One Moment

Speaker 1 the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat-and-mouse story about guilt and justice and doubt, now playing only on Netflix.

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Speaker 3 Tonight, on dateline. She hugged me

Speaker 7 and she said she was sorry.

Speaker 7 And I burst it in tears.

Speaker 3 Our families have both gone through a lot.

Speaker 8 There's a woman he shot. She's laying on the floor in the garage.

Speaker 9 Pretty much gave her whole life just trying to raise me right.

Speaker 10 Who would shoot Christy?

Speaker 11 I couldn't even sleep. I needed an answer.

Speaker 12 We thought we were real detectives.

Speaker 11 He wasn't going to get away with killing our sister.

Speaker 3 A young mother murdered and a trio of men under the microscope.

Speaker 14 What's going on here? That was our question. Who would have the motivation to do this?

Speaker 7 It's like time froze. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

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

Speaker 15 Here is Josh Mankiewicz with One Moment

Speaker 3 In the mega sprawl of Los Angeles County, the city of Hawthorne occupies about six square miles, none of them especially glamorous.

Speaker 3 For decades, local pride centered on the Beach Boys. They grew up here and quickly left.
Nowadays, it's tech giants like SpaceX with headquarters at the local airport.

Speaker 3 But the heart and soul of Hawthorne was and is working families, strivers who stay close and look out for each other.

Speaker 3 This is a story about one of those families. They faced ups and downs like everyone else and always worked through them together

Speaker 3 until one moment, one morning, one bullet came to tear them apart.

Speaker 3 Growing up, sisters Crystal, Michelle, and Monica Taylor were always there for each other.

Speaker 11 We have this tradition of having a family support group.

Speaker 3 It was their mother, known as Momo, who set the tone.

Speaker 16 I thought it was the most wonderful family that was. You know, my mom and I were best friends and my little sister were best friends.

Speaker 17 And, you know, so I thought life was great.

Speaker 11 I'm the the oldest. Michelle's the middle and Christy is the baby.
And she was every bit the baby. She's my mom's baby.

Speaker 3 Crystal Taylor was the youngest by six years. And both older sisters thought Momo loved Christy a little extra.
Spoiled her too, say Michelle and Monica.

Speaker 11 They talked every day, and she would just immediately start whining as soon as she talked to my mom.

Speaker 11 She could be like being a grown-up and as soon as the phone rang, she went right back to eight-year-old all the time.

Speaker 3 Tia, her niece, remembers Christy as both a homebody and a romantic dreamer.

Speaker 10 She wasn't flashy. She wasn't someone who liked shopped a lot.
She was just a really down-to-earth, simple, just happy to be at home watching movies. She watched the same movies all the time over.

Speaker 10 And she loved love stories. Hope Floats, Ever After, Love Jones.

Speaker 3 Those are all stories of women who find love in improbable ways and end up happy. Right.
Is that what she wanted? Yes.

Speaker 10 I know she wanted love. I know that she wanted a fairy tale life.
I know she always talked about it, but, you know, she was happy with the life that she had.

Speaker 3 The life she had, working, being with family, and raising a son who was born the very day she turned 17.

Speaker 11 I went in and she was singing, It Never Rains in Southern California, and Labor, like shaking the baby, was like, It never rains.

Speaker 3 And like, what did she do?

Speaker 3 Crystal called her little boy Javante against the wishes of the boy's father.

Speaker 11 He came in the room when we were in there and he was like, I want his name to be Junior. He just like, in labor, stop labor, no.

Speaker 11 And that's it. I said,

Speaker 3 she said, well, no, because I'm not married to him.

Speaker 11 And if I get married to somebody else, I don't want to have two juniors. Like, no.

Speaker 3 So she already made the decision that she was having the baby, but she was not going to be his wife.

Speaker 11 And she was not going to be his wife. But that was Christie.
She made a decision.

Speaker 12 There was no change in her mind.

Speaker 3 Wrapped in the blanket of her big family, Crystal knew she and Javante would do just fine.

Speaker 21 We're some baby whisperers in a sense.

Speaker 3 We love babies.

Speaker 11 Strangers, babies, anybody, baby.

Speaker 3 Anybody say that's too young to be having a baby?

Speaker 12 No, we all had babies young.

Speaker 10 We'd still said it. It would still be said, but it would also be followed by, you're still going to finish school.
You know, the life isn't over.

Speaker 10 You made your bed harder, but you're going to lay in it. Yeah.
And we're going to love this baby.

Speaker 3 Those were rules set down by Momo.

Speaker 10 Everyone finished school, started a career, career, and raised their children on their own successfully.

Speaker 3 As Javante grew, Christy grew up.

Speaker 11 Because she just really took care of her baby, went to work, and like brought her lunch because she was never spending any money.

Speaker 11 If she went to the movies with her son, no, he knew not to ask for snacks.

Speaker 3 She just wouldn't spend any money. Money was for the important things like Javante's education.

Speaker 10 She always talked about, you know, his prom or when he goes to college or what she wanted him to do with his life and, you know, how she wanted him to be different.

Speaker 10 So she took her job as a mother really seriously.

Speaker 3 By 2001, Michelle and Christy and their kids were living in separate apartments in the same apartment building in Hawthorne.

Speaker 3 Even Momo lived there until her health began to fail and she moved to Texas where her sister-in-law, a nurse, could take care of her.

Speaker 3 But soon came word: Momo's in bad shape. Come quick.

Speaker 3 That day day was easy to remember.

Speaker 3 It was September 11th, 2001.

Speaker 3 They couldn't fly. No one in the U.S.
could. So they drove from Hawthorne to Texas.
Christy wouldn't leave Momo's side the entire time they were there.

Speaker 11 Christy's like, I'm sorry, but I came here just to see mom. She wasn't leaving her room.
Like, she was just focused on her.

Speaker 21 If she can get next to my mom, she's going to be under like glue.

Speaker 3 And that worked. Your mom kind of rallied.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 After two weeks, the family drove back to Los Angeles, arriving in the middle of the night on September 23rd. Two days later, this family learned a difficult truth.

Speaker 3 No matter how much you love and how much you care, sometimes you can't help your loved one when harm is headed their way.

Speaker 8 Yes, I'd like to report a gunshot. There's a woman she shot.
She's laying on the floor in the garage.

Speaker 3 Soon after, a neighbor of Christie's called Tia with some brutal news.

Speaker 10 They just said that she was shot. I remember saying, who would shoot Christie?

Speaker 15 When we come back.

Speaker 11 She screamed the most harrowing scream.

Speaker 15 A family in anguish.

Speaker 9 I broke down crying.

Speaker 3 I just tried myself to sleep that night.

Speaker 15 And the first clues to the mystery.

Speaker 14 Her purse was still intact. Her clothes appeared to be intact.

Speaker 3 So what's going on here?

Speaker 14 That was our question.

Speaker 8 911. Yes, I'd like to report a gunshot.
There's a woman she shot. She's laying on the floor in the garage.

Speaker 3 Minutes after a 911 call, the Hawthorne police arrived at Crystal Taylor's apartment building.

Speaker 3 Detective Robbie Williams wasn't far behind.

Speaker 14 I was at my desk and received a call from my patrol units that they had a young lady who was unresponsive and appeared that she may have suffered a gunshot wound to the head.

Speaker 3 Williams arrived and quickly sized up the scene.

Speaker 14 There's officers already trying to revive her. She's laying down in the lobby area of

Speaker 14 her apartment complex that leads from the upper stairs, which are the apartment, into the garage area.

Speaker 14 And then we just start getting into the processing of a crime scene, making sure that we identify as many witnesses and if there is also other victims but the only obvious victim was crystal she'd been shot in the head paramedics took her to the hospital and detective williams got straight to work finding witnesses because this is early morning there's kids walking to school there's people preparing themselves for their day of work so a lot of people were up a lot of people reported hearing a gunshot A father making breakfast for his kids looked out the kitchen window when he heard the shot.

Speaker 3 He saw a man running. An 11-year-old girl on the sidewalk in front of the building also heard it and saw a man holding a shiny object.
He jumped a fence and ran north.

Speaker 3 Anybody actually see the shooting?

Speaker 14 No, and there was no surveillance cameras that captured it either.

Speaker 3 But the crime scene was talking to Detective Williams. Was she robbed?

Speaker 14 The evidence doesn't support a robbery. Her purse was still intact.
The amount of time between someone hearing a shot

Speaker 14 and someone else seeing someone running away from the crime scene doesn't necessarily support a robbery.

Speaker 25 Was she sexually assaulted?

Speaker 14 No evidence supported that she was sexually assaulted. Her clothes appeared to be intact.

Speaker 3 So what's going on here?

Speaker 14 And that was our question.

Speaker 3 It was the first of many questions Detective Williams would have. Christie's family was gathering at the hospital.
Later, they'd have questions too.

Speaker 3 But right now, they were all in shock.

Speaker 21 I got there first.

Speaker 21 They were like,

Speaker 21 go in this room that was off to the side. Well, I had already been to the hospital a lot with my mom, so I knew that they took the family to a side room.

Speaker 3 So I told him, like, no, no, no, I don't want to go in there.

Speaker 11 I just want to go see about my sister.

Speaker 21 So then the doctor came out and he told me, he was like, well, she didn't make it.

Speaker 11 And I'm driving on the freeway, and all of a sudden, I just felt like she wasn't here.

Speaker 3 The news that they lost their baby sister was unbearable. Crystal Taylor was just 27.

Speaker 11 And when I got in, Michelle was on the floor and I'm just like looking at her.

Speaker 20 I tried to hug her.

Speaker 3 Now they had to tell their ailing Momo her baby was gone.

Speaker 11 When I had to call my mom to say

Speaker 11 somebody killed Chris, you know, she screamed the most harrowing, just screams. I just knew this is gonna kill mom too.

Speaker 3 There's nothing worse than burying your kids. I mean, no.

Speaker 11 Besides, when you're already so sick.

Speaker 12 I remember when I was talking to my mom, I was like, don't you leave me.

Speaker 3 Telling Crystal's 10-year-old son was even harder.

Speaker 11 And we kind of sat next to him like, Javante, your mom died. And he crossed his arms like this and screamed.

Speaker 11 And he just kind of leaned back.

Speaker 26 My poor little mommy.

Speaker 3 Your mom died. They didn't say how.
You all kind of shielded Giovante from what had happened.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 12 We were older and couldn't grasp what had happened to her, so why give it to him?

Speaker 11 So in one day, his whole world goes away goes no more mom no more home no more life as he knew it nothing and he taught himself to just be like not even talk about it you don't even know javante's in a room like he learned to just

Speaker 3 i don't know he just shut down even now javante seems almost numb when talking about the worst day of his life that night i pretty much i broke down crying i just cried myself to sleep that night you remember that yes you remember what she looked like yes I heard you can't remember the sound of her voice.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I cannot remember what her cheese will sound like now. Does that bother you?

Speaker 2 A bit, yes.

Speaker 3 This family tragedy would only get worse because Crystal Taylor wasn't the only one killed by that bullet.

Speaker 3 As Crystal Taylor's family tried to figure out how to cope with her murder, Detective Robbie Williams tried to figure out who might have wanted her dead.

Speaker 14 When we started recreating that person's life, you know, we're trying to find out who would have the motivation to do this.

Speaker 14 And oftentimes, you know, a civilian like she was, not involved in any criminal enterprise, we tend to focus on relatives or relationship partners.

Speaker 3 The 11-year-old girl who'd seen the shooter running told cops that just before the shot rang out, she heard a man and a woman arguing. Was that a clue?

Speaker 3 Detective Williams learned Crystal had a boyfriend named Dino.

Speaker 14 Just a hardworking guy, was in a relationship with Crystal on and off.

Speaker 14 And this is coming from the family and friends that knew about Dino.

Speaker 3 And there was Kenneth Woods, father of Crystal's 10-year-old son, Javante. Javante's father's got to be somebody you're going to look at.

Speaker 14 Most definitely, we did, trying to identify if there was an ongoing conflict.

Speaker 3 Kenneth wasn't helping with Javante, and there had been conflict over child support in the past. Crystal had obtained a court order requiring Kenneth to pay.

Speaker 3 So, two possible leads, and a third surfaced when Williams went to Crystal's office.

Speaker 14 We get to her place of employment and we talk to several young ladies that identified themselves as being her friend, and they're shocked that this has happened.

Speaker 3 They told him the day before she was killed, Crystal received a phone call at work that seemed to upset her. And then they dropped a bombshell.

Speaker 14 That A, she was pregnant,

Speaker 14 and B, the person that she was pregnant by did not want her to be pregnant any longer.

Speaker 3 You couldn't tell Crystal Taylor was pregnant when you saw her lying on the ground?

Speaker 25 I couldn't tell.

Speaker 14 I couldn't tell.

Speaker 3 In fact, she was five months along. Her unborn son died when she did.
Crystal had told friends the father of her child was a guy named Derek Smeyer.

Speaker 3 So you want to find out where Derek is. Most definitely.

Speaker 14 You want to find out everything about him right now.

Speaker 3 The detective learned Crystal and Derek had a quick fling. It only lasted a month or so.
They'd met at Anderson Park. which is near both their jobs.
By now, it was lunchtime.

Speaker 3 Derek wasn't in his office. So Williams drove to the park, bringing Crystal's work friends with him.
And one of them immediately noticed something.

Speaker 14 She points out a car that Derek drives.

Speaker 3 His car was easy to spot. It had vanity plates that said, My whip.

Speaker 3 Slang for a fancy car.

Speaker 3 Then Crystal's friend pointed out Derek, and detectives brought him in for a talk.

Speaker 3 Go ahead and compose yourself. What is your last name, sir? Smeyer.
Your first name, sir? Derek. You have have a middle name, Derek? Paul.
He freely answered your questions.

Speaker 3 He didn't ask for an attorney? No.

Speaker 14 No, he never requested an attorney during our interview time with him.

Speaker 27 When was the last time that you saw her at her apartment? That you can recall last time was

Speaker 27 not recently. Okay.
I haven't seen her physically

Speaker 27 in about, let's see,

Speaker 27 a couple of months. About two months? Longer than that.

Speaker 3 He kind of discounted it as, yeah, we were on and off really quick. Does Derek offer any theory of what he thinks might have happened to Crystal?

Speaker 14 At some point in the interview, he talks about her being involved with other people.

Speaker 27 Did she mention this to the boyfriend at all? She mentioned that

Speaker 27 sometimes she would pop up at her apartment. Sometimes she would say, and I wish the guy stopped calling me.
You know, he's trying to be back with me.

Speaker 27 You know, at least that's the impression from when I got, it might be true. She might have been trying to make me jealous of something.
I don't know. You know what I mean?

Speaker 14 When people say things, they're not always the truth.

Speaker 3 You know what I mean? Did he acknowledge that Crystal was pregnant with his child?

Speaker 14 He acknowledged that she was pregnant, but came short of acknowledging that the child was his.

Speaker 27 You're the father of her child, or she thinks you are.

Speaker 27 Well, anyway.

Speaker 3 You had a basic description of someone that witnesses saw running from the scene.

Speaker 14 Yes. African-American male

Speaker 2 wearing a dark-colored hoodie

Speaker 14 with a

Speaker 14 scarf around his head or a handkerchief around his head, small build, wearing dark clothing with light facial hair.

Speaker 3 That description resemble Derek Smeyer? It does.

Speaker 3 Derek Smeyer had no criminal record. He had a white collar office job and he came from a close-knit loving family, said his sister Danielle.

Speaker 7 I really, I looked up to my brother growing up. That was really quiet in school, but everyone knew who Derek Derek Smeyer was.

Speaker 3 He had your back.

Speaker 7 He had my back, and there is no doubt that if anything happened, he would be there to take care of me.

Speaker 3 So when she heard police were interviewing her brother about a murder, she questioned him herself.

Speaker 7 And I asked Derek, what is this? He said, I don't know. I said, what happened?

Speaker 11 He said, I don't know what happened.

Speaker 3 So he didn't say that he knew anything about Crystal Taylor's death?

Speaker 7 Nothing about Crystal Taylor's death.

Speaker 3 It sounds to me like you were pretty fixated on Derek pretty early. Well, he was one of our top three.

Speaker 14 Because remember, we're looking at the son's father. We're looking at her love interest on and off guy, Dino, and we're looking at now Derek.

Speaker 3 How did Javante's father react when you told him Crystal had been murdered?

Speaker 28 His reaction was shocked.

Speaker 14 He was shocked.

Speaker 3 And her boyfriend Dino was devastated, police said. More important, both men had alibis.
Witnesses put them nowhere near Crystal's apartment at the time of the murder.

Speaker 3 The same was true for Derek Smeyer. His neighbors saw him at home at 7.30 that morning, meaning he couldn't have shot Crystal.
Doesn't sound like it was enough to hold anybody on at that point. No.

Speaker 3 But soon enough, there would be another person police would be looking at.

Speaker 29 Coming up.

Speaker 3 It was a guy.

Speaker 21 I kind of got this instinct that said, remember what he looked like.

Speaker 15 Sisters turned investigators?

Speaker 13 We've been watching coat case and and criminal files, so we thought we were real detectives. He wasn't going to get away with killing our sister.

Speaker 1 From the Creator of Homeland, Claire Danes and Matthew Rees star in the new Netflix series The Beast in Me as ruthless rivals whose shared darkness will set them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast in Me is a riveting psychological cat and mouse story about guilt, injustice, and doubt. Now playing only on Netflix.

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Speaker 3 Jeremiah Taylor wasn't supposed to be born for 20 more weeks. He never got a birth certificate, only a death certificate.

Speaker 3 Then the coroner released his body, along with his mother's, so their family could say goodbye.

Speaker 9 It was an open casket. I remember I wanted to reach out and touch her, and I just kind of sat in the chair looking down on the floor,

Speaker 30 waiting for it to be over.

Speaker 3 In the days after Christy died, everyone in the family spoke with police, hoping they could help in some way, anyway. Michelle had a story about the day before Christie died.

Speaker 3 As she left with the kids that morning, there was a man in the lobby of their building.

Speaker 21 And I came around the corner, and it was a guy. He was sitting on the stairs, and when I came around, he started me a little bit.
So I stopped to ask him, what was he doing there?

Speaker 21 And then he told me he was waiting for someone.

Speaker 3 Michelle had a bad feeling about him.

Speaker 21 I kind of got this instinct that said, remember what he looked like.

Speaker 21 And then I froze on what he looked like and went on about my business.

Speaker 3 And she warned Christy about the man.

Speaker 11 I called her to tell her that it was a strange guy that was on the stairs.

Speaker 21 Just be careful when she came out.

Speaker 3 So was the man Michelle saw on Monday the same man witnesses saw on Tuesday running from the scene after the murder?

Speaker 31 What I'd like to do, Siobhana, is just know a little bit about...

Speaker 3 Police brought in Siobhana Hall, the 11-year-old schoolgirl who saw the running man.

Speaker 31 Did he have anything on his head? Yeah.

Speaker 3 With her mom at her side, she worked with a forensic artist from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department on a sketch of the suspect.

Speaker 31 What can you tell me about his nose, his eyes, his mouth?

Speaker 3 Michelle worked with the same artist.

Speaker 3 Does the description of the guy Crystal's sister says was waiting on the staircase, does that match the description of the guy people say were running away after the shooting?

Speaker 25 Almost identical.

Speaker 3 Here's the sketch, drawn from both their descriptions. Were you happy with the final sketch? It looked like the guy.

Speaker 12 Oh yeah, it looked like him.

Speaker 3 But he didn't look like any of the men in Crystal Taylor's life. Not Derek, not Dino, and not Javante's father, Kenneth.
Cops would have to figure out who he was and... Where to find him.

Speaker 3 Monica and Michelle didn't want to wait for that.

Speaker 13 We've been watching cold case and criminal files and all that, so we thought we were real detective.

Speaker 3 Too much TV can be a dangerous thing. Or maybe this was the dynamic of the Taylor family.
The sisters who were going to together help Crystal raise her son were now helping solve her murder.

Speaker 3 So, sketch in hand, they canvassed the neighborhood. You, not the police?

Speaker 10 She became so obsessed, it worried me how obsessed she was with, and she would say, he's not going to to get away with doing this to my baby sister.

Speaker 3 Tia was afraid her mom and her aunt were putting their own lives in danger.

Speaker 10 I threatened to tell the police, like, you guys are not supposed to be doing that. Like, you guys don't have weapons.
What are you going to do? What are you looking for?

Speaker 10 And then, what are you going to do if you find it?

Speaker 3 But there's no arguing with success. Michelle and Monica's amateur detective work paid off.
After showing the sketch around, they got a tip.

Speaker 3 The guy in the sketch was a gangbanger who went by the street name C. Stiles.

Speaker 3 Now, the sisters wanted to find him. If you're right, if this is the guy, he's a killer and a gangbanger.
And you're just going to what? Walk up on him and say...

Speaker 13 He wasn't going to get away with killing our sisters.

Speaker 11 I wanted to be able to tell the police where he was. Like,

Speaker 11 let's go get him.

Speaker 3 They didn't find him, but they did tell Detective Williams, who ran the name through a gang database and discovered, unfortunately, there was more more than one C. Styles.

Speaker 3 There's a big C Style, there's a little C Styles. Eventually, Williams found a C.
Styles who'd been on probation at the time of the murder.

Speaker 14 Our first goal was to identify the connection between the C. Styles and Crystal Taylor.
Any gang affiliation, any relatives? Was he a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend? The sisters say no.

Speaker 14 Her friends say no. There's no evidence to support that they even knew each other.

Speaker 3 Although maybe they knew each other and she didn't tell tell anybody.

Speaker 14 Exactly. And we have to also keep that as a card on the table.
Okay, so how can we start proving this up? I start examining where their lines may have crossed. Crystal Taylor works in Carson.

Speaker 14 Oh, she goes to Anderson Park.

Speaker 3 Oh,

Speaker 14 there's information that C. Styles hangs out at Anderson Park.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 They brought in C. Stiles.
Legal name, Skylar Moore. You say to him, what do you have to to do with the murder of Crystal Taylor? And he says, I don't know her.

Speaker 14 I did not do this. But he's studying her photo.

Speaker 3 And then C. Stiles continued to talk.

Speaker 14 He's coming up with an analysis of the person who would have done this.

Speaker 14 And he refers to the person as, this person had a lot of rage.

Speaker 14 This person has a lot of rage in them. to do that.

Speaker 3 As opposed to just saying, nope, I didn't do any murder. I don't know who this is.
I don't know what you're talking about. Exactly.
That seemed rather strange, but so did this.

Speaker 3 There was no obvious reason for C. Stiles to kill Crystal Taylor.

Speaker 3 True that if you're worried about becoming a victim of gang violence, you're probably safest in the morning because these guys stay up very late and don't roll out of bed until late morning or noon.

Speaker 14 Now, I'm not going to say that that's a fact, but it's more true than not.

Speaker 3 If somebody is up and working at 7 or 7.30 in the morning,

Speaker 14 their paths just wouldn't cross.

Speaker 3 Not normally.

Speaker 3 Not a hardcore,

Speaker 14 serious type of person like a C-style.

Speaker 3 So was he the man in the parking garage? On that question, C. Styles wasn't terribly helpful.
But then he did something surprising.

Speaker 3 After staring at Crystal's photo, and floating theories about her killer, C. Styles suddenly confessed to a different murder of a rival gang member.

Speaker 3 I don't do this for a living, but he wasn't even being charged with that, and you weren't even asking him about that.

Speaker 14 I didn't even know there was a murder.

Speaker 3 So, why would he blurt that out?

Speaker 14 You have to understand

Speaker 14 C. Styles' mentality.
C. Styles' mentality is that there's nobility in killing the enemy.
There is no nobility or honor in killing a lady who's pregnant.

Speaker 3 Someone who's innocent.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 Detective Williams was convinced C. Stiles was only copping to the other murder to distance himself from Crystal's.

Speaker 3 And then all the witnesses in Crystal's murder picked him out of a lineup. Two months after Crystal Taylor's death, Skylar Moore, aka C.

Speaker 3 Stiles, was charged with murdering her and her unborn baby, Jeremiah. Justice seemed close at hand.
It was not.

Speaker 29 Coming up,

Speaker 15 face to face with a confessed killer.

Speaker 3 You weren't afraid to testify.

Speaker 20 Oh, yes, I was.

Speaker 21 I was praying and asking God to make us strong enough, but I was severely scared.

Speaker 15 When dateline continues

Speaker 3 When someone you love dies violently, there are so many emotions. Anger, loss,

Speaker 3 even sometimes the fear that you'll be next.

Speaker 11 I was afraid opening the door in the morning. Like, like there's a blind spot when I first walk out.
Like, I'm literally looking out like this every morning.

Speaker 3 You all looking over your shoulders?

Speaker 11 Over our shoulders.

Speaker 20 Really bad.

Speaker 11 I was in almost a post-traumatic stress syndrome kind of thing, just nervous all the time.

Speaker 3 With Skylar Moore, aka aka C. Stiles, charged in the murder, there was some sense of relief.

Speaker 11 To know that this guy was off the street was some comfort because he was the one that could show up and kill anybody.

Speaker 3 Even so, the sisters were still afraid to face him at the preliminary hearing. Tough to be in the courtroom and see him.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 11 We were crying as soon as we walked through the door in court, but we thought, like, I don't know what I'm going to do when I see him, you know, the shooter. I'm looking for this guy day and night.

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And then you see him fire

Speaker 3 and he's in court right in front of you and then he's in court right in front of me and I'm expecting to have this visceral reaction to him and I felt like like he had some remorse because I remember we told the detective it was like I was like he he looked like he has he has some remorse the detective didn't buy it for a minute she was like no he's a he's a straight up killer he don't have no remorse

Speaker 3 Whatever the tailors saw, that hint of humanity in a cold-blooded killer, C. Stiles still scared them.
You weren't afraid to testify.

Speaker 20 Oh, yes, I was.

Speaker 3 But you went ahead and did it.

Speaker 21 I went ahead and did it because I was praying and asking God to make us strong enough to be able to do whatever it is we needed to do.

Speaker 11 But I was severely scared.

Speaker 3 Michelle testified she saw C. Stiles at Crystal's building the day before the shooting.
It was up to other witnesses to place him there the day Crystal was killed, and there were several who could.

Speaker 3 The man making his kids' breakfast, a neighbor who saw a man who looked like C. Stiles around one that same morning watching the building.
Another neighbor who actually knew C.

Speaker 3 Stiles and thought he saw him loitering in the area. Except all those witnesses were afraid to testify in open court against a known gang member.
All except one, the schoolgirl.

Speaker 3 who may not have known enough to be afraid.

Speaker 3 Miss Hall, who was a child, essentially, when she saw someone running away from the scene of Crystal Taylor's murder, she was willing to continue testifying.

Speaker 14 Yes, she was.

Speaker 3 But her family was pretty worried, her mother in particular.

Speaker 14 Yes, her mother was really, really concerned about that.

Speaker 3 The DA had his own concerns. The testimony of a schoolgirl and the sister of the victim didn't seem enough to convict.
And that's about all the evidence they had.

Speaker 3 Police never found any DNA, fingerprints, or forensic evidence that linked C. Stiles to the garage of Crystal Taylor's apartment.

Speaker 3 And while they found a.38-caliber bullet lodged in Crystal's brain, they never found the gun that fired it, let alone linked that gun to C. Stiles or anyone else.
If C.

Speaker 3 Stiles went to trial and was acquitted, that would be the end of it. And so, rather than take that chance, The DA dropped the charges.

Speaker 3 Well, the prosecutor said, we don't want to try this case now because we don't have the evidence right now and the witnesses are skittish.

Speaker 3 We want to wait and you think that's going to be a couple of months,

Speaker 3 maybe a year.

Speaker 3 Instead, many months passed and nothing happened. The nation grew obsessed with the murder of a 27-year-old pregnant woman.

Speaker 3 But it wasn't Crystal Taylor.

Speaker 11 Lacey Peterson's case is showing on the news every night and Chrissy's the same beautiful young lady pregnant and there's no coverage. You're offended that everybody is going on with life.

Speaker 11 Like the world kept going. Just one person's gone and people go to work the next morning.
The birds are still chirping and it all offends you. It's just weird.

Speaker 3 And you're thinking, when's our turn? Yeah, then I'm like, when is our turn? Momo died six months after her daughter Crystal. Her family says the cause was as much heartbreak as heart disease.

Speaker 3 And all of that took a huge toll on the Taylors.

Speaker 10 Everyone was hurting,

Speaker 10 so no one really wanted to be around what would bring up that sadness again. And that was us and being together.
So we separated for a while.

Speaker 3 And so what had been a big, happy, close family kind of splintered. Yeah.

Speaker 3 C. Stiles was convicted of the gang murder he had admitted to.
His sentence, life in prison. And Crystal Taylor's murder remained officially unsolved.
The sisters were sure C.

Speaker 3 Stiles had pulled the trigger, but they were sure of something else, too. C.
Stiles had no reason to kill their sister. Someone put him up to it.
And they thought they knew who that someone was.

Speaker 29 Coming up.

Speaker 10 He did this to Christy. He did this to all of us.

Speaker 15 The chilling clue that Crystal had given her family.

Speaker 3 You're all kind of beating yourself up for not listening to Christy's warning.

Speaker 12 Exactly.

Speaker 14 I whispered to her. That's the guy.
That's the guy who had Crystal taylor killed

Speaker 3 for the taylor family history had been split in two there was before when they had crystal and life was good

Speaker 3 and then there was after

Speaker 21 People kind of started treating us like, are y'all still talking about that?

Speaker 3 They just kind of want you to move on.

Speaker 21 They want you to move on.

Speaker 22 Everybody wanted us to move on.

Speaker 3 And you say, well, I can't move on. I can't move on.

Speaker 12 Because you start feeling like, well, who life is this? Because you want me to go back to what life?

Speaker 21 This is my life.

Speaker 12 I don't have a life to go back to.

Speaker 3 They couldn't move forward. They couldn't go back.
But they kept going over the last days of Crystal's life, rewinding to that trip when they visited their ailing mother in Texas.

Speaker 3 They arrived back in Los Angeles in the middle of the night, Saturday into Sunday. Yet Crystal still woke up very early the next morning.

Speaker 10 She insisted on going to church. We were all thinking to sleep in, but she got up and she prayed and then she cried.
She was going through something, she just wasn't sharing it with us.

Speaker 3 The next day was Monday, the morning Michelle saw a suspicious man on the stairs of the apartment building.

Speaker 3 She warned Crystal, who went a different way to the garage, which might have saved her life for 24 hours.

Speaker 3 What they didn't learn until much later was that Crystal left work crying on that last day of her life. She didn't say anything to her family that night, but she did act differently.

Speaker 10 She went around the room and she hugged everyone.

Speaker 11 She never did that.

Speaker 10 I think she just didn't want to worry anyone, and I think she kind of just hoped that everything won't work out.

Speaker 3 What was the matter with Crystal Taylor? They rewound their mental tape a little further, and there it was, a moment. It happened during their car trip back from Texas.

Speaker 10 She was on her phone listening to something, and she put her phone down, and she said, said, if anything happens to me, it was Derek.

Speaker 3 Derek Smeyer, the father of her unborn child. Did she go into any detail about what he'd said to her to make her say that? No, she didn't.

Speaker 10 The conversation turned into,

Speaker 18 don't worry about him. Don't worry about him helping with the baby.

Speaker 3 They thought that's all it was. Derek didn't want to help raise his child.
Now they replayed that moment. Over and over.

Speaker 11 We should have said, wait, what did he say to you? But instead of that, we were like, we don't need him.

Speaker 12 Like, just hang up, don't even talk to him. You know, that kind of

Speaker 11 showing her the kind of support because we're so used to just picking up our burdens and going.

Speaker 3 She brought it up that she was worried, but you didn't hear it, or it didn't sound bad enough. You're all kind of beating yourself up for not listening to Christy's warning.

Speaker 12 Exactly.

Speaker 3 Even though it sounds to me like

Speaker 3 you'd almost have to be a mind reader to know that she was really concerned. Yeah.

Speaker 3 The years started to pass, and this family thought a lot about Derek Smeyer. Crystal had said, if something happened to her, it was Derek.

Speaker 3 They believed he was the only one who had something to gain from her death.

Speaker 3 As they had done with C. Stiles, Michelle and Monica now tried to find Derek.

Speaker 11 I didn't know Derek's name. I thought his name was Myers.
And I was spelling Derek the wrong way and then looking for him like just forever.

Speaker 3 If they had managed to tail Derek, they would have found a guy who didn't seem to fit the profile of a killer. He was doing well, says his sister Danielle.

Speaker 7 He had gotten his bachelor's degree in business. He had went on to start his own company.
He was doing great. He was always happy.
He was always in good spirits. He was driven.

Speaker 3 He still had that silver Mustang convertible with the custom plates, my whip.

Speaker 3 Although Monica and Michelle never spotted the car, Tia did.

Speaker 10 I stopped at a light and Derek pulled up next to me in a car, the top down, listening to music. I just felt like this was so unfair that it's a nice sunny day and he's going on with life.

Speaker 10 It just like tripped me out like this guy really just did this to my family. He did this to Christy.
He did this to Momo. He did this to my mom and Michelle, to Javante, to all of us.

Speaker 3 And he got away with it.

Speaker 10 And he got away with it.

Speaker 3 Even Detective Robbie Williams saw Derek one day at the airport.

Speaker 14 My wife and I were on our way to a vacation and I look up and I see Derek walk walk right past us.

Speaker 3 Williams had never forgotten Crystal Taylor. He'd taken her case file with him as he moved up the promotional ladder from detective to lieutenant.

Speaker 3 He'd always shared the family's suspicions that Derek was somehow behind Crystal's murder. But he also knew he didn't have enough evidence to arrest him.

Speaker 14 I whispered to my wife, that's the guy.

Speaker 14 That's the guy who had Crystal Taylor killed.

Speaker 3 That's got to be like a knife in you.

Speaker 3 I mean, if that's what you think, if you think that's the guy who had Crystal Taylor killed, well, here he is, out free, breathing the same air you are, maybe going on vacation just like you are, having a great time.

Speaker 3 He got away with it.

Speaker 14 It's about karma in this life or the next.

Speaker 3 It turned out to be this life.

Speaker 3 Help was about to come from the last place anyone expected.

Speaker 29 Coming up.

Speaker 32 We're looking for some help on some cases.

Speaker 15 A conversation with the convict is Seastiles about to come clean. When Dateline continues.

Speaker 3 The cold steel of a 38 can fire a bullet at 1,000 feet per second. The speed of justice is not nearly as fast.
Crystal was killed September 25, 2001.

Speaker 3 Ten years later, her unsolved murder was still an open case. Detectives believed Schuyler Moore, aka C.
Stiles, was the person who shot her, but they didn't have enough evidence to try him.

Speaker 3 And they thought the father of Crystal's unborn child, Derek Smeyer, might have been involved as well. But there was no evidence linking him to C.
Stiles.

Speaker 3 Except for one thing.

Speaker 14 There was a group of men sitting near a cement picnic area

Speaker 14 talking.

Speaker 3 On the day Crystal was murdered, when Detective Robbie Williams first saw Derek Smeyer at Anderson Park, Derek wasn't alone. You hadn't even heard the name C.
Styles at that point.

Speaker 14 I hadn't even heard of a C-Style.

Speaker 3 But much later, after C. Styles was arrested and Detective Williams got a good look at him, he thought the gangbanger...
Looked familiar.

Speaker 3 You think the first time you saw Derek Smeyer, you think he was with C. C-Styles at that point?

Speaker 14 Yes, I think he was in the company of C-Styles.

Speaker 3 So if you're right, they were hanging out together just a couple hours after the murder. Yes.
If only you'd known.

Speaker 14 If I had only known.

Speaker 3 And now, a decade later, there was no way to prove who the man in the park might have been.

Speaker 3 And Crystal's dead, C-Styles serving time for another murder, and nothing's happening to Derek.

Speaker 14 Nothing was happening to Derek that I could see. But I'm a believer of karma, either in this life or the next.
You're going to pay for what you've done wrong.

Speaker 3 I'm guessing you were preferring that it was this life.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 3 Maybe it was karma. Maybe it was luck.
Maybe it was good police work.

Speaker 3 But whatever it was, on June 15th, 2011, LA Sheriff's Detectives Richard Lopez and his partner Beth Smith found themselves at a Northern California prison with a few hours to kill.

Speaker 33 She mentioned that Scarlar Moore is here and I've always wanted to talk to him about a 2001 murder that occurred in Hawthorne.

Speaker 3 That would be Crystal Taylor's murder. Detective Smith had worked with Hawthorne P.D.
on the case. She knew Derek Smeyer would never spill but would see Stiles.

Speaker 33 And I said, we've got three hours till the plane ride, let's pull him.

Speaker 3 Pretty soon they were face to face with Skylar Moore, aka C. Stiles.

Speaker 32 Remember we had arrested you on that case when that woman was killed, a pregnant woman, in Hawthorne? It's later

Speaker 32 with that other murder on the woman.

Speaker 32 I need a little more detail. You don't know who I arrested.
You know people at least know who I arrested.

Speaker 32 Nothing like that.

Speaker 3 C. Stiles was saying even less than he did back in 2001.
So Detective Lopez gave it a try. He'd questioned a lot of gang members.
And he knew C. Stiles had enemies in prison.

Speaker 32 At 20 years old, you're already tired of looking over your back because that's why you're in the hole. Because you can't go on the main yard, am I right?

Speaker 32 Okay, well, we're looking for some help on some cases. Now, one hand watches the other.

Speaker 32 If you tell us something that you remember, truthfully, remember, and we can corroborate it, we can get you moved out of California. Like the weirdo.

Speaker 32 Arizona, Illinois, Tennessee.

Speaker 3 Detective Lopez assured C. Stiles this wasn't your typical police interrogation.

Speaker 32 We didn't read you in Miranda rights, right? So anything you say cannot be used against you. And we're not trying to put a case on you, but we're just trying to get the truth.

Speaker 3 Then Detective Lopez showed C. Stiles some photos of Crystal Taylor and Derek Smeyer.

Speaker 32 I got a stinking suspicion you might recognize some of them faces.

Speaker 32 Okay, okay, you're Skyler.

Speaker 32 From what we know, you know what's up, okay? It's a good act, though. It's survival.
And, you know, know, and no one's supposed to talk to the police. I know that.

Speaker 32 But everybody does, dude. You know that.

Speaker 33 And you're told from when they're young kids, you know, stitches get stitches and you don't talk to the police.

Speaker 33 So when they finally break that barrier and they come and they open the floodgates, they have a tendency to talk then.

Speaker 33 And all the things that bothered them when they were in the life begin to come out.

Speaker 3 And that's what happened there. Yes.
Bit by bit, C. Stiles started to talk.
Turns out that was him in the park with Derek.

Speaker 3 He met Derek playing pickup basketball at the same park where Derek met Crystal.

Speaker 3 And that was the connection investigators had long looked for between C. Stiles and Derek Smeyer.
And C.

Speaker 3 Stiles said back in the summer of 2001, Derek began complaining about a problem named Crystal Taylor.

Speaker 33 He described Derek as being desperate because of this pregnant girl.

Speaker 33 He said that Derek had called her gold digger and that by getting rid of her, that takes care of the problem of having child support.

Speaker 3 So he said he and Derek worked out a deal. C.
Stiles would pull the trigger and Derek Smeyer would owe him a favor.

Speaker 34 Did it cost you money or you probably do?

Speaker 34 It was just a mixture.

Speaker 34 He basically

Speaker 34 promised me loyalty and whatnot. So that's why I say money wasn't really a factor because it was always more beneficial down the line.

Speaker 3 That's how this works? I always thought that when you wanted somebody killed, you had to pay money for that.

Speaker 33 Everybody glamorizes it and thinks it's that way, but in Schuyler's mind,

Speaker 33 this was easier for him to do. He could do this, and then, of course, Derek would be indebted to him.

Speaker 3 And there would be no money trail linking the two men. C.
Styles said Derek told him where Crystal lived.

Speaker 33 Schuyler says he scouts the location. He's there waiting for the victim to come down the stairs.

Speaker 33 In fact, he, I believe, he runs into his sister the day before. The day before, right, exactly.

Speaker 33 And so on the day of it, he goes and waits, lies in wait for her, and she comes down to the car and he shoots her, and then he runs out of the garage area.

Speaker 3 You're looking at a guy who's, by all accounts, kind of a hardened gangbanger, living that life.

Speaker 3 What's in it for him to confess to one more murder when he's already in there doing life without parole?

Speaker 33 I can't speak to all of them, but I can speak to this one. He felt bad about this.

Speaker 33 And he wanted to make it right.

Speaker 3 Killing a pregnant woman bothered him. Yes.
Killing those other people did not.

Speaker 33 Didn't seem to, no.

Speaker 3 Police thought they finally had the story of who killed Crystal Taylor, but it was a story they couldn't tell in court.

Speaker 3 Not yet, anyway.

Speaker 29 Coming up,

Speaker 15 that dynamic duo of sister detectives wasn't done yet.

Speaker 3 We were,

Speaker 12 you know, back on the job.

Speaker 3 Cagney and Lacey shift their focus to Derek.

Speaker 22 We never thought he should get away. We did.

Speaker 7 My brother is not a perfect man, but my brother's an innocent man.

Speaker 3 By 2011, for the Taylor family, Crystal's murder was an ugly scar that was never going to heal.

Speaker 11 We'd almost stopped being as obsessed with it.

Speaker 3 But you still want an answer.

Speaker 11 But we still want an answer.

Speaker 3 Then the phone rang. Detectives shared the big news about their prison interview with C.
Stiles. And they said, well,

Speaker 11 the shooter confessed.

Speaker 3 And told them it was Derek Smeyer who put him up to it. In his confession, Mr.
Stiles said he saw another woman on the stairs

Speaker 3 and thought maybe that was Christy.

Speaker 3 That was you. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 21 And he said he considered killing me.

Speaker 12 That was devastating.

Speaker 3 You were that close to getting killed.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Detectives still had to figure out how to use C. Stiles' off-the-record confession to make an on-the-record case against Derek.

Speaker 3 In the meantime, sisters Michelle and Monica couldn't resist going back to prowling the streets looking for clues. Cagney and Lacey shift their focus to Derek.

Speaker 22 We never thought he should get away with it.

Speaker 11 When the police said, come in, we want to talk to you.

Speaker 20 We're going to reopen the case.

Speaker 12 I have a notebook now.

Speaker 11 I'm like oh smyers so I wrote it down

Speaker 3 and then I go back and I found like businesses they had they also figured out where Derek lived you regularly driving by his house no we were you know back on the job making sure since the case was reopened we they had enough evidence this time By then, Detective Lopez at the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau had pulled out the old files and read everything.

Speaker 3 Police reports, forensic reports, interview notes. And what he read lined up with what C.
Stiles had told him.

Speaker 33 The description of the place, the description of

Speaker 33 meeting the victim's sister the day prior, the way he ran out of the place, all those things

Speaker 33 matched what he was telling us and we were able to corroborate.

Speaker 3 With all that information, Lopez decided to take a chance, arrest Derek, apply some pressure, and see if he would crack.

Speaker 3 So nine years and ten months after Crystal Taylor's murder, Derek Smeyer once again sat in a police interview room.

Speaker 33 He felt like he had to control everything that happened in the interview. He would answer a question, but before he answered it,

Speaker 33 he would give a preamble as to why his answer was this.

Speaker 3 Lopez pushed him, told Derek that C. Stiles had confessed and implicated Derek.

Speaker 3 Derek denied everything. Lopez thought he was lying, but what he was not doing was cracking.

Speaker 33 I said, you know, you're not a likable person. I don't know if anybody's going to believe you.

Speaker 33 And he just didn't seem to mind.

Speaker 3 Of course, it's possible Derek wasn't worried because he wasn't guilty. During those 10 years, from 2001 to 2011, what's Derek doing and how is he? Does he seem like a guy with a cloud over his head?

Speaker 7 No, he seems like a man who's flourishing.

Speaker 3 Derek's sister Danielle was shocked by the arrest. She says the way she and Derek grew up was a world away from people like C.
Stiles and from crimes like murder.

Speaker 7 We played, we were into sports, we had two extremely active parents that were a part of all of our sports leagues that were taking us to summer camps.

Speaker 3 What sports were both of you playing?

Speaker 7 We played everything. My parents had us involved in everything possible.
Derek did football, basketball, softball, baseball, you name it, we did it.

Speaker 3 She says Derek did go off track in high school. He was just 16 when his girlfriend Tracy got pregnant.
It was news their parents were not happy to hear.

Speaker 7 They were in shock, especially my dad. My dad is very traditional, you know, believes that children should be born in wedlock, as Derek and I were.

Speaker 3 Derek's daughter, Sidney, was born in April of 1998. And instantly, Derek Smeyer had to be an adult.

Speaker 7 He dropped out of high school so that he could get a full-time job. And even though he wasn't making much, he was still doing what he could to support that baby.

Speaker 3 That changes your life. And it does change your life.
And that forestalls a lot of your ops.

Speaker 20 Absolutely. Absolutely.

Speaker 7 But Derek, he was a hard-working guy.

Speaker 3 In 2002, the year after Crystal died, Derek Smeyer had another daughter with the same woman. If I fall, all this footage is being deleted.
For the most part, he wasn't a full-time dad.

Speaker 3 But Danielle says he was in his children's lives, as was the whole Smeyer family.

Speaker 3 Danielle insists this father of two wouldn't commission a murder over an unplanned pregnancy, if, in fact, he even was the father of Crystal's child.

Speaker 3 Did Derek tell you that he was dating Crystal Taylor? No.

Speaker 7 I never heard of Crystal Taylor before

Speaker 7 he was actually arrested in 2011.

Speaker 3 Did Derek ever mention that he had gotten a girl pregnant and was concerned about that?

Speaker 7 No, he didn't tell me that.

Speaker 3 And she was adamant. There's no way her brother hung out with a gangbanger.
Skylar Moore, aka C. Styles.

Speaker 3 Ever meet him? No. Ever hear Derek talk about him? Never hear Derek talk about him.
Derek friends with any gang members?

Speaker 7 My parents are extremely traditional. They weren't into gang violence or any of that nonsense.
Derek would not bring gang members to the house or affiliate himself with gang members.

Speaker 7 Furthermore, no one's seen Derek ever, ever, with any gang member.

Speaker 3 Danielle said her brother had nothing to do with Crystal's murder and that C. Stiles was a liar.

Speaker 7 He is known as a jailhouse snitch

Speaker 7 and he is harassed and beaten up by people where he's currently housed at. The deal for him is that he gets relocated out of state to a place where nobody knows him.

Speaker 3 She says the cops simply took the path of least resistance.

Speaker 7 They had it out for Derek from the start.

Speaker 3 Because?

Speaker 7 Because he seemed like the probable person. My brother is not a perfect man, but him being pulled in, harassed by the police, his children being taken from him,

Speaker 7 it's not my brother's fault. My brother is an innocent man.

Speaker 3 And maybe she was right. Just days after Derek was arrested, the DA said there was not enough evidence to prosecute him.

Speaker 33 We had to let him go. We had to let him go.
And yeah, it was tough letting him go.

Speaker 3 Derek Smeyer was once again a free man.

Speaker 33 I bet he thought he was clear. I bet you he thought he was done.
He's never going to see us again.

Speaker 3 If that's true, he was wrong.

Speaker 29 Coming up.

Speaker 15 Someone steps forward with a stunning new lead.

Speaker 33 She was assaulted and her neck was cut.

Speaker 15 Another attack on another pregnant woman.

Speaker 33 She was knocked to the ground, and the assailant tried to kick her in the stomach.

Speaker 3 That person was never caught.

Speaker 33 Right.

Speaker 15 Who could be behind this?

Speaker 15 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 3 Derek Smeyer was out of jail. He insisted he was an innocent man, a father of two, who had no reason to commission a murder just because he got someone pregnant.

Speaker 3 But detectives were still investigating, and what they heard made them more convinced than ever. that Derek had Crystal killed.
They spoke with Tracy, the mother of Derek's children.

Speaker 3 Early on in the case, she had avoided the cops. Now she was eager to tell them what she said happened in 1998 when she was pregnant with Derek's first child.

Speaker 33 She got lured to the back of her apartment on the promise to be taken to a doctor's appointment by Smeyer, and she was assaulted and her neck was cut.

Speaker 3 By some other person.

Speaker 33 By some other person. Rushed to the hospital, and she told us that she was very leery because

Speaker 33 Derek had never asked to take her to the doctor before and instead of picking her up in front he asked her to come into the rear of the alley where it's darker and doesn't have much access to public view.

Speaker 3 There's the scar from the attack and according to Tracy, it was just the beginning and that wasn't the last time she was assaulted while she was pregnant.

Speaker 33 No, it wasn't.

Speaker 3 Tracy told police that in 2002 When she was pregnant with their second child, she was attacked again.

Speaker 33 She was knocked to the ground and the assailant tried to kick her in the stomach.

Speaker 3 That person was never caught. Right.
And whoever cut her throat in the previous incident was never caught. That's correct.
Tracy now told the cops she believed Derek was behind both attacks.

Speaker 3 She also said in both cases, he wanted her to have an abortion, but that she had refused.

Speaker 3 After you're pregnant by one guy, and you get lured to the back of your apartment building and then somebody tries to kill you, why do you continue your relationship with that guy?

Speaker 33 You have to understand Mr. Derek Smeyer.
And one thing he is, is he is a manipulator of women.

Speaker 3 Cops saw a pattern, one that was reinforced by something else they learned.

Speaker 33 As the investigation continued, we discovered that Derek had been to prison for a federal offense of

Speaker 33 he was scamming money from a bank.

Speaker 3 It happened in 2004. Here's Derek in this fuzzy bank security photo, stealing money from other people's bank accounts.
Turned out he had a girlfriend who worked at a credit union.

Speaker 3 He got account numbers from her and used them to move money into accounts he controlled. What happened to the $80,000 that they skimmed?

Speaker 33 The investigators didn't find it, and we tried to look for it too, and we never found it.

Speaker 3 You heard about Derek serving federal time on that bank charge. Yes.

Speaker 14 I wasn't surprised.

Speaker 14 And I wasn't surprised at who he used as an accomplice.

Speaker 3 His girlfriend.

Speaker 14 Yes.

Speaker 3 Why were you not surprised by that?

Speaker 14 Because Derek possesses that type of selfish type of, what can you do for me

Speaker 3 type of mentality. Manipulative.

Speaker 14 Manipulator, self-centered,

Speaker 14 and arrogant.

Speaker 3 Maybe that's why Derek never shied away from talking with the cops and why he never asked for a lawyer. Or maybe he just wasn't guilty.

Speaker 33 Definitely he thought he was smarter than we were, anyways. I mean, you know, what did we have?

Speaker 3 When Derek was briefly arrested, detectives asked him who he was with at Anderson Park on the day Crystal was murdered. Remember, Detective Williams thought later it was probably C.

Speaker 3 Stiles, but cops had no way to prove it. And then, under questioning, Derek gave them one.

Speaker 33 He said he goes, I saw a woman in the back seat.

Speaker 3 The back seat of Detective Williams' police car. The woman Derek saw was Jana Paletto, Crystal's friend from work, who'd accompanied Detective Williams.
Derek said he saw her quite clearly.

Speaker 33 The look on her face was she was totally distraught. That's what he said.

Speaker 3 Which gave Detective Lopez an idea.

Speaker 33 If he is that close to see that she's totally distraught, then she should have a pretty good look at who he was talking to.

Speaker 3 At the time, no one had thought to show Jana Paletto a photo of C. Stiles, but now they did.

Speaker 33 And she said, That's who Derek was talking to in the park.

Speaker 3 That was the missing link. A witness who could connect C.
Stiles to Derek Smeyer. Then, one last piece.
The DA wanted C. Stiles interviewed again.

Speaker 3 How are you?

Speaker 15 Finally. Good, good.

Speaker 36 I'm Deanette Myers. I'm the DA.

Speaker 3 This time, they made sure what he said could be used in court.

Speaker 10 You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand?

Speaker 37 Yes.

Speaker 3 C. Styles told the same same story with the same details

Speaker 3 how he met Derek

Speaker 3 and how Derek wanted help

Speaker 3 with Crystal Taylor.

Speaker 36 Do you talk about when you're going to kill her?

Speaker 37 I told him I was going to go away,

Speaker 12 but um

Speaker 37 I told him ISAP as soon as I get the opportunity.

Speaker 3 Police once again arrested Derek Smeyer for the murder of Crystal Taylor. And this time they thought they had the goods.

Speaker 3 A jury, though, would have other ideas.

Speaker 15 Coming up, a bombshell from the defense. Did someone else kill Crystal?

Speaker 28 Witnesses testify to hearing an argument.

Speaker 25 She was confronting her killer.

Speaker 3 That's when she was shot.

Speaker 30 Absolutely.

Speaker 15 Was this murder a hit at all?

Speaker 5 This is breaking me.

Speaker 3 It took police 10 years to arrest Derek Smeyer for the murder of Crystal Taylor. It took another five years to bring him to trial.
And Detective Robbie Williams knew the case wasn't airtight.

Speaker 3 Juries like DNA.

Speaker 14 DNA, blood trail, in this case, a money transfer. In this case, the lack of cell phone records attaching the two defendants together.

Speaker 3 The only thing connecting Derek to the murder was the confession of the trigger man, Skylar Moore, aka C. Stiles.

Speaker 3 But there was no guarantee the jury would take the word of a gangbanger over the word of the clean-cut Derek Smeyer.

Speaker 3 So it was with nervous anticipation that Crystal's family filed into the courthouse on July 11, 2016. The facts

Speaker 3 and the law

Speaker 36 and your common sense

Speaker 19 will lead you to one conclusion.

Speaker 36 Crystal Taylor died

Speaker 3 at the hands

Speaker 3 of Skyland Moore

Speaker 11 and Derek Smeyer.

Speaker 3 Prosecutor Danette Myers told jurors Crystal's murder and the attacks on Derek's other girlfriend, Tracy Williamson, were no coincidence.

Speaker 36 He has a motive to do it because he doesn't want to have the kids. He doesn't want to pay child support.

Speaker 3 The prosecution claimed that while Derek may have failed to stop Tracy from having her two children, he found the right man for the job of stopping Crystal, his basketball buddy, C. Stiles.

Speaker 36 He's a gang member. He's a killer.
And Mr. Smeyer knew who to go to when he wanted Crystal Taylor taken care of.
Did you go right over there and have a seat?

Speaker 3 Prosecutors showed the jury the admitted hitman's videotaped confession.

Speaker 37 Just seen her come down

Speaker 37 from the front way stairs.

Speaker 24 It was still kind of dark.

Speaker 37 That's when I killed her.

Speaker 36 How'd you do that? What'd you do?

Speaker 37 Just shot her.

Speaker 36 When you left the area, did you go back and tell Derek what you'd done?

Speaker 3 After that,

Speaker 37 I seen him.

Speaker 36 Not immediately after that.

Speaker 3 Then they called C. Stiles to testify.
But instead of tying a bow on the case, he lobbed a grenade and blew it to pieces. C.
Stiles told the jury everything he said on that tape was a lie. People

Speaker 28 have false confessions all the time.

Speaker 3 It happens all the time. Derek Smeier's defense attorney Calvin Schneider says C.
Stiles made up a story that the cops wanted to hear. He was hoping to get better treatment in prison.

Speaker 25 He came in and admitted that they made these offers to him and

Speaker 25 that that's why he did it. You think think police kind of rushed to judgment here absolutely because they had a hunch they went with my client and they excluded others

Speaker 3 Schneider told the jury that without C. Stiles confession there was no evidence linking Derek to the murder they are alleging multiple conversations planning without any proof of where when how

Speaker 3 There's no emails between Moore and Smyr.

Speaker 28 There's no text messages.

Speaker 33 There's no phone calls.

Speaker 3 The defense portrayed Derek Derek as a man who loved his children, not one who would try to have them murdered.

Speaker 24 There's Mr.

Speaker 3 Smeyer again in the hospital holding his baby.

Speaker 39 And I think it's important when you are looking at this case that you evaluate his expression on his face in these photos.

Speaker 3 Proud father or killer.

Speaker 3 Not only was Derek Smeyer innocent of Crystal's murder, said the defense. Maybe C.
Stiles was too.

Speaker 3 There was no physical evidence placing him in that parking garage. Maybe they said this wasn't a hit after all.

Speaker 25 Several of the witnesses testify to hearing an argument, and then all of a sudden, the argument ended. There was a pause and a gunshot.
It is absolutely inconsistent with a hired hit.

Speaker 3 If not a hit, then what happened? The defense had a theory. It involves this photo of Crystal's son, Javante, found near her body.

Speaker 36 It's obvious that Miss Taylor was holding that picture when she got shot.

Speaker 3 Schneider wasn't allowed to directly spell out his theory for the jury. He did for us.

Speaker 25 I think she was confronting her killer, saying, the only thing you're going to see is a photograph of your son until you pay child support.

Speaker 3 And you think that's when she was shot?

Speaker 30 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 The defense suggested Javante's father killed Crystal. Never mind that police had cleared him early on.

Speaker 3 Derek's lawyer told the jury his client was an innocent man. But this tragedy, it will be compounded if you convict a person that is not involved.

Speaker 24 And I'm asking for a not guilty verdict on all counts. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 Crystal's family was worried. They could only hope the jury believed C.
Stiles' video confession and not his recantation of it. The wait for a verdict was agonizing.

Speaker 11 That was painful.

Speaker 3 One day passed, then two, three days in.

Speaker 21 I'm nervous. I don't want to do this again.

Speaker 21 I can't do this again.

Speaker 40 It's not easy.

Speaker 3 Then it was a week. Then one week turned into two.

Speaker 21 I'm like, I'm just praying.

Speaker 22 I just keep praying no matter what I see or what I hear.

Speaker 21 I keep praying.

Speaker 3 Every day, the waiting was harder. That was true for Derek's family, too.

Speaker 7 I started getting nervous. I was there every day, anxiously waiting, so that we could hear that verdict, so we could hear that Derek was not guilty.

Speaker 7 I would see the jurors come out of there red in the face, almost like they're arguing back there.

Speaker 3 Like they've been yelling. Like they'd been yelling.

Speaker 14 We're on the record in Peavers Smire Defendants present.

Speaker 3 After 21 days, the jury reassembled in the courtroom.

Speaker 6 The jury has not been able to reach a verdict.

Speaker 3 They were stuck.

Speaker 14 I do declare a missed trial.

Speaker 23 This is breaking me.

Speaker 3 I hope by the time it's time to do it again,

Speaker 18 I'll pull it back together.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 today I don't want to do it again.

Speaker 15 Coming up, trial number two.

Speaker 2 This time, new evidence and a new witness.

Speaker 19 When people were around, he'd behave a certain way.

Speaker 15 Derek's own daughter.

Speaker 15 What would she reveal when dateline continues

Speaker 3 it was like their own nightmarish groundhog day nearly nine months after the mistrial crystal taylor's family once again entered a courthouse wondering if this time justice would finally be served

Speaker 3 you feeling any better about the beginning of the second trial than you were at the beginning of the first trial?

Speaker 10 I did. I think because we kind of knew what to expect, we knew what they were going to say, we knew what we had.

Speaker 3 And what you didn't have.

Speaker 10 Right. And we'd hoped that, you know, whatever mistakes were made from the first trial, they'd learn from them and prepare for them and do better.

Speaker 3 Two big differences this time around.

Speaker 3 First, Skylar Moore, aka C. Stiles, was on trial along with Derek, although each defendant had his own jury.
And second, Derek's Derek's jury would not see C. Stiles' disputed videotape confession.

Speaker 3 It was ruled inadmissible. So prosecutors focused on Derek's motive.
Here was a man, they told the jury, who'd do almost anything to avoid paying child support.

Speaker 36 Crystal and her five-month unborn son were killed with one gunshot. One gunshot to the back of her head.

Speaker 3 That, said the prosecution, fit a pattern.

Speaker 3 state that they called derek's old girlfriend tracy williamson who repeated her story that the first time she was pregnant with derek's child she was attacked by a man she didn't know he put a knife to my throat

Speaker 41 did he cut you with the knife yes and then during her second pregnancy a second attack somebody came and socked me in the face And I went on the side of the car and somebody stomped me on my stomach and my face.

Speaker 17 You can somebody state

Speaker 3 Then Derek's own daughter took the stand against him. She didn't testify in the first trial, but she told this jury that Derek seemed to hate being a father.

Speaker 19 He would come during major occasions,

Speaker 19 birthdays and things like that. He was very ill-tempered.
He didn't spend much time with me. When he did, it just seemed like it was kind of for show.
You know,

Speaker 19 when people were around, he'd behave a certain way. And when those people left, he would go back to his

Speaker 19 ill-temperedness and his

Speaker 19 kind of monstrous ways.

Speaker 3 To help explain how Derek had Crystal killed, prosecutors again called her sister Michelle, who'd been through the emotional wringer when she testified in the first trial.

Speaker 17 You saw the mistake that the testimony you made in.

Speaker 21 I was afraid of what it was going to do to me mentally the second time. I was afraid for myself.

Speaker 3 Nevertheless, Michelle mustered the courage to take the stand and testify to seeing the alleged gunman C. Stiles in their apartment complex the day before her sister's murder.

Speaker 36 What did you say to the defendant, Mr. Moore?

Speaker 21 I told him that he startled me and I asked him

Speaker 21 what was he doing there.

Speaker 3 The jury also heard from Shavana Hall, in middle school at the time, now an adult. who said she still remembers seeing C.
Stiles fleeing the crime scene.

Speaker 36 And what did you hear? It was like

Speaker 36 a gunshot, like a big noise, basically.

Speaker 36 What next occurred? We seen somebody running past us.

Speaker 3 Prosecutors then had to connect C. Stiles with Derek Smeyer.
For that, they relied on two eyewitnesses.

Speaker 3 Detective Williams told the jury he was pretty sure C. Stiles was with Derek at the park on the day Crystal Taylor was ambushed and murdered.

Speaker 40 It wasn't until you actually saw him in person that you were able to remember that he resembled a person you saw at the park?

Speaker 14 Objectionally.

Speaker 5 Several.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 3 As before, Crystal's friend and co-worker, Jana Paletto, left no doubt with her definitive testimony.

Speaker 36 As you sit here today, did you see both of those individuals in the park?

Speaker 20 Yes.

Speaker 3 Jana also told the jurors that while Crystal was excited to have another son, she was afraid to tell Derek she was pregnant. So Jana told him for her via email.

Speaker 36 After you sent the email, Peoples 51,

Speaker 36 to Derek Smeyer, did you get a phone call?

Speaker 13 Yes, I did.

Speaker 3 It was Derek Smeyer, Jana said, and he wasn't happy.

Speaker 26 He just didn't want no kids. He didn't want her to have a baby.

Speaker 36 Did he say anything to you about

Speaker 36 trying to do something with Crystal?

Speaker 26 Yeah, he just said if I can get her to get rid of the baby, he said he'll do whatever he can, but he don't want to have the baby.

Speaker 3 And Jana recalled that the day before Crystal was murdered, her first day back at work after the trip to Texas, Derek called again.

Speaker 36 Could you hear anything with respect to the conversation she was having?

Speaker 26 No, the only thing I heard is before she hung up the phone, she was like, whatever, because she was crying and she was just like, whatever.

Speaker 3 And she got up from her desk.

Speaker 36 When she got up from her desk, did you see where she went?

Speaker 23 She went to the bathroom.

Speaker 36 And when you followed her in the bathroom,

Speaker 36 what was she doing?

Speaker 3 Crying.

Speaker 3 Then Detective Beth Smith testified about two key pieces of evidence that the first jury never saw. First, a photo of Derek on his high school basketball team, proving he did play basketball.

Speaker 3 An important detail because police believe Derek met Skylar Moore. on the basketball court.

Speaker 3 The second new piece of evidence was security footage from the night before Crystal's murder that placed Derek at a 7-Eleven near both Crystal Taylor's home and Skylar Moore's.

Speaker 3 It proved, they said, Derek had lied about his whereabouts back in 2001 when he told police he was miles from Crystal's Hawthorne home that night.

Speaker 36 Did he ever tell you that he went to the 7-Eleven? No.

Speaker 3 As the evidence was mounting against him, Derek's defense went on offense, portraying the mother of his two children as a liar whose testimony couldn't be trusted.

Speaker 24 Have you lied to your family members like your aunt, Miss McMiller, your sister, Danielle, about things about Mr. Smeyer?

Speaker 23 Depends on what you're talking about.

Speaker 19 You've got to be specific.

Speaker 24 Have you ever lied to them?

Speaker 36 Lied to them, period.

Speaker 3 People lie all the time. Have you lied?

Speaker 25 Tracy Williamson was an admitted liar and untruthful, so you couldn't believe what she said.

Speaker 3 And as for Crystal's friend Jana,

Speaker 3 who said she saw C. Stiles and Derek Smeyer together,

Speaker 3 The defense says Derek was with a high school friend, and Derek's sister Danielle says the idea that Derek met a gangbanger on the basketball court is absurd.

Speaker 3 But he grew up playing basketball and a bunch of other sports. Didn't he play basketball in high school?

Speaker 7 He did play basketball in high school. He played basketball up into his junior year.
I played basketball up until my sophomore year. Never touched a basketball since.

Speaker 7 Derek doesn't play basketball anymore.

Speaker 3 In this court, everything was on the line. That's when Derek Smeyer, who'd never shied away from explaining himself in the past, took the stand.

Speaker 29 Coming up.

Speaker 25 Did you have anything to do with the death of Crystal Taylor?

Speaker 30 No, I did not.

Speaker 15 Derek Smeyer, a dutiful dad to be?

Speaker 30 I was prepared to take care of my responsibility.

Speaker 2 Would the jury agree?

Speaker 7 As I time froze.

Speaker 3 It is a calculated risk for a defendant to testify at a trial. Derek Smeyer was willing to take it.
Prosecutors had painted him as a child-hating, cold-blooded killer.

Speaker 3 Derek and his attorney were determined to show he was anything but.

Speaker 3 Do you recall the birth of your daughter, Sydney?

Speaker 30 Yes, I do.

Speaker 14 What was the date?

Speaker 3 I think it was today, actually.

Speaker 30 April 26th, 1998.

Speaker 24 And

Speaker 14 you were there for the birth correct? Of course.

Speaker 3 Derek told the jury he was a loving and devoted father to his two girls.

Speaker 38 How would you describe your relationship?

Speaker 30 While they were growing up, it was

Speaker 30 strong, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 And he was adamant. He had nothing to do with the attacks on Tracy while she was pregnant.

Speaker 38 Didn't you have her attacked because you wanted the kid killed?

Speaker 24 You wanted her to have an abortion?

Speaker 30 No, I did not. In fact, at that time, I had already dropped out of school.
I was working. I was buying bottles.
I was very much invested in the well-being of my daughter.

Speaker 3 Derek told the jury he was a good dad to his children with Tracy and planned to treat Crystal and their child the same way. Weren't you angry that Miss Taylor was going to keep this child? No, sir.

Speaker 3 Wasn't this going to ruin your life? No, sir. Weren't you worried about having to pay child support for 18 years? No, sir.

Speaker 2 Why not?

Speaker 30 Because I was prepared to take care of my responsibility.

Speaker 3 He admitted he did call Crystal in the days leading up to her death. But Derek said it was just to check in on her, as any good soon-to-be father would.

Speaker 30 I asked how she was feeling.

Speaker 14 Why did you ask that?

Speaker 30 I know that before she went to Texas, she was having morning sickness.

Speaker 3 Derek made sure to let jurors know that he, like Crystal's family, marked time in relation to her death.

Speaker 14 How long did you work at Bounding?

Speaker 14 I was, well, until about two weeks after we lost Crystal.

Speaker 3 Crystal's family heard that and seethed.

Speaker 10 It bothered me so much to hear him say that because he never called. He never cared.
He doesn't care.

Speaker 3 As for the prosecution theory that he hatched a plot on the basketball court with Skylar Moore, aka C. Stiles, to kill Crystal Taylor? Impossible, said Derek, for two reasons.

Speaker 3 First, Did you ever play basketball at this park? No, sir.

Speaker 24 But more important, prior to this case, have you ever seen Skylar Moore before in your life?

Speaker 30 No, sir.

Speaker 3 Derek also had an explanation for why he showed up on security video at a 7-Eleven near both Moore's and Crystal's homes. He said he stopped for cash after being at his aunt's house nearby.

Speaker 30 My mother asked me to run an errand for her to take my aunt a cooking device. It was something round.
It was either a crock pot or a pressure cooker.

Speaker 3 Derek forcefully denied any involvement in Crystal's murder.

Speaker 25 Did you have anything to do with the death of Crystal Taylor?

Speaker 38 No, I did not, sir. Did you have her killed?

Speaker 30 No, I did not.

Speaker 24 Did you have her shot in the head so that she couldn't give birth to your baby?

Speaker 30 No, I did not.

Speaker 38 Nothing clear.

Speaker 3 But Derek was not done on the stand.

Speaker 3 Now came the risky part.

Speaker 3 Cross-examination by a prosecutor determined to show the other side of Derek Smeyer.

Speaker 36 Why'd you ask her to get a paternity test?

Speaker 30 Because I was being responsible, ma'am.

Speaker 36 Oh, I see. Well, what response will be putting on a condom, sir?

Speaker 24 Too relevant, Your Honor, objection?

Speaker 37 So give me out of sustainable background.

Speaker 3 The prosecutor forced Derek to admit he had tried to convince Crystal to terminate her pregnancy.

Speaker 36 Did you tell her to get an abortion?

Speaker 30 Not directly, ma'am, no.

Speaker 36 So indirectly you told her to get an abortion.

Speaker 3 Is that your statement? Yes, ma'am. And for all his talk about losing Crystal, the prosecutor pointed out.
He never once tried to console her family.

Speaker 36 Did you send flowers to the family when she died?

Speaker 4 No, ma'am.

Speaker 36 Did you send the family a card, a sympathy card, when she was murdered?

Speaker 3 No, ma'am. All of it was an attempt to show the jury that the calm, soft-spoken Derek Smeyer on the stand was a con.

Speaker 3 The real Derek was an unrepentant criminal, amused by his failed attempt at bank fraud.

Speaker 30 I didn't get my cut.

Speaker 36 And you think that's funny, don't you?

Speaker 30 No, I'm very embarrassed about it, which is why I paused. I was very hesitant to say that, but I wanted to to tell the truth.

Speaker 36 Well, that smile on your face, I think, Mr. Smyers, would you agree, said it all?

Speaker 3 As for Derek's story about going to his aunt's the night before the murder to deliver a crock pot, the prosecution let Derek and the jury know they thought it was a crock of something else.

Speaker 36 You didn't tell Detective Smith about a trip to your aunt, did you?

Speaker 3 No, ma'am. Maybe he was confident.
Maybe he was smug. And maybe he was a little too familiar with the rules of criminal law.

Speaker 36 Mr. Schmeyer, you didn't want another child.
If Crystal Taylor had had that baby, you would have had to support two kids in 2001.

Speaker 3 Right?

Speaker 30 I'm sorry, I believe that's compound.

Speaker 36 I don't know which one's the lawyer, though. What do I do?

Speaker 21 And you know, he tried to woo the jury over with, you know, like he just knew the law.

Speaker 11 He was so impressed with himself.

Speaker 21 He was very impressed with himself. Yeah.

Speaker 11 That arrogance almost tried you nuts.

Speaker 3 Then, once again, Derek's fate was in the hands of the jury. Which Derek would they believe was the real one?

Speaker 3 This time, Crystal's family didn't have to wait nearly as long for a decision. Deliberations took barely more than a day.

Speaker 21 They brought the jury in.

Speaker 3 How's Derek look?

Speaker 11 He looks cocky and arrogant like he believes he's going to get a not guilty verdict.

Speaker 17 We, the jury, in the above entitled action, find the defendant, Derek Paul Smeyer, guilty of the crime of murder.

Speaker 21 I got to run out of there because now I can't even hold an emotion.

Speaker 19 I wanted to scream by then, like, oh, I was so happy.

Speaker 11 I was so happy.

Speaker 21 I was more happy than I've ever been in my life.

Speaker 3 Across the aisle, a different emotion.

Speaker 36 They read that guilty verdict,

Speaker 7 and it's like time froze.

Speaker 3 I was in shock.

Speaker 7 How does this happen?

Speaker 3 Outside the courtroom, a gesture from the opposing side caught Danielle off guard.

Speaker 7 Michelle came up to me

Speaker 7 in that hallway.

Speaker 7 I didn't shed any tears because I was trying to contain my emotion.

Speaker 3 And she hugged me

Speaker 7 and she said she was sorry.

Speaker 7 And I bursted in tears.

Speaker 7 I bursted in tears because that, to me, is a true example of humanity,

Speaker 7 regardless of what we've gone through.

Speaker 3 And our families have both gone through a lot,

Speaker 7 lost a lot,

Speaker 7 continuing to grieve.

Speaker 7 But I appreciated the humanity that she showed.

Speaker 3 Derek Smeyer was sentenced to life in prison.

Speaker 3 C. Stiles was also convicted in Crystal's murder.
Crystal's son, Javante, has reconnected with his dad, but still hurts from the loss of his mom.

Speaker 25 I'm always going to miss her.

Speaker 3 But, you know, I don't think she wants me to linger to, like, just let it hold me back.

Speaker 9 Everything that's happened.

Speaker 3 She wouldn't want you to be miserable. Yes.
Easier said than done, sometimes. Yeah, that's true.
But I had a lot of people to help me.

Speaker 9 Good family, good friends.

Speaker 3 Crystal's family, once splintered, now feel they're coming together again. It's not the same, they say, as when Crystal was with them, but it's slowly getting better.

Speaker 3 And they have a plea for other potential Crystal tailors out there.

Speaker 11 Nothing can bring Chrissy back. This won't save her.
This won't change anything for us. But somebody knows they're in a relationship like this.
Tell somebody.

Speaker 20 If it could happen to Chrissy, it could happen to anybody.

Speaker 3 If you're with somebody who makes you feel threatened, tell someone loudly and now.

Speaker 3 And if you hear someone else, speak up. Don't let a cry for help go by.

Speaker 2 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.

Speaker 15 Thanks for joining us.

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