[morose music]
[narrator]
in Harris County's homicide bureau.
The phone rings.
And the business of murder begins.
Ronnie Phillips works the weekend shift.
[Phillips]
I was working out of our homicide office
down on Prairie Street.
And Sergeant Chris Price assigned me
a discovered body out off of Homestead Road.
[narrator]
a brackish bit of backwater flowing west toward Houston.
On its banks, Phillips finds an abandoned car wash,
a scattering of cops, and the body of a young blonde.
[Phillips]
said, "Expensive but worth it."
She had blood on her face and...
had a pair of panties on one leg
that looked like they've been ripped off the other leg.
[narrator]
named Inez Deaton.
The cops pick her up from the weeds
and lay her down on a slab.
Ronnie Phillips has attended more than a few autopsies.
This one is especially tough to take.
[Phillips]
on a young person when you have children of your own.
You'd always think, in the grace of God,
one of yours could be laying on that autopsy table, you know.
[narrator]
In the days before DNA,
little can be done with this evidence.
The coroner counts nine stab wounds
on the woman's chest.
Two in her back.
The entry wounds are tiny but fatal,
penetrating the heart and lungs.
The only weapon consistent with such a wound,
an ice pick.
To find out how Inez Deaton
ended up on the wrong end of such a wicked instrument,
Phillips begins to track her movements.
It's a search that takes him back to the home
of the victim's best friend.
[morose music]
On May 28th, Wynona Bible gets a call from police
who want to talk about Inez Deaton.
[Wynona]
Is she in jail or something?" You know.
'Cause she was always pulling practical jokes.
And he said, "No, she's dead."
And it just... It floored me.
[narrator]
Deaton was supposed to stop by Wynona's house.
Bible tells police she forgot about Inez's visit
and went out for the day with her family.
The only person left at the Bible home,
Wynona's cousin, 27-year-old Danny Paul Bible.
Detective Phillips buttonholes Danny Paul
who tells him Inez never stopped by that day.
He seemed cool and collected, you know.
He didn't seem upset or anything.
He didn't raise no red flags.
[narrator]
have a different impression
as they watch Danny Paul talk to police.
He was acting weird.
He didn't say nothing unless they asked him a question.
There was a gut in my stomach that kept telling me he did it.
[narrator]
The entire Bible family turns out for the ceremony,
save one.
Shortly after talking to police,
Danny Paul skips town,
sharpening suspicions even further.
With no physical evidence
linking Bible to the crime scene,
there is little Detective Phillips can do.
[Phillips]
What you could have done, maybe what you didn't do.
Try to think of something you could do
to bring the case back to life, you know.
[narrator]
demand Harris County's attention.
The investigation goes cold,
and Danny Paul Bible slips into obscurity.
[morose music]
At a motel on the edge of town,
a young woman watches afternoon TV.
There's a rap on the door.
A stranger silhouettes the doorway.
The man strong-arms his way into the room
and the woman screams.
Randy Walker is the detective called to the motel.
[Walker]
when he pushed her on the bed
and put his hand around her throat
and said, "If you cooperate, I'm not gonna hurt you.
If you keep hollerin',
you're gonna force me to do some stuff I don't need to do."
[narrator]
that the man raped her repeatedly.
In the motel courtyard, maids identified the suspect
as a guest who stayed just two doors down.
Walker finds the man's stepson still in the room
and asks for a picture of his stepdad.
[Walker]
and show it to her and she said, "That's him. That's him."
[narrator]
on the hunt and on the run once again.
As far as Walker is concerned,
he has enough to make a case of aggravated rape.
But he thinks there's more to this story.
[Walker]
And it seemed like for an eternity,
but finally, he grabbed a cup of coffee
and took a swallow of coffee
and swallowed real hard and says,
"Tell you what, if you get me a Bible and a pack of cigarettes,"
he said, "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
[narrator]
with a Bible and a pack of smokes.
The next morning, the cigarettes are gone,
the Bible opened to Paul's Letter to the Romans.
Danny Paul has highlighted several passages.
[Walker]
He says, "No."
He says, "I'm ready to tell you some of it."
[Walker]
Yeah, he says, "The first murder I did was in 1979."
I said, "1979?" I said, "You know who it was?"
And he thought and he says, "I think she was a Deaton,
but I'm not sure."
[narrator]
when Deaton came to the door.
[Wedgeworth]
he made up his mind to sexually assault her.
Immediately.
[morose music]
[narrator]
Danny Bible stands trial for the murder of Inez Deaton.
In the courtroom is Ronnie Phillips,
the detective who first responded to the crime scene.
It was satisfying to see him sitting there.
And to know that the DA was going for the death penalty.
I think it was long overdue, you know.
[narrator]
the jury returns its verdict, guilty of capital murder.
Bible is sentenced to die by lethal injection
and packed off to Texas' death row.
The final postscript to Danny Bible's story.
On his trip to death row, Bible's prison van crashed.
The convicted killer was critically injured
and flatlined on the way to the hospital.
ER workers, however, were able to bring Bible back to life,
ensuring he will not miss his date with a needle
in Texas' death chamber.