Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 2 - Forever Hold Your Peace - Full Episode | Forensic Files

akeem marino came forward and confessed to the rape and murder of a restaurant worker i did this awful crime and i was
alone but this man chris ochoa had already confessed to that crime and was serving a life sentence
i pleaded guilty and confessed one of them was lying to find out who and why scientists look once more at the
forensic evidence [Music] so [Music] [Applause] austin texas the state's capital city
twenty-year-old nancy de priest lived here with her husband todd and 15 month old daughter sylvia
she was so very friendly and and very open to anyone she just she just loved people she was
just like a people person nancy was a waitress at a pizza hut restaurant on october 24 1988
she arrived for work at 7 a.m her job was to get the pizza dough ready for lunch before the rest of the
employees arrived [Music] the manager of the restaurant called several times that morning to make sure
everything was all right but there was no answer when he stopped by the restaurant around
9 30 he found nancy slumped under the bathroom sink nude and barely alive she had been shot in the back of the
head was rushed to the nearest hospital my son-in-law said mom there's there's been a robbery
they shot nancy i said todd how how bad is she hurt he broke down and he said mom she's on life support
nancy died later that day without regaining consciousness i began to scream i i was i was totally
hysterical the murder occurred before the restaurant opened so there were no witnesses to the crime
the austin police department found no signs of forced entry at the restaurant the motive appeared to be robbery since
money was missing from the safe on the floor of the bathroom police found a 22 caliber shell casing from the
murder weapon and nancy's autopsy revealed she had been sexually assaulted two weeks later
investigators got their first break in the case two employees from another pizza hut
restaurant 22 year old chris ochoa and 19 year old richard danzinger went to the restaurant where nancy had been
murdered so we ordered a beer and he toasted to the memory of nancy the nancy the priest
we won't forget you to me i found it kind of strange nancy's co-workers quickly informed
authorities ochoa and dan zinger were later questioned by police he started grilling me about what i know
about this murder and this rape and i told him nothing we went round and round for a couple hours i don't
recall how many hours but he said at one point he said you know what we know you're not capable of this but
we know you know you you know you know something detective hector polanco at the time a
12-year veteran of the force took over the interrogation one point he showed me pictures of death row he showed them to
me said this is well you will live there until you die so i still kept on saying i don't know
anything richard danzinger and his girlfriend donna angstad were also questioned
they were absolutely horrible to me uh one time hector polanco pounded his fist on the table and i
thought he was coming across to grab me i came up out of my chair and hit the wall behind me it scared me so bad
donna said she and richard were together in donna's apartment at the time of the
murder i took a lie detector test and they told me i flunked it two days later chris ochoa confessed to the rape and
murder of nancy de priest i did it i pleaded guilty and there was i can't describe it
he also revealed that his friend richard danzinger was his accomplice ochoa said he and danzinger entered the
restaurant with keys the two had obtained they found nancy alone preparing pizza
dough after ordering her to remove the money from the safe ochoa said he and danzinger bound gagged
raped and shot her [Music] ochoa said he was the one who pulled the trigger when the dna results came back from the
lab police had even more proof that ochoa and danzinger were the killers chris ochoa not only confessed to the
rape and murder of nancy de priest he became the state's star witness against his friend and co-worker richard
danzinger nancy's family was relieved that the case was concluded quickly not so much satisfaction i didn't i
didn't feel that i guess relief that they weren't going to be able to do it to someone else
bolstering ochoa's confession was the dna evidence a blood sample from christochoa matched the dna from semen
on the victim's vaginal swab i examined a vaginal swab specimen from nancy de priest dna was extracted from
spermatozoa on that swab and then dna typing was done using a single gene that we had available at that point in
time and a result was obtained from that gene that was actually compatible with chris ochoa and about
10 to 16 percent of the population statistically there were three million other texans who might have shared the
same genetic marker but this wasn't the only forensic evidence a brown hair found in the restaurant
bathroom was microscopically similar to danzinger's richard danzinger pled not guilty and
insisted he was innocent but the strength of ochoa's confession and the forensic evidence were too great
the jury deliberated just seven and a half minutes and found richard danzinger guilty of
aggravated sexual assault he was sentenced to life in prison in return for his testimony chris ochoa
avoided the death penalty but he was sentenced to life in prison they were nice that i would sit in my
bed crying to god why why oh i would ask him i'm tired god tired [Music] i was very tired
and at some point i wouldn't end it all life in prison was even harder for richard danzinger
after three years behind bars danzinger was assaulted by another inmate who mistook him for someone else
danzinger was kicked in the head with steel tipped boots he survived but suffered permanent brain damage
it's just what's happened to him is horrible he's going to need care for the rest of
his life but the story doesn't end there eight years later austin police received a letter from
akeem moreno who was serving three life sentences in another texas prison for a string of robberies and sexual assaults
mourinho claimed that he was the one who raped and murdered nancy de priest mourinho claimed he had undergone a
spiritual awakening while incarcerated and wanted to set the record straight i did this awful crime and i was alone
mourinho said the el paso police department had the gun he used to kill nancy de priest
they had taken it when he was arrested on an assault charge homicide detective manuel fuentes was
assigned to investigate mourinho's story i got a call from el paso police department and the detective there said
you're not going to believe this but that gun is hasn't been destroyed we still have it in evidence
scientists compared mourinho's 22-caliber handgun to the bullet removed from nancy priest
the ballistic examination did not reveal a match it appeared there wasn't much more to
investigate two years later akeem marino tried once again i want to thank speaker laney for your
this time he sent a letter to then governor george w bush with a copy to the prosecutor's office
i told him basically the same thing that i had that i committed to murder in 88 at the
pizza hut and that uh there was two innocent men who i did not know locked up for it
this time detective fuentes visited chris ochoa in prison once again ochoa repeated what he had
been saying for 10 years that he and dan zinger had acted alone am i told uh yeah yeah you're right i
did it so you know what just let me do my time and he said as far as he knew there wasn't a third
person involved it was just him and richard that killed nancy the priest so there was little more authorities
could do especially since ochoa's dna matched semen found at the crime scene it would take one more year
before one of these men finally changed his story [Music] for almost 11 years chris ochoa
continued to maintain that he and richard danzinger were responsible for the rape and murder of nancy de priest
but one year after ricky moreno wrote a letter to the governor's office saying he murdered nancy de priest
chris ochoa changed his story did you kill nancy de priest oh no ma'am his confession had been coerced
he said he was physically assaulted threatened and denied access to an attorney during police questioning
a female detective and hispanic detective she came in and i asked her you know can i have an attorney
and she got real upset i said you can't have one until you're officially charged
in search for help ochoa contacted the wisconsin innocence project a group that investigates cases in which
they believe an innocent person has been wrongfully convicted i told him please help me
i don't know who else to turn to you know i think one of my closing lines was that i told them i've lost faith in
the system but i haven't lost faith in myself but the founder of the innocence project
john pray wasn't sure what to think we called up chris's attorney to get his side of things and say
sometimes the attorneys say i am concerned about this case and he may be innocent unfortunately in this
case we got the complete opposite the chris's attorney told us we are totally wasting our time on this case he is very
guilty and if chris ochoa was innocent why did dna tests place him at the scene of the crime
12 years earlier test could only analyze one gene from nancy dupree's vaginal swab the gene
called dq alpha but by the year 2000 the accuracy of dna testing had advanced to a level where 10
genes could be analyzed the dna testing that i'm doing today is more complicated
harder to interpret more discriminating the wisconsin innocence project asked local prosecutors to send nancy dupree's
forensic samples for more sophisticated dna testing which they did twelve years after nancy de priest's
murder karen scalise compared chris ochoa's blood dna to the vaginal swab taken from the crime
scene i sort of went oh my god and just immediately double checked it to myself just to make sure additional dna testing
was also done by ed blake who had performed the original dna test a decade earlier when that work was done
ultimately chris ochoa richard danzinger and nancy dupree's husband were all eliminated
as the source of the spermatozoa from nancy de priest but there was still the issue of
mourinho's gun detective fuentes decided to send it to another lab the southwest institute in
dallas for more tests the shell casing without a doubt matched the gun that we got from aqui
marino and this was the shell casing that was found inside the pizza hut so now we had dna
and we had a bullet or a shell casing that was ejected at the crime scene that matched the the gun that we got from
akeem moreno as a last step prosecutors compared akeem marino's dna to the semen from nancy de priest's
vaginal swab it matched just as mourinho said it would everybody says they're innocent in
prison but yeah some of us are actually are akeem marino's confession includes a chilling account of what happened the
day nancy the priest was murdered but it also answered many questions i was wearing a workman's uniform with a
false name on it and i knocked on the side door and miss dupris came up and unlocked the
door just before the restaurant opened once inside mourinho held nancy at gunpoint and
demanded the restaurant's money [Music] then we went to the restroom where i disrobed her then assaulted her
one time after that i told her that i was going to handcuff her to the plumbing underneath the sink and leave
her there she got underneath the sink i shot her in the back of the head one time with a
22 firearm but he made the mistake of leaving the shell casing behind i was looking for that shell and i
couldn't find it anywhere after that i went back got my bag packed my stuff up and i left
mourinho says nancy reminded him of a female guard he knew from prison a woman he detested
when i came out not only did i intend to kill a whole bunch of blacks and mexicans but i told myself the first
white woman i ran across that looked like i was gonna blow her brains out and that's exactly what i did
[Music] but the bigger question is why chris ochoa would repeatedly confess to a
crime he didn't commit you have to be a psychologist i'm not it's hard for me to conceive
in fact when i first met mr ochoa's attorney uh mr dan's attorneys when they first brought me
back the first thing i asked him was what in the world made ochoa confess most people will come and tell me i
would have never confessed that you know what don't tell me that because you weren't sitting in that
chair ochoa said he was threatened with the death penalty unless he confessed a technique most law enforcement
interrogation experts say is improper the law fortunately or unfortunately allows
police officers to lie to individuals being interrogated what they can't say is if you don't confess to me you're
going to get the death penalty if they knew that to be a lie or if you do confess to me
i'll make sure you don't you don't go to prison or you don't get charged on this
crime so they can lie about the evidence and they can lie about other circumstances having to do with the
interrogation but they can't tell lies that could be regarded as promises or threats ochoa said his confession
included details of the crime because police showed him pictures of the crime scene before his confession
off the top of my head i can't think of a circumstance in which it would be appropriate because it contaminates the
suspect and it means that if they are innocent made the false confession you'll never know
ochoa also says he was threatened physically look me up and down and say you're young
you're you've never been in jail you're going to be fresh meat and they're going
to have you i'll put you in the cell well they'll have you and to me in my mind that
triggered off well they're going to rape me [Music] experts say the way to prevent
police-induced false confessions is to videotape the entire interrogation if a suspect later alleges police
misconduct in the interrogation room the videotape can be evaluated if chris's confession had been videotaped
from start to end there is no way that this would have happened first of all the police
officers undoubtedly would not have acted as they did it would have been a deterrent to their misconduct
currently only two states require all suspect interrogations to be videotaped alaska and minnesota
the austin police department changed its policy and now videotapes the interrogations in
all homicide cases after 12 years in prison on january 16 2001 chris ochoa was a free man
two months later richard danzinger was released to the care of his family because of the brain damage he sustained
as a result of the prison fight richard danzinger will require specialized care for the rest of his life
sometimes i think about richard and he you know i i feel very bad i mean because i was i didn't have the courage
to face up whatever might come to me so that they wouldn't go to prison the officers involved in christochowa's
interrogation have all refused to comment i was a little kid they told me that police officers would rather take care
of you to protect you i thought that they couldn't do no wrong i thought they were honest
but i see that they not all of them are i lost my child i loved her so much i miss her every day still
13 years i miss her every day and chris lost 12 years his youth his whole youth richard dan singer is
brain damaged from a beating he received in prison he's still serving that life sentence
he'll serve it out [Music] [Music] [Applause] you

An unusual case involving the 1988 rape and murder of Nancy DePriest. After Chris Ochoa confessed, the case was closed. 8 years later, Achim Marino confessed to the same crime. DNA evidence cleared Ochoa while proving that Marino was the perpetrator. 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

Chris Ochoa and Richard Danzinger were wrongfully convicted of Nancy De Priest's murder; Akeem Moreno later confessed, leading to their exoneration.

Key points

Akeem Marino Confesses. Akeem Marino admits to the rape and murder of Nancy De Priest, claiming he acted alone.
Nancy De Priest's Tragic Murder. Nancy was found shot and assaulted in a restaurant before it opened.
Confession and DNA Evidence. Chris Ochoa confesses to the crime, but DNA evidence later challenges his guilt.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I did this awful crime and I was alone.

Akeem Marino's confession about the crime.

0:13WatchDec 9, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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