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this episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and may not be suitable for everyone please use discretion
one of the things that makes me laugh all the time and this tells you how old I am
um we used to back in Dallas there was the street called Forest Lane and you would drive up and down Forest Lane and
that's when you met boys now can you imagine that today however you stick your head out the
window I know does it sound ridiculous now I mean I'm sure people are rolling their eyes
Sheila waisaki was a student at Southern Methodist University SMU in the 80s sometimes for fun she and her friend
Angela simota would drive around Dallas she had the coolest car it was a Toyota Supra and of course she was adorable and
so it was great fun being with her because we would meet a lot of people and so we would go the up and down
Forest Lane how did you meet Angela simota I was just put with her as my freshman roommate I remember I remember
my freshman roommate um how was yours I mean did you did you well you and Angela no this was totally
the right match right away it was not the right match right away so um I had to get used to her and she had
to get used to me and when Angie and I I call her Angie um when she and I were put together she
came from a very wealthy family I obviously didn't um so we we came from a different
background Angie had a boyfriend who was always hanging around Sheila couldn't stand him
she thought he was controlling and so things got off to a pretty Rocky start between the roommates but then after the
holidays Angie broke up with the boyfriend we just started hanging out and you know it's back in the era of
disco that was the greatest thing going out and dancing and that was fun and then we
used to go to a place called the Rio room and the Rio room was a private club that you had to have a membership in
Angie was very friendly with the gosh I guess they're called bouncers now but he
would always let us in and we'd hang out and dance and she drank I didn't I still
don't and so I was the designated driver by the end of their first year they did
everything together I think back to those days and it was such a short period of my life but it changed it
completely at the beginning of their sophomore year in the fall of 1984 Angie decided to join a sorority but instead
of moving into a sorority house she got a condo off campus she'd begun dating an
older guy his name was Ben and she wanted to be able to see him whenever she wanted
Sheila kept living in the dorm and on the second weekend of October 1984 she was home visiting her mother in north
Texas so I was home just got in from a haircut and of course back then we didn't have cell phones and
the phone was rings I ran in went into my bedroom picked up the phone and on the other line was a sorority sister of
Angie's and a friend of mine who was crying her words were there's been an accident
and I immediately thought Angie had a car accident and I said to her where is she what
hospital is she and my friend kept crying so I knew you know obviously I knew something was wrong because I the next
question I asked was is she dead and my friend was crying harder so I knew that she was dead
and one of the things that um Barbara said is that the police needed to talk to me
I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal tell me about the weekend in October um of 1984.
that was Texas Oklahoma weekend and what that means is um the football season they have a big in
Dallas they have this big football game every year it's a huge deal in Texas and
all the people from Oklahoma come in and all the people from University of Texas
come in so it was a busy weekend and Angie decided to go out that night and invited one of her friends from
class and a guy named Russell and Russell was he was older than we were he was more established he was an
architect he was very soft-spoken guy so they decided to go to the real room they stayed out late and then Angie took
everyone home first she drove Russell to his apartment next she dropped off her friend at the
dorm and then she drove over to her boyfriend Ben's house now Ben was supervisor of construction
company so he was older and when I say older I only mean like two or three years it's not like 50 you know year old
with a 20 year old so he was probably 28 at that time and he was in charge of a construction
site and so he didn't go out that night with her because the um you know he had an early morning
at the construction site so Angie went by his house it was about I would say 30 minutes from
her apartment and her personality was really kind of funny and teasing and so Ben
opened the door and she was kind of teasing him about having to stay in and they only talked for a few minutes
she left he went back to bed she left and then when she came to her apartment she goes upstairs and then there was a
knock at the door and so she opened the door and um there was a guy at the door who
um said he needed to use the restroom and um the phone Angie was smart enough to go to her
telephone and dial Ben and when she dialed Ben he answered the phone he's groggy and he
wasn't really following I believe she was giving him Clues saying certain things and finally he goes I hear a
voice who is that and she said some strange man well the phone call between Angie and
Ben was cut off it it was cut off Ben because the phone because it ended you know and he didn't know what was
happening he got into his truck and back then we did not have cell phones however
he had a cell phone because the construction site his literally that phone was as big as a dashboard and so
he kept dialing the number over and over and of course she never answered [Music]
on October 13 1984 police found 20 year old Angie samoda dead in her bedroom she'd been fatally stabbed and sexually
assaulted officers interviewed SMU students who'd been close to Angie trying to piece
together the events of that night and also to try to get a sense of her life in general students were terrified they
didn't have a suspect and that's when the rumor started it could be this person or that person and all
these guys were under suspicion and you wonder is it somebody I know is it somebody I've been with is it somebody
that you know is a friend of Angie's of mine and who could it be and that gives you a lot of anxiety
how did you feel about her boyfriend Ben I liked them he was good for her her first boyfriend when we were freshmen
couldn't stand him he probably is not a fan of mine um but yeah I couldn't stand him Ben was
respectful um kind of funny so when his name came up as a suspect I was pretty surprised but there's part of
you that wonders well could it be you went to the police station I did that for being looking back
and being 21 years old and going into that environment never dealt with the police before
um it was it's it was a really gross um place to me and I remember going to meet the
detective in charge and to this day [Applause] still remember the pictures on his desk
those pictures were of the crime scene I understand that was just an everyday event for the
police but they were there and there's this one picture that still harms me they showed it in
the trial too and it's Angie on the bed with her eyes open and there's blood everywhere
and it was just a picture on the desk to somebody what did you think had happened to her I
mean when you were what did you think about I certainly had an opinion I thought the
freshman boyfriend killed her he had pulled a knife on her prior to this he had shredded her clothes I was 100
convinced that he killed her did the cops suspect the first boyfriend um they did an investigation on them so
there were four guys that were primary suspects he was one but his alibi uh he was in Amarillo his Alibi
evidently checked out um and of course Ben was a suspect then Russell Buchanan who had been with Angie
that night dancing and a fourth guide he had a crush on Angie and he'd leave her
notes on her car and she was so nice and you have to understand she was in the engineering and computer science
classes and you didn't have a lot of girls back then in in that field and so she was beautiful she was nice and these
guys loved her I mean she was such a nice girl so she would get flowers and notes and things and he was a suspect
just because he left her some love notes how did you first get involved helping the police
I think because I knew everybody I knew all the players and you know I could ask questions and talk
to people and I remember when it really started was I was on the phone with the detective
and I said I just have an uneasy feeling when I talked to this person and he goes
well let's explore that so we did and I would meet the lead Detective at bars which is hilarious since I don't
drink but I don't know if he's just you know said I need your help because I don't really think
they needed it well they did need it I think that he just used me as a resource so how it worked is
um he had me ask questions so I would go to dinner with Russell asked him questions about you know that night and
compare it to what he told the police now the police were convinced that Russell
did it and I was told that you know a semen matched his he failed the lie detector test they
believe they have their guy and when I had dinner with them at August Moon thinking I'm sitting with a murderer his
story matched what he said before but let me just wait a second you're 21 and you're sit I mean I would be terrified
to have dinner with this guy I would say my mother has never been was never madder than that moment and I just
thought somebody's got to do it did the police tell you what to ask yes I'm not smart I was definitely not smart
enough to know what to ask um and so I asked what they wanted to know I mean were you I
know after me if he if he said I'm snooping around here we went to a public area
the only mistake I made is he drove that was probably not the wisest thing thinking back but yeah I the whole time
I didn't eat I sort of ate and just watching him everything that it was doing is
body language if he's the bad guy and you know I'm I really thought he was the murderer
the Dallas Police it's just you I mean it's in the 80s well but it's not 1880 you know I mean I
never questioned I had such a high regard for the police that I would never question anything they asked or did
the police questioned Russell repeatedly but they never charged him they just didn't have enough eventually the
investigation seemed to fizzle out and then Russell started graduate school in London so you know I'm being told he
fled the country I also was told that he lawyered up and in Texas back in the 80s
the uh famous attorney was racehorse Haynes they told me that he has racehorse Haynes as the attorney
which meant he was guilty you only get racehorse hands if you're guilty evidently
why did they stop investigating I have no idea well actually I do I think they felt like Russell did it
and they were going to go after him and if he didn't do something um they didn't have a case
leaving school she just couldn't handle being on campus she stayed close with her friends and
with Angie's sorority sisters and she'd meet up with Ben from time to time and then she started dating the man who
would become her husband my husband fit into the group he was he's a solid grounded
guy he's an accountant so um probably boring to a lot of people but everything to me
they got married they moved to Tennessee and had two boys and Sheila decided she
wanted to stay home to raise them when the boys got old enough to both be in school during the day
she suddenly had a lot of time to herself so I decided in the South what do you do
when you have extra time you start you go to a Bible study and that's what I did I went to a Beth Moore Bible study
at a church with some friends of mine and we were studying Daniel so I was at in my bed
trying to get through the homework and I was laying back oh gosh I was laying back and
I looked to the right and understand when I was laying back it could be and been the you know dream
state or it could have been whatever I just know what I saw I saw Angie next to my bed
and that was it it was probably a second or it could have been five seconds but it was a moment
and it was gone and I leaned over picked up the phone because I knew it I knew she wanted me to call the Dallas Police
and I did I knew it was time I knew it was time and it was [Music] [Music] 20 years had passed since Angie's murder
and Sheila decided she wanted some answers what did you say to the Dallas Police
when I started calling they did not have a cold case division at all and they were working the current cases
they had no desire to talk to me at all and I was like I'm just gonna keep calling until I get somebody who will at
least do something pull the record look at it so yes I had the Personnel I have the personality of I'm
gonna keep trying so how often how frequently would you call the Dallas Police you know I know
um how often over a period of time it wasn't it was like 700 and maybe 750 800 phone calls it wasn't you know it was
over a Year's period of time so it wasn't every single day it's just whenever I felt like it now we had cell
phones it was really easy to pick up the kids and get on the phone and when you would call would you say hey wait a
second you guys dropped the ball what are you gonna do what are you gonna do about this no I would never say that
um no I I think it was more of a begging I I just wanted someone to do something
right for her [Music] I was told that not one person had called to 20 years [Music]
and I thought gosh you deserved better than that [Music] foreign she kept trying over and over and
getting nowhere years later one of the homicide detectives told her they'd given her a
nickname they said we call you Peta pain in the ass and he said probably every time you called they would say who wants
to take this Pita you know and I I'm sure it's true I'm sure it was kind of who are we gonna
um get to talk to her today and one day I had a cookie exchange at my house and then we went to the club afterwards and
I got a call back from this police officer from the Dallas Police Department can't tell you how exciting that was to
me because that guy was a rookie which is hilarious and he said that oh no they do have some things from that file and
he I asked him a bunch of questions got the answers and it was one of those great moments I knew
they had it I asked him one thing he goes oh I have to ask my sergeant hang on and I was
like no don't go ask anybody just don't even worry about it you know and he goes
oh I'll call you back never heard from him again and when I was blown off numerous times
I lived at that point in a gated guarded Community that's one of the byproducts of Angie's death I like living in a
gated garter community and I was telling the head of security how the it became a joke between us of
you know how the police were blowing me off and one day he said you know I'll sponsor you if you want to become a
private investigator you'd be great and that's how it started and I did and he mentored me for a long time
because you thought that if you were a private investigator that cops the police would have to show you
all the records I got my PI license in order for them to have to deal with me I mean how does someone become a private
investigator back then it wasn't like it is today um you had to you know work under
somebody you had to be sponsored by somebody you had to take a test which I acted like it was a Harvard entrance
exam and one of the things my oldest son did was he would read me all the laws so
I could memorize them and take the test we would sit on the couch at night and he would read it to me and my youngest
to this day still remembers it um and asked me questions and so I took it and passed the test
and started working with these guys um the security guys so I learned things that weren't necessarily what I wanted
to do like the cheating spouse thing and the you know just a whole bunch of stuff
and in the background the whole time were you thinking about Angie's case that's the only case I cared about
so what did you do on your own to start investigating so I went back to the beginning of what
we remember and what I remembered my son called did a war room it wasn't a war room it was pictures and you know where
people were and it was it was very messy and you know I mean is this what we see
on TV these pictures of people with little pieces of string drawn from pinpoints on a map and
um yes but no I didn't have the string but I did go back to the rate because we had the internet which is the greatest
gift um I did go back to figure out the rapes in the area and how many were reported
and if there was a pattern were you also now calling the Dallas Police and saying
listen I'm a private investigator I need some information so yes I called him and I thought oh my
gosh it's the heavens are going to open and they're going to be so excited oh my
gosh they so weren't by now she's been pressuring the Dallas Police for five years
and then Sheila finally got a detective to take her seriously and dig up the evidence from Angie's case
the detective's name was Linda Crum and when she called me and we had her first conversation I knew she was the right
person and she was so she told me not only did they have the file and the evidence they had the
semen they had the fingernail scrapings they had it all every freaking bit of it
Sheila asked about DNA testing something they couldn't have done 20 years before
you know the OJ case had happened when my youngest was born I remember actually nursing him listening to what
this thing called DNA was and trying to figure it out thinking oh I can use this
in our case we've just gotta you know I had no idea what DNA was back then and so with the semen I knew we had DNA
and it took about a year to get the DNA back and what did the DNA show well I'll tell you that phone call came
in and she said it said they got him and the next words I was thinking was going to be Russell Buchanan because
that's who I all these years had had bad feelings towards he was the bad guy and
it wasn't him she said Donald Bess and I'm like who the heck is Donald bass I had no idea and I'm going through my
mind going Donald bass was he in a fraternity was he on our you know Sister floor who is he could not place them for
anything I'll tell you I didn't believe him I was like they screwed up my initial reaction was oh my gosh
something's wrong here they must have messed up the DNA and I start asking the detective you know
how she knew it was him and the match was like one to one billion that it was him I don't remember the exact numbers
but um I did call the DA's office and talked to the assistant ta to ask him are you sure that's the guy
are you sure that was the right evidence because all these years I was told the evidence was you know not there are you
sure you got the right guy Donald best was a convicted rapist who was out on parole in 1984 when he
attacked Angie by the time Sheila and detective crumb figured out it was him he'd been
convicted of another attack and was serving life in prison he would not talk to the female
investigator because he quote thinks all women are [ __ ] and so he did talk to the male
investigator and one of the things that I thought was so ironic you have a female investigator you have this great
female woman who did the autopsy and myself and these women did it Sheila and her oldest son drove 650
miles from Nashville to Dallas for the trial and I remember getting there he's my son's sitting next to me
and Donald best walks into the room Donald Bass was this Beast of human being and
I remember it was like the oxygen in the entire room was sucked out he um sits down
and I could not breathe Angie's family and friends were all in the courtroom the lawyers defending Donald Bess
insinuated that Angie was somehow responsible for what had happened to her and they trashed Angie's character and
reputation it was disgusting to me she was a tease she was this she was that I mean it was
you know they brought in what she was wearing that night and it's it was a beautiful outfit
um but it was revealing I mean back in those days standard is probably something you can wear every day now but
you know from the 80s it was pretty revealing it was her fault basically the jury deliberated for less than an
hour Donald Bess was convicted and sentenced to death why did you think that you could do this
become a private investigator solve the case I didn't but I had to try she deserved it
you now have your own firm what's it called without warning private investigation
and how many cases have you done I was retiring my license after Angie's case because I that's the only case I cared
about and I was approached numerous times from these families who are going through the same thing and I thought oh
I'll just help this family and then it started to grow from there and as we're speaking right now I'll have a
call sometime this week from another family I get hundreds sometimes thousands of people contacting me so I
started working one by one cases I don't have 400 cases I take I used to take one a year I have five
right now and you only do cold cases I only do cold cases murder cases yes I'm thinking about these women in your
Bible study group um what do they have to say about your new career um okay so I'm not really invited to a
lot of the Fufu girl things because I don't have a lot I don't have a lot in common with that anymore
um I don't even do my cookie exchange anymore she's currently investigating a case
from 2015. a woman's body was found by fishermen in a Cove in Tennessee it was labeled an accident but Sheila
doesn't think it was [Music] in our next episode we'll go to Nashville to Shadow Sheila as she
investigates the case [Music] criminal is produced by Lauren Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Rob
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listen I can relate them because I you know as a stripper you know you come into the world of fantasy and I'm like
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I'm Phoebe church this is Grandma foreign [Laughter] [Music]

In 1984, Sheila Wysocki found herself helping the police investigate the murder of her college roommate, Angela Samota. Detectives asked her to help gather information, and even sent her out to dinner with the main suspect, a man named Russell Buchanan. But the case remained unsolved.

20 years later, Sheila Wysocki decided to investigate it herself.

This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault and may not be suitable for everyone.

Visit Sheila Wysocki’s website at this link: https://www.sheilawysocki.com/

Music in the episode “ZigZag Heart” by Blue Dot Sessions “Noe Noe” by Blue Dot Sessions “Entwined Oddity - Minor Slider” by Blue Dot Sessions (original music) “Clay Pawn Shop” by Blue Dot Sessions “Corner Aisle” by Blue Dot Sessions “The One Shot” by Blue Dot Sessions “Lick Stick” by Blue Dot Sessions “Low Light Switch” by Blue Dot Sessions

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 88 originally published 4/6/2018 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-88-cold-case-04-06-2018

Brief Summary

Sheila Waisaki recounts her college roommate Angie's murder and her quest for justice as a private investigator.

Key points

A Tragic Accident. Sheila receives devastating news about her friend Angie's death.
The Investigation Begins. Angie's murder leads to a frantic investigation with multiple suspects.
A Long Wait for Answers. Twenty years later, Sheila pushes for answers about Angie's murder.
DNA Breakthrough. New DNA evidence finally points to a suspect in Angie's case.
Conviction of Donald Bess. Donald Bess was convicted and sentenced to death for his crimes against Angie.
Sheila's New Career. Sheila transitions to a private investigator, focusing on cold cases.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I knew it was time and it was time.

Sheila felt compelled to reach out to the police after a vision of Angie.

18:28WatchJan 10, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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