NARRATOR: May 12, 1987.
A teenager comes home to discover his mother
has been savagely attacked.
Police arrive and find the victim
half-naked, stabbed to death.
The victim is 38-year-old Janora Faye
Stevens, a part-time secretary and mother of a teenage son.
MIKE HUFF: As I came into this house, television was on.
She had laundry laid out.
She's folding laundry.
I mean, you know, this is what people do.
And then I saw the amount of blood.
Her son came home to discover her in her last breaths.
It looks like this photograph, she tried to get
on the phone to call 911.
In her last few minutes of life, she put up a hell of a fight.
Suspect literally had to become very
determined to end her life.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: Huff has one potential lead.
MIKE HUFF: I found a witness that saw a guy near the crime
scene an hour or so after the homicide,
and he was wearing a jean jacket and looked
like he'd been in a fight.
NARRATOR: To Huff's disappointment,
they can't find the man in the jean jacket,
and the case goes cold.
Three months later, a possible break.
Police arrest 19-year-old Quentin Barnes for burglary.
Huff learns Quentin was living next door
to the victim, Janora, at the time of her murder.
MIKE HUFF: As I looked into the past,
found out he was a cocaine abuser, not a very stable guy.
NARRATOR: CSI searches Quentin's house
and finds a jean jacket like the one the witness
saw on the night of the murder.
Huff's instinct kicks in.
These little bits and pieces of minutia
are adding up and adding up.
This guy is coming together as a suspect.
NARRATOR: Huff questions Quentin.
But his potential suspect denies even knowing Janora.
[music playing]
MIKE HUFF: It was a gut feeling.
I knew it was him.
But I had to let him go.
NARRATOR: As the years pass, the unsolved murder
of Janora Stevens is never far from Huff's thoughts.
MIKE HUFF: What I really wanted was the truth.
I wanted to find out why that happened to that lady.
I just was not going to give up.
NARRATOR: Seven years after the murder,
Huff processes the jean jacket again,
taking advantage of advances in forensic science.
This time, they discover fibers on the jacket
similar to the ones from the victim's robe.
They also find on the jacket a woman's
hair that may belong to Janora.
The forensic results still are not 100% conclusive.
MIKE HUFF: The evidence was entirely circumstantial.
But I got enough to arrest him for the murder.
[music playing]
NARRATOR: To build a solid case, Huff needs a confession.
MIKE HUFF: This is one of the first confessions
we videotaped.
I was a little bit self-conscious.
But I thought a videotape would be the best evidence.
OK, let's go back to May of 1987.
Why don't you tell me what you were doing
on a daily basis at that time?
QUENTIN BARNES: [sighs heavily] I was living with my sister
at the time.
[breathes shakily]
MIKE HUFF: He was upset being arrested.
He'd been around the block enough to know
this was serious.
I want you to tell me as much as you can remember
as to what went on that night.
QUENTIN BARNES: [sighs] That night, my sister came home.
[sobbing]
Go ahead, Quentin.
Meaning the lady that got murdered?
QUENTIN BARNES: (CRYING) Yes. Yes.
OK.
Whose idea was it to go into this house?
My sister's.
MIKE HUFF: The sister was not a suspect in this crime.
I knew she wasn't.
I had already proved that she was somewhere else.
So I thought, I will let him go with this because this is still
leading us toward the facts.
[breathing shakily]
MIKE HUFF: How'd you get in?
QUENTIN BARNES: There was a door leading into the house
to the garage, and it was unlocked.
MIKE HUFF: As Quentin breaks his details down
into blaming his sister for this entire thing,
he's actually confessing.
When he's saying she did something, he's really saying,
this is what I did.
I was right there by that door.
That's the furthest I went in there.
NARRATOR: Quentin claims he did go into the house,
but only as far as the doorway to the attached garage.
Do you remember it enough to be able to draw it?
(CRYING) Yeah.
OK.
If Quentin can draw the scene, that means
he's the one in the house.
We came in from here, and they started wrestling
and went in there.
MIKE HUFF: Did this big living room area, did it have a door?
Back door.
Uh-huh.
He's saying, I just got inside the doorway from the garage.
But yet, he's showing us one or two rooms away.
NARRATOR: Quentin's statement is incriminating,
but Huff still needs a full confession.
I did not kill her.
I seen her stab that lady.
She stabbed her, Mike.
And I don't care what it takes, but I'm not doing time for it.
She'll do it.
Have you ever once told me this story?
No.
So you have lied to me in the past about all these stories?
(CRYING) Yes, sir, I have.
MIKE HUFF: And lying right now to me?
No, sir.
You're saying that you saw your sister
stab Janora Stevens?
QUENTIN BARNES: Yes.
And you didn't do anything to go help the lady?
Because I was scared, Mike. I didn't--
For what?
Because I didn't know what to do.
I've never seen anything like that before in my life.
MIKE HUFF: I am realizing I am not getting what I need,
and that's the truth.
I really wanted to be confrontational to him.
But I looked up, and realizing this was on camera.
NARRATOR: Huff is concerned if he pushes too hard,
his aggressiveness will come across negatively
on the interrogation tape.
MIKE HUFF: I was worried that I would get into a shouting match
with him, that it would get unprofessional.
I worried that that might disappoint the jurors
or make them think less of me.
I just didn't know what the end result was going to be.
NARRATOR: Huff decides to end the interrogation
without a confession.
It's now 2202 hours.
This will be the end of tape statement of Quentin Barnes.
I knew that the case was thin, and I didn't confront him.
I wasn't forceful enough, and I let him be in control.
I just hoped I got enough to get him convicted.
Now we've got the rooms wired.
But this was the first time, and it was a little awkward.
And I was a little self-conscious.
But you know what?
At the end of the day, the jury looked at this statement
and the prosecution lined it out piece
by piece that only the killer would
know the inside of this house.
Only the killer would know exactly where it happened.
He admitted to being there.
NARRATOR: Huff teaches there can be more to the interrogation
than getting a confession.
The end result was that the jury convicted him,
and he got a life sentence.
I poured my heart and soul in this case,
seven years' worth of it.
It was very personal.
And it was very satisfying that he got convicted
and that the truth was heard.
[music playing]