 Amy's best friend, Sarah, was there.

Speaker 26 What was that like?

Speaker 14 It was just amazing because

Speaker 14 one life had been taken and another life was coming back into the world and she looked just like him. It just

Speaker 14 kind of made my heart melt that

Speaker 14 at least we'll see him again in her face.

Speaker 3 Amy's parents, Georgia and Larry, embraced being grandparents.

Speaker 60 She became our life then

Speaker 60 to just love her and nurture her and be the best grandparents that we could be for her.

Speaker 58 And Amy needed them.

Speaker 3 She was still frightened, they said.

Speaker 82 Scared of the hospital.

Speaker 49 Scared when she went to give birth.

Speaker 69 Not really a surprise.

Speaker 76 Somebody killed Ricky, and that person was still unknown and out there somewhere.

Speaker 22 I'm at the hospital guarding the door.

Speaker 64 because I still don't know anything.

Speaker 43 Or who has done this to her?

Speaker 60 Exactly. And she's still afraid that somebody is, you know, going to come after her.
And now she's afraid that somebody's going to come after her little girl.

Speaker 11 Ricky's parents weren't invited to meet their new granddaughter. Anyway, Rick Sr.

Speaker 86 and Debbie were fully occupied trying to figure out who killed their son.

Speaker 17 I was on a mission. We had one mission.
When we lost him, that last time we spoke with him, we said, we will not. have one day that we do not try to seek and find the truth.

Speaker 3 They paid for billboards, one of them right near Ricky's old condo, asking for help.

Speaker 72 And they made flyers announcing a reward for information leading to Ricky's killer.

Speaker 32 Shay Lynn went all over town delivering those flyers door to door.

Speaker 15 We just passed out the flyers and we're just hoping for the best.

Speaker 11 And then one day, Shay Lynn and her flyer showed up at Amy's parents' door.

Speaker 85 And Larry Priestmeyer invited her in to meet her niece for the first time.

Speaker 57 That broke the ice.

Speaker 102 I just called my mom and silly and just told her, you know, that I'm holding your little grandbaby.

Speaker 15 She was just precious.

Speaker 4 And so Debbie and Rick went to the Priestmeier's house and they saw the baby.

Speaker 8 And just like that, they found a way to coexist.

Speaker 17 Well, the first time we both held her, we couldn't even talk. We just cried the whole time because she looked like Ricky and

Speaker 26 she was so sweet, so precious.

Speaker 17 So that was the beginning beginning of

Speaker 17 having a family again.

Speaker 25 We started over again.

Speaker 29 From then on, the baby spent time with Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Rick.

Speaker 38 For Ricky's family, there was joy again, though they could hardly put aside their loss.

Speaker 11 Anyway, it was the baby's loss, too.

Speaker 44 I'm wondering if you contemplate sometimes what he might have done for his daughter, for this family.

Speaker 15 He would have been the best father to his daughter, taken the best care of her. She would have went without nothing, and he would have given her the most love ever.
And she missed out on that.

Speaker 54 Spring arrived.

Speaker 47 It was eight months since Ricky died.

Speaker 86 By then, Amy had finished high school, and Shaylin and her family were still looking over their shoulders.

Speaker 15 I didn't really go anywhere for the first year. Oh, I'm sorry.
We didn't know who did this, you know.

Speaker 52 And then cops, investigating a burglary, arrested a guy, small-time crook. And

Speaker 86 maybe the guy was hoping for some kind of break.

Speaker 52 He told those cops he might know something about the murder of Ricky Cowles.

Speaker 52 And he mentioned a name.

Speaker 62 Somebody who wasn't even on the cops' radar.

Speaker 43 The detective called and asked you to look in the yearbook?

Speaker 15 Yes. I said, oh my gosh, it was the boy that was in the house.

Speaker 29 It was one of the party boys who showed up at Ricky's condo the weekend Ricky was away in Havasu.

Speaker 3 Just a kid, really, who lived right down the street.

Speaker 21 Time to talk to the party guy.

Speaker 49 A burglar busted in Lancaster, California had given detectives a name.

Speaker 5 Just maybe the guy who killed Ricky Cowles.

Speaker 5 That name was Billy Hoffman.

Speaker 38 He was 19 years old and lived right down the street from Ricky's condo.

Speaker 45 But was he in hiding?

Speaker 5 He was not.

Speaker 42 In fact, Billy Hoffman couldn't keep his mouth shut about the murder.

Speaker 10 He said it right out.

Speaker 1 It was him. He killed Ricky.

Speaker 103 He was proud of it. He actually told people.

Speaker 1 Though it would be many months before police heard about it.

Speaker 2 Retired Los Angeles Sheriff's Detective Tom Harris said Billy Hoffman started bragging right away.

Speaker 103 There was a girl that he would cardpool with, for instance, to go to work at Kmart. And she picked him up and he told her that he did this last night.

Speaker 103 And he said, you saw those helicopters that were over there? He goes, that was me. He says, I did that.

Speaker 11 She was skeptical.

Speaker 10 So when they carpooled home at the end of the day, he showed her proof, a hammer he said he used in the murder.

Speaker 103 He actually gave her the hammer and said, get rid of this for me.

Speaker 33 Which she did.

Speaker 31 But when police took Billy in for questioning, he said, no,

Speaker 4 he didn't do it.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 he denied it to the authorities, but he had already told, what, numbers?

Speaker 27 Several people?

Speaker 74 Several people.

Speaker 103 He would tell people that he did this. I mean, which obviously was his demise.

Speaker 59 Billy Hoffman didn't have a record.

Speaker 29 He didn't know the victim.

Speaker 52 He didn't steal anything.

Speaker 65 So why would he do it?

Speaker 2 What was his motive to commit this murder?

Speaker 51 It was going to get him fame in his little drug business, his little drug world.

Speaker 40 Murder?

Speaker 56 Just for street cred?

Speaker 87 It was a paper-thin motive.

Speaker 29 But with all that blabbing about it, Billy had talked himself into being a suspect, so they arrested him.

Speaker 43 After the arrest, a detective called and asked you to look in the yearbook.

Speaker 88 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 41 Look up William Hoffman.

Speaker 25 You remember that? Yes.

Speaker 15 And when I saw it, I knew that I had met him.

Speaker 26 Billy.

Speaker 75 Yes.

Speaker 56 It hit her like a slap.

Speaker 32 She'd seen him that weekend when Ricky was away at the lake, the weekend before he was killed.

Speaker 62 The weekend Jennifer and Amy had friends coming and going.

Speaker 4 Billy was there.

Speaker 15 That broke my heart to know that he was in the same house that I was at.

Speaker 9 And though the cows were relieved someone had finally been arrested for killing Ricky, they felt there had to be more involved than...

Speaker 56 Just this kid, Billy.

Speaker 17 Ricky didn't even know Billy, and Billy didn't know Ricky.

Speaker 42 But they had someone in common and that someone was Jennifer Kellogg.

Speaker 56 Detectives found this photo of Jennifer and Billy smoking pot two months before the murder, confirming they knew each other.

Speaker 83 And Jennifer?

Speaker 21 She already had a reputation.

Speaker 15 Yeah, Jennifer, she just liked being a gangster. She would say to people, you know, if you need something done, I'll take care of it.

Speaker 15 You know, she was known as a girl that would beat anybody up or, you know, she's a scary girl.

Speaker 29 So Ricky's family tried to piece together what Jennifer and Amy got up to the day Ricky was attacked.

Speaker 34 Did any of their behaviors seem different with hindsight?

Speaker 7 Like when Jennifer and Amy stopped by to see Shay Lynn at work a few hours before the murder.

Speaker 42 Amy told Shay Lynn something that sounded fine at the time.

Speaker 59 But now?

Speaker 15 Don't come by tonight because me and your brother are going to try to talk things out and stuff. And I thought, oh, okay, you know, they really need to talk so stay away and then Ricky's dad Rick Sr.

Speaker 38 remembered how often Amy called Ricky at work that day to remind him be home by nine

Speaker 51 she kept bugging him to make sure what time he was going to get home so trying to make him go hurry up and go home yep

Speaker 31 and Debbie remembered when out of the blue a few days before he died Ricky told her Amy wanted him to get life insurance.

Speaker 17 I agreed with it. I said, when the baby gets here, I will.
I will get the insurance. And he goes, well, she's bugging me about it.
She bugging me. I said, just tell her that I did it.

Speaker 17 It's taken care of.

Speaker 48 But what did all that mean?

Speaker 38 To Debbie, it meant Amy and Jennifer seemed guilty of something.

Speaker 2 The way they acted didn't make any sense otherwise.

Speaker 32 But to the investigators, the cowl suspicions, though interesting, weren't enough.

Speaker 45 Anyway, they had Billy, who quickly went on trial.

Speaker 40 Witnesses put the gun in his hand and the hammer and talked about his bragging.

Speaker 49 Even Jennifer testified about that.

Speaker 3 And then, when it was Amy's turn, Debbie watched in shock as Amy told stories that didn't line up with reality, such as that she and Jennifer had never really been close friends and that it was Shay Lin who brought Jennifer around.

Speaker 38 Amy also said Billy was never at Ricky's condo, even though Shay Lynn had seen him there.

Speaker 17 First of all, why would Amy lie?

Speaker 61 Billy took the stand in his own defense and said the burglar framed him to get a deal.

Speaker 32 He didn't kill Ricky. Then the jury got the case.

Speaker 56 And four hours later, the cows were told, hurry back to court for the verdict.

Speaker 17 We had certain days we had the baby in the afternoon, and the jury came in, so we had to take her with us.

Speaker 99 The cows were relieved.

Speaker 2 Billy Hoffman was convicted.

Speaker 7 But then, said Debbie, she heard from Amy, who was angry that they had brought the baby to court.

Speaker 17 She said, you're not going to see the baby anymore. I'm just going to cut it off right now.
You're not going to see her. And I said, well, that breaks my heart.

Speaker 87 And that's when Debbie put Amy on notice.

Speaker 11 It was just her opinion, mine, but she was pretty sure she was right.

Speaker 45 Billy Hoffman would not be the only one going to prison for Ricky Cowell's murder.

Speaker 17 You know, Amy, all that does is just give me more time every day to try to find everyone that was involved in this murder because Billy didn't do it by himself.

Speaker 2 It was an empty threat, really.

Speaker 37 Even Debbie knew there wasn't enough evidence to prove it.

Speaker 1 Yet, anyway.

Speaker 95 And then one day, years later, in 2002, Debbie went to the mailbox, and there was a letter that would change everything.

Speaker 45 Billy Hoffman had been convicted for Ricky Cowell's murder, and Amy and Jennifer were still under suspicion, but the case didn't seem to go anywhere after that.

Speaker 21 And years went by.

Speaker 68 Ricky's parents did get to see the baby.

Speaker 42 Amy didn't stick with her threat to keep her away.

Speaker 2 Billy Hoffman, of course, was in prison.

Speaker 11 He was a few years into his sentence when he decided to write a letter to the cows.

Speaker 28 Debbie, quite unprepared, saw it first.

Speaker 35 What was that like getting that letter?

Speaker 17 Surreal. I was at home by myself when I got it, actually.

Speaker 32 She opened it, heart racing, and saw that it was a confession for

Speaker 5 his part in the murder.

Speaker 48 His part?

Speaker 49 When the shock subsided, Rick and Debbie knew what they had to do.

Speaker 17 We took it to the district attorney.

Speaker 61 Manna from heaven billy hoffman's letter was all law enforcement needed to re-energize a dormant investigation

Speaker 24 why don't you tell me from the beginning how that thing happened so detectives went to the prison to talk to billy now uh the reason i am here is because we know there was more than yourself involved in the crime is that correct yeah

Speaker 67 and now he has talked to us too

Speaker 27 Billy Hoffman was 21 when they sent him away for life.

Speaker 40 LWAP, they they call it.

Speaker 70 Life without parole.

Speaker 24 There was absolutely no thought that I'd ever have a hope of going home. You know, what I did was

Speaker 25 unforgivable.

Speaker 67 And month after month, he sat inside that cell with really no hope of ever changing his fate.

Speaker 33 Until finally it dawned on him there was one thing he could change.

Speaker 27 himself.

Speaker 35 You

Speaker 43 get to know a chaplain in there?

Speaker 66 Yeah,

Speaker 24 several over the years that played a role in just helping see me

Speaker 24 see things differently, showing my value as a human, as a child of God, seeing others as, you know, precious.

Speaker 10 Once he grasped that idea, he felt compelled to send that letter.

Speaker 61 And he did try to understand what made him behave the way he did back in that summer of 97.

Speaker 4 It's a story that's hard to hear, even harder to comprehend.

Speaker 27 He was 19 then, very insecure, he told us, and was trying to look cool.

Speaker 26 Talk a little bit about what the,

Speaker 44 for want of a better word, lifestyle of that group was that summer.

Speaker 24 A party lifestyle.

Speaker 24 We just lived in the moment. Our whole life revolved around that, the having fun, supposedly, in quotes, drugs.

Speaker 99 And he got the idea that if he could become a tough guy, he'd have it made in that crowd.

Speaker 24 I wanted to be the person I listened to in the music, the rap music I was listening to at the time. Killing somebody was

Speaker 24 not like this horrible thought, which it should have been.

Speaker 24 The people in my circle I was in, if there was somebody that's rumored to have been a murderer, that person was like feared and like, oh, that's the guy.

Speaker 62 Billy had never committed a violent act in his life.

Speaker 10 But to be known as a killer, to be feared, he liked that idea.

Speaker 39 And then an opportunity presented itself.

Speaker 45 His friend, Jennifer, came to him with a terrible request.

Speaker 9 A terrible but somehow exciting request.

Speaker 24 She asked me if I would kill somebody.

Speaker 89 You didn't hesitate.

Speaker 24 You said yes. I did say yes.

Speaker 9 It was that easy.

Speaker 24 I can't say I really understood the consequences of doing it.

Speaker 37 Jennifer and Amy later told him the person they wanted dead was Amy's boyfriend, Ricky.

Speaker 35 What were those women thinking?

Speaker 79 Jennifer and Amy.

Speaker 35 I mean, did they really want him killed?

Speaker 89 They really wanted him dead?

Speaker 24 They did. I don't know what they were thinking or why that was a solution to whatever they felt the problem was, but I think it's harder to explain that than my own actions.

Speaker 29 She didn't say why she wanted him killed?

Speaker 24 No.

Speaker 29 Just that she wanted him killed?

Speaker 35 Yes.

Speaker 41 Didn't you think to ask?

Speaker 24 I didn't.

Speaker 24 I know how it sounds. I know it didn't come up.

Speaker 58 Whatever the reason, Billy didn't care.

Speaker 45 He had a purpose now.

Speaker 27 So the girls laid it all out for him.

Speaker 3 Amy brought him a photo so he'd recognize Ricky.

Speaker 24 I was given a picture.

Speaker 45 They brought him to the condo.

Speaker 24 I was giving him like a tour of the house, showing the layout, planned where I would wait.

Speaker 32 They told him to hide behind the bedroom door.

Speaker 77 They said, be prepared.

Speaker 33 He'll fight back.

Speaker 42 Bring more than just a gun.

Speaker 24 In the end, I took a hammer. I had a knife with me as well.

Speaker 45 And so on the appointed date, Billy dutifully returned to the condo.

Speaker 24 I remember feeling anxious

Speaker 24 and just waiting and kind of going through what I would do in my mind.

Speaker 76 Then it was taking too long.

Speaker 3 Billy got restless.

Speaker 38 Remember, Ricky was much later than usual because he'd gone to help his dad at the fairgrounds.

Speaker 24 And so at some point, I just said, I'm leaving.

Speaker 44 It wasn't a sense of, I don't want to do this. No.
I'm having some sort of moral crisis.

Speaker 26 No.

Speaker 24 No, I wish.

Speaker 72 Billy headed out the front door, but he didn't get very far.

Speaker 56 The girls were on him right away.

Speaker 24 As I crossed that intersection,

Speaker 24 Amy and Jennifer pulled up. They're like, where are you going? He's almost home.
Just go back.

Speaker 24 And I did.

Speaker 1 So, apparently without any moral qualms at all, Billy Hoffman went right back inside and up the stairs to his hiding place.

Speaker 5 And it wasn't too long before Ricky came home and headed upstairs too.

Speaker 1 No idea.

Speaker 69 There was a man waiting there to kill him.

Speaker 24 He came in and I struck him with the hammer.

Speaker 24 He turned around and yelled at me, and I pulled the gun and fired, and I shot him.

Speaker 24 I'm so sorry to say it, but at the time I was worried that I hadn't killed him. I was afraid to shoot him again because of the sound of the gunshot, and so I struck him again with the hammer.

Speaker 56 And it was over.

Speaker 44 So then, what did you do? Run away?

Speaker 25 Yeah, I didn't run.

Speaker 24 I left the house and walked home.

Speaker 36 He walked like nothing had happened.

Speaker 72 When he got home, he sent a code to Jennifer Kellogg's pager that meant, it was done.

Speaker 7 And then, Amy grabbed Sarah and said, let's go see if Ricky's home.

Speaker 5 Sarah, who didn't know the horror she was being dragged into.

Speaker 2 Of course, Billy Hoffman's misguided aspirations to be a big man didn't turn out the way he wanted.

Speaker 1 All his bragging brought on the cops.

Speaker 24 They surrounded the house, a bunch of cop cars, and I feel it like I remember being excited. Like all this is for me.

Speaker 49 Hard to understand?

Speaker 11 Of course it is.

Speaker 24 There's no rationale to it. And all I can say, it's how I thought.
It's how I perceive things. And

Speaker 16 it's crazy.

Speaker 24 And what I would give to go back with the mind I have now.

Speaker 3 If it seems like the obvious next steps would have been arresting Amy and Jennifer, you'd be wrong.

Speaker 10 After detectives heard Billy's story, they concluded it wasn't enough.

Speaker 85 They needed more than the word of a convicted killer.

Speaker 58 They needed corroboration.

Speaker 10 They needed to look back at Amy.

Speaker 1 Would anyone remember something, anything investigators could use?

Speaker 78 You didn't think it was too strange?

Speaker 14 I thought it was strange.

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Speaker 28 In the case of the murder of Ricky Cowles, justice ground very, very slow.

Speaker 52 In spite of Billy Hoffman's story, the story of the young women who, for a moment in time, he said, were his puppet masters, years ticked by.

Speaker 72 Amy got engaged to a guy who worked in his family's construction business.

Speaker 38 Jennifer was being Jennifer.

Speaker 52 She did not become a choir girl.

Speaker 3 Meanwhile, Ricky's sister Shay Lynn graduated from high school, became a hairdresser, and soon realized people getting their hair done like to talk.

Speaker 15 I actually did Amy's hair for a while, just trying to figure out, you know, like maybe someone will say something, you know, in her friends group or something.

Speaker 15 You know, I did all her friends' hair and everything.

Speaker 49 You were a spy.

Speaker 88 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 76 You were being very sneaky.

Speaker 15 Well, I had a niece that I had to protect.

Speaker 43 And you wanted to know what they were saying to each other. Yep.

Speaker 61 But for all her eavesdropping, Shaylin did not hear anything that would help make a case against Amy.

Speaker 37 And her parents, focused on their grandchild, tried not to think about Amy.

Speaker 8 The woman who dropped that little girl off, the woman they believed conspired to kill their son.

Speaker 17 She would bring us the baby, we'd take the baby on vacations, we had her every Tuesday and Thursday, we'd have on weekends.

Speaker 17 We never talked about anything but the baby.

Speaker 37 They held their tongues about everything else.

Speaker 29 The baby was the most important thing.

Speaker 17 She superseded all that because I wanted her to have a happy life.

Speaker 29 In the background, a case was being put together against Amy and Jennifer, and Jennifer somehow got wind of it.

Speaker 16 She actually came to my house because my son was dating her sister.

Speaker 20 Oh my.

Speaker 16 Her sister asked me if she could come over. She wanted to talk to me.
She might have some information on a murder case.

Speaker 57 Ricky Cowell's murder case.

Speaker 16 She was fishing to see what was going on with it.

Speaker 43 I mean, I wonder if she was just trying to plant some information to throw people off the sand.

Speaker 16 It could be. She's pretty sophisticated when it comes to

Speaker 16 the police and how they work and operate. She was pretty knowledgeable about how we do things.

Speaker 61 Needless to say, Brandenburg was a seasoned homicide detective and Jennifer didn't catch any fish.

Speaker 69 If anything, it all seemed very suspicious.

Speaker 48 But there were issues.

Speaker 31 When Jennifer testified at Billy's trial, she had asked for immunity and got it, which meant...

Speaker 16 You can't use any of the statements that she made. or any leads derived from those or anything to build a case on her later to prosecute her.

Speaker 24 We lost all those.

Speaker 16 So we had to build the case independent of any of her testimony or anything that she was asked back then.

Speaker 11 But Amy didn't have any such deal.

Speaker 29 And they knew Amy had lied when she testified at Billy's trial.

Speaker 83 She told the jury Billy Hoffman was never in the condo, but Shaylin had seen him there with her own eyes.

Speaker 85 And they could see Amy did not exactly mourn for her murdered boyfriend, the father of her baby.

Speaker 103 Amy's actions after Ricky's death

Speaker 103 really went to show her lack of concern.

Speaker 27 For instance, 10 days after the murder, the Antelope Valley Fair opened and Amy was there flirting.

Speaker 14 She did come to the fair and was hanging out with a group of cowboys and was laughing and having a good time.

Speaker 78 You didn't think it was too strange?

Speaker 14 I thought it was strange, but I wasn't going to harass her about it because I figured she was already going through enough.

Speaker 85 And there was Amy's behavior the night of the murder, pestering Ricky to come home for their alone time and then making sure she wasn't home.

Speaker 49 And when she finally did go back there,

Speaker 3 bringing a witness who could say she was with Amy all night.

Speaker 35 They used you.

Speaker 79 You were their useful fool.

Speaker 79 The person who was to discover the body.

Speaker 14 And eat the alibi. Yeah.

Speaker 14 And be used and scarred for the rest of my life.

Speaker 85 As for Jennifer, in addition to what Billy told them, they knew that she and Billy were connected, they knew she and Amy were connected, and they knew she and Amy both had gone together to tell Shaylin to stay away that night.

Speaker 29 Finally, three years after Billy sent his letter, detectives had gathered enough evidence to indict both Amy and Jennifer.

Speaker 3 Debbie and Rick, who desperately wanted them arrested, knew they needed to protect their granddaughter when the moment came.

Speaker 17 All we ever told them was,

Speaker 17 if it comes to the point we're going to arrest Amy, please let us know because I don't want that in her little brain the rest of her life that her mother's taken away by the police.

Speaker 38 It was March of 2005.

Speaker 17 And we were going to have her the whole week for Easter break. And they arrested her during that week.

Speaker 37 With that, the cows went to family court.

Speaker 17 We had had an attorney, we called her and said, we need to go tomorrow and get custody of this little girl because her mom's in jail.

Speaker 29 That was the first salvo in a war between two sets of grandparents that would last for years.

Speaker 17 There was so much turmoil between our families that we couldn't agree on anything at all. They blamed us for everything and...

Speaker 18 They blamed you?

Speaker 17 They blamed us for it that if we hadn't been persistent...

Speaker 79 That Amy wouldn't have been arrested.

Speaker 32 The priestmeyers, who stand behind their daughter, told us her arrest was a shock.

Speaker 78 Was there some expectation this was going to happen?

Speaker 88 No, none at all. Complete surprise.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 10 In fact, Amy was to be married in two weeks.

Speaker 60 We planned this wedding and, you know, everything was ready to go.

Speaker 88 They came and arrested her.

Speaker 58 Then they were hit with the custody hearing.

Speaker 23 We got that surprise, too.

Speaker 64 See, all these surprises hit us at one shot, and we're going, what's this? What's that? What's this?

Speaker 41 The family court judge gave the cows temporary custody and Amy and Jennifer went to jail. But then,

Speaker 45 Billy Hoffman started to get cold feet, worried he'd be seen as a snitch testifying against somebody like that Sedescent.

Speaker 3 Billy Hoffman was supposed to be the star witness, the centerpiece of the trial.

Speaker 11 Everything else was to shore him up.

Speaker 36 So, what in heaven's name could happen without him?

Speaker 85 Amy Priestmeier and Jennifer Kellogg were behind bars.

Speaker 11 Hearings in preparation for their trial were scheduled.

Speaker 21 The machinery of justice was humming along.

Speaker 59 And that's when it happened.

Speaker 30 The problem. A big one.

Speaker 28 Billy Hoffman, contrite, cooperative Billy, was suddenly refusing to testify.

Speaker 42 For one thing, Billy felt ignored by the detectives handling the case.

Speaker 3 He was also hyper-aware that prisoners who testify take a risk, sometimes a big one.

Speaker 52 So that's when Larry Brandenburg was brought in.

Speaker 16 Billy felt disrespected by the detectives because no one had come to the prison to talk to him about his testimony.

Speaker 16 Which he was putting a lot on the line to do that, being in prison.

Speaker 41 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 95 But Detective Larry Brandenburg was well aware that without without Billy, the case against Amy and Jennifer could fall apart, which is why the detective went about becoming Billy's best friend.

Speaker 16 And then over the next period of a year or two, whatever it was, before we went to trial, kind of developed a relationship with Billy,

Speaker 16 keeping in contact, visiting him. Just try to keep him on board that testifying was the right thing for him to do.

Speaker 26 Investigators also kept a close eye on the girls as they awaited trial at the local jail.

Speaker 49 You put Amy and Jennifer together in a cell for a time?

Speaker 16 They were in our county jail,

Speaker 16 I think, for going on a year or so. We had them completely separated.
Let's make a ruse why they got to bring them down to IRC for additional fingerprinting or whatever.

Speaker 16 And we put them in a cell that was wired up. And

Speaker 16 Jennifer didn't say hardly a word. She was pretty street smart.
But Amy couldn't help herself.

Speaker 16 She just couldn't help herself.

Speaker 66 It's hard to hear, but that's Amy talking about putting a hit on Billy. All I gotta say,

Speaker 66 Billy doesn't testify.

Speaker 66 Excuse me.

Speaker 16 She called him a bunch of things I can't repeat here. here.

Speaker 16 So, maybe you don't have anybody.

Speaker 16 They don't have to

Speaker 16 be

Speaker 16 there. He can't stay in protective custody forever.
My people will get to him.

Speaker 52 But if Amy actually had people, they never did get to Billy.

Speaker 47 And in June of 2007, nearly 10 years after Ricky was killed, Amy went on trial for murder.

Speaker 6 By then, Billy had come around and was ready to testify.

Speaker 24 My responsibility didn't end with confessing what I'd done.

Speaker 47 Billy was the state's main witness against Amy.

Speaker 24 I do believe people need to be held accountable for what they do. But at the same time, being in prison and understanding, like, yeah, that wasn't easy, but we all made our choices.

Speaker 24 We all did what we did.

Speaker 35 Were the cows there when you testified?

Speaker 25 Yes.

Speaker 24 One of the hard things about testifying, and anytime I share these, like have to recount what I did, I always think about them because I know that they're going to be hearing it as well. And I was

Speaker 24 felt like I was victimizing them again, making them hear it again. And it's always hard.

Speaker 1 The prosecution put on witnesses who could corroborate his story.

Speaker 5 Like the woman he carpooled with to work.

Speaker 1 Billy bragged to her on the morning after the murder about killing someone.

Speaker 36 When she asked him why, he said he did it for the girlfriend of the victim.

Speaker 48 An old friend of Billy's testified he saw Amy and Jennifer at Billy's apartment before the murder and saw that picture of Ricky the girls gave to Billy so he could recognize him.

Speaker 56 Shaylin told the jury about meeting Billy at Ricky's condo when Ricky was conveniently away at Lake Havasu with his parents.

Speaker 2 And Sarah testified about that night, how Amy used her as an alibi by driving around with her as the murder was happening, and then sent her upstairs to find Ricky in the bedroom, dying.

Speaker 23 What was it like to testify against, particularly Amy?

Speaker 25 It's scary.

Speaker 14 Because I'm looking at somebody who used to be this happy, go-lucky, outgoing person, so sweet and innocent.

Speaker 14 And now I'm looking at somebody who's been in jail, who's hardened up, and no remorse on the face.

Speaker 62 As for Amy's defense?

Speaker 101 The idea that the murder was committed because Amy asked Billy to kill Ricky really makes no sense.

Speaker 85 Her attorney, Angeline Gates, argued the charges against Amy were completely without merit.

Speaker 101 Amy was a 16-year-old girl at the time and pregnant. I mean, there was no money involved.

Speaker 7 Remember Debbie's story about Amy pestering Ricky for life insurance?

Speaker 17 I thought, did I kill my own son because she thought that policy was in force?

Speaker 48 Ricky never did buy the insurance, and the judge ruled the story was hearsay anyway.

Speaker 85 So the jury never heard it.

Speaker 101 There was no actual reason for it. So it just really, it just seemed without motive.

Speaker 40 And according to Gates, the star witness in this case, Ricky's killer, Billy Hoffman, was inconsistent, not to be believed.

Speaker 101 The problem with Billy Hoffman's credibility is that in the very beginning, he denied being the person who murdered Ricky Cowles, and he maintained his innocence the entire way through his trial, all the way through his appellate rights.

Speaker 10 Gates also had an explanation for Amy's so-called threats about taking Billy's life if he testified.

Speaker 21 All I'm gonna

Speaker 101 She knows she's facing

Speaker 101 life without the possibility of parole case. She has a daughter now who's going to be taken away from her.
And the fact that they would say all kinds of things, hateful, threatening, bitter,

Speaker 101 nasty, angry things for being put in that position should not be surprising to anybody.

Speaker 11 A mental health professional also testified that Amy had an anxiety disorder that came from finding her boyfriend dying on the floor.

Speaker 101 So the jury got to hear that Amy at the time was showing symptoms of trauma, which logically you would think that a person who was mature enough, cunning enough, smart enough

Speaker 101 to actually ask someone to go kill their fiancé wouldn't then have had that reaction.

Speaker 47 Despite the defense's arguments, when the jury got the case, the prosecutors and investigators were pretty confident.

Speaker 28 At first, that is.

Speaker 16 We felt good until, I think, they were out 11 or 13 days, and then we were in a panic.

Speaker 5 Day after day, Amy Priestmeier on trial for murder waited for the jury.

Speaker 101 The longer the jury deliberates, the better it usually is for the defendant.

Speaker 29 And every day, Ricky's parents left for the courthouse, knowing it could be the last day they'd spend with their beloved granddaughter.

Speaker 79 That would certainly add to the tension of those days.

Speaker 25 Because you knew you were facing more than that.

Speaker 17 The day the verdict came in, she was at our house here with our daughters being babysat.

Speaker 9 The stakes?

Speaker 86 If the jury voted not guilty, Debbie believed Amy would take their grandchild away, and they might never see her again.

Speaker 4 Now they assembled in the courtroom, and the clerk read the verdict.

Speaker 39 Guilty.

Speaker 35 What was it like to hear that?

Speaker 17 Just finally a quiet crying, just

Speaker 15 every emotion.

Speaker 17 You want to scream, but you can't. So we just quietly cried to ourselves.

Speaker 36 Like Billy, Amy got life without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 87 Jennifer never went to trial.

Speaker 16 We just thought that Debbie Cowles couldn't take another one physically and mentally. So

Speaker 16 we conferred with Rick, and I think Debbie didn't agree with it, but I think it was the best thing for her that Jennifer was allowed to plead.

Speaker 72 pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and solicitation to commit murder in exchange for a sentence of 17 years.

Speaker 8 The cows hoped there would be some sort of peace once the girls were locked up,

Speaker 19 but murder doesn't work like that.

Speaker 17 Being a victim ruins everything, everyone around you. My poor son died, and everyone around him was affected by it.

Speaker 49 They watched their daughter, Shay Lynn, suffer.

Speaker 17 She was 16 years old when this happened.

Speaker 17 Her and Ricky were best friends.

Speaker 61 Shay Lynn thought about the day of the murder when Amy stopped by the McDonald's, told her she wanted to talk to Ricky alone that night.

Speaker 56 She thought about all those parties when she'd cozied up to the girls.

Speaker 31 Thought about how she failed to protect her brother from girls she thought were her friends.

Speaker 15 It's a horrible feeling to know that, that, you know, I couldn't have done something or known in my mind, you know, they're going to hurt Ricky.

Speaker 17 The guilt,

Speaker 17 I don't even know. I can't even fathom that kind of guilt that she's had.
She doesn't have it because we think she did anything wrong. No, of course not.

Speaker 67 But emotions are tricky.

Speaker 61 So in 2018, when they got the chance to talk to Billy Hoffman in prison and ask him anything they wanted, they took it, hoping it would help Shaylin feel better.

Speaker 15 I needed to hear out of his mouth about the girls. Amy, what she did,

Speaker 15 and Jennifer, and I wanted to know exactly what happened. So there'll always be lies with those girls.
So hopefully he's telling us the truth.

Speaker 52 But it was hard.

Speaker 17 Shane and I had both cried about thinking, I don't know if we can stand to see him. Can we do this?

Speaker 85 They were ushered into a room, surrounded by guards, and then Billy came in.

Speaker 17 He looked a lot different.

Speaker 29 So you wouldn't have recognized him?

Speaker 15 I would have recognized him because I see his face in my mind every day. He's the one that killed my my brother.

Speaker 39 Billy was anxious about the meeting, too.

Speaker 24 It was scary. I have to look at these people I've hurt

Speaker 24 so

Speaker 24 irreversibly.

Speaker 29 Were they angry at you in that meeting or upset with you?

Speaker 24 At points, I think.

Speaker 24 I remember

Speaker 49 Ricky's sister,

Speaker 24 Shaylin, asking,

Speaker 24 Like why I did it. Did someone make me do it? Did I do it because I was afraid or did I just do it because I wanted to? When she was asking that, like, she was hurt.
She was angry.

Speaker 24 You know, I murdered her brother.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 24 there was no reason why I did it besides I wanted to.

Speaker 43 Did it feel like the truth when it came out of his mouth?

Speaker 14 It did.

Speaker 80 Yes.

Speaker 49 Reason, logic, some sense they can hang on to.

Speaker 2 People crave those things.

Speaker 10 Certainly the cowls did.

Speaker 69 But it wasn't to be had.

Speaker 49 Billy didn't understand it himself.

Speaker 24 I really knew nothing about him. I knew he was Amy's boyfriend, but I never was

Speaker 24 given a motive.

Speaker 32 At the end of their time together, Debbie handed Billy a hand-sewn cross.

Speaker 17 And he said he, you know, was, he cried. He loved the gift.
It wasn't actually a gift, but it was a...

Speaker 17 My telling him, hopefully, that when you looked at the cross in your Bible that you read every day, you'll think about what you did did that conversation help Shaylin who I know was feeling a lot of guilt oh 100%

Speaker 2 100% yeah I felt that better kind of closure then and they left feeling a weight had been lifted a little things were clearer now even if there was no rational answer

Speaker 38 and Billy himself went back to his cell to resume the life he'd made for himself in prison, to life without parole.

Speaker 45 and far far away from that prison cell times were changing times and attitudes and science and supreme court rulings

Speaker 36 which is why one day the cows got a phone call quite out of the blue

Speaker 51 we were actually in shock when larry brandenberg called us up on our 48th anniversary it was on your anniversary you got that call yes we were he says you better sit down i need to talk to you guys.

Speaker 51 Go get Deb.

Speaker 55 When Billy Hoffman was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of Ricky Cowles back in 1999, he understood the terms very well.

Speaker 24 Any life sentence was a death sentence.

Speaker 11 The 90s were a tough on crime, three strikes you're out era in California. But while Billy adjusted to a life behind bars, the world outside his cell was changing.

Speaker 38 In the U.S.

Speaker 45 Supreme Court and courts across the country, there was new thinking about juvenile justice, rooted in science, evidence about the teenage brain and criminal behavior.

Speaker 106 The frontal lobe isn't fully developed until about age 26 in most people.

Speaker 3 Heidi Rummel is a professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, where she directs the Post-Conviction Justice Project.

Speaker 106 Children fundamentally think and act differently from adults. It's totally different from knowing right and wrong.

Speaker 106 It's having less capacity to understand risks and consequences, acting recklessly, acting impulsively,

Speaker 106 being very susceptible to peer pressure.

Speaker 52 And politically, the pendulum swung.

Speaker 40 Prisoners in California quickly learned that for young offenders, life without parole or LWAP didn't mean LWAP anymore if you qualified.

Speaker 24 It felt like a long shot, but I knew I was a different person. I knew I'm not the same person I was.

Speaker 24 So, yeah, I applied.

Speaker 45 It was 2018 when he applied for commutation, asked the governor to change his sentence, and allow him at least the chance to make his case before a parole board.

Speaker 24 I would hope that it was just evident that I'm not the person I was when I was 19,

Speaker 25 that

Speaker 24 I've experienced remorse, that I live remorse.

Speaker 45 For months, he waited for an answer.

Speaker 54 No idea what it might be.

Speaker 40 And then they told him, yes, he'd get a hearing.

Speaker 49 He could make his case.

Speaker 40 But at that hearing,

Speaker 2 Something was missing.

Speaker 28 Were the cows there?

Speaker 24 They were not.

Speaker 35 Was Detective Brandenburg or the other detectives who you worked with, were they there? No.

Speaker 26 What about the prosecutor who tried you? Was he there?

Speaker 24 Not the one that tried me. They had a

Speaker 24 district attorney there. Yeah.

Speaker 44 In other words, none of the people associated with your actual case were in that parole hearing.

Speaker 24 No.

Speaker 35 Did that...

Speaker 44 Seem strange to you at the time?

Speaker 24 It did.

Speaker 32 So, did the cows intentionally stay away?

Speaker 40 Not at all.

Speaker 58 Though victims' families have the right to speak up at parole hearings, no one told the cows anything about it, nor were they told that the board decided in Billy's favor.

Speaker 39 And in January 2020, Billy was released from prison on parole.

Speaker 1 The cows were in the dark until they got that call.

Speaker 59 Was it on your anniversary you got that call?

Speaker 35 Yes.

Speaker 32 It was Detective Brandenburg on the line.

Speaker 7 You just heard from Billy himself.

Speaker 51 He says, you better sit down. I need to talk to you guys.
Go get Deb. And then he told us that Billy's been let out almost a year before that, and he didn't know about it until, I think, that day.

Speaker 17 We cried and cried in every emotion in one minute.

Speaker 44 There will be lots of people who will look at the television screen and will say, that guy killed somebody. He was convicted by a jury.
He was sent away for life without parole.

Speaker 18 And that's what they meant: life without parole for what he did.

Speaker 44 What the hell is he doing out here free talking to this guy?

Speaker 24 I definitely understand that

Speaker 24 and appreciate that.

Speaker 44 I'm sure you've heard that a time or two, Axel.

Speaker 24 No one, to my face, no one said that to me directly, but I've said it to myself just in trying to empathize with how others would feel a thousand times.

Speaker 47 Billy's exemplary behavior in prison, his work to improve himself, his embrace of religion, did not, could never erase what he did to their son, said the cows.

Speaker 43 The idea that he would get a do-over doesn't sit well with you at all.

Speaker 18 No.

Speaker 17 So you're good in prison, but you're a cold-blooded killer. He committed a heinous crime, and he executed our son.

Speaker 32 Billy knows how fortunate he is.

Speaker 42 He's getting to do the things to live the life he denied denied his victim.

Speaker 85 He's married now to a woman who began writing him in prison.

Speaker 76 And he's found work in the children's rights division of Human Rights Watch.

Speaker 42 Which might have been the end of our story, but for this.

Speaker 72 No surprise, really.

Speaker 56 Amy Priestmeier wants out, too.

Speaker 101 If the person who actually committed the murder is not in jail anymore or prison, then why should Amy be?

Speaker 38 Amy was just 16 when she conspired to kill Ricky.

Speaker 40 Now, by law in California, criminals who were under the age of 26 at the time of their offense may be eligible for a parole hearing, and that includes Amy.

Speaker 17 So we're having to go back to court again and go through the whole thing again. And it's just, I don't know how much two people can take.

Speaker 72 As for Jennifer, she was released on parole in 2019, but not for long.

Speaker 38 She went back to prison, convicted on a domestic violence charge.

Speaker 32 She's out now.

Speaker 61 But the thought of Amy getting out is unthinkable for the cows.

Speaker 15 I do not think she will get out.

Speaker 102 Nope.

Speaker 15 My whole heart.

Speaker 15 She is the master manipulator of this whole case. I hope the judicial system, I can't even barely talk about it.
I'm so upset.

Speaker 17 I hope they do the right thing.

Speaker 1 Amy is a far cry from model prisoner.

Speaker 29 She was convicted for drug possession in prison in 2016.

Speaker 42 Still, the Cowles are determined to attend any and every hearing to attempt to block Amy's release, no matter how difficult.

Speaker 17 It's a long way to the court from where we live. It's not the drive, it's the fact that you have to relive

Speaker 17 everything.

Speaker 17 Who wants to relive the death of their child a hundred times? Once is enough.

Speaker 2 The Cowles did arrange, end of 2022, to talk to Amy via video chat.

Speaker 1 They wanted to know why, why did she want their son dead?

Speaker 38 Her answer, utterly banal, was because they'd been fighting.

Speaker 1 Still, meeting her, even on a screen, helped somehow.

Speaker 33 As they deal even now, day by day, with the loss of that young man who loved so much

Speaker 40 and died too soon.

Speaker 77 How do you feel, Rick, when you go past those places and you see the places he worked on?

Speaker 35 Makes me cry.

Speaker 21 There is a memorial for Ricky at Edwards Air Force Base, right beside the substation where he and his dad worked together for the last time.

Speaker 51 We love you.

Speaker 98 We loved him.

Speaker 21 He was a great guy.

Speaker 98 Didn't deserve this.

Speaker 22 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again Sunday at 7-6 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 12 Good night.

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