[music playing]
BILL KURTIS: John Murray works homicide
for the New York State Police.
As I walked down towards the end of the trail here,
and reaching the river, I could--
I noted that there was a concrete shelf-like area.
And against that shelf area, there
was a body of a woman lying partially
submerged in the water.
Her back was scraped up from what
looked like her sliding down this rough surface
of the concrete into the river.
BILL KURTIS: Initial signs point to murder.
An autopsy will later determine the victim had been strangled,
and confirms the presence of semen
and the possibility of a sexual assault.
Meanwhile, John Murray needs to ID his victim.
Her pocketbook wasn't found.
There was nothing here that indicated who she was.
BILL KURTIS: An APB is put out, and Investigator
Murray waits for someone, somewhere,
to recognize his victim.
Mary Ann Deso is worried.
She has not seen her daughter, 19-year-old Diana,
since last night.
It is now going on 11:00 PM.
REPORTER (ON TV): Her body was found--
MARY ANN DESO: We were sitting watching
the news at 11 o'clock.
And they had said that they had found
an individual on the other side of the Hudson
in North Greenbush.
And I looked at my husband, and he looked at me.
And I said, oh, no.
I said, this can't be.
BILL KURTIS: The family contacts police,
who put them in touch with investigators
working the Hudson River case.
One of the investigators had her brush.
And he showed me that, and he said, is this hers?
And I said, yes.
BILL KURTIS: Eastman is able to develop a full STR DNA profile,
enters it into CODIS, and gets lucky.
ALLISON EASTMAN: It hit on a convicted offender
by the name of Rae Kellar.
And we checked--
BILL KURTIS: Dave Madden jumps on the Rae Kellar lead,
teaming up with investigators Steve Ortiz and Debbie Komar.
What was the connection between Rae
Kellar and Diana Deso?
DAVE MADDEN: Yeah, we really worked that hard.
I mean, we had a lot of investigators
in both your unit and our unit.
We really beat the bushes on that, and we got--
BILL KURTIS: Kellar has no apparent ties to Diana.
But the team finds his criminal past to be telling.
STEVE ORTIZ: Just looking at his criminal history,
which has sexual assaults in it, rapes.
Again, that was another thing that,
to us, indicated he was a real good suspect in this cold case.
BILL KURTIS: Kellar is serving up to 25 years for raping
a girl in 1989 in New York.
Detectives decide to talk to Kellar's victim
before speaking with the suspect himself.
She was scared to death of Rae Kellar.
And one of her first--
or second comments where, "He tried to kill me."
BILL KURTIS: Komar notes that the attack
bears a striking similarity to Diana Deso's case.
Like Diana, this victim was choked.
Unlike Diana, she lived to tell the tale.
DEBORAH KOMAR: I can't emphasize enough the importance of her
describing his neckhold on her, and knowing that cutting off
someone's air supply like that could cause death
in a very short amount of time.
BILL KURTIS: Investigators have Kellar's DNA
at the scene and a similar act.
One of my biggest fears was that he
was going to shut us right out.
Yeah, I had sex with her.
So what?
BILL KURTIS: Investigators need to get
inside their suspect's head, get him thinking,
and then get him talking.
Dr. Richard Hamel is a psychologist
who spent the past 22 years talking to sexual predators.
In 2004, he's tapped by cold case detectives who want to get
inside the head of Rae Kellar.
If he thought he was being misunderstood
or might be misunderstood, it was possible
that he would step forward and provide incriminating
information toward the goal of showing people
that he was not such a bad guy.
The date, the time--
BILL KURTIS: The plan--
hit Kellar with the DNA evidence and give him
the opportunity to own up and put himself
in the best possible light.
On December 17, 2004, Detectives Ortiz and Madden
have a face-to-face with inmate Rae Kellar.
They put me in a corner, and Officer Ortiz was
basically a foot away from me.
So I just told him, 1987, he had an encounter
with a girl named Diana Deso.
And he indicated he does not know who that name is.
And I'm like, well, I don't know.
You know, it's 17 years ago, a long time ago, whatever.
And when he said he didn't know anything about her,
or had any connection to her, or any recollection to her,
it's then when Steve showed him the picture.
And that's when they asked me, do you know who this is?
And I was like, no.
We were in a good place because even if he
continued to deny, we knew from our DNA evidence
that he knew her.
He was there with her.
And by denying it, it really--
it helped.
But yet, we weren't quite there yet.
What we wanted, we were there for,
was we wanted to know exactly what happened
and how it happened.
And we wanted him to tell us that.
BILL KURTIS: That's when detectives hit
Kellar with their trump card--
the DNA match between Kellar and semen found at the scene.
And after, I'd say, 20 to 30 minutes, he just looked up
into the ceiling and said, hypothetically,
if I were to tell you what happened,
how do I know that you wouldn't tell the truth
when you left this room?
When he said that to us, I knew we had him.
BILL KURTIS: With audiotape rolling,
Kellar takes detectives back to 1987
and the night Diana Deso was murdered.
RAE KELLAR: I was high on coke, dope, and wild.
You know, I guess you could say I
was looking for maybe some sex.
You know, I'm not going to sit here and say maybe--
that that wasn't in my mind.
BILL KURTIS: Kellar says he was driving
around when he spotted a young woman hitchhiking
and pulled over.
RAE KELLAR: I asked her where she was going.
She said she was going home.
She got in the vehicle.
I asked her what was going on.
RAE KELLAR: I guess you could say
she was in an angry mood, hurt, whatever,
from what I recollect.
BILL KURTIS: The two ended up at a secluded area
near the Hudson River.
BILL KURTIS: Kellar sexually assaulted Diana, then allowed
his victim to get dressed.
That's when Diana Deso made a comment
that probably cost her life.
At some point, something snapped inside of me.
I had Diana by the back-- by the throat,
my arms around her throat, and I was just squeezing.
Just anger, just anger was going through my mind
as I was just, you know, squeezing, squeezing.
I was just squeezing.
BILL KURTIS: Diana collapsed.
Kellar was left holding her body.
I must have believed at that time that she was dead.
I must have thought that.
Or if I didn't think that she was dead,
I guess I must have thought that I put her in the water,
she will be dead.
BILL KURTIS: Detectives Ortiz and Madden
have pushed the right buttons and their suspect confesses,
exactly as Dr. Hamel predicted.
We knew what he did, and everybody
was going to know what he did.
And now he needed an opportunity to try to make himself
look as best as possible.
BILL KURTIS: Kellar is sentenced to 22 years to life
for raping and murdering Diana Deso.
I am completely-- you know, I'm truly
sorry for what I've done and all the people I've hurt.
You know, and I've got nobody else--
nobody to blame but myself.
I mean, I did what I did.