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00:00I'm Craig Melvin and this is Dateline, Secrets Uncovered.
00:06Bethany, our little shining star.
00:10It was devastating, that emptiness.
00:14We had to believe that we would find her someday.
00:19Bethany Decker was a dedicated student, a dedicated mother.
00:23The last thing she said to me is, Mom, I love you.
00:25Where did Bethany go? Is this a missing person?
00:28Is it a homicide? We don't know yet.
00:31There's no obvious bloodstains.
00:32There's no weapon that's found inside of the apartment.
00:37One clue that came along is Vicki Willoughby.
00:40I tried to get away once, but he pulled me back.
00:43She was a woman in fear.
00:45Just kept beating me in the head.
00:46He said, I could kill you right now if I wanted to.
00:49What she went through, unimaginable.
00:52Two women turned targets.
00:54Could one help solve the mystery of the other?
00:57There is this evil person out there that's chilling to think the amount of violence that he's bestowed on this world.
01:04He had to hope.
01:05He had to pray.
01:08There are still people at risk.
01:10He's got to be put away.
01:11Hello, and welcome to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
01:23Bethany Decker was a giver, always putting others first.
01:28She was passionate about the environment and wanted to make a difference in the world.
01:32Then one day, she disappeared.
01:34Detectives suspected foul play, but it would take years and a powerful act of courage before the secrets behind Bethany's disappearance came to light.
01:45Here's Keith Morrison with Bethany Vanished.
01:48All right, it's Thursday, November 13th, 2014.
01:55It was just after 2 p.m. when the investigator pressed record.
02:00Don't worry about moving and stuff like that, all right?
02:02Lying across from him was a woman in a hospital bed, bruised and beaten.
02:08She'd survived a violent assault.
02:11By some miracle, she could recall every painful detail.
02:15He was punching me.
02:17Punching me in the head, I think.
02:20Just kept hitting me over and over.
02:22And I'm pretty sure in another moment, he had his knee at my throat.
02:27Psycho.
02:30Her violent attacker was well known to detectives.
02:34They'd been hunting him for years, from one town to another, as he leapfrogged from one abusive relationship to another.
02:45He was crafty, dodging arrest at every turn, managing to escape their grasp because there was never enough evidence.
02:54Until now, until the woman in the hospital told her story.
03:00She would become the key to solving a mystery three years in the making.
03:05The mystery of a young mother, three months pregnant, who, without a word, suddenly vanished.
03:13The last day that I saw Bethany was a glorious day.
03:23As was every day, Evelyn Bales got to see her granddaughter.
03:27By that last day in 2011, Bethany Decker was all grown up and very busy buzzing around Ashburn, Virginia, an hour's drive away.
03:37And balancing college, her toddler son, Kai, her new baby on the way.
03:42So spending the day with Bethany and her husband, Emile, was a treat.
03:47She came over and we got to just spend the time talking with each other and sharing, you know, like how she was doing, how everything was going, work and school.
04:00I made homemade pizza for her, and she loved my ginger snap cookies, so I made ginger snap cookies.
04:09Call her the grandma's intuition, but something seemed to be weighing on Bethany.
04:14She wasn't herself. She was more troubled than ever before. I had never seen her so edgy.
04:22She was up at my parents' house, and she called me.
04:27Kim Nelson is Bethany's mother. Kai was living with her at the time, so Bethany called to check in.
04:35But Kim thought her daughter seemed distracted, distressed.
04:39You know, the last thing she said to me is, Mom, I love you.
04:42Evelyn said when she wasn't talking on her phone, Bethany seemed to be firing off a text every second.
04:49And then suddenly she said she had to leave right away.
04:54I actually stopped her at the door. I blocked the front door, and I wouldn't let her leave.
05:00Bethany found a way around and drove off. And then she went silent.
05:07I called Bethany every single day after that, and there was no answer.
05:13I thought, well, she, you know, like, she's got a lot going on.
05:17She's got school. She has a baby. And she was 21 years old.
05:24My parents actually drove by her apartment and saw her car parked there.
05:30So we thought, OK, you know, maybe something was going on, but she's still there. It's OK.
05:36But when two weeks turned to three, Evelyn and her husband decided to go to Bethany's apartment again.
05:43On the way down, my husband told me, he said, Evelyn, if we can't find her, we're calling the police.
05:50Later that day, that's just what they did.
05:55How did the police get involved in this?
05:58So we didn't get notified until February 19th after Bethany's grandmother and Bethany's mother realized that neither one had had any contact with her since that night on January 28th.
06:09Mark Bush is a detective with the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office.
06:14He was part of a team called in to look for Bethany.
06:17The team that included then Sergeant Steve Chauchet.
06:21You know, you try to gather, is this a missing person? Is it a homicide? We don't know yet. Did Bethany just get fed up and leave?
06:32A deputy met Evelyn at Bethany's apartment. When they went inside, it was empty because Bethany was in the process of moving out.
06:41But Evelyn was surprised to find what was left behind.
06:45When we went into the master bedroom, in the closet, on the right-hand side on the shelf, was Bethany's purse that she always brought to my house, her little wallet.
06:58And then there were keys to her car.
07:02A purse with some keys? Yes, sir.
07:04The sort of thing a person would take if they decided to go on the run voluntarily?
07:08Absolutely.
07:10Evelyn showed the deputy Bethany's car. It was in the parking lot. It looked different than the last time she'd seen it.
07:19That car was covered in dust. Completely covered, like it had never been moved.
07:25What was in the car?
07:27The trunk was completely packed with her personal belongings and clothing.
07:31And at the bottom, we found a computer and three cell phones underneath of all of the junk.
07:38Odd? Well, yes. But evidence of a crime? The detectives weren't so sure.
07:45There's no obvious bloodstains. There's no obvious bullet holes in the walls.
07:49There's no weapon that's found inside of the apartment.
07:52Still, at the apartment, the deputy got on the phone with Kim.
07:57He asked me the question, do you think your daughter's in danger?
08:00And, you know, he asked me again, and I'm like, yes, I think she's in danger.
08:05Danger from what? Or who?
08:10It had all been so confusing and frightening. What happened to Bethany Decker?
08:27It was just like this foreign world. Like, I could never even imagine.
08:33For three weeks, her family had refused to dwell on awful possibilities.
08:38After all, they heard Bethany was still talking with friends on Facebook.
08:44Several messages get sent to her sister, some friends.
08:49Kim saw some of those direct messages from Bethany's Facebook.
08:53And one of them, Bethany said, everything is fine.
08:56And later, that she didn't want to talk.
08:59Was it a relief? Did you think, oh, she's okay?
09:02Yeah, maybe this is how she's, like, reaching out to us.
09:05And so they had waited and tried very hard not to worry.
09:11Why did it take so long for them to get in touch with the police?
09:14Bethany was always good about reaching out to somebody in the family.
09:17Even if she was mad at her mom or her grandmother, she'd still reach out to her sister.
09:22If she wasn't reaching out to her sister, she'd be talking to friends.
09:26So I believe it was a situation where everybody thought that Bethany was just communicating with someone else.
09:32Investigators, however, took a much less optimistic approach.
09:37Detectives back then searched the wooded areas all around her apartment.
09:42We moved down into using four-wheelers and cadaver dogs and bloodhounds into the fields around the apartment complex.
09:49We started using our dive team to search retaining ponds that were near the apartment complex.
09:54But they had a big disadvantage.
09:58They were way behind.
10:00Bethany had been missing for almost three weeks by the time they were called in.
10:04Who knew what evidence might have been lost?
10:07There was a trash compactor.
10:09That trash compactor could have been dumped three or four times or more before we got to search it.
10:16But still, Kim and her family desperately needed Bethany to be okay.
10:22In so many ways, she was the beating heart of the family.
10:25There, Bethany, the sweet and generous one.
10:29Love you, Mom. You're the best.
10:31A lot of people, when you're in a conversation, they're talking about themselves.
10:36But Bethany was always the kind that wanted to know about you and how you were doing.
10:42She'd been born in Hawaii.
10:45And an island girl's style seemed to stick, said her sister Ashley.
10:50She'd wear the flip flops and she'd have just the tan and the really gorgeous hair.
10:58Growing up, Bethany was a sister to her three younger siblings, but also a kind of mom assistant.
11:05She really liked being the leader, you know, of the kids and, you know, whether it's cleaning house, doing chores.
11:12Always wanted to sort of do something to help somebody else. Is that the idea?
11:16Absolutely. Absolutely.
11:18Like, I didn't have to ask her to make dinner or to do the dishes or to do things that, like, she just did them.
11:25That's a pretty rare thing, isn't it?
11:27It is a rare thing.
11:29I just loved everything that she did, everything.
11:31Everything that she wore, everything that she did, everywhere that she went, I wanted to do the same thing.
11:38Who wouldn't want to be like Bethany?
11:42She made life look effortless.
11:45Honors program, marching band, lots of friends.
11:49When it came time for college, she had her pick of schools.
11:53She ended up going to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.
11:58And she saw there was a brand new major called Global and Environmental Change.
12:04And she had always had a heart for the environment and making the world a better place.
12:10Bethany visited home often.
12:13And during one particular visit, she shared some news.
12:17She mentioned that she met somebody while doing laundry at school.
12:21That someone was Emile Decker.
12:24He was in a fraternity in ROTC.
12:27How did the two of them connect with each other?
12:30Were they the same?
12:31Were they opposites?
12:32What were they like together?
12:34Complimented.
12:35They complimented each other.
12:37I think their two personalities really balanced each other because she was big and bold and loud.
12:43And he was a very calm, but a very gentle personality in comparison.
12:48In a little more than a year, they went from college sweethearts to newlyweds.
12:54And in a blink, they were parents too.
12:58They named their little boy Kai.
13:01Did she take to motherhood pretty easily?
13:03Very natural.
13:04Bethany loved him more than anything.
13:08Just the way she would dress him and sing to him and talk about his future.
13:14He got a very dramatic personality from his mom when he was baby, especially.
13:19You know, if you'd hold him up in front of the mirror, he'd just start big pout.
13:24Just really, really funny, but adorable.
13:28Bethany would take endless pictures.
13:30She was obsessed.
13:34Emile was in the National Guard now, too.
13:37And his military work often took him away, sometimes far away.
13:41And family had been pitching in to help look after Kai while Bethany was at work or school.
13:46Eventually, Kai moved in with Kim full-time.
13:49That's why this ominous feeling could no longer be denied.
13:53Because Bethany would never go so long without seeing her boy.
13:58It kind of just sank in my chest.
14:01Like, I just steadily got this cold pit.
14:04And it just got worse and worse as I, like, started realizing something, something's really wrong.
14:11But that can't, that only happens on TV.
14:15That couldn't happen here.
14:17But it was happening here.
14:20And it was all people were talking about.
14:23Bethany Decker, her husband Emile, and what's this?
14:27Another man?
14:29The ultimate motive.
14:30Exactly.
14:31By the time Bethany Decker had been missing for over a month, she was the focus of intense community speculation.
14:54And some of it was about him.
14:57There's people out there casting suspicion on Emile.
15:00Emile, Bethany's husband.
15:03As police interviewed family and friends, they learned the couple was no longer living together.
15:09Well, that detail fed the gossip machine.
15:13You've got all these people believing that he must have had something to do with it.
15:17And there was more.
15:20Bethany had been living with a new man before she went missing and was pregnant, presumably with the new man's child.
15:28And Emile knew all this.
15:31The ultimate motive.
15:32Exactly.
15:33So, he's being looked at, he's being tried in public.
15:38When investigators started looking into it, Emile was deployed, way off in Afghanistan.
15:44But then they discovered, first from people who had seen him and then from military records, Emile was home, on leave, when Bethany was last seen alive.
15:53So, they had contacted the military and got permission to speak to Emile.
15:58And Emile got leave and was able to come back to Loudoun County.
16:01He came back to the sheriff's office.
16:03Came with an attorney who was by his side as he told detectives about the last time he'd seen Bethany,
16:10which was at her grandmother's house that last day when she fired off all those text messages and then left in a hurry.
16:17Emile said he rushed after her.
16:20She's driving back home and Emile attempts to follow her.
16:24And they stop at a local gas station.
16:26He has a conversation with Bethany, fills her tire up.
16:29She had a tire that was going low on air.
16:31Tried to convince her not to continue going back to Ashburn.
16:34But Bethany wouldn't listen, he said, and just took off, apparently back to her apartment a good hour's drive away.
16:42And it was late at night, he said, so he pulled off the road and slept for a bit in his car.
16:48He said he was a little too embarrassed to go back to the grandmother's residence.
16:52And Bethany continued back to Ashburn.
16:55Detectives pressed Emile.
16:58What happened to his marriage?
17:01And he blamed their problems on the very real demands of his military service.
17:07His obligations with the guard took him away from their marriage for extended periods of time.
17:13She was working as a waitress, she was going to school, and she was raising their son.
17:17That is tough.
17:18I mean, not only an awful lot for one person, a responsibility for one person, one young person to shoulder.
17:24Absolutely.
17:25And she's at the same time getting high grades at school, taking high-level courses.
17:31She's got a lot on her plate.
17:33And although detectives discovered Bethany had a new man, Emile hadn't given up on their marriage.
17:40In fact, the week before she disappeared, he took her to Hawaii.
17:45It was a trip that he had planned in hopes of saving their marriage, knowing that Bethany was seeing another guy,
17:51knowing that Bethany was pregnant more than likely with another man's child at that point.
17:55And he was okay with continuing to try to make this relationship work.
17:58Yeah, he offered to raise this next child as if it was his own and try to save their marriage.
18:04Bethany's mother had heard that, too.
18:08He was trying to repair the relationship?
18:10Yes, there, I mean, she had mentioned that to me.
18:13I think that time was very precious and that there was hope that the situation would be resolved.
18:21It was quite a story.
18:24And detectives were paying close attention both to Emile's words and his body language.
18:30He had an open body posture.
18:33He was forthcoming with information.
18:36His information didn't seem to change.
18:38He was accepting of his role in a situation, how he had made things harder on Bethany.
18:44He wasn't angry, he said.
18:47He still loved her.
18:48We recovered a whole bunch of videos from cell phone records that showed him sending love messages to Bethany,
18:57that he was upset that he wasn't going to be home for certain events or wasn't going to be home with her and Kai.
19:03Here's a holiday message Emile recorded while stationed in the Middle East,
19:08a couple of months before Bethany disappeared.
19:11I just want to give a lovely shout out to my wife who lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and to my son, Kai.
19:18I love you and I miss you very much.
19:20Have a Merry Christmas.
19:21Police let Emile go, knowing there was one other side of this love triangle.
19:27The other man, Ronald Roldan, who seemed to be living quite a different life from Bethany's husband's.
19:34We knew that he was a ladies' man, he was very outgoing, that he had a lot of friends, life of the party type.
19:43They found him, of course, the talkative Ronald Roldan, a very curious man he would turn out to be.
19:51Do you know what happened to him?
20:04Welcome back to Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
20:07I'm Craig Melvin.
20:08Detectives learned Bethany Decker and her husband Emile were separated when she disappeared.
20:14Emile told police that he had been trying to save the marriage.
20:18But, complicating matters, Bethany was pregnant and seeing another man.
20:23Now, investigators were about to dig into that relationship and uncover a disturbing secret.
20:31Here again is Keith Morrison with Bethany Vanished.
20:37It was a kind of hell, that awful time of unknowing, after Bethany vanished.
20:42I can't even count how many flyers I passed out.
20:46Her family knew it was bad.
20:49Of course they did.
20:50But they would not, could not stop searching.
20:54Here are Kim and her husband on NBC station WRC.
20:58I'm praying and I have faith that she's safe.
21:01They got the whole country talking about Bethany.
21:04A young pregnant mother has gone missing.
21:07Detectives, meanwhile, occupied themselves with hard realities.
21:11To them, the facts said homicide.
21:14So they tracked down the other man in her life, Ronald Roldan.
21:18I started this.
21:20It is Friday, February 25th.
21:23And we are...
21:24Investigators found him at his mother's house, where he seemed more than willing to talk about Bethany.
21:29He's very engaging.
21:31He's painting the entire relationship with a rosy picture.
21:34He said they met at a restaurant where they were both waiters.
21:39So last March is when you met?
21:41I think she started working there in March, like the news.
21:44Around that time, the army had taken a meal away.
21:48She was definitely alone in a way that I don't think even she was prepared for.
21:53She'd never been alone before.
21:55Yeah.
21:56So she and Ronald struck up a friendship.
21:59Platonic, apparently.
22:01And Bethany being Bethany, she empathized when he told her his sad story.
22:08I remember her telling us that there was a co-worker at her work that had kids.
22:15She said he was kicked out of the place where he was staying.
22:19And so she offered him a place to stay.
22:23With her.
22:25As a border that is nothing more.
22:28Until, apparently, it was something more.
22:32At least according to Ronald.
22:34When she told me that she wanted us to, like, live together,
22:38you know, I thought about it, because, you know, I was like, wow, you know,
22:41and just, we haven't been seeing each other that long.
22:44And plus, you know, she's married, even though she's separated, but, you know,
22:47like, I had, like, strong feelings for her.
22:50Something about this rosy picture didn't sit right with investigators.
22:54Especially when Ronald told detectives he was the father of Bethany's unborn child.
23:00But she'd been missing a month, and he seemed unfazed.
23:05Okay, Ronald, have a seat right there, if you would.
23:08Okay.
23:09So detectives called him to the sheriff's office for a second, more extensive interview.
23:14The last day you saw her was that Saturday, right?
23:17Yeah.
23:18Okay.
23:19Bethany had returned home sometime around 2 a.m. after spending the day with her grandmother, said Ronald.
23:25Seemed exhausted, went to bed, and then woke up in the morning and went out again.
23:31I was in the kitchen, and she said, you know, she was like, all right, I'm gonna go.
23:34Okay.
23:35I was like, all right, bye.
23:36As far as he knew, said Ronald, Bethany was driving back to her grandmother's house across the state border in Maryland.
23:43So when he saw her car outside the apartment a couple of days later...
23:47I was like, huh.
23:48I was like, wonder what her car said.
23:49Yeah.
23:50And, um, yeah.
23:51Did you go over and look in it, or...?
23:53I didn't go and look in it.
23:54I went upstairs, and, you know, of course, she wasn't there.
23:56Did he adamantly deny that he was involved in her disappearance?
24:00Yes.
24:01Yes.
24:02He continuously stated over and over again that she left on her own free will and accord, and that he had no clue where she went.
24:08Where do you think she is right now?
24:10I had no idea.
24:12But when the detectives asked Bethany's family about Ronald Roldan, they got an earful.
24:18I couldn't locate a single family member that had anything nice to say about Ronald.
24:23At first, they said they thought Ronald was just a leech, taking advantage of Bethany's general's hospitality.
24:31But gradually, it seemed to them, he began to take her over, as if he was somehow in control of her.
24:39He had to know where she was, and I had heard at a time that he had installed some software on her cell phone to be able to track her.
24:47And then, this was alarming.
24:49Kai was about a year old, and was dropped off at Kim's house with bruising around his eyes.
24:55Kim was told Kai heard himself falling from a chair, and found out later Ronald had been watching him.
25:02The injury that he had with the blackness above his eyes was not aligned with him climbing up on a chair and falling backwards.
25:11That's when Kai moved in with Kim full-time, with Bethany's blessing.
25:17And yet, she could not seem to shake the guy off, even as he grew ever more controlling and threatening.
25:24And even worse, Bethany confided he'd become abusive.
25:28It was at that time where she started to realize that this was a troubled person, but she couldn't get out of it.
25:37So, she was in a relationship with somebody that was abusing her, physically and emotionally, and threatening her family.
25:49Was she afraid to kick him out, or just leave him?
25:53She seemed petrified all the time.
25:56And so, her family had a kind of intervention.
25:59We talked about restraining orders, which she was like, it's just a piece of paper, and it's not going to help.
26:06We called the domestic abuse hotlines.
26:09We were creating a plan for her to be able to escape from this situation.
26:15Emile was worried about Bethany, too, when he sneaked her off to Hawaii without Ronald knowing.
26:21It wasn't just about reconciling.
26:24It was to get her away from that man.
26:27But the whole time they were gone, Ronald texted incessantly, demanding she return.
26:34So, police had questions for Ronald.
26:38Were you abusive to her?
26:39Never.
26:40Do you know that she did tell people that you were physically abusive to her?
26:43No, I did not know that.
26:44Never laid a hand on her?
26:45Never.
26:46Never laid a hand on her.
26:48We never got in fights to the point where you're screaming at each other.
26:52Never.
26:53Ever.
26:54Do you want to know what happened to her?
26:55Yes.
26:56You do want to know?
26:57Yes.
26:58Do you know what happened to her?
26:59No.
27:00And then?
27:01This.
27:02It would help us out a lot if you would agree to take a polygraph.
27:05I have no problem helping you guys.
27:06Perfect.
27:07But I think, I think I need to, I think I need to speak with someone else.
27:12Oh, okay.
27:13Someone other than us?
27:15Yeah, I mean like, I think I need to speak, I think I need to speak to a lawyer.
27:19I know.
27:20They had to let Ronald leave because, besides their suspicions, they had very little to
27:25go on.
27:26No murder weapon.
27:27No crime scene.
27:28No body.
27:30And as days piled up, a kind of limbo set in.
27:34What's it like to watch a case kind of gradually go cold?
27:38Frustrating.
27:39It's completely frustrating.
27:41And it stayed that way.
27:43For years.
27:44But just when Detective Mark Bush was about to give up hope, the phone rang.
27:50My supervisor told me that I needed to head to Pinehurst, North Carolina.
27:54Uh oh.
27:56Now what?
28:00It keeps you up at night.
28:13You wake up in the morning, it's the first thing on your mind.
28:16When you go to bed, it's the last thing on your mind.
28:20Sergeant Steve Chauchet was convinced Bethany Decker was dead.
28:24And spent many days in this wooded area, just 200 yards from her apartment, searching
28:29for her remains.
28:30This area is special to me because I used to drive around it, not knowing where Bethany
28:35Decker was.
28:36But I said, maybe I could get some kind of hint from her.
28:40I'd say, come on, Bethany.
28:42Just give me some kind of sign.
28:44Show me something.
28:45Help me find you.
28:46Thing was, all the detectives were convinced.
28:49There was one guy who could tell them where she was, Ronald Roldan.
28:55But he was busy.
28:58We were paying attention to where Ronald moved, what jobs he took on, who was he inviting
29:03into his life.
29:04He found other women to date and new restaurants to work in.
29:09Life, for him, went on as usual, apparently.
29:13If Ronald was really their man, police needed a big break.
29:17And then, almost four years after Bethany vanished, they got one.
29:23Did they ever.
29:25I got a phone call from my supervisor, who told me that I needed to pick up everything
29:30and head to Pinehurst, North Carolina, because Ronald Roldan had shot his new girlfriend.
29:34Detective Mark Bush worked the phone.
29:37Who was this new girlfriend?
29:39And how did she get mixed up with Ronald Roldan?
29:42Vicki Willoughby was a waitress, and she was working at a steakhouse, and she just happened
29:47to be working with one of their new servers named Ronald Roldan.
29:51The two of them struck up a friendship that led to them becoming romantically involved.
29:56Apparently, Vicki thought it was casual, but soon Ronald changed.
30:01Became controlling and threatening, she said, and then physically abusive.
30:05Eventually, Vicki saw an opening to leave him.
30:08She finds out that a house that she had owned in North Carolina, I believe she was coming
30:15back into ownership of that house or the renters of that house were leaving the house.
30:20But Ronald followed her to North Carolina, she said, and refused to leave.
30:25So it was a small miracle that Detective Bush found her hospitalized, but alive, thank goodness,
30:33and talking.
30:34You were surprised she was able to talk at all?
30:37Yeah, she lost an eye, had to undergo surgery, and the fact that she could talk was even more
30:41amazing, and the fact that she was able to recount what occurred seemed kind of unreal.
30:47Here is Vicki's story, recorded right there in her hospital bed, with her broken neck, her
30:54bullet wounds, her purple bruises, still hooked up to machines and tubes that made her voice hoarse.
31:02But remarkably, she managed to tell police what happened when she refused to have sex with Ronald.
31:08He came in the living room and started getting in my face.
31:12And then he kicked the ottoman, and then I knew it was over.
31:15Once he kicks the ottoman, he's gonna kick you.
31:18He was dragging me around the room, I remember that.
31:21Okay.
31:22Screaming, don't get up, don't get up.
31:25He was punching me, punching me in the head, I think.
31:29She's kept hitting me over and over.
31:32She's already been in fear for her life, and she hit a revolver under the couch.
31:38She grabs it with her left hand backwards, and putting her thumb in the trigger,
31:44shoots Ronald Roldan two times in the chest.
31:47But then he took it from me and shot me right up close.
31:54Ronald shot Vicki in her arm and her head, taking out her right eye.
31:59And then once he shot me, he just kept beating me in the head.
32:02The blood was splattering everywhere.
32:04I tried to get away once, but he pulled me back, and then he was freaking out.
32:09He's like, oh, my God, I'm gonna die.
32:11And he wanted to see his mother.
32:13He wanted to see his mother.
32:15She flees the house, bleeding, bloody, hardly any clothes on.
32:20That was scary.
32:22I couldn't see because of my eye.
32:28Took me three neighbors until I found somebody.
32:31When the police arrive at her location, which is a neighbor's house,
32:36they gather the evidence, they go back to her house,
32:39and Roldan is dressed, had taken a shower,
32:44and he's on the phone with his mother.
32:46Two bullet holes in him.
32:47You try that.
32:49She had shot Ronald above his heart and in his gut.
32:53So he was rushed to the hospital, too.
32:55Once he was healed enough, he was transferred to a holding facility
32:59on charges that included assault with a deadly weapon.
33:03Speaking from her hospital bed, Vicki was still terrified.
33:08Oh, he's gonna know I said all this stuff.
33:10He can't be saying this stuff.
33:12He'll get my kids.
33:13He already told me if I ever went to the authorities.
33:16Ever.
33:17Ever.
33:18He'll get my kids.
33:20She told the detective she'd lived under the threat of violence
33:24throughout her relationship with Ronald.
33:26He said I could kill you right now if I wanted to.
33:29But he always makes sure that I know that he could kill me.
33:33And then Vicki said the most extraordinary thing.
33:36He killed her and got away with it.
33:39Her?
33:40The her Vicki was referring to was Bethany.
33:44I just know in my heart that he killed her.
33:47His statement to her was,
33:49I've made one girlfriend disappear.
33:51I can do it again.
33:52That sounded a lot like a confession.
33:55Would it finally be enough?
34:10Ronald Rodan had a problem.
34:12A Vicki Willoughby problem.
34:14She'd been brave enough to tell detectives
34:16all about Ronald's violent behavior,
34:19giving North Carolina prosecutors solid evidence against him.
34:22Ronald wouldn't be able to skate by with a denial
34:25the way he'd done in the Bethany Decker case.
34:28I think they knew that he was a danger
34:30and they had to put him away for as long as they possibly could.
34:33But it's always a roll of the dice with the jury.
34:36And so the prosecutor ended the uncertainty
34:39and made a deal with Ronald.
34:41He pleaded guilty to assaulting and shooting Vicki
34:44in exchange for a minimum sentence
34:46of six years behind bars in North Carolina.
34:49Vicki's courage had breathed new life into Bethany's case.
34:54But it also gave detectives in Virginia a deadline.
34:58Find usable evidence to prove he killed Bethany
35:01and watch him get away with murder.
35:04We had a 2020 deadline that he was going to be released
35:08and deported.
35:09Deported to his native Bolivia,
35:12making any future arrest infinitely more difficult.
35:16So one more time, Detective Bush combed through the case file.
35:20And this time, notice something in the Facebook messages,
35:25apparently sent by Bethany, but after she vanished.
35:29I was able to put together almost a separate spreadsheet
35:32of IP addresses.
35:34Nothing wrong with those IP addresses,
35:36if they all belonged to Bethany's devices.
35:39But they didn't.
35:40Every time Ronald Roldan was checking his email
35:44or he was on his password-protected Facebook account,
35:47he was checking her email
35:49and sending Facebook messages posing as her.
35:52What was it like to find that?
35:53It was an aha moment.
35:55I felt like I had finally found something.
35:57I have this long-term circumstantial evidence case
36:01where I've got all these people pointing the finger at Ronald.
36:04I've got this pattern of behavior
36:06where Ronald is escalating his violence in his relationships.
36:10He's controlling all these women.
36:11Now, all of a sudden, I find a way to attach him.
36:14Was it enough?
36:16It was now or never.
36:18And so they took a chance
36:20and charged Ronald with second-degree murder.
36:23Shaniqua Clark Nelson and her colleagues would prosecute.
36:26Had you ever tried a no-body case before?
36:29I have never tried a no-body case.
36:31I've tried homicides, but never a no-body.
36:34Without a body,
36:36any good defense attorney could say
36:38there wasn't even proof of a homicide,
36:40let alone any evidence
36:42of what Ronald allegedly did to Bethany.
36:45Even if we're able to get this past 12 jurors,
36:48and they agree with us that he's our murderer
36:50and we get our conviction,
36:52we still cannot go back to Kimberly Nelson
36:54and tell her what happened to her daughter.
36:57And so the state made a deal.
36:59Ronald Roldan would plead guilty to second-degree murder
37:02in exchange for a 12-and-a-half-year sentence.
37:05There was one condition.
37:07Ronald had to tell them what he did to Bethany.
37:10In January 2023,
37:13almost 12 years after Bethany disappeared,
37:16Clark Nelson and Detective Bush went eye-to-eye with her killer,
37:19who sat next to his attorneys.
37:22I'm ready for whatever question you have to ask.
37:28Such as, of course, what happened?
37:31He said that they were in their apartment that they shared,
37:36and there was an argument about Bethany going to work.
37:39She had actually called in to her job to take on a shift.
37:43She was trying to walk away from the conversation.
37:47I pushed her, and when I pushed her,
37:50she tripped over, like, her feet at the windowsill.
37:55Was she bleeding?
37:56No.
37:57Any bruising, swelling going on at that point?
38:00I'm sure, but I really don't remember like that.
38:07Ronald said he put his fingers under Bethany's nose,
38:10and she wasn't breathing.
38:12Why did you not call that woman?
38:17Just because I didn't think that they would believe what I had to say.
38:23What did you think was going to happen if you called that woman?
38:27I was going to get arrested.
38:32What do you believe really happened?
38:34I think she finally got confronted with the Hawaii trip with Emile.
38:39And when she admitted that she had been in Hawaii with her husband,
38:42I think that flew him into a fit of rage.
38:45He choked her to death.
38:46The next part of Ronald's story, though, felt true to Detective Bush.
38:51When you start talking to him about the disposal,
38:53it's very matter-of-fact.
38:54It's very step one, step two, step three.
38:57There was a bag in the apartment for Christmas tree removal,
39:04and I just put her inside the bag.
39:09Then Ronald took Bethany to the apartment complex's trash compactor.
39:15Do you recall which part of the dumpster that you put her in?
39:20It just has, like, a sliding door.
39:22When you put her inside of there, what, if anything, did you do?
39:28After that, I closed it and just walked back.
39:32He's very much that sociopath who feels no remorse,
39:37who wants nothing to do with the person he's with other than what he can get from that person.
39:42And he's always got that next person lined up.
39:44He's always got that next person waiting in the wings to be taken advantage of.
39:48Ronald Roldan will serve roughly 17 years for killing Bethany and assaulting Vicki.
39:55And then he'll be deported.
39:57After spending years searching for Bethany,
40:01investigators could at least finally tell her family where her body likely was.
40:07When the trash compactor got dumped, it went to a landfill.
40:11But recovering her remains? Probably impossible.
40:16It would approximately be $5 million to try to recover her, if we could recover her.
40:22Detectives played the video of Ronald's confession for Bethany's family.
40:26It was very hard to hear the disregard for human life.
40:31You're in a state of shock when you're hearing such things.
40:36That you can't even believe that a human being would be capable of such violence,
40:44and such horrific, heinous acts.
40:48And I can't allow myself to go there, because if I do, I won't be able to survive.
40:55I can't. So I dove.
41:00There was some solace.
41:02Bethany's son, Kai, now lives happily with his dad, Emile.
41:08And any lingering suspicion that Emile had something to do with what happened to Bethany,
41:13went away for good, finally.
41:17All Emile Decker ever tried to do was try to reconcile their marriage.
41:21All he ever did was help raise his son.
41:23All he ever did was serve his country.
41:26That every step of the way, he's always done what he's supposed to do or what would be expected of him.
41:31He must have gone through a lot of, well, hell in the period of time between the murder and finally being absolved forever.
41:42In the face of grieving for her and not knowing what happened to her, I don't know how he did it. He's incredibly strong.
41:50For years, Bethany's family had kept looking and looking and hoping, and they couldn't save her,
41:59which is why they wanted to tell her story, to save the next Bethany.
42:05So what do you want people to take away from her story?
42:09What I would probably say is if you are in a bad situation, then get help.
42:15Don't believe lies, that there is no hope, and that there isn't a way out. There is.
42:26That's all for this edition of Dateline Secrets Uncovered.
42:29I'm Craig Melvin. Thank you for watching.
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