01x02 - Be Careful of the Quiet Ones

[bunniefuu]

[ominous music playing]

- [phone beeps]
- [operator speaking]

[woman speaking]

[operator speaking]

[woman speaking]

[ominous music rising]

[operator speaking]

[woman crying]

[woman] I'm scared of him.

[door closing]

[mysterious music playing]

[reporter 1] Vanished without a trace.

An Army veteran
and Orange County student has disappeared.

[mysterious music continues]

[reporter 2] They are not considering
Ramos a victim of a crime right now

because they simply don't know
what happened to her,

but they are investigating this case
as a missing persons case

with suspicious circumstances.

The city of Orange is a very nice town.
It's a very safe town.

Downtown Orange,
kind of a sleepy little historic town.

There's not a lot of serious crime
in the city of Orange.

So having an incident like this,
it was a big deal.

It was a media frenzy.

Cal State Fullerton student Maribel Ramos
has been missing since last Thursday.

[reporter] Ramos never
showed up to work Monday.

Meanwhile, Ramos' family and friends
simply don't know what happened to her.

It just kind of took on a life of its own.
Everybody was looking for Maribel Ramos.

There were cousins of Ramos
in the neighborhood

canvassing, handing out these flyers.

She is my best friend. Actually, she's my
only friend, only family member I have.

[reporter] Her roommate, K.C. Joy,
began to worry

when Ramos, an Army veteran, missed class
six days ago and her on-campus job.

Unusual thing was being next day,
Friday morning, she was not here.

That's unusual.
That's when I called the police.

[ominous music playing]

- [device beeps]
- [indistinct radio chatter]

[Ramirez] I remember that I was home,

and I got a call from my boss at the time,
Dennis Gomez, and he said,

"Hey, we have
a suspicious missing persons case."

"We need you to come in."

I was briefed.

I learned that

Maribel Ramos missed a softball game
with family and friends,

and they're saying, "There's no way
she would not come to this softball game."

"This is just way out of character."

It really started to scare the family,

and then, as a detective,
we start ramping things up.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Ramirez] Because she's a missing person,
we're interviewing family members,

we're interviewing coworkers,
we're interviewing people she dated,

we're interviewing neighbors.

So after talking
to all these different people,

everybody that we spoke to had alibis

or could not have been
involved in this case.

[Haydon] Her roommate, K.C. Joy,

was the one question mark
we kept coming back to,

but at the time, we were just,
you know, looking for Maribel.

[intriguing music playing]

[Lucero] Growing up, my sister Maribel
was inspirational to all of us.

Especially me. I'm her little sister.

I mean, she had her temper,
you know, we were sisters.

We fought a lot and things like that,

but Maribel was always,
you know, very compassionate,

thinking about the future, and...

[sighs heavily] She had so much to give.

She was a great human.

A great human.

[intriguing music continues]

[Giselle] My aunt
was very fun to be around.

Always wanted to be doing something.

She was kind of the tomboy
of the family, I believe.

She was very competitive.

She was in the Army, and she kicked butt,
and she was very inspirational.

[Lucero] So when Maribel
left for training,

a couple months later,



And then she went to w*r for 18 months.

She did two tours.

During that time, me and my aunt
actually exchanged a lot of letters.

I would tell her
when I was being bad with my mom.

I would tell her about school.

I would tell her that I wanted her
to take me to the park so we can play.

I have a book that she gave me, actually.

She wrote a note in it.

"This book is for you because I love you."

"Pray for my safe return.
From your Aunt Maribel."

I missed her a lot. [chuckles]

And she was part of the military
for eight years.

After Maribel came back
from her second tour,

she wanted to get
her bachelor's in criminal justice.

She decided not to reenlist,
finished up her time.

Her and my mom moved
to Orange, California,

got an apartment, and she then
transferred to Cal State Fullerton,

continued her studies.

Then my mom got sick.

We lost my mom in 2009.

So Maribel wanted me to move in with her,

but, you know, I was settled,
and Giselle was in school,

and this was just not the time.

But I said if she doesn't find a roommate,
I'll move in with her.

And that's how she met K.C.

[unsettling music playing]

[Ramirez] So Maribel needed a roommate.

She put an ad in Craigslist,
and Mr. Joy answered the ad.

[menacing music playing]

[Ramirez] He drops out of the sky.
He's educated.

He has a little dog. She has a little dog.

He sells himself as a very nice person,
and he's really good at that.

[Lucero] He looked like a nice older man.

He said he was applying for a job
in Huntington Beach, California.

Wanted to maybe see the apartment

while he was in town for his interview.

That's what he did.
He came out, met my sister.

I met him as well.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Lucero] He told me
that he doesn't have any family,

has never had a wife,
has never had children.

He wouldn't be bringing people
to the house.

She can work and do her school
and not worry about, you know,

the things you worry about
if you have a younger roommate.

At the time,
Maribel was close to getting her degree.

She was very focused,
working and studying.

It seemed like it would be a good fit.

Me and my sister
tend to always see the good in people.

You know, it's like,
"Oh, he seems nice. He's quiet."

My mom was right.

She said, "Be careful of the quiet ones."

[sinister music playing]

[Lucero] So K.C. moved in.

Everything was going smoothly.

A couple of months go by,
and he was always at home.

He didn't have friends.

It's sad because we felt his loneliness.

Maribel, being the type of human
that she is,

invited him to come out
and share a meal with everyone.

[dramatic music playing]

[Lucero] He met our aunts and uncles,

and they would joke with him,

and he was laughing and fit in,

and that's how he gradually
became friends with Maribel.

They went to the dog park together.

If my sister went to the grocery store
and he needed something,

she'd bring it for him.

If there was a family party,
"Hey, we're going if you wanna go."

This was a very nice time for him.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Simmons] At the very beginning
of these investigations,

the last person that sees the person alive

is always gonna be a suspect.

In this case, K.C. Joy was the last one
that was with Maribel,

so he became
the target of our investigation.

[Ramirez] Well, um, again,
you're not under arrest.

Thanks for coming down here voluntarily.

Um, that's huge.

As you know, right now,
there's some people,

some family, and friends that are worried
about Maribel, your roommate.

[K.C.] I'm also her friend,
and I care about her very much.

- [Ramirez] Uh-huh.
- She's my best friend and roommate.

[Ramirez] Uh-huh. So when
was the last time that you saw her?

[K.C. exhales] About 9:00 p.m.

That's when we talked,
at nine o'clock, then I went out.

[Ramirez] So you
last saw her at 9:00 p.m.,

and then you left for an hour,
came back at ten, and she was gone.

So where did you go for an hour?

I'm not really... I just drove
almost down to the Tustin or something.

I just drove down, and I drove back.
I just came back in.

[Ramirez] You just drove down
to Tustin and came back?

[K.C.] Yeah, I just drove down
and came back. Didn't go anywhere.

So, according to Mr. Joy,
when he was asked where he was,

he said that he had gone for a drive.

That he drove up and down Tustin
in the city of Orange,

and when he got home, she was gone,
and he never saw her again.

I don't think that it's...

It didn't sound like the truth,

but you couldn't prove otherwise
at the time.

[intriguing music playing]

[Lucero] The summer
before she went missing,

I was driving, and he called me.

He starts telling me,
"I wanna tell you something,

and I know that your sister
wants to get married."

"She wants to have kids."

"I want to be
the man that she's looking for."

I... I'm like, "What is..."
I was in shock. Like, whoa, you know?

This was out of the blue.

And then he said he was in love with her
and that they had a great friendship

and that he loves the family.

I told him, like,
"K.C., you're a nice man."

"You can definitely have
everything that you're looking for."

I said, "But it's not my sister."

"You guys are not a match. You're older."

"She's young. She wants to get married.
She wants to have kids."

"The type of partner that she needs,
that's not you."

"You're her friend."

"I'm sorry, but my sister
will never like you like that."

He just stayed quiet.

He didn't say much,
and then we ended the conversation.

It was interesting,
now that I think about this.

I mean, I didn't feel comfortable
with the situation, for whatever reason,

and I then called and talked to her.

I said, "Maribel, you have to talk to him.
You have to figure it out."

"If this is the case,
then he can't live with you anymore."

I definitely felt the weight of his words,

and that was just not okay.

He's in her house.

Those things can go terribly wrong.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Lucero] That was a first major red flag.

And then after that,

Maribel called me, and she said,

"Lucy, don't worry about it, sis."

"We talked,
and he was just having a moment."

"He said he just has a crush on me."

"You told him everything,
so he's fine now," she said, "It's okay."

After that,
there was a lot of weird things

that all of a sudden just spiraled.

[Ramirez] There was some attempts by him

to better position himself to be,
you know, more than a roommate to her.

We learned that Maribel said,

"Hey, you know what, K.C?
You'd look good with a tattoo."

So he comes home with
a giant Bengal tiger tattoo on his arm.

[Lucero] He was all of a sudden
doing all of these things,

just changing himself.

He is like dressing differently
and going out a lot.

Trying to be more, I don't know, hip.

Maybe to look more appealing to Maribel,
he spent over $10,000

to have his face look younger
and some plastic surgery done.

[Lucero] One day, I go over,
and he was all bandaged up.

I said, "What happened, K.C.?"

"Oh, I just got some, you know...

I just had to do some stuff."
And I said, "Okay."

I don't know what he did to himself.

[tense music playing]

This weird behavior kind of snowballed,

and K.C.'s feelings towards Maribel
were not reciprocated.

She didn't want a relationship with him.

I believe that put him over the edge.
I think he snapped.

[Simmons] You know,
he was so obsessed with her.

If he couldn't have her,
no one was gonna have her.

When we start an investigation like this,

we do an in-house search of our records.

And in this case,

we learned that approximately two weeks
prior to Maribel's disappearance,

Maribel calls the police.

[sinister music playing]

[operator speaking]

[Maribel speaking]

[operator speaking]

[Maribel's voice breaking]

[Maribel sobbing]

[operator speaking]

[Maribel sniffles]

[Maribel speaking]

[Maribel spelling]

[operator speaking]

[ominous music playing]

[Lucero] He didn't pay Maribel rent,
so then she paid everything herself.

That was actually very nice of her.
That's not something my sister usually...

You don't mess with her money.

So, she talked to him and was like,
"K.C., what's going on?"

"Regardless of the friendship,
you have a responsibility."

He was really upset.

They got into a huge fight,
and that's when my sister said,

"Oh, we're not gonna be friends anymore.
You're gonna have to move out."

[Maribel speaking]

[Maribel's voice breaking]

[Maribel sniffles]

[operator speaking]

[Maribel speaking]

[operator speaking]

[Maribel speaking]

[ominous music playing]

[Ramirez] The responding officer
that went out to the apartment,

he talked to both of them.

Maribel didn't make a report.
All she wanted was him to go.

She didn't elaborate much more than that.

The officer asked Maribel
if she was gonna be okay,

and she said, "Yeah,"

and he was gonna move out at the end
of the month. She was good with that.

She wanted it documented he has to get out

because he's not paying rent,

and she was feeling
uncomfortable and threatened.

[sinister music playing]

The last time Maribel was actually seen
was at 7:15 p.m. on May the 2nd

while she's depositing her rent check

into the dropbox at the apartment complex.

That was the last time
we actually got her on video.

[sinister music playing]

[Simmons] When Maribel
went back to the apartment,

she got into a heated argument
with K.C. Joy.

[Lucero] K.C. was supposed to be
out of the house,

but he wanted a life with Maribel.

[Haydon] At this point he had every excuse
to try to stay there as long as he could.

He needed more time,
he was trying to get another job,

and he wasn't moving out.

Maribel told him, "You're out,
and you need to be out tomorrow."

So he starts cussing at her.

Maribel gets upset,

and she contacted her friend Paul,
who she puts on speakerphone.

Paul tells him,

"If your stuff's not out by tomorrow,

I will physically take your stuff
out of that apartment."

And that was the last phone call
on Maribel's phone.

[dramatic music playing]

[Ramirez] How bad did the argument get?

Nothing bad. I was talk...
She talked to Paul.

She goes into her bedroom,
closed the door.

Then I just went out, came back in,
and when I came back in, she was not here.

[sinister music playing]

[Lucero] Friday morning, I was at work.

Then I got a message from K.C. telling me,

"Oh, your sister didn't come home."

"I called the police, but they said
that I couldn't make a report

because she hasn't been missing
for 24 hours."

"It would look bad on her record."
And I'm like, "What is he talking about?"

Because he had told me
that he was in love with her,

I thought, "Oh, God.
He's just wants to know where she's at."

"He probably wants me
to tell him where she is."

And so I told him,

"K.C., it's none of your business.
Don't worry about it."

"Oh, well, she left her light on,
and she never leaves her light on."

And I'm like, "Oh, my God,
this guy is just ridiculous."

He doesn't need to be calling me,
texting me.

All we need to know is, "You're gone."

After K.C. messaged me on Friday morning,
I messaged her just to say hi,

something along those words,
and then she didn't text me back.

But it was a Friday. I know she's busy.

I didn't feel anything weird
at the moment.

I just felt he was weird.

Like, "What's wrong with this man?"

[dramatic music playing]

[Lucero] After work,
I had dinner plans with a friend.

Went to dinner.

Then I got a phone call
from my cousin's wife, and she said,

"Please don't worry,
but Maribel did not make it to the game."

"None of us have talked to her."

"Go to her house. We're all going there.
We called the police."

I think subconsciously my feelings,
everything just really crashed,

and I just started crying.

I was a mess,
like, on a whole other level.

[Simmons] After she doesn't
show up for the softball game,

that's when the family
goes to her house to do the welfare check.

Maribel's car was in the garage.

Her bedroom light is on,
and nobody's answering the door.

[Ramirez] The police come
and knock on the door.

They can't get ahold
of anybody in the apartment,

so they make the decision to force entry.

[Lucero] As soon as I get there,

I pull up to her street,
and there's like four cop cars out there.

There's lights.
I just see all these red lights.

And the first thought
that came to my mind was,

I imagined my sister dead
in the house on her bed.

And so I, like, park my car somewhere.
I left it.

I got out. I ran into the house.

The door is open
because the police is already in there.

I go to her room, and her bed's not done.
It's like, her bed's always done.

She doesn't leave without making her bed.

I mean, it wasn't just undone.
It was a mess.

At that moment, I just knew
something was really off.

And where's K.C.?

I just knew that he did something to her.

[Ramirez]
The police try to locate Mr. Joy.

Several phone calls
are being made to his phone.

He doesn't answer those calls.

[Haydon]
That was kind of a red flag for us.

We have police, and family, everyone
trying to find out where she's at,

and the roommate was not there.

It turns out K.C. was sitting in the car
outside the apartment with binoculars,

just watching the house.

[tense music playing]

[Ramirez] He actually watches

as the family members
are knocking on the door,

and they're trying to get
somebody's attention inside.

He watches as the police come
and knock on the door.

Maybe an hour into it,
he actually leaves his vehicle

and actually walks up to the residence.

He kind of just walks up to the officers
and kind of asks what's going on.

Very casual, very nonchalant.

Then all of a sudden, K.C. pops out
of the back of a car into the crowd.

And I see him, and I'm like,
"K.C., where's my sister?"

He didn't even look at me.
He didn't even turn around.

He went straight to the police officer,
and immediately I said, "Okay. All right."

So I pointed the finger
at him immediately.

[ominous music playing]

[Haydon] That night,

Detective Ramirez asked K.C.
if he'd come down and talk to us.

So we brought him here to the station
and asked him some follow-up questions.

[K.C.] Her baseball bat's
still in the closet.

Her baseball bat was right in the closet.

She didn't go play the game.

Her baseball bat was in the closet
because she didn't go to the game.

[Haydon] It was a little bit frustrating
getting facts out of him

because he kind of spoke broken English.

[K.C.] The test. Maribel knows about this.

The test. First time when I'm...

[muttering indistinctly] Like, I also...

[Ramirez] He would make
question-and-answer a little difficult.

Act confused like he wasn't sure
what I was asking him.

[Haydon] We found that, afterwards,

K.C. had moved to the States
as a young kid.

He spoke very good English.
Very good English.

[Ramirez] People that knew him real well

didn't even know
where this accent came from.

They even asked me,
"Hey, where did that accent come from?"

And I'm like, "What accent?"
They said, "He's never talked like that."

I said, "My real concern...
about her friends or relatives."

I said, "I think I have
nothing to hide something."

"I just have... I worry about that."

Some of the neighbors said
ever since this investigation started,

his English kind of went downhill.

[Lucero] He was trying to give off
that "feel sorry for me" vibe.

Acting like he's this nice man
who didn't do anything,

who barely speaks English all of a sudden.

Oh, God. He was just... what a show.

[Ramirez] Do you have anything to do
with her being gone right now?

[K.C.] Absolutely nothing.

I'd like to know where she is too.

And who picked her up.

[Ramirez] Okay. How'd you get
all these scratches on you?

[tense music plays]

During the initial interview
with the police,

Detective Ramirez notices something
on K.C. Joy's arms.

[K.C.] That is something
I never knew I had a scratch there.

[Ramirez] He's sitting there
with these scratches on him.

Those alone made the hair
on the back of your neck stand up.

They're fresh. They're raised.
They have dried blood on them.

You can tell they've been
within a few days.

I'm thinking,
"How is he gonna explain these?"

[K.C.] We go to Eisenhower Park
all the time.

- [Ramirez] Uh-huh.
- We pick up fishing lines all the time.

- [K.C.] You go over there... Fishing lines.
- Let me see.

- Those are from fishing lines?
- [laughing] No, no, no. I will explain.

[Haydon] His answer to us
was that he had received those scratches

taking some fishing line
from some bushes or something.

He told us right off the bat,
"This is where it happened."

"This is the exact park."

Sure enough, you get up there,
and there's these vicious thorns

that absolutely could cause
something like that.

And it's just like,
"Wow, where did he come up with that one?"

Even though it was hard to believe,
how would we prove that he didn't?

[tense music continues]

[Giselle] We were all just crying, almost...

I wouldn't say 24 hours of the day,
but it felt that way.

It just felt so unreal.

We were all just hoping
that she was still out there.

I opened up an account on Facebook,

and I posted her picture

and was hoping this interaction
with the public will help us.

I don't know how, but it will.

[voice breaking] Um, I have friends
that actually helped me pass out flyers.

My teachers put them up at school

since my high school
was kind of closer to my aunt's house.

So many people were involved
and wanted to help out.

Everyone was looking for Maribel.

Her Army family.
Her Marine family, coworkers.

We were trying to think about
anything that could help.

[somber music playing]

[Giselle] We did hold a candlelight vigil.

It was friends and family,

so we just all came together
to support one another,

because we were all there
for the same reason,

and it was just to find my Aunt Maribel.

K.C. did, in fact, attend.

He wasn't part of it.

He just kept saying, "I'm very sad."

"I don't wanna be
around the family right now."

And it just seemed very off

since he seemed to care so much
about my Aunt Maribel.

And then there were
some online discussions

where Maribel was referred to
by K.C. in the past tense.

Which seemed odd.

And there were actually people
that commented on it.

Like, "Why are you using past tense?"

[sinister music playing]

[Lucero] I remember Saturday

we were supposed to go to dinner
with her as her guest.

Cal State was having a dinner,
and Maribel was going to be speaking.

I went to Maribel's apartment,
thinking if she took things with her,

maybe that lets me know that
she's planning on going to the dinner.

I wanted to look for clues,
but everything looked the same.

She had not taken any items.

And then, when I left the apartment,
K.C. was standing at the door.

And then I just said to him...

"If my sister's not at this dinner,

then somebody must have k*lled her."

And he said, in his, uh...

in his fake voice, obviously,
"Oh, Lucy, don't say that."

And then I left.

Um, I didn't understand the...

moment, but I understand it now.

[tense music playing]

This case had challenges,

mostly because Mr. Joy is a smart man.

He's educated.

He sells himself as a very nice person,

and it just seemed
that everything that we brought to him,

he would reason out of it.

He had done a decent job
covering his tracks.

During the initial investigation,
we had no evidence.

We searched in her house, in her vehicle.

As the days passed, we talked to everyone.

Everyone that was important in her life.

[Simmons] Friends that she had,
coworkers that she had,

people that she'd met at school.

There were prior boyfriends

and people she had been dating
that the police investigated.

Each and every one of them
had a solid alibi.

The only person
that didn't have a good explanation

of where they were
and what they were doing

at the time of her disappearance
was K.C. Joy.

Every day that went by
just seemed like he was beating us.

Based on the scratches that he had on him,

the 911 call to the police,

you couldn't help but have this feeling
that he's responsible for her being gone.

I decided to dig into Mr. Joy's history.

He came from Tennessee,
and he fled that state

because everything
had gone bad for him over there.

[Simmons] Just prior to him
moving from Tennessee to Orange,

he had lost his job.

His parents passed away.

He got into an argument
with his sister over money,

an inheritance from his parents.

So he was kind of isolated.
He really had nowhere to go.

[Ramirez] I called,
and I spoke to his sister,

and she told me
that Mr. Joy had a really bad temper.

She was scared to the point where
she got a restraining order against him.

She'll tell you that he's a monster.

[unsettling music playing]

[Ramirez]
We decided to assign a surveillance team

to monitor Mr. Joy's activities 24/7.

If he did this, you know,
most likely he will slip.

[Simmons] They set up a surveillance team
and watched him.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Simmons] So K.C. Joy
ends up going to the library.

And at Orange Library,

you can check out or rent,
if you will, free of charge laptops.

K.C. Joy would use
the public computers there and log in.

And then we could obtain intel
inside the library, remotely.

[keyboard clacking]

[Haydon] We were able to monitor
his every movement on the computer.

The surveillance team
would radio back to us at the station

what he was doing
or what he was looking up.

[officer] He's asking, "Does a cell phone
has to be turned on to trace?"

[Haydon] He had some really suspicious
searches on some search engines.

Another time he entered in,

"How long does it take
a human body to decay?"

The problem with that was those facts,
in and of themselves,

are not enough to file the case.

He could wanna know,
as an innocent person,

how long do we have until the body decays?

Or if she's got her cell phone on her,
will we be able to find her?

There were still innocent explanations

even with those items
that make you look guilty.

[officer] It looks like he's typing in
the missing person's name.

[Simmons] The goal was to make sure
all the evidence was collected

because you gotta prove he k*lled Maribel

beyond a reasonable doubt
to all 12 jurors.

[officer] He's reading
the comments on the article.

Looks like he's writing one too.

[somber music playing]

[Lucero] Every morning, every time
I heard the birds outside, it was like,

"Ugh, another day."

And I felt extreme sadness. Extreme.

I asked friends
from a church that I used to attend

to come and pray with me
outside of her house.

And I went inside, and I looked at K.C.,

and he looked terrible this time.

His face, he just looked ugly.

And he just looked ugly.

And I said, "Do you wanna pray with us?"

[ominous music playing]

He said, "Oh, no, no, no.
You guys go ahead."

So he sat there in the living room.

He was just a couple feet away from us
while we were praying outside for Maribel.

He was there.

[somber music playing]

- [keyboard clacking]
- [somber music continues]

[Ramirez] I was at my desk
working on the case

when I received a phone call
from the guys at the library saying,

"You're not gonna
believe what he just did."

[Simmons] He logs in, he sees they were
doing an awareness walk at Peter's Canyon.

It was my mom
that planned the awareness walk.

Peter's Canyon was actually a trail

that my Aunt Maribel
took me and my mom to,

so we had planned it to walk out there

and see if maybe, for some odd reason,
she was over there.

[Simmons] Ultimately, the awareness walk

is what kind of pushed K.C.
over the edge, if you will.

[Haydon] He typed in the address
for the awareness walk onto a Google map.

And then zooms out
and then switches to satellite view.

And he kind of zooms in close,
zooms in close,

and then zooms in on a tree
in a remote canyon.

[dramatic music playing]

Then he deletes his history.

I didn't even have to say it.

Somebody had already told a couple of guys
to start going out to that area.

[tense music playing]

It's up here.

[tense music continues]

[Haydon] The location was so remote

that the only marker we had

was this large bush
that was right off the side of the road.

That's where the detectives
kind of led us.

Everyone kind of took a portion
of this open area

and looked for anything suspicious.

As we kind of turn this
corner underneath this large tree...

I don't think it was more than a half hour
that I got a call back from him saying,

"You're not gonna believe this,
but we found her."

[reporter] That autopsy
is being conducted today.

As of now, we do not know
the identity of that body,

so we don't know if it is that of missing
Cal State Fullerton student Maribel Ramos.

Now take a look behind me. That body was...

I see Channel 5 talking about
there's a body that they found,

and at that point, in that moment,
honestly, it was not even news to me.

Joey called me
while I was watching the TV,

and I said, "Joey,
can you take me over there?"

You show me any piece of her,
and I will know.

Show me her hand.

Show me a piece of that body,

and I can tell you right now
if it's her or not.

[imitates Ramirez] "I can't do that."

"Okay." So I hung up on him.
There's no need to talk.

My grief was rage.

[dramatic music playing]

[Ramirez] At that point,
we went to make contact with Mr. Joy.

[reporter on TV] ...the Iraqi w*r veteran.

Within just the past hour,

police in Orange
announced that they had identified...

[Ramirez] We believe that he
was monitoring, you know, news.

He knew that the body had been recovered,

and he knew something
was gonna be happening soon.

So, when we got to the apartment,
he jumped out the window

and fled.

[dramatic music playing]

Surveillance had seen him do this,
and they stopped him and detained him,

and then we ultimately arrested him.

When the guys were handcuffing him,
I remember him saying,

"You better have some good evidence."

[K.C.] I cannot believe she's dead.

[sighs]

So I'm really curious to see
what kind of evidence you've found.

What evidence you've found me
guilty of m*rder.

I'd really like to know.

That's what I'd really... I mean. What?

[Ramirez] My theory is that
because she was such a tough person,

because she was fit,
and I believe that had she had a chance,

she would have either k*lled him
or left quite a crime scene.

And because it wasn't there,
I believe that he had the drop on her.

That he was able to come into her room
when she was asleep and smother her.

[dark music playing]

And then take her body out to the canyon.

[K.C. sniffles]

[Ramirez] As close as I thought we were
to having him tell us what happened,

to this day, I don't think
he's taken any responsibility.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Simmons] He almost got away with m*rder,
ladies and gentlemen.

He almost got away with it.

But he didn't.

At the trial, we couldn't really prove
how he actually k*lled her.

But when K.C. did the Google search
and zoomed in on the tree,

it was like a virtual drive-by,

which we ultimately used
to prove K.C. Joy k*lled Maribel Ramos.

[somber music playing]

I think he was wrapped up in Maribel.

I think he loved her,

and I think he couldn't
just wrap his head around thinking

he was gonna live his life without her.

He's not gonna have a place to live,
doesn't have a job.

He's got nowhere to go.

K.C. knew he came to the end of the road,

and he just couldn't deal with it.

[somber music playing]

[Giselle] I wrote a letter to read to him
at the sentence hearing.

Didn't get to it. I couldn't.

[interviewer] What do you mean?

I didn't have the courage to read it.

I just didn't.

I mean, he wasn't going to listen
to anything I had to say.

[interviewer] What did it say?

I basically was asking K.C.

what he had done,

and I wish I never had met him.

I wish he would have
never been in my life.

I don't wish any bad on anyone ever,

but definitely his time will come

to where he just
is gonna maybe feel what we felt,

but in a different way.

But I couldn't.
It was too much for me to read it.

[Lucero] My sister is gone.

It's an emptiness that will not be filled.

It's very painful to know
that she should be here

and to see my daughter,
to feel her pain and see it.

It-it... it... crushes me.

I felt guilty for a long time. I did.

I feel like
if I would have moved in with her,

she would have never met him.

I'm better with that now.

With my faith and what I believe in,

at the end of the day,
I know that, regardless...

I mean, this was not, you know,
in God's will, but it was gonna happen.

There's more to this life
than just this life.

That is what keeps love in my heart.
That is what keeps hope in my soul.

[somber music playing]

[interviewer] If Maribel was still here,
what would you say to her?

[Lucero sighs] Oh, my God.
That I love her.

That I love her, um,

that I would do anything for her.

And I would just love
to grow old with her.

Yeah. Absolutely.

[voice breaking] Um, one more hug.

[somber music continues]

[mysterious music playing]