08x09 - The White Cellphone

[bunniefuu]

[man] Anybody that is capable
of doing what was done

is too dangerous
to be on the streets.

It was something that was
just brutal in its veracity.

That night when I went home...

You know how you roll over
in the middle of the night

half awake for like
half a second?

Every time I did that
I saw her...

and I never had anything like
that for that for 21 years

and it really put me
in a dark place.

[theme music plays]

[car honks]

[narrator] For 26-year-old
Tequila Suter family is everything.

- [man] My favorite niece!
- My day is better already! [laughs]

My niece Tequila always
made you smile

just with the little
expressions she gave you...

- Good thanks, how are you guys? Good!
- Good.

She always had that glowing
spirit about her,

she always made it
look like life...

was gonna be good.

Tequila was my sidekick.
She was definitely my sidekick.

She loved her cousins so much.

They would get excited.

They would have their laughs,
sit on the porch...

How is school going?

Okay. I decided to for law
so I'll need better grades.

[Dominique] Tequila's faith
was real strong

and anytime she came around

Tequila actually asked when we're
going to come to church with her.

[Tequila] You can always
achieve your dreams on your own

but remember, God's always
looking over you.

- Will he help me with my exams?
- [laughs]

[narrator]
Tequila's life is full.

She is studying for a degree

in criminal justice
and child psychology...

and works as a mentor
to vulnerable young people.

Tequila was my best friend
and she was my rock.

She was my son's godmother.

Tequila was just that person
I went to, she was my person.

[Tequila] I need
to get Damoni a gift.

[Ashley] Tequila had
a boyfriend named Damoni.

I'm overprotective over
Tequila. [chuckles]

So she introduced me
around her birthday.

I took him aside.

I gave him a run-down of
what you're not going to do...

And then Valentine's happened

and she was excited that she
had someone to spend it with.

[card beeps]

- Is everything okay?
- [scoffs] My card's been declined.

Thank you.

Tequila had some money
missing form her debit card.

- How did that happen?
- I don't know, it's really weird.

[phone rings]

[ringing continues]

I received a call on Friday
about 3:30 afternoon,

just as I was ready to leave.

Lackawanna Police Department.

Hi there, I tried to use my
bank card earlier today

at the store and
my card got declined.

- Okay.
- I do have an unauthorized transaction here.

So I told Tequila that on
Monday when I returned to work

that I would follow up

and go to the store where
the money was removed.

Thank you, detective.

[Colleen] February 16th
was a Sunday

and Tequila's best friend,
Kalima,

was supposed to pick up
Tequila and take her to church.

When she knocked
on the door she got no answer.

She started getting concerned

because it was
very unlike Tequila

to miss church on Sunday...

Kalima had a bad feeling
and called her brother

who also worked for the landlord

and asked him to
go check on Tequila.

So the brother went
to the apartment,

knocked on the door,

let himself in with the keys...

[dispatcher on phone]

[Tequila's brother speaking]

[dispatcher speaking]

[Tequila's brother speaking]

[dispatcher speaking]

[Tequila's brother speaking]

[siren wails]

[wailing continues]

[narrator] Detective Brian Lakso
from Lackawanna Police Department

is assigned to the case.

[Brian] When you're called on
the scene where someone has d*ed,

you can't make any assumptions
as to what happened.

[camera shutter clicks]

[Brian] The victim
was in her bedroom...

lying face down in a pool
of blood that had dried.

What do we got?

Multiple s*ab wounds.

Victim's name is Tequila Suter.

[Rodney] Well, the first thing when
I heard Tequila's name was that

I had just spoken with her on
Friday about missing money

and just wandered if that had
anything to do with any of this.

You could see that Tequila had
wounds to the neck area,

somebody had some sort
of rage and hatred in 'em

for that many
s*ab wounds to occur.

Anybody who is capable of
doing what was done to Tequila is...

far too dangerous
to be on the streets.

I mean, this... it was...

brutal in its veracity.

But... it seemed like

there should have been a lot
more blood than there was.

That immediately
led us to believe

that blood might
have been cleaned

by whoever
was responsible for this.

So we decided to use Luminol.

If you spray the Luminol,
the proteins in the blood

will react even if blood has
already been cleaned up.

It has like
a fluorescence to it,

and once you dim the lights down

looks like a neon,

illuminates all the areas
where blood cannot be seen.

Place kind of lit up
pretty good,

especially in the bathroom

you could see where
the clean up took place.

Rinsing things off.

It was all in the tub...
and all over the walls.

When somebody does
clean up after themselves

and they take
all the evidence with them...

Well, it makes our job harder

because lack of evidence
in the scene

makes prosecution
more difficult.

[Dominique] I was on my
way home, I got a phone call

from my sister Sharon...

Hello?

And she was acting
like a little erratic...

Hey, hey, hey, slow down

slow down, take a breath.

Sharon explained to me that
they have found Tequila

dead in her house.

My thought and reaction
was like,

"No, I don't think so."

I couldn't believe it.

I picked up my sister Sharon
and my brother in law Kevin,

we drove out there...

And then when we got
to the scene,

there was police,
there was yellow tape...

- Hold on.
- It's okay...

They pulled me to the side and Kevin
to the side and told us what happened.

Right there, I almost had
a mental breakdown.

And... How could someone
do this to her?

[narrator] Lackawanna Police

begin the search
for witnesses and CCTV.

Tequila's apartment
is on a side street,

it's not the kind of street
where you're gonna have

a lot of surveillance cameras.

When we learned that there
was potentially a camera

at the health center next door,

that was something we
were very eager to look at.

If we could see

someone coming to
or from Tequila's apartment,

that could be the kind of thing

that could break a case wide
open, right out of the gate.

Cue it up to yesterday
morning please,

Saturday the 15th.

There was an overwhelming
chance that the last person

to walk out of Tequila's
apartment

was the person that k*lled her.

It's as far as it goes?

The view that we got off of the
camera system was very disappointing.

The camera footage tend
to cut off her front doors,

so we weren't able
to actually view

anybody coming in or out
of her apartment.

Lot of dead ends
in investigations.

[phone rings]

But just because one road
comes to an end...

- Lakso.
- Doesn't mean you just get off.

You get back on the main road
and see what you could find,

you know,
see where it leads you.

Start with the postmortem,
I'll see you later.

When someone's had autopsy,
it's all laid bare

and you see exactly
what was done to this person.

We realized that Tequila
had 39 s*ab wounds.

Some to the neck area were the
fatal wounds that caused her death.

When someone is stabbed as
many times as Tequila was,

there is nothing
accidental about that.

Whoever did this
did it to k*ll her.

That night when I went home,

you know how you
kind of roll over

in the middle of the night,

you're half awake
for like a half a second

Every time I did that,
I saw her.

Every time I rolled over, it
was just what was in my brain.

And I never had anything
like that for 21 years

and it really put me
in a dark place.

[Ashley] I found out
Sunday night...

- [phone rings]
- By one of her coworkers.

Hi, this is Ashley speaking.

She... [sighs]

She what?

[sobs] Like, I can't...

Like I still don't...

can't wrap my head around it
like how it happened

because I'm supposed to be
that person that helps you

and protects you and tries
to get you out of situations

and I couldn't do that. [sobs]
And I couldn't...

come save you because that's
what you would do for me.

[narrator] At Lackawanna PD
detectives begin the search for suspects.

[Brian] When someone's
m*rder*d in their home you always

wanna talk to that person's
significant other.

- Where's the boyfriend, Damoni Hall?
- He's on his way in.

You wanna question them,
establish where they were,

what the timeline was.

[Rodney] A couple of our officers
had made mentions that they knew

Damoni from the high school
and that he was quiet.

He was a church going person,

he really was just your
typical teenage kid.

[Brian] When I first met
with Damoni

he was very polite,
very personable.

[narrator] Damoni tells
detectives he was at church

when he learned
of Tequila's death.

He claimed that they weren't
getting along

and that they, you know...

that they were in the process
of possibly breaking up.

[narrator] Damoni reveals he last
saw Tequila on Saturday afternoon.

Damoni said that
they had gotten into a fight

and that he had left.

He was very calm during
the course of the interview

but there were times
when it seemed like

he got emotional
over the whole situation.

[narrator] Damoni then called
a friend who lives nearby.

Damoni is very detailed,
he's very calm and he's able to

give a lot of information
about where he was

the previous afternoon
and evening.

[Brian] Damoni said that
he had some friends

and that he spent time over
at their house.

He said that during this time
he was talking with Tequila.

Tequila's Facebook messages
were a running dialog

between herself and Damoni.

It seemed like they were going
through a tough time in their relationship.

[Brian] Damoni said
they were texting,

going over the fight
that they had just gotten in

and the fact that she
wanted to end the relationship

and he was trying to keep
the relationship alive.

Damoni pretty much told us
everything that he had done

after he left Tequila's
apartment.

So when he said he went
to the store down the street,

we are familiar
with that corner store.

There are surveillance
cameras...

[Rodney] The store owner downloads
the footage from February 15th.

Okay, go to
just before 5:00 PM.

[Brian] Surveillance footage in a lot
of cases is better than an eye witness.

We're gonna know whether
he's telling us the truth or not.

[detective] Bring up
the other camera.

Change angles.

Freeze it there.

We see on the footage, various people
coming in and going around the store...

Freeze it there.

We see a tall young man
wearing a jacket and wearing

a hat with some distinctive
writing on it.

It's Damoni.

Play that again.

He had a rather large,
dark colored backpack

and he was also carrying
a white plastic bag.

Pause it there.

Can you zoom in on the bag?

Okay, play on.

Can you bring up
the other camera?

Goes to the counter,
buys whatever he buys.

Change angles.

[Rodney] He's going to talk
with some people.

He's not jittery,
he doesn't look anxious.

Just kind of acting normal.

Pause it there.

- Is he texting?
- Okay, let's keep playing it.

I guess he's heading
for the bus.

[Colleen] This footage from the
store corroborated what he had said...

So we wanted to obtain
footage of the bus

so that we could see
was he on the bus?

What was he doing on the bus,

Did he get off from the bus
where he said he did.

[narrator] Detectives request
footage from the bus CCTV:

Come and have a look at this.

Meantime they turn their
focus to the suspicious

withdrawals from Tequila's
bank account.

These are the ATMs near
where Tequila lived.

This one here. Literally two
blocks, right where she lived.

When I spoke
with Tequila on Friday

about money being missing,
she was pretty upset.

We strongly suspected that
whoever did it must have known

her pin and therefore was
probably someone close to her.

There's nothing at the bank.
Nax.

Their surveillance was
not functioning at the time.

Story of my life with
surveillance systems.

It is frustrating because that would
have gave us another lead to look at,

it would have gave us
somebody on camera.

[narrator] At the Police Department,
Detective Lakso has a handle on a new lead.

Lakso.

I received a phone call
from a colleague of mine

and he stated that
he was familiar with Tequila

Because one of the people
that he was monitoring

had been living with Tequila.

Even though she was young
he thought maybe this would be

something that she
could be capable of.

This was not somebody that
we could just dismiss out of hand.

This girl used to live there.

Maybe she had

enough of a level
of comfortability

that she would have
hung around the apartment

after committing an act
like that and cleaning up.

Did you stay with Tequila a lot?

Okay.

Her alibi did check out

so she was pretty much ruled
out as a suspect in this case.

[Brian] When you don't get
the break you are looking for...

you push on and try to find the
next break, that's all you could do.

One thing that Damoni Hall told
investigators in his first interview

was that when he left, Tequila
was talking on her phone.

That peaked our interest because
the phone hadn't been found.

[narrator] Detectives attempt to
track the location of Tequila's phone.

Whatever cell phone tower
you're nearest to,

that's what your cell phone
information is transmitted to and from.

Using that you can determine
someone's location.

[narrator] But the cell phone data
will take several hours to process.

All right, send it over
as soon as it's ready.

So they turn to Tequila's
phone records.

[Colleen] That's a possible
treasure trove of information.

You can find out with whom
the person was speaking.

[Rodney] Tequila's phone
records came in and they showed us

that her phone was texting
Damoni after 5:00 PM.

The text messages did indicate that they
appeared to be on the verge of breaking up.

It does help
Damoni's version of events,

it pretty much made sense,
what he was telling us.

[narrator] The CCTV footage
from the bus company

is now in the hands of the PD.

Okay, we got all the bus
stuff here.

With it detectives seek to further
corroborate Damoni Hall's story.

The Niagara Frontier Transit
Authority, the NFTA on their buses

have approximately eight cameras

that show the inside
and the outside of the bus.

We gotta cue it up
to 6:00 PM.

Is that him?

[Brian] That's his hat.

You could see Damoni
getting on the bus

and he sits down,
he's not real nervous.

He's on his phone and he's
just acting real casual.

Damoni was in fact on the bus
as he'd indicated.

Can you zoom it in?

He was texting using what
we assume is his cell phone

because it's similar in color

to the one that he's showing us

when we're interviewing him...

All right, let's play on.

What's he doing with that bag?

Zoom in there.

[Brian] There are
a couple of instances

where he kind of pulls
the bag closer to him...

He takes that bag off the bus and
exits the bus with the bag in his hand.

He gets off exactly where he
told us he was getting off.

Literally a block away
from his friend's house.

So everything was pretty much
checking out at that point in time.

As the news of Tequila's m*rder
spreads through Lackawanna...

friends and family hold a
candlelit vigil outside her apartment.

[Dominique] It was very
uplifting to know

that the community
thought well of Tequila,

that Tequila had
so much influence

on the community
and on her friends.

[Ashley]
That was my best friend...

[sniffles] and for her mom
to have to go through that...

Like, it hurt.

She loved everybody

and she tried to make it work
with everybody

so it was a hard loss
for a lot of people.

[narrator] With no
alternative suspects

detectives contact
Damoni's friend Latifah,

who he said he stayed with
on Saturday night.

I'm Detective Lakso with
Lackawanna Police Department.

It turned out her cousin
was also staying with her

and we wanted
to talk to both of them.

[Brian]
We wanted to determine

whether his account
of his time with them

was accurate...

Thanks for coming in.
Just a few questions for you.

They corroborated his story
saying that he was there

and he did stay
the night with them.

He left ahead noon the next day.

We had asked when he came over
her house if he had

any belongings
or any bags with him.

- He had a black rucksack.
- And a white plastic bag?

No.

[Brian] He seemed very guarded
with that bag on the bus

and now it's just gone

and none of these girls
had seen it...

We wanted to know
what was in there.

[Brian] There could be nothing
of value in that bag

or there could potentially be...

The best, most useful piece of
evidence that we could ever hope for.

And did you see Damoni
with a phone?

Two phone, actually.

That was something that peaked
our interest because

we had not found Tequila's
white cell phone.

One was black
and the other was white.

[Colleen] The fact that Damoni
had two phones with him

and one was a white Samsung

and Tequila's Suter's
white Samsung was missing,

the very phone that he claimed
she was talking on when he left.

This was a great interest to us.

[Colleen] If Damoni had
Tequila Suter's phone

and he had lied to us
about the fact

that she had been speaking
on it when he left...

that pointed towards him as
having something to do with this.

Detectives circle back to the
CCTV footage from the bus cameras.

From just a first glance at it
nothing seemed unusual.

Stop there.

What's he got in his hand?

Zoom in there.

See that?

I can't make it out.

[Colleen] We saw what
we were pretty sure

was the white cell phone.

That was sort of an a-ha moment

where we thought we have him

with Tequila Suter's
phone in his hand.

[Brian] If it was in fact
Tequila's cell phone,

then his story
isn't adding up anymore.

Was he using it to
manipulate the conversation

between he and Tequila

or did that conversation
actually occur?

[Colleen] Even if we could
prove definitively

that that was
Tequila Suter's phone

it might prove that he was
lying but in in of itself

it wasn't evidence
that he had k*lled her.

We needed something more.

[detective] When he leaves
the bus he takes everything

with him that he
got on the bus with.

Latifah had told us that he didn't
come there with a white bag so...

Where's that bag at?

When we brought Damoni
in a second time,

we really had him
as our prime suspect.

We real tried ramping up
the interview at this time

to see if we can get
a confession out of him.

[Colleen] The police were hoping that
by confronting him with some evidence,

he might make some admissions
or even make a confession

to having k*lled Tequila Suter.

We asked him about
a second cell phone.

He told us that when he
arrived at the bus station

he found a cell phone
on the ground...

and that he picked it up
and decided

that it was nothing that he
wanted to hold onto,

so he threw it away.

Damoni is pretty much denying
having anything to do with this crime.

He's adamant that he didn't
have Tequila's phone,

that the other women
must be mistaken.

Our hope was that he would
actually come clean

and tell us what he had done.

It's... frustrating because...

you need something
to get you over the top,

you need something
to say, "This is how

we're gonna nail him down,
this is the piece of evidence

that he can't talk
his way out of.

Our interview ended at that
point in time.

[Brian] You're looking for the
equivalent of the smoking g*n,

you're looking for that piece
of evidence that...

he's not gonna be able to come
up with an alibi for.

He had a second phone.
Was it Tequila's second phone?

Was it a phone he found?

We don't know.

If we don't have any more
evidence in this case,

if we can't obtain anything
barring a confession

this case is gonna sit and
it's probably gonna go cold.

We had known he got off the
bus and was at Latifah's house

so a bunch of us investigators
went back and we started

right from the area
where the bus stop was

and we looked
in every garbage can...

We checked the yards
and just any place where

you would think you
might find something.

We were looking for
not so much the bag itself

but what was inside the bag...
Baby piece of the interaction.

Maybe a Kn*fe or a
bloody piece of clothing.

In the back of Latifah's house
there was two garbage cans

and I was back there with
another officer an I just said

just kinda go through there
and see what's in there.

There was a bag on top and
then there was a bag underneath it

which was a white
Price Right bag.

And they took a look
in the bag...

and they found an absolute
treasure trove of evidence.

A disposable mop head that
was soaked in what appeared.

A woman's jacket,
it had blood on it.

Some men's clothing
and two knives.

Everything was just
coated with blood.

And that's kind of what really
broke the case open.

It was this relief to know
that this is solved.

[narrator] Damoni Hall, is arrested
and charged with Tequila's m*rder.

[Alshrey] It was like
Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

It was like to everybody else
he was this good person.

Until you really saw him
in a different light.

[Dominique] When I met Damoni the
first time he seemed like a real good man

and it was a shock to find out
that someone was capable of doing

what he'd done.

Even after he was arrested

and charged the investigation
didn't stop.

When we found
the white Galaxy phone

it proved to us that he had
taken her phone,

that the activity that we saw
on the phone after he left,

he had done that, not Tequila.

And that told us it was because she
was already gone, she was already dead.

The DNA evidence came in,
the vast majority of the blood

that was found on the items in the
Price Right bag belonged to Tequila Suter.

And Damoni Hall's DNA was
found some of the items...

Our evidence against him
was extremely strong.

My theory in this always was that Damoni
and Tequila got into an argument over

a few hundred dollars
taken out on her debit card

that she didn't authorize. My theory
was that she confronted him on that.

Who are you talking to?

Who are you talking to!
What are you doing?

That argument
had turned violent.

-He had taken a Kn*fe or
possibly two knives -[screams]

and brutally m*rder*d her.

He had then attempted
to clean up the crime scene

and tried to take crucial
evidence with him.

He tried to cover his tracks
by taking her phone

and using her phone
to make us think

that she was still alive when
in fact she wasn't.

He took a lot
of very calculated steps

to try and cover up what he did.

But ultimately he failed.

In 2015 Damoni Hall
pleads guilty

to second degree m*rder and
is sentenced to 20 years to life.

While he didn't deny that he
had done it he tried to backpedal

and make it seem like
he hadn't really meant

to k*ll her. It was...

just unspeakably horrible.

That was my person. Like
you took my person from me

in the most
horrible way you could.

And you robbed her of having a life,
getting married, having any kids of...

everything. You robbed her.
Your robbed my child

of having her godmother.

Tequila had a big influence
on my daughters

and that's the reason why
they're doing good now.

Tequila was a positive role
model to them.

We know that she's
watching over us.

That she's guiding us,
keeping us on that right path

and staying strong...