Original subtitles

You cannot imagine

the pain and the heartache that I feel.

The body was an African-American female

who was badly beaten. She was unrecognizable.

There was a small puzzle piece stuck to her stomach area.

We knew if we could find where this puzzle piece came from,

then we probably had located the crime scene.

You all ready?

It is very rare that he is wanting

to tell his side of the story.

Within minutes, blytheville, Arkansas, police

dispatch sergeant Michael dannar to the scene --

an abandoned house on the outskirts of town.

When we get a call of a dead body, there's a greater urgency.

I switched on my body camera at that time.

I activated my blue lights and my siren

and went code to the area.

He's greeted by the 911 caller,

a meter reader for the gas company.

All right.

Beside the gas meter,

I observed what appeared to be a black female deceased.

She had been deceased, obviously, for a couple of days

because of her condition.

When I'm going by the body, I get a real...

Good taste of it because, I mean, people can say

what they want to about the smell.

You can taste it. It permeates you.

The caller appeared to be shaken.

He was obviously upset by what he had seen.

I'm not thinking

that this gentleman is involved because he's very shocked

at seeing the body.

Additional officers arrive

and cordon off the area.

Your bumper?

Detectives then begin examining the scene.

The residence on cherry street

where the victim was located,

local drug users would use that residence to squat in

and use it also for a place to get high.

We arrived on scene.

It was important to clear the residence

where the body was located

because there may be potential suspects

or other victims inside the residence,

and it could be our potential crime scene, as well.

Officers draw their guns,

not sure what they might encounter inside.

We get into what we call a stick formation...

...to where we're in line.

And then there's a point guy, which is me.

There was a garbage located throughout the house.

You could obviously tell that

someone had been staying there at some point.

We were looking for blood spatter.

We were looking for instruments

that could have been used in the actual crime.

It was some type of orthopedic wrist brace

that somebody would use.

We just assumed that it would possibly belong to a suspect.

We collected it as evidence.

We're on the away.

With the house secured, back outside...

17-50. - -Go ahead.

...investigators examine the remains.

The body was badly beaten in the face.

There was a slight amount of decomposition.

She was swelling, as well. We could not identify her

because she was not recognizable.

Her face was not recognizable, and we knew

that somebody had killed her and dumped her there.

The body was in horrible condition.

At the time, there were so many

bugs and flies on it that you wasn't too sure what happened.

While an autopsy will need to be performed

to determine cause of death,

detectives do observe signs of sexual assault

the dress that she had on

appeared to be a pink-and-black dress,

and there was mal discoloration in the front-middle portion.

In just the material of the dress

and the way she was laying, it appeared that

she was possibly sexually assaulted.

Investigators move in

for a closer examination of the body

and discover something unusual.

As I was taking photos of her body,

I noticed that there was a small puzzle piece

stuck to her stomach area.

It was odd that one puzzle piece

was stuck to her body.

There was no puzzle pieces inside the residence

where the body was found,

nor there were no puzzle pieces around the body in the yard.

So, at that point, we started

trying to find where this puzzle piece had come from.

We knew if we could find where this puzzle piece came from,

then we probably had located the crime scene.

Investigators also note a tattoo

on the victim's left calf, a detail

that could help identify the remains.

We knew that the body had been there for a couple of days

and we were behind the eight ball

on this particular investigation because it's hard enough

to solve these crimes when it's fresh.

Much less several days old.

So I began, at that point,

to try to set out and identify who the victim was.

But the police are handed a possible clue

by an onlooker at the scene.

I received information from an officer

that a Jasper Perry had come to the scene

and told them that he had been looking for his friend,

and her name was Bianca rainer.

However, Jasper has left the scene

before investigators can get a full statement from him.

When we're working a crime as heinous as this,

to have a bystander come up

and ask officers, "did you find Bianca rainer?"

That's odd considering we didn't even know who she was.

At that point, we do want to speak with him.

Officers obtain Jasper's address

and track him down back at his house.

I left the scene, went a few blocks to the house,

and talked to Jasper Perry.

And how long ago it had been since he had seen her

and where she might have been going.

Once he describes the dress to me, I'm thinking

that our deceased person is Bianca rainer.

Now that we do have the name of the victim,

we obviously want to do everything we can to find

the young lady's killer.

Police in blytheville, Arkansas, believe

they've identified the body of 29-year-old Bianca rainer.

She had not only been strangled with the cords around her neck,

but she had also been bludgeoned and had been sexually assaulted.

Back at the station,

detectives work to confirm the victim is in fact Bianca rainer.

Family members started to tell US about the tattoos

that was on Bianca's body,

which included a Rose and her children's name on her leg.

I was able to, again, go through the pictures

that I had taken of the body

and verify that it was Bianca rainer.

Bianca...

Was the first daughter that I had,

believe it or not, and I call her my daughter because...

She was with me from the time she was a year old

up until she got grown.

She was my son's daughter.

And when she came to live with me,

everything was just wonderful

because I had him there, I had her there.

She was my prize.

Bianca was like really an angel on earth,

really, like she could do no wrong.

She was always quiet, she was timid, she was shy.

But, like, she was always happy. She was always smiling.

You would be like, "Bianca, why you smilin' so hard?"

Like, "why are you always so happy, girl?"

Like, you know, she was the type of person.

It hurt me so bad when she got killed

because, you know, we family.

Blytheville police now turn for answers to the person

they believe saw Bianca last before she disappeared,

Jasper Perry.

Jasper Perry claimed that he knew Bianca.

We wanted to know what their relationship was.

Were they sexually involved or just friends.

At this point, we considered him to be a suspect

because he was the last person to see her.

Jasper originally told US that he couldn't remember

which day he last saw her.

He said that they slept in the same bed

but they weren't sexually involved.

We knew that Jasper was potentially the last person

to see miss rainer alive,

so we were suspicious of Mr. Perry to say the least.

Jasper Perry gave US a story which we didn't believe.

So we offered him a polygraph, and he agreed to take it.

Detective Jason simpkins

administers the test.

Detective simpkins questions Jasper for hours,

then leaves Jasper to review the results.

He then shares his findings.

Being deceptive on the test, that doesn't mean that

he killed Bianca.

It just means that there's something that he's concealing,

some sort of information that he has not given law enforcement.

So we need to find that out.

As far as polygraph being used in court in the state Arkansas,

it is inadmissible.

However, it is a tool that we use in the investigation

to help steer US.

Once a person is found deceptive on a test,

and then, of course, you go from the regular casual interview

to it is an interrogation at that point.

So we are going to do

what we've got to do to to get that information.

And it does put pressure on that person.

It is a stressful situation.

We knew that, if he did have something to do with her,

it was possible that his DNA would probably be on her.

We didn't have any analysis back at this point,

so we didn't know.

At that point, I don't know if he's going to be the person

who actually killed Bianca,

but he's definitely going to be a suspect until we determine

why it is that he was deceptive on this test.

Detectives investigating the murder

of Bianca rainer in blytheville, Arkansas, have their eye

on the last person they believe saw her alive,

a man named Jasper Perry.

Jasper's already failed a lie detector test.

Now detectives are hoping for a confession.

The test isn't going to show that this person

is guilty of a crime.

The test is just showing that there may be questions

with this person's level of honesty in the investigation.

Now we have to determine if he's actually involved or not.

Jasper insists he had nothing to do

with Bianca's murder.

And while detectives have their suspicions about him,

they know they don't have enough evidence

to charge him with murder.

We knew that Jasper was deceptive.

He was definitely still a suspect in this case.

One day into the investigation,

detectives are striving to catch Bianca rainer's killer

as her family struggles for answers.

It's just something that I -- I don't know

if I'll ever be able to move on from.

You don't really understand things like this.

And people can say...

"I know how you feel." You don't know how I feel.

You cannot imagine

the pain and the heartache

that I feel...

With my daughter being gone.

I don't know if heaven and hell is real

or the afterlife or whatever,

but I know whatever spirit is at,

she's hurt.

'Cause I know she had plans for her life

and plans for her girls.

That's what really hurts me the most.

Her kids will never have a mother anymore.

She'll never ever, ever, ever be able to be a parent again.

And her kids will never ever have a parent,

like a mother, again.

Can't nobody replace.

Detectives turn their attention

to the property where Bianca's body was found

and discover something peculiar.

Detectives learned of a phone call

that was placed the night before the body was found.

A caller advised our dispatch office that

the doors to the residence was open

and they were requesting an officer to go by

and check the residence.

So as we're listening to this phone call, the detective

who handles our sex offender registry

recognized the voice

on the phone call is that of Ricky bassett,

who is a local registered sex offender.

Detectives track down Ricky

and bring him into the station for questioning.

Mr. Bassett told US

that he was going to his old residence,

which was across the street from where we located

Bianca rainer's body, to look for a wrist brace

that he had left at the residence,

and noticed that the door

was open to the residence across the street.

And he just wanted to call the police and report it.

Ricky did not live in the residence

where we found the brace, so we knew that it was

highly suspicious that we would find this wrist brace

he's looking for at what we, at the time,

thought was the scene of the crime.

We had not gotten back any results

from the medical examiner's report yet.

We have a local sex offender who is claiming that he lost

a wrist brace in what we thought was the crime scene.

We were excited because we thought we had our guy.

Detectives collect a DNA sample from Ricky

and then set him up for the polygraph test.

Detective simpkins questions Ricky about Bianca's murder.

Ricky appears calm, looking straight ahead during the test.

Detective simpkins runs through the questions

and then analyzes the test data.

A polygraph examination can be a several-hour-long process,

and it does put the heat on a person.

It obviously is a challenge because

we have to determine, why is he showing to be deceptive?

It is challenging when you're working a case like this

because this person is showing to be deceptive.

So when I approach Ricky,

I want to know why you are deceptive.

Are you involved in this crime directly?

Do you have knowledge of it?

So I'm going to go at him, at him hard.

Detectives hunting Bianca rainer's killer

in blytheville, Arkansas, have questioned multiple men

but now are focusing on one of them,

registered sex offender Ricky bassett,

after he failed a polygraph test.

Now they need physical evidence

to place him at the crime scene at the time of the murder.

Captain Frazier returns to the house

where Ricky had recently lived,

across the street from where Bianca was found,

and speaks with the new tenant living there.

I just basically swerved in there

and just basically got out and said,

"hey, man, I need to talk to you."

Captain Frazier asks the man if he knows Ricky.

At this point, he's acting suspicious.

He's looking around. He's not looking at US in the eyes.

This man looked about 60.

I knew immediately that he was lying to US.

We can see these puzzle pieces

laying all over the floor in the hallway.

And they're covered in a stain

that we automatically recognize is blood.

We knew at that point we've got our crime scene.

We were there. We were where we needed to be.

I just basically wanted to keep him calm

and put him in cuffs. I didn't know if he had a gun,

'cause I hadn't searched him yet.

I didn't know who I was talking to

until I found his driver's license.

I'm looking at the picture. I'm looking at him.

It was obvious that he was Harold Bennett.

We knew that if he's lying to US about that,

then he probably knows a lot more about miss rainer's case.

Back at the station,

Frazier continues to question Harold Bennett about Bianca.

We need to get Mr. Bennett locked into a story

of where he was, what was going on.

Of course, he denies having anything to do with it,

but we know that if he had sex with her,

his DNA would probably be on her.

Bennett then comes clean.

He tells Frazier he paid Bianca for a date.

I tried to appeal to his conscience a little bit.

And this is a tactic that investigators use often

to try to solicit some information

out of the person that we're interviewing.

He sticks to his story

that they just had sex and she leaves.

I didn't really believe him, but I didn't know,

so I call in detective simpkins.

It's not uncommon for US to swap up investigators

and change tactics

on individuals that we're interviewing.

And I knew there was more to get out of him.

Having the information of what he had disclosed

to captain Frazier helped me in knowing,

okay, Harold did have some sort of involvement

with Bianca rainer.

We know that encounter would have been

right around the time of her death.

Blytheville police detective Jason simpkins

is leaning on murder suspect Harold Bennett.

Harold, he started crying, said he didn't mean to,

talked about an argument between the two of them.

I know that he wasn't giving me the actual full details

as to what he had done.

So detectives offer to take him back

to the crime scene.

It is very rare

that a suspect would agree to such a thing.

But Harold was wanting to

tell his side of the story, so to speak.

That sealed the deal with him.

Harold walks me through the house,

points me to where Bianca was standing,

where he starts claiming

that she had had a pocket knife on her.

Harold was steadily portraying himself

as he was a victim in this and this was self-defense.

Every time he would beat her and she would lose consciousness,

when she would wake up, he would go back and beat her some more.

He would say that he felt bad about it,

but his actions, his body language

showed more that he was... Excited about reliving it,

that he was getting to tell me and show me

what he had done to her, how many times he had hit her,

where he hit her.

Harold continues his story of disposing of Bianca's body

by dragging her across the street in a trash can

and dumping her beside the house.

I was able to garner

the confession from Harold Bennett

and prove that he acted alone.

He was wanting to to cast himself as a victim.

But he almost appeared as if he was proud of what he had done.

I became involved in this case

when the detectives called our office and notified US

that Bianca rainer's body had been found.

The reenactment video was very difficult for me to watch.

The way Harold Bennett described what he did to her

was very upsetting.

While we were watching the video,

the medical examiner called one of the other detectives

to tell him the cause of death.

And what we didn't know at the time

was that she had actually been shot three times in the head.

In the prior interview,

Mr. Bennett tells detective simpkins

that there is a piece of evidence

that's not related to the crime,

but he knows it's there,

and he wants US to get it out of the house.

During the reenactment video,

he never mentions shooting her.

He does attempt to portray the murder

as more of a self-defense, which obviously, you know,

when he shoots her three times in the head,

I mean, there was no self-defense involved

with regard to that.

It made the murder just that much more heinous, I believe.

So after all this confession on videotape,

we take Mr. Bennett to court, and he is convicted

of the first-degree murder of Bianca rainer

and sentenced to life in prison.

And he stated that he he acted alone,

didn't have any accomplices, and we believe that to be true.

I was really impressed with the team,

from the first responding officer

all the way to the prosecutor's office in this case,

knowing that we were able to secure a suspect within 24 hours

and have all the evidence that we had against Mr. Bennett

and get him off the streets.

It was a very good day and a win for law enforcement.

I see Bianca every day in her daughter,

because they could have been identical twins.

So that makes it even harder for me

to accept the fact that their mom...

Is gone.

Amya told her teacher that she had been adopted.

I'm like, "okay, Amya,

do you know what it means to be adopted?"

And she says, "yes, Nana. I now have two mommies,

and one of my mommies is in heaven.

That's Bianca."

I said, "that's right.

And the other one is right here to tell you

it's time to go take a bath."

I just hope Bianca's kids

grow up with peace in their heart.

And I just hope that they life is just happy.

And her spirit just got them and protect them.

Bianca wanted everybody to like her

'cause she liked everybody,

not knowing it didn't work that way.

She was a loving person.

She loved me. She loved her children.

And if she were here today,

really, it's no telling where we would be

or what we would be doing.

It's just no telling.