Nightmare In Napa

Newly-Released Evidence Helps Cops Crack Halloween Double-Murder

(CBS) 
Almost a year had passed in Napa and there were still no answers on who murdered Leslie and Adriane.

Leslie’s mother Cathy was frustrated with the investigation, and about having to defend her daughter’s reputation.

“When she would break up with a boyfriend they were still friends. I mean it’s not like she left a chain of enemies,” says Cathy. “There might be a few broken hearts but I don’t think they were angry at her.”

In Anderson, South Carolina, Leslie is remembered as a hometown hero.

When she was the local beauty queen, Leslie raised money for the Calvary Home for Children, a charity that houses abused kids.

Leslie’s brother PJ wants another home built in Leslie’s honor. To raise money, he has teamed up with Kelly, who got some big help from some famous friends, including Rob and Amber, who were contestants on the TV show “Survivor,” got married on television, and competed against Kelly on the “Amazing Race.”

Together they organized a fundraiser, “The Raising Race,” a South Carolina version of the popular TV show. Hundreds turned out to meet them.

Meanwhile, back in Napa, Adriane’s friends were dealing with the tragedy in their own way.

Her best friend Lily and her boyfriend Eric Copple, who had been putting off getting married, decided life was too short. “We’ve been together almost eight years now. It was time to go ahead and get married,” says Lily.

Adriane’s mother Arlene attended the wedding, and even addressed the couple. In her friend’s honor, Lily played her best friend’s favorite song, called She Will Be Loved.

Although the day was joyful, Lily says she couldn’t get beyond the fact that there had been no arrest in Adriane’s murder. “Somebody must know something. Somebody would have had to notice their friend acting strange or had bruises. Doesn’t seem like someone could walk away from it acting fine.”

But by the following summer, police seemed baffled. Investigators said they had contacted more than 1,000 people, ruling them out one by one. They started with the inner circle, people who knew the victims, including boyfriends, friends and friends of friends. Two hundred of the men investigators met with gave DNA samples.

Detective Schulman says all of the men who gave DNA samples had been ruled out as suspects, including Adriane’s boyfriend Christian and all of Leslie’s boyfriends.

Then in September, 2005, almost a year after the murders, police decided to make public a piece of evidence.

Police had located several cigarette butts outside the house, cigarettes that had been smoked down to the filter. DNA on the cigarette butts matched the DNA of the killer’s blood at the scene.

Police think the killer stood outside smoking cigarette after cigarette.
And, he smoked an unusual brand. Distinctive markings on the band matched those of Turkish Gold, a variation of Camel cigarettes that had only recently been on the market.

“We feel like the cigarette brand is something that’s going to prompt someone in the public to make that one phone call that’s going to lead to the identity of the killer,” says Schulman.

Just five days later, police called Adriane’s mother to tell her that they had made an arrest. “I was very stunned. I didn’t know what to say. And so my next words were, ‘Who was it?’ And I was not at all prepared for the answer to that question.”