Forensic Files - Season 12, Episode 6 - Transaction Failed - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] a high school teacher mysteriously disappeared did she go on vacation without telling
anyone or was she taken against her will could forensic science find the answer [Music]
[Music] not all students do well in traditional schools for teenagers in san antonio texas the
robins academy is an alternative for high school students who need extra help well robbins takes two kinds of students
students who just simply don't do well in in the sort of traditional high school environment and also
students who have failed out of disciplinary issues attendance issues behavioral issues
58 year old diane tilley was one of the school's founders her success with troubled students earned her the
nickname the miracle worker diane tilley was the kind of teacher who really believed in her students and saw
potential in them and they responded to that and she had something about her that she was able to work with
these individuals and get the most out of them motivate them raise their self-esteem
the day before thanksgiving in 2004 diane tully wasn't at school at her usual time
so her co-workers drove over to her home to check on her they knocked on the door there was
nowhere so they looked in the window they saw that the place was just in a state of disarray they became alarmed
police were called to the scene and they knew immediately there had been a robbery it's ransacked things scattered
all over the place the house looked like it had been turned inside out even the linen closet was you know had
completely been gone through i just started thinking to myself okay what could have happened here what
happened to this woman and where is she and why is her home like this electronic equipment was missing from
the home as was diane's 357 magnum pistol she kept for protection the most ominous
clue in the very beginning was the bullet hole through the couch that had lodged in the floor in the front room so
there was a threat of violence from the very beginning police technicians found no foreign
fingerprints in diane's home and diane's car was missing the lack of blood evidence raised the
possibility that diane might not have been home when the crime occurred so i was kind of also still waiting to
see if maybe she would come through the door and say hey why are you all here you know what happened to my house
but there were other clues that signaled trouble in the bedroom detectives found an empty
condom wrapper on the floor and a pair of tennis shoes with one of the laces missing
diane's purse was still in the home but her atm card was gone on the kitchen table investigators found
three atm withdrawal receipts time stamped around 8 p.m from the night before interestingly
all three withdrawals were unsuccessful but who would forget their pin number three times
and still have a transaction receipt come out there's something something's not right with this
so investigators decided to set a trap they asked diane's bank to keep her account open
a lot of banks wouldn't have been this cooperative upon notification that this that this card was very likely being
used in in uh fraudulent uh criminal transactions a lot of banks would just close this thing down and so i was like
please use that card please use that card so that we can zero in on you and we can find you and hopefully we could
find diane tilly as well the disappearance of diane tilly made headlines in san antonio texas
she had helped many students with learning problems and in the process made many friends
most students don't talk to their teachers about their personal problems but almost all the students talk to her
about theirs diane was a divorced mother of two grown children she lived alone which explained
why no one seemed to know where she was investigators spoke to her boyfriend a municipal court judge who lived in
dallas 300 miles away he told police he was in dallas the previous night and he'd spoken with
diane at 6 p.m phone records confirmed his story this was a serious relationship this was
not someone who was you know vindictive or out to to harm her in any form or fashion he was overly
concerned for her welfare police checked the airlines and found no evidence that diane took a flight to
dallas or anywhere else for that matter and they had to consider whether any of diane's students might
have wanted to harm her that was something that we really looked at carefully her students were troubled
kids troubled use like i said some of them with with background gang member backgrounds and
things like that while investigators looked into that possibility they had only one sure lead
to follow the atm receipts found on diane's kitchen counter a code number on the receipts identified
the atm that rejected diane's card it was inside a shell gas station just a mile from diane's home
fortunately there were high quality security cameras we were able to actually see an
individual walk up to the atm attempt to use the atm card and then leave the store with the three declined
transaction receipts in his hand the man was black or hispanic tall and thin twenty minutes later
a young girl used diane's atm card at another location and that one showed a hispanic to black
female they couldn't really tell at the time a little heavy set in probably mid teens
with a striped shirt on on this attempt the girl used the correct pin number and successfully
withdrew four hundred dollars from diane's account i thought wow how gutsy or just how dumb
you know but then again i was thinking great this is a criminal at work doing their thing
and this is what's going to lead us to them and the two were driving what appeared
to be a fleetwood cadillac which looked like diane tilley's car a few hours later
a motorist found diane's car on fire in a deserted field when i got to the scene and saw them
extinguishing her car i remember thinking god please don't let her be in that trunk of that car
fortunately she wasn't another witness saw a white pickup truck leave the scene but he didn't get the
license plate number they gave the same descriptions of the suspects that we had in the surveillance videos
back in diane tilley's home investigators were able to find a partial fingerprint on a liquor bottle
i think that he wore gloves through most of the most of what was going on in diane
tilley's house he apparently took the gloves off long enough to enjoy a drink from some scotch
the giant until he had in her kitchen thus leaving the the fingerprint on the bottom of the bottle
investigators desperately wanted to find the man and young girl using diane's atm
card they knew that diane tilley's life might depend on it we're just all holding our breath and
there are many prayers going up i can assure you today for her i'm angry and i want to know where she's at and i just i
just miss her afraid to go outside i have not found a body we have not found substantial amounts of
blood something's not right the prime suspects in diane tilley's disappearance with the
middle aged man and young girl who were last seen driving a white pickup truck every policeman in the area was on the
lookout and it wasn't long before a patrolman stopped two people in a motel parking
lot who fit that description they were identified as old pearl crews and her 33 year old father
ronnie neal both denied any involvement in diane tilley's disappearance but they admitted
stealing her car he said i was at a car wash and i found diane tilly's car and he said you're not going to believe this
but the car was was running and the door was open and there was all this stuff in
it and i just couldn't resist it and how did he get diane tilley's atm card well what he said was in the glove box
of this car he found diane tilley's atm card and he was a little piece of paper just below it with the pin number i knew
he was lying i mean there's you could tell by his body language by just just everything that that came out
of his mouth was a lie neil said he was following diane's disappearance in the news and didn't
want to be linked to it so he got rid of diane's car his story made no sense whatsoever
this was just a man who was just grasping at straws a background check revealed ronnie neal
had multiple convictions for robbery and had recently been released from prison for a weapons violation
and police discovered a link between diane tilley and ronnie neal ronnie met diane first through his lawn mowing
business diane had apparently hired him to do some work in her yard ronnie neal's fingerprint matched the
partial print found on the liquor bottle in diane's home and a check of neil's cell phone records
indicate he called his ex-wife on the night of diane tilley's abduction he gets on his cell phone he calls elisa
stanley proliant cruises mueller and we actually have this cell phone bouncing bouncing off a tower
the area was about 15 miles from diane tilley's home an area encompassing hundreds if not
thousands of acres it did however lead to speculation i believe you're standing over the body of
diane tilly when he called lisa stanley when questioned alisa stanley confirmed the call but
claimed she knew nothing about diane's abduction according to ms stanley neil told her he
came into some money and asked her to go shopping despite this evidence ronnie neal refused to cooperate
so police focused on his daughter pearl she too refused to cooperate at least initially
i recall being very angry with pearl anne over what happened with diane tilly and telling her that
there wasn't a day that was going to go by that she wasn't going to think about this
and after 10 days in custody pearl led police to diane's body it was the area where ronnie neal made
his cell phone call a deserted field under a pile of brush 15 miles from diane's home
although the body was badly decomposed it was clear that she'd been shot several times
her hands were bound with a dark blue polyester shoelace that looked like the missing shoelace from diane's tennis
shoes both laces had the same tiny specks the lustering agents added to synthetic
fibers to reduce the shine and there were other similarities the plastic pieces on the end of the
shoelaces are called aglets the aglets were the same size and the same color on both shoelaces
dental records confirmed the body was diane tilley everybody had a tremendous emotional
reaction it was very very depressing it really was it was very sad there seemed to be
no good at all to take out of this story no good that could come out of it [Music]
inside neil's motel room investigators found diane's 357 handgun her luggage and electronic equipment
the bullets recovered from diane's body were badly damaged but the bottom part was relatively
intact i didn't have the whole bullet but that at least had the entire circumference of the base that i could
examine ballistic experts could discern the lands and grooves on the bottom of the
fatal bullets the bullets test fired from diane's gun were the same as those that killed her
you're looking for these matching scratches they have to have the same type of character in other words depth
or the width of them and the spacing between them despite the amount of decomposition
scientists recovered a biological sample from diane's body which matched ronnie neal's dna profile
proof of sexual assault eventually pearl told investigators the entire story of what happened to diane tilly
one very difficult to believe [Music] after finding diane tilley's body police arrested 33 year old ronnie neal
and his 15 year old daughter pearl cruz and charged them both with kidnapping and murder
investigators discovered that ronnie neal had done some landscaping work for diane
and she even gave him a swing set she no longer needed diane took a little bit of care to engage
pearl when they went over to pick up the swing said she mentioned something to pearl about you
know i like your your nail polish it's pretty and i think she asked pearl where she
went to school pearl crews told investigators that she and her father planned almost from the
start to rob diane well it's a very disturbing story it's disturbing on many levels
it's not an easy story to digest at all on the night of the murder pearl knocked on diane's door
and told her their truck broke down a few blocks away and asked to use the telephone
once inside pearl pulled a gun then opened the side door for her father neal tied diane's hands with a shoelace
from one of her tennis shoes then stole her gun and atm card neal took a drink of scotch leaving his
partial print on the bottom of the bottle then asked diane for the pin number for her
atm card while pearl guarded diane neal went to the atm to withdraw money from diane's account
that's when he discovered diane had given him the wrong number so he returned to the house and
threatened to kill diane's cat unless she gave him the correct pin number at some point neal fired a warning shot
into the sofa diane gave him the correct pin number and the cat was unharmed neal left the rejected atm receipts on
the dining room table packed diane's car with stolen belongings and sexually assaulted her
then all three people ronnie pearl and diane drove away in her car they found a different atm machine
and this time pearl successfully withdrew 400 from diane's account from there they took diane
to the deserted field and diane's final words were about forgiveness the last thing pearl said she heard
diane say was bless this child according to cell phone records neil stood over diane's body and called
pearl's mother telling her he had recently come into some money and suggested they all go shopping
later neil ditched diane's car and set it on fire thinking they had destroyed all the forensic
evidence but they still left plenty behind if ronnie neal is not executed by this
state then it will really be a travesty we the jury find the defendant ronnie o'neill guilty of capital murder in
april of 2006 ronnie neal was tried and convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death
by lethal injection pearl's life was spared in exchange for her testimony she was sentenced to 30 years in prison
if you're looking for a teenager who's going to get right well incarcerated i'm afraid you're going to have to wait
in pearl's case she's a deeply disturbed and abused uh individual psychopaths are not born they created
and pro-ann cruz was certainly created people who knew diane tilly are struck by the irony
pearl was exactly the type of child diane devoted her life to diane would have connected with her
and she could have turned her around in the end pearl cruz's eyewitness testimony helped
but investigators say they could have gotten the conviction without it we didn't have to rely on anybody's
independent testimony to to convict ronnie neal we wouldn't have put one person except for the scientists on the
stand to convict this guy not knowing science the way we know science you know these criminals just don't
think and that's that's an advantage for us [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

When a dedicated, well-respected teacher disappeared, police had to determine if she'd gone on vacation without telling anyone, or if she was the victim of foul play.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Diane Tilley, a teacher, was murdered by Ronnie Neal and his daughter after a robbery gone wrong.

Key points

The Disappearance of Diane Tilley. A beloved teacher goes missing, leading to a complex investigation.
The Arrest of Ronnie Neal. After a long investigation, police arrest the prime suspect in Diane's case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What happened to this woman and where is she?

A teacher's mysterious disappearance raises questions.

2:32WatchJan 27, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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