00:00January 2008, Reno, Nevada.
00:0319-year-old college student Brianna Denison was back home for winter break.
00:08After a night out with friends, she fell asleep on a couch at a home near the University of Nevada
00:14campus.
00:15By 9 a.m., she was gone.
00:17Brianna vanished without her shoes, her phone, or her purse.
00:21The only clues left behind?
00:23A small, chilling bloodstain on her pillow and an unidentified man's touched DNA on the front doorknob.
00:31Investigators knew immediately this wasn't a runaway case.
00:34It was a kidnapping.
00:36The community rallied.
00:37Over 1,700 volunteers swept a 100-square-mile area.
00:42But as the FBI joined the hunt, a terrifying pattern began to emerge.
00:47The DNA found on the couch matched an attacker responsible for two recent, brutal sexual assaults in the exact same
00:54campus neighborhood.
00:56Soon, another victim stepped forward, revealing she had been assaulted at gunpoint in a campus parking garage just months prior.
01:04Reno police realized they weren't just looking for a kidnapper, they were hunting a serial predator.
01:10Using descriptions from surviving victims, police released a composite sketch.
01:15The city was on high alert.
01:17Women flooded local stores, causing a massive spike in the sales of handguns, stun guns, and pepper spray.
01:24But weeks passed, and the winter snow offered no answers.
01:28On February 15, 2008, 26 days after Brianna vanished, a local worker walking back from his lunch break noticed something
01:37odd.
01:37A flash of unnaturally bright, neon orange fabric, standing out against a pile of dead tree limbs in a ditch.
01:45As he drew closer, his heart sank.
01:48The neon orange fabric belonged to a pair of socks, attached to feet.
01:53An autopsy confirmed the devastating truth.
01:56The body was Brianna Denison.
01:58She had been brutally raped and murdered.
02:00To taunt investigators, the killer had left an unknown woman's underwear near her body.
02:06The case had gone from a rescue mission to a hunt for a cold-blooded killer.
02:11For months, the case went cold.
02:13Then, in November 2008, a massive breakthrough arrived via an anonymous secret witness tip.
02:21A woman phoned in with a terrifying suspicion about her friend's boyfriend, a 27-year-old local man named James
02:28Michael Bela.
02:30Bela's girlfriend had confided that she found unfamiliar women's underwear in his truck.
02:35Furthermore, Bela drove a vehicle matching the description of the campus attacker's car, a truck he had suddenly sold right
02:43after the murder.
02:44When police questioned Bela, he denied everything and refused to give a DNA sample.
02:49But investigators bypassed him.
02:52They tested Bela's 4-year-old son.
02:54The DNA match was undeniable.
02:57Bela's direct relative was the killer.
03:00Armed with a warrant, police arrested Bela and confirmed the final piece of the puzzle.
03:05His DNA perfectly matched the crime scenes.
03:08In May 2010, James Bela was found guilty of kidnapping, sexual assault, and the murder of Brianna Denison.
03:16Rejecting his defense team's pleas, the jury sentenced him to death.
03:21Brianna's tragic death fundamentally changed Nevada.
03:25In her honor, the state passed Brianna's Law, mandating that anyone arrested for a felony must submit a DNA sample,
03:33a law that has since helped catch countless other violent criminals.
03:37Brianna Denison was taken too soon, but her legacy continues to protect thousands of women today.
03:43By the way, ins've read the code again.
03:45Actively manages to keep up風ing and numéroing.
03:46In a second-degree.
03:46Ayily-chin VIVEexp open to the end of the night.
03:46Let them toRIDE hymn.
03:46Do not repentance.
03:46Yiversary-chin מ- Their問題.
03:46So there're not to be able to find situations that people may either let it ever be.
03:46But they were homeless, huh?
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