- 4 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:06It was almost like Amanda talking from the grave.
00:00:11Is it a crime of passion? Is it a crime of revenge?
00:00:17What's going on?
00:00:19When you walk in this apartment,
00:00:24you see Amanda Plass lying there on the floor.
00:00:29She's spread out on her back and there's blood all around her.
00:00:33There was no doubt that she was already dead.
00:00:35It wasn't even like she needs help, it was she's dead.
00:00:39My worst enemy, I wouldn't want to have to go through that.
00:00:41It's just horrible.
00:00:46Not knowing how to even comprehend what had happened,
00:00:54but then still knowing that, okay, I need to put my child to rest.
00:01:02Every single person in her life was a suspect. Everybody.
00:01:07She said she had a lot of bad relationships in the past.
00:01:10Oh, my God.
00:01:16You know what?
00:01:17Mom ain't playing around no more.
00:01:20Somebody knew something.
00:01:21You know what?
00:01:47The End
00:01:48River. Chickopee is a suburb of Springfield, Mass. It's about 90 miles
00:01:54outside of Boston. Here on bustling Memorial Drive is this busy Friendly's
00:01:59restaurant. It's a place for ice cream celebrations and familiar faces. One of
00:02:06those familiar faces, 20-year-old Amanda Plass. More than a waitress, really. Those
00:02:12who knew her said she was the heart of this place.
00:02:20Amanda really connected with the customers there.
00:02:29She had a child that used to come in and only liked red gummy bears on a sundae.
00:02:33So she made his sundae with just the red gummy bears. That's just how Amanda was.
00:02:40Everybody loved her.
00:02:45We would come here and we would ask for her because she just brightened our day. She was
00:02:50just a sweetheart.
00:02:56It was a warm evening in August, right around five o'clock, and Malene Holmes sat right here
00:03:02in this Friendly's waiting for Amanda. Malene was a customer and she and Amanda had become
00:03:08friends. They were supposed to meet right before Amanda's shift for dinner. She used to come here and
00:03:15have dinner with us before she'd start her shift. We had been waiting for her and then she didn't show.
00:03:22Everybody was concerned. They were trying to call her and there was no response.
00:03:28Everybody's like, where is she? It was just very strange. It was very, very strange.
00:03:37Even more strange was when minutes turned to hours and the ever-reliable Amanda Plass never arrived for
00:03:44her shift at Friendly's.
00:03:49Not long after Amanda fails to show up for work, a frantic 911 call comes into the Chicopee Police
00:03:54Department. The caller is a 22-year-old named Seth Green. And Seth tells dispatchers that when he went
00:04:01to visit his girlfriend Amanda, he stepped into a scene of unimaginable horror.
00:04:07She was laying on the kitchen floor right when I opened the door, just in a pool of blood, stabbed
00:04:13to death.
00:04:15Called 911. I didn't, I was still holding her when I called 911.
00:04:21There was no doubt that she was already dead. It wasn't even like she needs help. It was, she's dead.
00:04:27She was, throat was slit, you know, multiple stab wounds to the chest, right in the heart.
00:04:34I was the on-call state police detective for that particular day. I got a call to say that there
00:04:41was a homicide occurred in Chicopee. Ronald Gibbons, who at the time was a detective with
00:04:47the Massachusetts State Police, raced to the crime scene. What's the scene like? You arrive,
00:04:54what are you taking in? This is the building itself. The Chicopee police officers had a cordon
00:05:01off this area, had put the yellow tape around it to block anyone from going to the back.
00:05:07When the first detectives arrived at the scene, Lieutenant Gibbons says Seth was in distress
00:05:11and sitting on the back porch. He was frantic. He was erratic. He was just a range of emotions.
00:05:21What was that like for you to see her on the floor?
00:05:24Uh, it's just something that I would never wish upon anybody. Like, you know, my worst enemy,
00:05:30I wouldn't want to have to go through that. Honestly, it's just horrible.
00:05:38When you walk in this apartment,
00:05:42you see Amanda Plass lying there on the floor. Describe the position she was in and what you're
00:05:49taking in as you see her. She's like, uh, spread out on her back and there's blood all around her.
00:05:58Death by stabbing is very often a personal attack on behalf of the perpetrator. You have to be up on
00:06:05top of somebody when you plunge that knife into them. It was almost like Amanda talking from the grave.
00:06:12Is it a crime of passion? Is it a crime of revenge? There's a lot of slashes here.
00:06:19This was very violent. It looked like she fought.
00:06:22I knelt down right next to her. I wanted to, you know, imagine or think that she was, you know,
00:06:27breathing or something. And I literally, I tried to give her CPR, like blow into her mouth and
00:06:32it literally blew out of her. She was pretty butchered up. And yeah, it was just horrible.
00:06:42She's lying on the floor in a pool of blood with multiple wounds, partially dressed and very dead.
00:06:54It's around the same time that Amanda's sister Amy Lee receives an unexpected visit from her aunt.
00:07:00And she told me, you know, your sister's dead. Your sister's been murdered. And I remember just crying instantly.
00:07:16I remember screaming. And my aunt is like, we need to find out who did this. We need to find
00:07:23out right now.
00:07:28And as we're in route to go tell her, my mom's calling me and she's saying, Amy, what's going on?
00:07:38My mom's begging me to tell her on the phone what's wrong.
00:07:42So I went outside and there were the Chigaby detectives and the state, my daughter, my husband,
00:07:54to let me know that she had been stabbed to death.
00:08:00So in real time, you're learning that your daughter was stabbed to death.
00:08:04How difficult is it to process all of this that's going on in that moment?
00:08:09Oh my gosh, how am I going to bury this kid? Or what, you know, 19, 20 year old has
00:08:14a,
00:08:14has a life insurance policy. Where do you get the money? Just that whole
00:08:19process of not knowing how to even comprehend what had happened.
00:08:30But then still knowing that, okay, I need, I need to put my child to rest.
00:08:36It's something you can never be prepared for.
00:08:39No, never in a million years.
00:08:45You see your friend and they're happy, they're vibrant, they're excited for life,
00:08:50and then all of a sudden, they're gone. And it just didn't make sense. It still doesn't make sense.
00:08:58I had this heavy gut feeling that something, something really bad was going to happen to
00:09:03Amanda. I was like, oh my God, did I manifest this? Like, did I put that thought out there?
00:09:11And it came true.
00:09:15Nobody could understand why it happened because Amanda was just friends with everybody.
00:09:20I don't remember Amanda having any enemies.
00:09:25Every single person in her life was a suspect. Everybody.
00:09:31Any detective or criminologist is going to tell you that our money is on Seth Green,
00:09:35the most recent boyfriend. My captain is now saying,
00:09:38head to the station. They got a possible suspect. He's down at the station. They're going to interview
00:09:43him. Need you there right now. It's a race against time.
00:09:46I think my knife may have been at our house.
00:09:49So you have a knife at our house?
00:09:51That knife was not found. Seth was the perfect suspect.
00:10:08To truly understand Amanda Plass, all you needed to do was look into her eyes.
00:10:16She can see her soul, the love that she had for everybody and anybody.
00:10:23Her eyes changed colors. When she was really happy, her eyes would literally turn green.
00:10:30What stands out to you when you think about her?
00:10:33Her spirit. Yeah, her energy.
00:10:37Amanda grew up in Chicopee, once a bustling mill town, now a quiet, working-class community known for
00:10:45the rambling Chicopee River.
00:10:48Chicopee is a small place. Everybody knows everybody.
00:10:52The neighborhood itself is a very close-knit neighborhood. The houses are pretty adjacent to
00:10:58each other. Very urban residential neighborhood. How often does it happen that you have a random
00:11:06murder? A lot of times you have a gang murder. And this was different because this is truly a victim
00:11:14in her own apartment. A young girl, 20 years old, brutally murdered.
00:11:20Amanda was the middle child raised by her mom, Michelle. She attended a local high school,
00:11:25but left before graduating and instead earned her GED.
00:11:30She was a hippie child. I often find her barefooted outside, painting or taking pictures of the
00:11:38neighbor's dog, playing her guitar. Growing up, we were like best friends.
00:11:45My mom used to dress us up like we were twins.
00:11:49My mom was a single mother for most of our childhood and we moved around a lot.
00:11:55I've always raised my children to be, you know, independent and you get what you earn.
00:12:04I used to call Amanda the bigger sister. She had a job, an apartment. Her work ethic was non-stop.
00:12:14Amanda was always dancing around and painting and splashing colors everywhere.
00:12:21Anything that had to do with being artsy, she would make feather earrings.
00:12:26When you see a sunflower, you think of Amanda. It became her trademark.
00:12:32When she found the music festival scene, that really is where she started to blossom.
00:12:37She's in her early 20s and she just found herself right before she passed.
00:12:43A butterfly coming out of a cocoon. Just the brightness. That was her.
00:12:53On that tragic Friday in Chicopee, Amanda's boyfriend, Seth, whom she had only been dating for about a week,
00:12:59tells police he stopped by Amanda's apartment and immediately noticed a broken window.
00:13:03I pounded on the door if I remember this. And then you could try to go to her apartment door.
00:13:08Yeah. Turned the handle in the hot.
00:13:10I went to her door and let myself in and she was laid on the floor in a pool of
00:13:15blood.
00:13:18You got off immediately and you called.
00:13:22You have the right to remain silent. Do you understand that?
00:13:26Seth had only been dating Amanda for the week.
00:13:28But he said he had moved his things in and it was a serious relationship.
00:13:36I've been hanging out every single day for a week now.
00:13:40And the relationship was moving fast, right?
00:13:44Yeah, it was moving fast.
00:13:45You know, she had that go-getter attitude and just a fun, caring person.
00:13:49What were you doing for a living at the time?
00:13:51I'm a carpenter, but roofing is where the money's at.
00:13:54So roofing was my main go-to usually for the construction field.
00:13:59Seth tells police he spent the night at Amanda's, left for work around 9am,
00:14:03and returned to find her dead.
00:14:07He also tells investigators he was working on a roof that day
00:14:10and left the job site multiple times to purchase supplies.
00:14:16What time did you leave to get the materials?
00:14:19They had left like three lines.
00:14:21It was later in the day.
00:14:22Three to four, like three to four.
00:14:25Seth says he and Amanda had kind of fallen into a routine.
00:14:27Every day after he finished working, Seth would drive Amanda to her job at Friendly's.
00:14:33However, the day she was murdered, Seth tells detectives that routine was broken
00:14:38because he had to work late.
00:14:40He was there every day that week to take her to work.
00:14:45But this is the one day that he had to work late.
00:14:48That kind of was suspicious to us.
00:14:52How important was Seth's timeline?
00:14:54His timeline is very important.
00:14:56He leaves the job site several times and he's on his own.
00:14:59So where exactly did he go or what exactly did he do?
00:15:04I texted her.
00:15:04I said, where are you?
00:15:05She didn't answer.
00:15:07My first thought was like, oh, she just, she stayed home.
00:15:09Maybe she couldn't find a ride.
00:15:11So you weren't like concerned or anything at that point?
00:15:13No, not at all.
00:15:14I went, I went, I drove straight to her house,
00:15:17expecting to see her there waiting for me, you know?
00:15:20Oh my God, here we go.
00:15:28She deserves so much.
00:15:32I think you give it all to her.
00:15:35These range of motions does not add up.
00:15:37He's rising to the occasion of being a suspect.
00:15:43The interrogators zone in immediately on the fact that Seth Green is a carpenter and a roofer.
00:15:48In other words, he uses sharp objects and utility knives all the time.
00:15:54Then comes a chilling detail that ratchets up the suspicion on Seth.
00:15:58He tells detectives the knife he used at work, a sharp M-Tech blade, has gone missing.
00:16:12He was missing his M-Tech knife that he didn't take to work that day.
00:16:17That knife was not found.
00:16:19Seth was the perfect suspect.
00:16:21My girlfriend just got murdered and you're blaming me for it.
00:16:25Dude, are you kidding me?
00:16:29And now police want to know, is the telltale piece of evidence left behind at the crime scene
00:16:34implicate or exonerate Seth Green?
00:16:49Michelle Penna will never forget the final text message she received from her daughter Amanda.
00:16:57She sent me a text and said, Mom, can you give me a ride to work?
00:17:02And I said, I can't.
00:17:05And she said, okay, she'd find a ride.
00:17:08No one could have imagined that just hours later, 20-year-old Amanda Plass would be gone forever.
00:17:16Homicides happen all the time.
00:17:18But when it happens to you, I would have never thought that my sister was going to be murdered.
00:17:26What you stumbled upon when you went to Amanda's house, how does that compare to a lot of other homicides
00:17:30you've covered?
00:17:31In this particular case, there's droplets of blood all around the room, and that's indicative.
00:17:36This was a very, very brutal and harsh fight.
00:17:45Well, when we were finally able to get into her apartment,
00:17:50they had covered the floor with paper so we didn't have to see all the blood.
00:18:00So when you're trying to clean out her apartment as I'm walking across paper
00:18:10to cover my daughter's bladder blood, and then who do you ask to help?
00:18:18My theory is that the attacker came through the back door.
00:18:23When we found Amanda, she's actually in her work pants, her work clothes.
00:18:29There was no evidence of a sexual assault.
00:18:33She was found on the kitchen floor, and they do believe she was killed there.
00:18:38So not in a bedroom, not in the living room, and that suggests perhaps an element of surprise.
00:18:43She just didn't lay down and die.
00:18:45She actually fought back.
00:18:48And when she fought back, underneath her fingernails was possibly DNA,
00:18:54and we're going to have to match this DNA to someone.
00:18:57The first person investigator's test?
00:19:00Amanda's boyfriend, Seth Green.
00:19:04I'm going to do a couple tests.
00:19:05We're just going to swipe the inside of your cheek, okay?
00:19:09The interesting thing, we stepped out of the room, but we still observed him.
00:19:14And he'd cry a little bit, and then just wonder why, why he was there.
00:19:22I can't believe that.
00:19:24I'm so happy with her.
00:19:27I'm happy with her, at least.
00:19:31He had only been dating her for a week.
00:19:34And he was so caught up, this is the best thing that ever happened to his life.
00:19:41But detectives also receive information that points to someone other than Seth.
00:19:46Amanda had recently told her family that someone had been sneaking into her apartment.
00:19:53She said, my apartment got broken into again.
00:19:56And I said, well, what did they take?
00:19:58You need to call the police.
00:19:59And she says, no, Mom, all they took was a glass bowl, like a marijuana bowl.
00:20:05I said, well, you still need to call the police.
00:20:08And she said, no, what am I going to do?
00:20:09Tell them my pocket stolen.
00:20:15Amanda's friends say she suspected an unidentified male was watching her.
00:20:22She saw him peeking into her back window of her apartment.
00:20:28The window is actually broken.
00:20:30And we surmised that the person possibly had tried to make it look like a break-in.
00:20:37So on that same window, you end up with a palm print.
00:20:40We can identify the palm print.
00:20:42We can also identify the person that would have been there that particular day.
00:20:46But among the most important piece of evidence found at the crime scene,
00:20:51a bloody sneaker print.
00:20:54That footprint showed a sneaker print in blood.
00:21:00You can actually see the Nike impression in that footprint.
00:21:07We had it measured.
00:21:08We had it analyzed.
00:21:10That was very important because of the smaller shoe, maybe a female, maybe a male.
00:21:16We were looking for a Nike size 7 1⁄2 Air Max shoe.
00:21:27We were looking for a female, maybe a female, maybe a female.
00:21:27I remember a couple days after she was murdered, everybody had, like, went to her apartment in
00:21:34Chickabee Center and just held, like, a memorial.
00:21:39The whole front of her building was just a sea of sunflowers.
00:21:45That was a really intense, emotional time to be in front of the apartment of where she was murdered
00:21:56and just comforting each other, just shocked, not understanding how or why.
00:22:06And then, a few days after Amanda's murder, there was a funeral.
00:22:25Meanwhile, police aren't giving up on the idea of Amanda's boyfriend, Seth, as a suspect.
00:22:29Within hours of Amanda's murder, they even go as far as to ask him for the shoes on his feet.
00:22:35Would you give us permission to look at your shoes?
00:22:38Yeah, you can take them. Let me take them off now.
00:22:40Let's put up.
00:22:45Finally, after almost 15 grueling hours, investigators reach a conclusion.
00:22:50Seth Green is not their killer.
00:22:53His DNA did not match. His shoe print didn't match. His boots were a size 12.
00:22:59It was too large to be the person at the scene.
00:23:06Clearly, there's some other shoes there that were not mine.
00:23:09And that's the thing that got me released, honestly.
00:23:14What did that moment feel like for you?
00:23:16Well, it was definitely a big relief, you know, honestly.
00:23:19Yeah, when they were walking me out, it was definitely an in-aw moment.
00:23:24Like, you know, finally. Like, I told you guys a million times, it wasn't me.
00:23:28What is that like to go through that, to experience the loss and then have to face that questioning?
00:23:33I mean, it's unbearable, honestly. It's like, I just called you guys.
00:23:37Like, you know, why are you, you know, trying to blame me for this?
00:23:40Like, you know, like, I love this girl.
00:23:45Seth is officially cleared as a suspect and tells cops there's someone else they should be looking at.
00:23:51She said she had a lot of bad relationships in the past.
00:23:55Detectives also want to learn about an ex-boyfriend who was allegedly upset
00:23:59after seeing a public display of affection between Seth and Amanda at Friendly's.
00:24:04While she was working, he had showed up at work and they started making out.
00:24:09And detectives say that ex's reaction wasn't very friendly at all.
00:24:14So at the very least, you had to consider that he could have had something to do with this.
00:24:18It was very much so.
00:24:20The motive of revenge is in our mind.
00:24:43What surprised you most about the conversations police were having with you?
00:24:47It was hard for me to hear them kind of making me feel like they're, you know,
00:24:51asking me questions like if I, as if I were the one that did it.
00:24:55Not something I'd ever want anyone to have to go through.
00:24:58It's just horrible.
00:25:10Amanda's boyfriend, Seth Green, is fully cleared.
00:25:13But now investigators wonder if one of those previous relationships
00:25:16could be a factor in Amanda's murder.
00:25:19They discovered that before Seth, Amanda had been seeing a man named Jesse.
00:25:24He was a boyfriend of Amanda basically a week before Seth was.
00:25:30And he also worked at Friendly's.
00:25:32So at the very least, you had to consider that he could have had something to do with this.
00:25:37Very much so. Jesse wanted a serious relationship. Amanda didn't.
00:25:41And she finds a new boyfriend.
00:25:43Police learn of an alleged incident at Friendly's involving Jesse
00:25:46and Amanda's new boyfriend, Seth, that raises alarm bells for authorities.
00:25:51Friday was a murder. Thursday night, when Jesse's working,
00:25:55Seth shows up at the Friendly's.
00:25:58Amanda's boss at Friendly's tells police,
00:26:00Seth came in and kissed Amanda openly. Jesse saw it.
00:26:04And he looked uncomfortable afterwards. Jesse asked to go home a little later.
00:26:08Jesse moves up the chain as a very likely suspect.
00:26:11A motive of revenge is on our mind about Jesse.
00:26:14I want to play some of your interrogation from speaking to Jesse.
00:26:18So you both worked at Friendly's on that Thursday, right?
00:26:21Correct.
00:26:22You left work early, right?
00:26:24Correct.
00:26:25You told us that you left because they overscheduled you, right?
00:26:28Yeah.
00:26:29Okay.
00:26:30Well, that's not what we heard.
00:26:32We heard that Seth went in there, gave her a kiss that made you uncomfortable.
00:26:36Seth was in there for like a while.
00:26:39And he did kiss Amanda in front of you and it made you uncomfortable.
00:26:42Not that I'd seen.
00:26:43I'd seen them talking.
00:26:44It didn't bother me.
00:26:45I was talking to Seth.
00:26:47But I've never physically seen them kiss.
00:26:50Not once.
00:26:51You knew that Amanda was dating Seth.
00:26:56Yeah.
00:26:59How'd that make you feel?
00:27:03It sucked, but what are you going to do?
00:27:09After he left work, Jesse says he texted Amanda about some items they wanted back from each
00:27:14other now that their relationship was over.
00:27:16But investigators press him about the nature of those messages.
00:27:20Was there any anger in the text?
00:27:22Not in that text.
00:27:23I don't believe so.
00:27:24But there was some anger in some other text, weren't there?
00:27:26Yeah.
00:27:27I was just angry at the fact that she just didn't talk to me for a few days and I
00:27:31was just wondering
00:27:32what was going on.
00:27:33I was just pissed that she wouldn't tell me.
00:27:35And this is the time that she's now with Seth?
00:27:39I don't know if I knew about it yet, but she was probably talking to him then.
00:27:45At this point, you're trying to figure out who might have been involved.
00:27:49How does this information fit into your investigation?
00:27:52We're looking at the fact of who could have done this, who was angry at her.
00:27:57Because as we look at the scene, there's a lot of blood, there's a lot of anger going on.
00:28:01It's not a one and done out the door.
00:28:04Can we also look at your phone?
00:28:07What'd you do with those text messages that you texted her?
00:28:10Do you delete them all?
00:28:11Texts are deleted.
00:28:13Because you thought they were uncomfortable?
00:28:15First of all, I didn't want to look at any conversation of me and her,
00:28:18just because it made me sad to even think about her.
00:28:22Why is that?
00:28:24Because she's murdered.
00:28:26So you deleted them after you found out she was killed?
00:28:29I didn't even want to have to look at them.
00:28:31Everything reminds me of her.
00:28:32As an investigator, what do you make of that?
00:28:34He's trying to hide something.
00:28:36So now there's obviously texts that he doesn't want investigators to see.
00:28:39Did he delete them because she's dead or is he part of something that happened to her?
00:28:44Deleting text messages certainly seems out of the ordinary.
00:28:47Yes, it does.
00:28:48Now investigators want to know if Jesse was doing anything out of the ordinary the day of Amanda's murder.
00:28:54Did you stay home all day?
00:28:56Most of the day.
00:28:57The only time I really left was to go to Friendly's.
00:28:59What did you go there for?
00:29:01For my check.
00:29:03Did you cash it?
00:29:04No.
00:29:04Oh, actually, yeah, I did cash it at General's.
00:29:06How did you get there?
00:29:08I got a ride.
00:29:10For who?
00:29:12Kyle.
00:29:12He says he goes to General's.
00:29:15We check a tape to verify his story.
00:29:17We learned that Kyle did not drive him there.
00:29:20So Jesse had lied.
00:29:22Jesse, we interviewed you twice already.
00:29:26And were you telling us the truth?
00:29:29Everything except for about me taking my car to General.
00:29:35Why weren't you telling the truth about that?
00:29:37Because I told you guys that I didn't drive my car.
00:29:40And then when we got into the story, I remember I took my car to General.
00:29:43I just didn't want to go back to my word.
00:29:45I was scared.
00:29:46I don't know.
00:29:48I regretted it at the second time I did it.
00:29:51You were scared?
00:29:52Yeah.
00:29:55And what were you scared about?
00:29:57Just nervous.
00:29:58I've never been interrogated before or anything like that.
00:30:02Never had a deal with anything like this.
00:30:04Basically, his story is he didn't want to tell his parents he wasn't supposed to be driving.
00:30:09So he's more afraid of his parents than he was of the police.
00:30:13Jesse has lied about who he is with from Friendly's quite possibly if he's in the car by himself.
00:30:20He could have went by Amanda's and then went to General's.
00:30:24With questions lingering over Jesse's account, investigators decide to compare his shoes
00:30:29to the bloody shoe prints left of the crime scene.
00:30:42Ultimately, Jesse's shoes are not a match and his alibi checks out.
00:30:48We talked to people at General's.
00:30:50He's not bloody.
00:30:51He's cashing his check.
00:30:53Those close to Jesse never thought for a second that he was capable of such a heinous crime.
00:30:58Tell me about Jesse.
00:30:59Jesse's a great kid.
00:31:01When his name was brought up, that was an absolutely not moment.
00:31:05I've never seen Jesse angry.
00:31:08Sweetest kid.
00:31:09And I know that was really intense for Jesse.
00:31:11Yeah.
00:31:12I know that was, you know, to be put in that spotlight and to have the whispers,
00:31:17I think that was really hard for him.
00:31:19With Jesse now fully cleared by authorities, investigators follow another lead,
00:31:23a mysterious vehicle that a witness says she saw speeding away from Amanda's apartment
00:31:28right around the time of the murder.
00:31:30So to us, it's like, wow, that's, that's big.
00:31:33We're on the lookout for a white sedan.
00:31:34And a 911 call comes in that might just turn the entire case on its head.
00:31:40Police, court of dispatch, data speeding.
00:31:43I'd like to call to turn myself in.
00:31:46Ask to know what you're turning yourself in for.
00:31:48A learner.
00:31:59Jesse, there's a couple of things that are bothering me here on your statements.
00:32:04Amanda's ex-boyfriend, Jesse, raised eyebrows when detectives say
00:32:08he was less than forthcoming with information.
00:32:12Now, you said you still don't know how she died.
00:32:15I don't.
00:32:16You don't.
00:32:17I find that very hard to believe that you have no idea how she died when
00:32:21everybody's talking about it. It's been on the news.
00:32:23But after determining Jesse had a solid alibi, he was cleared and investigators with the
00:32:29Chicopee police and the state police quickly move on, still unclear who exactly they're searching for.
00:32:36One of the best clues that investigators find is a shoe print, a sneaker that is a size seven and
00:32:43a half
00:32:43men's shoe, which is very small for men. It's the smallest size you can get in men's shoes.
00:32:49Or it could be a woman's size nine.
00:32:55Investigators get a new lead from a neighbor of Amanda, a witness who told police she saw a
00:33:00suspicious car the day of the murder outside Amanda's apartment.
00:33:05And so afterwards, as you're learning more about the scene,
00:33:09you learn about this white sedan that's here that peels away at one point.
00:33:13Right.
00:33:14Not a common thing to do.
00:33:15Not a common thing to do.
00:33:16And we actually got that information from the neighbor next door.
00:33:20They remember a white car here and they just remember a female, single female in the car,
00:33:26pulling away at a high rate of speed around the 430 hour.
00:33:31And then we identify who that white car was, ended up being a girl from East Hampton named Mercedes Benz.
00:33:38That's right. Her name is Mercedes Benz.
00:33:43Another friend of Amanda's who works at Friendly's.
00:33:46Mercedes was a really nice girl. She was a waitress here also.
00:33:49And she was friends with Amanda. And we used to talk to her all the time also.
00:33:56Now it was police who wanted to talk to Mercedes Benz.
00:34:01Mercedes tells detectives that Amanda had texted her earlier that day asking for a ride to work.
00:34:07She said it was a little after 5 p.m. when she arrived at Amanda's building.
00:34:10This is right around the time police believed Amanda was murdered.
00:34:16Mercedes said she called and texted Amanda to let her know that she'd arrived.
00:34:20But after waiting five or six minutes, she said she left.
00:34:26We talked to Mercedes Benz and she says, well, the reason I had to leave was I had to go
00:34:32to Walmart.
00:34:32Does that add up for you?
00:34:33It doesn't add up because her purpose of coming here all the way from East Hampton was to give a
00:34:38ride
00:34:38to Amanda to work to Friendly's, which is basically five to 10 minutes down the road. So it doesn't make
00:34:44sense. If you pull up here to get her, why would you just leave without even going upstairs?
00:34:51But what seems like a promising lead fizzles out. That neighbor who saw Mercedes speed away
00:34:57confirms she never got out of her car. And police obtained surveillance footage from Walmart that backs
00:35:03up her timeline. That's her in the white sedan pulling into Walmart. And more footage shows her
00:35:08shopping inside the store. Mercedes was basically cleared once we were able to get the tape from Walmart.
00:35:17Frustrated, investigators pushed forward, now casting a very wide net.
00:35:21I mean, they were taking DNA from everybody and anybody.
00:35:26We made a point for the medical examiner to make fingernail clippings of her fingernails.
00:35:31On this particular case, it was entered in a database and there was no convictions
00:35:36for a felony that would have matched it. With no matches to the DNA collected at the crime scene
00:35:42and no viable suspects, the case stalls.
00:35:47What surprised you most about this time? I think how tight-lipped they were,
00:35:53whether it was Ronnie Gibbons or Chickabee Detectives. Nobody was talking. Even
00:36:01to me, nobody was talking. They were very tight-lipped about certain things.
00:36:08How did that make you feel? It was very frustrating at first because I wanted answers.
00:36:14And I would call every Sunday night. I would call down to Chickabee Police Department,
00:36:19looking for the detectives. What's the update? What's the update? What's the update? Got nothing to tell
00:36:24you, Michelle. Got nothing to tell you, Michelle. But it's just, at what point is, I never gave up,
00:36:31but you just think, is this going to be a cold case? Will I ever know?
00:36:41That fear of never getting justice for Amanda was fuel for a fire that was now burning inside Michelle.
00:36:49My mom made it very clear that she wasn't just going to let the case go cold.
00:36:54I didn't give up hope because Michelle never gave up hope. She never gave up. She didn't let anybody
00:36:59else either. Tell me about how after this time had passed that you said, I got to take matters into
00:37:06my own hands. I was driving home from work and I saw a billboard and underneath it was Lamar and
00:37:12the company. And I said, you know what? Mom ain't playing around no more. I called them and emailed
00:37:22them. And next thing I knew, Amanda's billboard went up. And that's just the beginning, right? You did
00:37:30flyers, balloon releases. I even had cards made up, business cards with the Texas tip number on it.
00:37:37And we attached them to the balloons. When we did the balloon releases, one of the balloons ended up
00:37:42three hours away, Cape Cod. Wow. It's been 18 months and five days since Amanda was murdered.
00:37:49So today I'm hoping with the release of these balloons that somebody will come forward.
00:37:55Somebody knows something that happened that day. It was a busy Friday afternoon. We're just looking
00:38:00for that one missing piece of the puzzle. She was just in your face. She really was like you would
00:38:06be
00:38:07as a mother. You want to find out what happened to your child. And she was out there. She was
00:38:11going to
00:38:11find out. Michelle's a force. Despite Michelle's efforts to publicize Amanda's case,
00:38:18the investigation continues to languish.
00:38:23Then a dramatic development. More than a year after the murder, a 911 call comes in that initially
00:38:30stuns police. A man confesses to Amanda's murder.
00:38:35I like to turn myself in. I live in Plymouth. Spell your last name.
00:38:41Do I really have to? I'm turning myself in.
00:38:45Right. But I have to know what you're turning yourself in for.
00:38:47A murder. From where, sir? From Chicopee.
00:38:54I'm from Amanda Platt, and I just can't handle it anymore.
00:38:59Cops tracked down the caller, but just like hundreds of other promising leads,
00:39:03the confession is a dead end.
00:39:06The caller was impersonating another man trying to get him in trouble. Neither had any involvement in
00:39:12the murder. They had read it online, facts about the murder. And once you got through the facts,
00:39:20there was no factual basis to their, to the confession. This is a very frustrating investigation.
00:39:31And then a discovery that blows the investigation wide open.
00:39:36And I still remember the night. It was probably 10 o'clock at night.
00:39:39I get a call from Ronnie Gibbons.
00:39:40Michelle, you got that whiteboard from the apartment?
00:39:44A clue that had been hiding in plain sight all along.
00:39:49I never heard his name.
00:39:51Had you ever heard Amanda mention something, Dennis?
00:39:54Never. Not once.
00:39:55Can you spot the clue on this whiteboard?
00:40:10Where do you guys want me to start?
00:40:13Nobody could wrap their head around the fact that Amanda was killed to begin with,
00:40:17let alone trying to think of who could do it.
00:40:21We had a billboard on 391, a huge billboard with this beautiful picture that she took of herself.
00:40:27That day she was murdered.
00:40:31Somebody knew something and nobody was talking.
00:40:35I kept saying, there's no way that there's no DNA. There's, there's just no way. There has to be something.
00:40:45There was a whiteboard way in the back.
00:40:48On a whiteboard, there's wording in it, Dennis was, W-A-Z, here.
00:40:54Who's Dennis?
00:40:55I got goosebumps right now.
00:41:08I was on the way to the hospital.
00:41:10They had told me 12 hours before I had her that I was having a boy.
00:41:15And Amanda by Boston was on the radio.
00:41:18That's her godmother and I drove to the hospital.
00:41:21And when she was born, the nurse looked at me and said,
00:41:24It's not a boy. I named her Amanda after the song by Boston.
00:41:43She was just always bubbly and fun and she had this big curly hair and she just, you know, she
00:41:50was a light.
00:41:57But on that tragic Friday in August, Amanda's bright light was extinguished.
00:42:01And she was found brutally murdered in her apartment.
00:42:05She was laying on the kitchen floor right, right when I opened the door.
00:42:08She's in a pool of blood. She's down to death.
00:42:11I got the call to say that we have a homicide and respond to the scene.
00:42:15So I actually responded to the scene initially.
00:42:22People in the neighborhood were worried.
00:42:24Is someone gonna come to my door and kill me?
00:42:29You don't even think it's real at first, you know, you're numb to it.
00:42:32Then you're like, oh, okay, maybe something's like amiss.
00:42:35Like maybe this isn't true.
00:42:38Nobody could wrap their head around the fact that Amanda was killed to begin with,
00:42:42let alone trying to think of who could do it.
00:42:48At the crime scene, police discover a partial palm print on the broken window
00:42:53and a bloody shoe print in the kitchen near Amanda's body.
00:42:57But with lead after lead coming up empty, the investigation is losing momentum.
00:43:02They interview hundreds of people who knew her, friends, relatives, co-workers,
00:43:06and there is nothing new under the sun. Unless somebody comes forward with new information,
00:43:11this case is going to grow cold.
00:43:14I think there's this impression sometimes that a murder happens, police will solve it in months.
00:43:20Some cases they take time, they linger. Was that frustrating for you?
00:43:25It was very frustrating. Very frustrating because, you know, as time goes on and you have to realize
00:43:33that in 2011 when this occurred, time didn't stop. Investigations didn't stop. Crime didn't stop.
00:43:39So we were working on other cases as well. I was getting nervous that her case was going cold.
00:43:44Somebody knows something that happened that day. We're just looking for that one missing piece of the puzzle.
00:43:50Amanda's mother, Michelle, takes matters into her own hands, organizing benefits, balloon releases.
00:43:55She even got a massive billboard with Amanda's picture put up on the highway.
00:44:00I wanted people driving down the highway and seeing my daughter's face.
00:44:07Somebody knew something and nobody was talking.
00:44:13But then, a little more than a year after the murder, the story takes a strange turn.
00:44:19Rumors are swirling in Chicopee about graphic crime scene photos seen at a high school football game.
00:44:25New details on the Chicopee police officers accused of taking pictures of murder victim Amanda Plass' body.
00:44:33It was June 10th of 2013. I will never forget.
00:44:39There was a news conference. It was the then mayor who was appointing a new chief of police
00:44:46and said that they were investigating a crime scene photo leak by two of the Chicopee police officers.
00:44:55My heart just sank. What do you mean police officers were taking pictures of the crime scene?
00:45:01And sharing them?
00:45:03Two Chicopee police officers who had been assigned to protect the crime scene took photos of Amanda's
00:45:09body with their personal phones and adding insult to injury, they forwarded the pictures to other
00:45:14officers and it was shown to coaches at a high school football game.
00:45:18Everyone in the whole newsroom was, how could anyone do this? How could an officer do this?
00:45:23Michelle sued the police department and the city,
00:45:26claiming emotional abuse suffered at the hands of the Chicopee PD.
00:45:30They sued them for 10 million dollars. I sued the city, the police department,
00:45:35sued them all. It wasn't about the money. It was about proving a point.
00:45:40An internal affairs investigation called the behavior
00:45:43an affront to the professionalism otherwise demonstrated by Chicopee and the state investigators
00:45:48in this case. The officers responsible were disciplined by the police department.
00:45:54They were there to protect the scene and at my daughter's most vulnerable moment,
00:46:05you disrespect her in the worst way ever and think that's okay.
00:46:13I just... Oh, I was mad.
00:46:19At the same time Michelle's dealing with the photo controversy,
00:46:22she's campaigning tirelessly to keep Amanda's murder case front and center.
00:46:28What was it like for you to have to handle questions about that controversy,
00:46:35while at the same time, what you're really focused on is finding your daughter's killer?
00:46:40Yeah, and I think that's the hard part of it all. I didn't want the controversy to overshadow the fact
00:46:48that we still did not have justice for Amanda. We were still looking and begging for that end to be
00:46:56closed.
00:46:57Investigators working on Amanda's case had no involvement in the alleged scandal.
00:47:02Frustrated by the lack of progress, they go back to square one, reviewing everything from scratch.
00:47:08We would try to keep saying, what did we miss? What did we miss? What did we miss?
00:47:14And then a breakthrough. While reviewing photos of the crime scene, investigators spot a potentially
00:47:20critical clue that had been overlooked, hiding in plain sight in Amanda's bedroom.
00:47:26We come upon, in a scene where the table was at, there was a whiteboard way in the back. On
00:47:34a whiteboard,
00:47:35there was wording in it, Dennis was, W-A-Z, here, 8-11-11.
00:47:42The grisly murder took place in the kitchen, but the whiteboard was in Amanda's bedroom,
00:47:47which appeared undisturbed, and they missed the clue.
00:47:51I get a call from Ronnie Gibbons, and it was like quarter to 10 at night.
00:47:56Michelle, you got that whiteboard from the apartment?
00:47:58I said, yeah, it's in the closet.
00:48:01He said, I'll be over in five minutes. I gotta grab it.
00:48:04After more than two years, investigators finally had a name.
00:48:08But the answer to the question, who is Dennis, only brings more mystery.
00:48:13This Dennis was here on this whiteboard. This is a huge clue for your case.
00:48:17This is a big clue. Why? Because Dennis' name had never come up in the investigation.
00:48:22Now we're scrolling through Amanda's Facebook going, who's Dennis?
00:48:26She didn't know. Amy Lay didn't know.
00:48:29Her friends were calling me going, Dennis. Nobody knew who Dennis was.
00:48:45Amanda's friend, Desiree, said, through force of sheer will, you kept her name out there.
00:48:51How difficult was that?
00:48:52It was difficult. It takes a toll. And there are some nights where you just, again, you
00:49:00don't want to be that mom. But then something else would pop up and you'd be like, okay,
00:49:08let me call Trooper Gibbons. It was tough. It was very tough.
00:49:15I had Michelle that was calling me at 11 o'clock at night, 12 o'clock at night, mad and
00:49:19angry.
00:49:19You gotta, you gotta do something. You gotta do something.
00:49:22There was never a time where Ronnie did not show up at my house without a smile on his face.
00:49:29The only side that I saw was the compassionate side. The side that said,
00:49:39I'm here to the end.
00:49:46It was a Wednesday night in October, more than two years after the murder,
00:49:50when Detective Gibbons was the one making a late night phone call to Michelle.
00:49:55It was October 30th, 2013, quarter to 10 at night. I get a call from Ronnie Gibbons.
00:50:01Hey, you still got that whiteboard from Amanda's apartment? I said,
00:50:06yeah, it's in the closet. He said, I'll be over in five minutes. I gotta grab it.
00:50:12The discovery of a name hiding in plain sight on a whiteboard in Amanda's apartment
00:50:16kickstarts an investigation that, frankly, had been on life support.
00:50:20Now the question everyone is asking, who's Dennis?
00:50:23No one knew Dennis.
00:50:25Had you ever heard Amanda mention someone named Dennis?
00:50:27Nope. Never. Not once.
00:50:29I never heard his name.
00:50:30The detectives told me right when they found it, asking me if I knew the name.
00:50:33I'm like, no idea.
00:50:36It is such a long shot, but they zone in on that and they decide they need to find out
00:50:41who Dennis is.
00:50:43One of the things I was missing was her cell phone. We went back to her cell phone records.
00:50:50We came out that there was phone calls. For a number, they came back to a Dennis Rosa Roman.
00:50:56I immediately recognized the name because about a year before, I had actually arrested Dennis Rosa Roman.
00:51:05Gibbons had arrested Rosa Roman on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.
00:51:10Rosa Roman pled guilty and paid a fine. But now Gibbons knew exactly who Dennis Rosa Roman was.
00:51:16The question? Was this the same Dennis whose name was on that whiteboard?
00:51:21Do you have anything further you want to tell us?
00:51:23A possible answer could lie in one of the police interviews with Amanda's ex-boyfriend Jesse.
00:51:28While Jesse was still dating Amanda, Amanda had told him that she thinks her apartment
00:51:34had been broken into while she was at work.
00:51:37She thought it was some kid that she had met and bought weed off or something.
00:51:40Jesse described him as being shorter. Jesse's probably like five, ten, six feet.
00:51:44He's got to live, like, somewhere within, like, a two-second walk.
00:51:50I remember used to see him walking around, like, that area all the time.
00:51:54Jesse said Amanda told him she had hung out with the person once before, but he had no idea where.
00:52:00Now Detective Gibbons is wondering if the man Jesse had been describing in that interview
00:52:04could have been Dennis Rosa Roman.
00:52:12Amanda lives about a half a block away from this park. She used to hang out here, right?
00:52:16Yeah, this is like a hangout for the neighborhood. And, uh, we learned later on this is kind of like
00:52:20where Dennis would hang out during the daytime, because it just didn't work.
00:52:24So they might have come across each other in this park just in passing in the neighborhood?
00:52:28Exactly, exactly.
00:52:31In the time since Amanda's murder, Dennis Rosa Roman had moved from
00:52:35Chicopee to nearby Westfield, Massachusetts.
00:52:39Gibbons decides to pay him a visit.
00:52:42So now we're headed to Westfield, Massachusetts. Why is that significant?
00:52:46That's very significant, because once we, uh, found the Dennis was here on the whiteboard
00:52:51and his number is on the phone, we want to locate Dennis.
00:52:56What's your expectation going there? What are you trying to achieve?
00:52:59The plan was to knock on his door and talk to him. Just like we had talked to
00:53:03over 50 other people in the case, as well as to get his shoe size, as well as to get
00:53:09his DNA.
00:53:13I go to the apartment, ring the doorbell, no answer. And next thing you know,
00:53:17I see from a side alleyway that's between the building, Dennis come out.
00:53:21And what happens next?
00:53:23Beautiful timing. But here he is, he comes right around the corner.
00:53:27Just walking right to you.
00:53:28Walking right to us.
00:53:30So I stop him and say, hey Dennis, you got a moment? We want to talk to you about
00:53:34Chicopee. We want to talk about a girl named Amanda Plass.
00:53:37Yeah.
00:53:37His first thing is, he kind of chuckles. He says, oh no, I don't go to Chicopee.
00:53:41It's too dangerous there. And I say, well, how about this girl Amanda Plass?
00:53:45And he says, I don't know Amanda at all. So I know that from the phone records, yes,
00:53:52he does know Amanda Plass.
00:53:54In fact, Gibbons knew from those phone records that there were nine calls between Dennis and
00:54:00Amanda. Dennis had called Amanda five times just a month before the murder.
00:54:05I said, hey, can we go to the police station? He said, no, no, I got something I got to
00:54:08do.
00:54:09I noticed him light up a cigarette and he's smoking on a cigarette. And now I'm thinking, wow,
00:54:14maybe I can get DNA off this cigarette that he's smoking.
00:54:17Although Gibbons had arrested Rosa Roman a year prior, because he had never been convicted of a
00:54:22felony, his DNA was never entered into the national database. Gibbons says Rosa Roman didn't want to
00:54:29talk to him that day and began to walk away, but not before he tossed the cigarette he was smoking
00:54:34on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, I told my partners, go to my car, get a paper bag, give me some rubber
00:54:41gloves. Dennis sees that because he keeps looking back. My partner's come back with rubber gloves.
00:54:47He sees me put them on. He sees that paper bag. He sees me reach down and put that inside
00:54:53that bag.
00:54:58Two days later, Dennis Rosa Roman is sitting in an interview room at the Westfield Police Department.
00:55:05So your first name is Dennis, right? D-S-D-N-N-I-S. Engaging in a high stakes game
00:55:11of cat and mouse with
00:55:12investigators. I don't feel right doing this at all, but I have to do. You want me to understand?
00:55:19I'm trying to save my life here.
00:55:30Outside his home, Dennis Rosa Roman appears to be acting cool and calm with detectives.
00:55:37Until he sees them pick up his cigarette butt off the street.
00:55:44Clearly he's concerned because not long after they leave,
00:55:47he calls Lieutenant Ronald Gibbons. After seeing me take that cigarette butt,
00:55:52he's now blowing my phone up. Hey, you and I got to talk.
00:55:57You say you really need to talk today. Yeah, like seriously.
00:56:02Where do you guys want me to start? Where they want him to start when they
00:56:06meet with the cameras rolling is very simple. Does he know Amanda Plass?
00:56:13You knew her?
00:56:15I met her. I didn't know her that long, but I knew her of her.
00:56:19Do you know her first name? Amanda.
00:56:24How much before did you meet her and that she passed?
00:56:29So like a week or two?
00:56:30Okay.
00:56:31Two weeks at most.
00:56:32So you know her about a week or two before she got killed?
00:56:34Yeah.
00:56:36He didn't know Amanda at all. And then he comes around to say that,
00:56:40okay, I did know Amanda, but I would sell her weed.
00:56:43I met her by Amy Dollar and Tedeschi and Jimmy.
00:56:47Okay.
00:56:47You know where that's at?
00:56:48Mm-hmm.
00:56:48So I seen her, you know, and she asked me if I could get some blood.
00:56:52How many times previously did you get weed for her?
00:56:56Something like three times the most.
00:56:59You ever been to her at a party?
00:57:00Uh, like up the stairs and that's about it. I've never, I've never stepped in her house.
00:57:06I've never seen the inside of her house.
00:57:08As Dennis is talking, he notices detectives checking out his sneakers.
00:57:13What are my shoes?
00:57:15Yeah. Nike's. Air Max's.
00:57:19What he wears into the station that particular day is this black Air Max shoe.
00:57:25And we took the aha moment to say, you know what?
00:57:28Can you take off your shoe? And I'm going to take a picture of your shoe.
00:57:33Oh, my feet sink. I'm sorry.
00:57:36Because the crime scene itself has in print, in blood.
00:57:40The print that you found on the scene, what size was that?
00:57:44That was a size seven and a half Nike shoe.
00:57:47And what size is the shoe that we're looking at?
00:57:49This is a size seven and a half Nike shoe.
00:57:52Remember, detectives have had no luck matching those bloody shoe prints to previous suspects.
00:57:59So according to Gibbons, this is potentially damning if confirmed.
00:58:03But still not as conclusive as a DNA match to what was found under Amanda's fingernails.
00:58:09So Gibbons says they get Rosa Roman to agree to a DNA mouth swab.
00:58:14Just, you know, your mouth is going to rub that into the side of your lip.
00:58:18And sort of to the other side.
00:58:19Gibbons says he wants Rosa Roman directly tested,
00:58:22in case that cigarette butt sample might somehow be contaminated.
00:58:27Doing great. Under your tongue.
00:58:31There's a really big difference between you thinking,
00:58:34hey, I think we got our guy and you lining it up with the evidence.
00:58:37This is a matter of facts.
00:58:39So the day that this all happened, what happened that day?
00:58:42So, Rosa Roman starts telling detectives his version of what happened the day Amanda was killed.
00:58:49I brought her some lead.
00:58:50Did she call you like that day?
00:58:51Yeah, she called me that day.
00:58:53She said, yo, give me a dime bag.
00:58:55She was not the one that came to the door.
00:58:57Like, the guy opened the door.
00:58:59He just said, yo, give me that and that's it.
00:59:01And I went about my way.
00:59:04What Dennis says is that this other guy was at the apartment.
00:59:09I didn't bother saying anything to the guy.
00:59:15He answers detectives questions about what he says the man looked like.
00:59:20I'm six feet, so what are you saying?
00:59:21Five, ten, maybe.
00:59:23So he's taller than you?
00:59:24Taller than me?
00:59:24I'll be the same, yeah.
00:59:27He has, like, dirty, longish hair.
00:59:29Which is white?
00:59:30Yeah, he's white.
00:59:31So he weighs, like, about 170, 190 the most, almost 200 pounds.
00:59:39And goes on to describe what he claims he heard while outside the apartment.
00:59:44I'm listening to this guy.
00:59:45He's like, I want my money.
00:59:47I didn't give you this for no reason.
00:59:50Why would you do this to me?
00:59:52I was looking at his voice.
00:59:53Yeah.
00:59:54You're asking him questions about the description of the man who made these comments
00:59:57from inside the apartment.
00:59:59Why are you asking him about that?
01:00:00Because I want to lock him into a story.
01:00:02Will you be consistent with that story, or you go on another tangent?
01:00:06So the guy said something to her, like, I want my money.
01:00:09I didn't do this.
01:00:09I want my money.
01:00:11I didn't do this for nothing.
01:00:12For nothing?
01:00:13Great.
01:00:14Did you hear her voice?
01:00:15No, I didn't.
01:00:16I didn't hear nothing.
01:00:17Rosa Roman is consistent.
01:00:20Even though Gibbons says he is convinced, Rosa Roman is making up his story.
01:00:25That's all about everything I know, and I can't say no more, no less.
01:00:30You know what I'm saying?
01:00:31It's really, I'm sorry, guys, but I'm actually helping you guys.
01:00:34You know what I mean?
01:00:34You're very helpful.
01:00:35Because you know what?
01:00:36Not too many people have told us that he saw the guy there, you know?
01:00:39So that's you.
01:00:40You're aces with me, you know?
01:00:43I didn't have enough to arrest him at this point.
01:00:46I had to allow him to leave.
01:00:48Thank you very much.
01:00:50One interview ends.
01:00:52But Rosa Roman isn't done answering questions.
01:00:56Two days later?
01:00:58This picture is inside of our apartment.
01:01:00You ever seen this room?
01:01:02It's a photo of that whiteboard.
01:01:04What will Rosa Roman have to say when he's shown his name is on it?
01:01:09And see right here, it says Dennis was here.
01:01:20Dennis, thank you very much for coming in.
01:01:22All right, Dennis.
01:01:23And you've been very cooperative with us, and we appreciate that.
01:01:28Dennis Rosa Roman agrees to another interview.
01:01:31I wish I had a little more to help you guys.
01:01:33Repeating the story, detectives say they don't believe.
01:01:36That he never entered Amanda Plass's apartment the day of her murder,
01:01:39after he claims some man answered her door.
01:01:58But Rosa Roman says that was long enough for the man to recognize him.
01:02:18But what Rosa Roman doesn't know is that Gibbons is expecting critical evidence to the case to
01:02:24come back at any moment. The results from his DNA swab.
01:02:28You were asking about this picture, right?
01:02:30Yeah, yeah, I want to see it.
01:02:31So before that happens, Gibbons confronts Rosa Roman for the first time
01:02:36about that all-important whiteboard where it says Dennis was here.
01:02:42This picture is inside of our apartment.
01:02:44You ever seen this room?
01:02:49First time I'm seeing it.
01:02:51We said, first time I'm seeing it.
01:02:53And then, well, how about this?
01:02:55This white boy that's in the back room.
01:02:58And see right here, it says Dennis was here.
01:03:01Oh, yeah, I do remember that. I wrote my name on that.
01:03:04You wrote your name on that?
01:03:04Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that.
01:03:06I wrote my name on that.
01:03:08So he's admitting to you that that's his name on the whiteboard.
01:03:12You've told me all this time you've never been in an apartment.
01:03:15And now I got you in there.
01:03:17So you signed Dennis was here.
01:03:19Right.
01:03:20You didn't put the date. No, I didn't.
01:03:21Okay.
01:03:22I don't even know why that's there.
01:03:23I don't.
01:03:23Yeah.
01:03:24But you remember this dry erase board?
01:03:25Yeah, I do remember.
01:03:27What was the dry erase board?
01:03:28That was in the back of, you know, the door, right when you come in?
01:03:33Yeah.
01:03:33It was right there.
01:03:34As he is confronted with the evidence, he shapeshifts.
01:03:38He manages to keep changing his story to try to ameliorate the facts in front of him.
01:03:43There are certain kind of people who can make up things on the fly and change their narrative
01:03:48based on the clues that are being given to them.
01:03:51You say you've never been inside a place.
01:03:53Well, I have been in her house, but like, I just don't want people to like, look at me like
01:03:59if I'm a murderer.
01:04:00So now this is the first time that he actually puts himself in the apartment.
01:04:07But you weren't in apartment. How many other times have you been inside?
01:04:09Twice.
01:04:10Twice.
01:04:10Twice. Two times. That's it.
01:04:12And we're waiting for it.
01:04:13Uh, to bring her weed and smoke the bottle and sign this.
01:04:15So the room that you were in were that back room, the kitchen and the back room. That's about it.
01:04:21The back room was where the whiteboard was.
01:04:24So what are you putting together at this point?
01:04:26I'm putting together at this point that he, in fact, had not only been in that back room,
01:04:32he'd also been in the kitchen at some point where the crime occurred.
01:04:38Remember, Amanda had told friends she suspected someone had broken into her apartment.
01:04:43And Dennis says she had asked him about that.
01:04:46You said that Amanda approached you about somebody breaking into her place.
01:04:50Yeah.
01:04:50She asked me, like, oh, somebody came into my house.
01:04:53Do you guys know? And I was like, well, I really don't know. Like, I don't know what to tell
01:04:58you.
01:04:59Now Gibbons suspects that someone was Rosa Roman.
01:05:02Then, a few minutes later, a huge development.
01:05:06The detectives get called to leave the interrogation room.
01:05:13How much longer is this going to take?
01:05:14Five minutes.
01:05:16Outside, they get the news the DNA results are in.
01:05:20Rosa Roman is a match for what was found under Amanda's fingernails.
01:05:24They soon drop that bombshell on him directly.
01:05:27The DNA that was found under her fingernails connects you to her.
01:05:32You know what? It doesn't just get there.
01:05:35Dennis is now thinking in his mind, how do I get out of this?
01:05:39And what he tells them next totally flips the story on its head.
01:05:43He now claims he tried to save Amanda.
01:05:45I know the murderer, and I tried to save her life.
01:05:49What's he trying to do here?
01:05:50He's trying to create a situation of why we have his DNA. Why his DNA is possibly on her.
01:05:56He's casting himself almost as the hero in this.
01:05:59Yes, he is.
01:06:00Well, why don't you tell us everything that happened in the apartment?
01:06:02I know the murderer. That's all I know. I can't give you no more. I'm sorry.
01:06:06That's it.
01:06:06You said he tried.
01:06:07I want a lawyer.
01:06:07Please.
01:06:08I want a lawyer.
01:06:09Okay.
01:06:11Gibbons says asking for a lawyer stops the interrogation room recording immediately.
01:06:15So you don't see the scuffle that he says breaks out
01:06:18when detectives handcuff Rosa Roman and place him under arrest.
01:06:22You don't have to be aggressive with me. You didn't have to be that aggressive.
01:06:27And then they have him booked. He's charged with first-degree murder.
01:06:31This is over two years after Amanda was killed. They tell you we are making an arrest.
01:06:37Yep.
01:06:38What did you think?
01:06:41Finally. Finally. You know, you always wonder why? Why? Why?
01:06:47Dennis, though, is admitting nothing.
01:06:49Were you guys trying to pen me for this murder, too?
01:06:52My DNA may be on her body. My DNA may be in the house.
01:06:55But you guys really don't know what the went down.
01:06:58But after he's transported from the Westfield Police Department to Chicopee,
01:07:01he's about to explain.
01:07:04He demanded to speak to myself and Watson again.
01:07:09So you, he didn't come to the door. You actually went inside.
01:07:12I went inside. I barged in.
01:07:14Was the door open?
01:07:15The door wasn't locked.
01:07:18As Rosa Roman tells them the newest version of his story,
01:07:21he now claims when he hears the commotion inside Amanda's apartment,
01:07:24he rushes in and fights the man he says was trying to kill her.
01:07:28What do you see when you get to the kitchen?
01:07:29I see the guy on top of her. When you say he was on top of her, where was she
01:07:33at?
01:07:33She was on the floor. What are you doing?
01:07:36I'm hustling with the guy, trying to get the knife out of his hand,
01:07:38and he's just, like, thrusting it, thrusting it, and thrusting it forward towards me.
01:07:42And I'm, like, trying to back up, and I try to, like, grab Amanda.
01:07:46And she scratched me. She scratched me. Yeah, she got some skin off of me.
01:07:51But that's because I was trying to save her.
01:07:53That's right. Rosa Roman now claims he tried to save Amanda's life.
01:07:57This is the key to his new story, his explanation for why his DNA is under Amanda's fingernails,
01:08:03even though he says he didn't kill her.
01:08:06And after that, me and him were tussling, and the guy punches me in the jaw, and I run out
01:08:11the door.
01:08:11And that's what his story was, that this guy is now following him around town.
01:08:16He's now being threatened by this guy because this guy doesn't want the truth to come out.
01:08:22What did he tell you? You know, you snitch on me, I'm gonna f***ing kill you.
01:08:27Just like that. Like, I know I killed her, and that's it. It's done.
01:08:31But now, Rosa Roman has to tell that story in court.
01:08:37The trial of the man accused of killing 20-year-old Amanda Plass is getting underway today in Springfield.
01:08:44And he says he can identify who Amanda's killer is.
01:09:02Amanda Plass' parents sat hand-in-hand with Justice for Amanda bracelets on
01:09:07as they waited for the murder trial of their 20-year-old daughter to begin.
01:09:12I think I broke down more so in the courtroom, just looking at him.
01:09:20It's kind of hard to describe how it felt to see him for the first time.
01:09:26It's like a fever dream. Like, is this really happening?
01:09:29But my mind was not on him. My mind is on my sister.
01:09:35When I was selected for the jury, it was surreal. It was definitely a bit of a,
01:09:41oh my God, what am I in for? The home that Amanda lived in was two houses
01:09:47from where my mother grew up and my grandmother lived. It just became very personal.
01:09:54The evidence in this case will show that on Friday, August 26, 2011,
01:10:01Amanda Plass was brutally murdered in her home.
01:10:05Ms. Plass was getting ready to go to work when the defendant came into her apartment
01:10:10while she was getting ready and stabbed her six times.
01:10:17Prosecutors lay out their case against Dennis Rosa Roman. There are the bloody footprints in
01:10:22his shoe size, his palm print on the broken window, and his DNA under Amanda's fingernails.
01:10:30They argue that Dennis, and only Dennis, committed this crime.
01:10:33One set of bloody footprints. One major male DNA profile under the,
01:10:41both her right hand and left hand fingernails. One killer, one defendant.
01:10:50They literally took us from A to B to C to D. They laid out every single piece of evidence.
01:10:57They correlated every piece of evidence to him.
01:11:02In addition to the physical evidence, prosecutors also used Dennis's own words against him.
01:11:08Is she right here that says Dennis was here? Oh yeah, I do remember that. I wrote my name on
01:11:14that.
01:11:19I think it was important for them to see the three interviews, because it showed Dennis as agreeing
01:11:30to some of the facts, denying some of the facts, and then coming around and changing the stories
01:11:35repeatedly. But while the prosecution says the evidence proves Dennis's guilt,
01:11:40the defense argues that it isn't what it seems. The last story he told was that he was there with
01:11:58another man, and he saw the other man kill Amanda. But he will never give the name, because he was
01:12:06afraid the killer would kill his family. And he tells you how many times he's afraid for himself,
01:12:12he's afraid for his family. Charge me, I'm not giving up his name. My name pops up, meaning if they
01:12:19capture him and my name pops up, he's going to kill me. Dennis's version of events kept changing over
01:12:28those three police interviews. In his final one, Dennis had a new detail for detectives, that the alleged
01:12:34killer was none other than his own drug dealer. Your dealer went to her house? Yeah. Your dealer?
01:12:41My dealer. The two of you walking the house together? Yeah.
01:12:45He had said he was there because he had given Amanda pot and she had not paid. So he said
01:12:55that the
01:12:58drug dealer killed Amanda and he saw it. I'm like, yo, why are you doing this? I'm gonna get you
01:13:07your
01:13:07money. And I try to grab her and she like grabs my arm and he's just keep going and going
01:13:13and going and
01:13:13going. What do you mean he's going and going and he's stabbing her? She continuously stabbing her and
01:13:18she just collapsed on the floor after I separated her. Think she was dead? I know she was dead. I
01:13:23was
01:13:23just thinking to myself, like, how do I get myself out of this?
01:13:30The defense strategy was basically that the police should look further.
01:13:37They continually brought up other people to say, well, it could have been them or it was them or it
01:13:42was this or just to try to have a sense of doubt.
01:13:48After eight days of testimony, the fate of Dennis Rosa Roman now rests with the jury.
01:13:54When we retired to the jury room to deliberate, we took a photo of Amanda.
01:14:00It was a close up of her face with her smile and we hung that in the jury room
01:14:04just so we could remember why we were there and what this was all about.
01:14:10It was hard. You don't ever want to think of your best friend going through something that awful.
01:14:17And that was her final moments. And then bringing that into the trial, it was just.
01:14:22It's terrible. It's terrible.
01:14:24To this day, it's just, there's no words.
01:14:29After only five hours of deliberation, the jury reaches a verdict.
01:14:34We were sitting in the DA's office in the break room. And next thing you know,
01:14:38you hear running down the hall that the jury came back.
01:14:42Breaking news this hour, a guilty verdict today in the Amanda Plass murder trial.
01:14:46The jury today found Dennis Rosa Roman guilty of first degree murder.
01:14:49We had a couple of jurors who weren't quite sure. One of them wanted to review a bunch of evidence
01:14:55again. And his commentary the whole time was, look at him. He's lying. He keeps changing his answers.
01:15:00And we very quickly came to a unanimous decision that Dennis was guilty.
01:15:06When that moment you felt?
01:15:08Relief, definite relief. Now I can put an end to this chapter.
01:15:16Despite a guilty verdict, there's still the unanswered question hanging over this case.
01:15:21And that's, why did Dennis Rosa Roman kill Amanda Plass in the first place?
01:15:35Dennis Rosa Roman has been found guilty of the murder of Amanda Plass. But the one mystery that
01:15:40still remains is motive. I don't know why. There's only one person who knows why.
01:15:46And he never spoke. So that's definitely the hardest of it.
01:15:50There wasn't a bad bone in that child's body. She never did anything wrong to anybody.
01:15:59Lieutenant Gibbons has developed his own theory as to why he believes Dennis Rosa Roman murdered Amanda.
01:16:07He says he learned during the investigation that there was a bag of marijuana inside Amanda's
01:16:11apartment left behind by someone else. Gibbons says investigators were never able to find that bag
01:16:17and suspects Dennis broke in looking to steal it. Dennis is a low-level dealer in the neighborhood.
01:16:25My theory is that he wanted to steal that weed that was in the apartment. And Amanda just be,
01:16:32was a victim of circumstances that she happened to be there when he arrived.
01:16:37Before Rosa Roman is sentenced, Amanda's mother, surrounded by family, tearfully addresses the court.
01:16:44In August 26, 2011, my world was forever changed.
01:16:51My pain does not end here, but my healing begins.
01:16:55I think at that point, it was finally my time to tell him, you took something precious from this world.
01:17:03And I hope you never see the light of day again.
01:17:06There is no amount of time that will ever bring Amanda back.
01:17:10I would like to ask Ork to hand out the highest sentence possible of life without fool.
01:17:17It's the justice Michelle Penna has spent more than five years fighting for.
01:17:22Ork is hereby sent to you to the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Cedar Junction
01:17:27for the term of your natural life without the possibility of parole.
01:17:31As you look at him and you see that he's getting life without parole,
01:17:34what emotions are going through you at that time?
01:17:36It was a relief knowing that we were finally at another closing point.
01:17:41Did you feel like justice had been served?
01:17:43Not justice will never be served because she's dead and he's not.
01:17:51As for those officers who snapped those photos of Amanda's body,
01:17:54at her most vulnerable moment, the mayor of Chicopee released a written apology.
01:18:00Michelle also reached a resolution in the lawsuit she filed.
01:18:05Plas's family sued the city of Chicopee and the police department.
01:18:08The lawsuit was settled for $110,000.
01:18:12Michelle continued her fight and helped pass Amanda's law.
01:18:17The bill bans first responders from taking and sharing unauthorized pictures of crime victims.
01:18:23For an officer to want in that moment to take a picture of a scene like that,
01:18:30it makes my stomach turn.
01:18:32My mom wanted to make it known that you're never doing that again.
01:18:37Today, Michelle keeps Amanda's memory alive by sharing her story with college students.
01:18:44This is about the path that I have taken.
01:18:47The path that has helped me to my healing process.
01:18:52I want people to know that grief never goes away.
01:18:56But dealing with it or trying to deal with it or put a bandaid on it enough to get you
01:19:00through every day
01:19:02is what you have to do.
01:19:04Thank you again.
01:19:06Thank you so much.
01:19:09Oh, these are great.
01:19:11That's her and Brandon.
01:19:13Brandon is my son.
01:19:15See just how the happiness on his face and her big smile.
01:19:21I have always said that Amanda passing
01:19:26kind of saved my life because I knew that I wanted to make her proud.
01:19:33She really helped me become the woman who I am today.
01:19:37She was just a very kind person and wanted to help the world be better.
01:19:41And that's just something I hope everyone can try to do, you know.
01:19:47Do you feel like she's with you now?
01:19:48Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.
01:19:50All the time.
01:19:51If you could have one more minute with her,
01:19:53one more second to say something to her, what would you say?
01:19:57What she always said and what she always did.
01:19:59Keep your face to the sun, never look back at your shadows,
01:20:02just like her precious sunflowers.
01:20:10Dennis Rosa Roman appealed his conviction, but it was denied.
01:20:14And David, even though he was sentenced to life without parole,
01:20:17there's still a chance he could walk free one day as early as 2028.
01:20:20A Massachusetts court has ruled that it's unconstitutional
01:20:23to sentence offenders under the age of 21 to life without parole.
01:20:26Rosa Roman was 20 at the time of Amanda's murder.
01:20:30Her family tells 2020 they plan to fight this new ruling.
01:20:33That's our program for tonight. I'm David Muir.
01:20:35And I'm Deborah Roberts.
01:20:36From all of us here at ABC News and 2020, good night.
01:20:56We'll see you in the next few weeks.
01:20:59Well, we're going to take a look at her at the next three years later.
01:21:03Thanks.
01:21:03Bye-bye.
01:21:04Is there anything I did for you?
01:21:09I'm sorry, good night.
Comments