Murder of Angela Samota

Last updated
Angela Samota
Angela Samota.jpg
Born
Angela Marie Samota

(1964-09-19)September 19, 1964
Alameda, California, U.S.
DiedOctober 13, 1984(1984-10-13) (aged 20)
Dallas, Texas, U.S.
Cause of death Multiple knife wounds to the heart
Resting placeLlano Cemetery, Amarillo, Texas
Occupation Student
Known for Victim of rape & murder

The murder of Angela Samota occurred on October 13, 1984, when she was attacked while in her apartment, raped and killed. The case remained unsolved until DNA evidence surfaced in the 2000s, following which charges were brought against a convicted rapist, Donald Andrew Bess Jr, who was subsequently tried and received a death sentence. He died of natural causes while awaiting execution in October 2022. [1]

Contents

Background

Angela "Angie" Marie Samota was born on September 19, 1964, in Alameda, California. [2] She enrolled at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and was a part of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority. She was studying computer science and electrical engineering. [3]

Assault

On the night of October 12, 1984, Samota and two friends, one male and one female, went to the State Fair of Texas. Samota's boyfriend did not join them because, according to the subsequent police report, he was working in construction and said he had to get up early the following morning. The three friends went to the Rio Room dance club and stayed there until "after midnight." According to subsequent testimony of the male who accompanied the two girls, Samota "was going [from] table to table, talking to people" and seemed like "she knew everyone."

Afterward, Samota drove her two companions to their homes, first dropping off the male at around 1 a.m. at his apartment on Matilda Street, in Lower Greenville, which was a five-minute walk from Samota's condo on Amesbury Drive, and then the female. The man later testified that, when he returned home, "he went to bed and fell asleep." [4]

Samota next went by her boyfriend's apartment to say goodnight and returned to her place. [3] The boyfriend subsequently stated that at approximately 1:45 a.m. he got a call from Samota, who told him there was a man in her condo who asked her to use the phone and the bathroom. He didn’t know if the man was already there when she got home or if she allowed him to come in. "Talk to me," Samota reportedly said to her boyfriend, then said she would call "right back" and hung up. When she did not call back, the boyfriend phoned her, and no one answered. He drove to her condo, but there was no response when he knocked on the door, which was locked. He had with him an early-generation mobile phone, provided for his construction job, so he called information, who connected him to the police. [4]

Police officers arrived at 2:17 a.m. and broke through the door. They discovered Samota's dead, bloody, and naked body on the bed. The autopsy showed that the victim had been raped and then "repeatedly" stabbed, dying from wounds to her heart. [3]

Investigation and arrest

For a long period of time, the police reportedly suspected an architect who was 23 years old at the time and living in a Lower Greenville apartment. [5] He was the man who, the night of the murder, had gone out with Samota and another girl. [6] The victim's boyfriend was reportedly also a suspect. [3]

The case remained unsolved until 2008. [7]

In 2006, then-Dallas police detective Linda Crum, tasked with the case, used the DNA evidence from blood, semen, and fingernail samples to try to find a match among persons with a criminal record. In 2008, the results pointed to a Donald Bess who, at the time of Samota's murder, was on parole while serving a 25-year sentence. [3]

Claims by friend

Sheila Wysocki, who went to SMU and was a roommate of Samota, subsequently stated that the cold case was re-opened only because she kept "badgering" the police until "they were so sick and tired of" her that they assigned detective Crum to re-examine it. Wysocki credits the fact that she became a licensed private investigator in her desire to assist in solving Samota's murder. The police initially had stated the rape kit collected at the crime scene, which contained the incriminating DNA evidence, had been lost "in the [Dallas] floods." [7] [8]

The defendant in the 2010 trial for the sexual assault and murder of Angela Samota was already in prison, serving a life sentence. Donald Andrew Bess Jr. (born September 1, 1948, in Jefferson County, Arkansas), [9] had been previously convicted in 1978 for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping. He had been sentenced to 25 years in prison, and was out on parole by 1984, when, according to the court's decision, he raped and murdered Samota.

In 1985, in a case unrelated to Samota's murder, Bess was sentenced in Harris County, Texas, to life imprisonment for one count of aggravated rape, one count of aggravated kidnapping and one count of sexual assault. [10]

During the punishment phase of the Samota case trial, in 2010, various women came forward and testified that they had also been raped by Bess. [11] The defendant's ex-wife testified that he had abused her and their child during their marriage. They had wed in 1969 and divorced three years later. [12]

On the basis of the DNA match, Bess was found guilty by the jury and, on June 8, 2010, received the death sentence. On March 6, 2013, the appeal filed by Bess was rejected and the judgment of the trial court was affirmed. [12] [13] On August 13, 2013, a certiorari petition was filed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and denied on January 13, 2014. [14] In April 2016, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused an appeal submitted by Bess, upholding the findings of the Dallas County trial court. [15]

Donald Bess died in prison from a heart attack on October 8, 2022, while awaiting execution. [1] He had remained on death row [16] at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit [10] until his death. [1]

Aftermath

In 2016, the Dallas Police Department re-established a unit dedicated to researching cold cases. [15] In a 2021 Investigation Discovery episode, titled "Betrayed: Co-ed Killer", the case and the subsequent identification of Samota's murderer were re-enacted. [17]

Samota's body is buried in the Llano Cemetery, Amarillo, Texas. [18] Sheila Wysocki lives in Tennessee and is still a practicing private investigator. [19]

The true crime series Dateline NBC produced an hour-long program covering the Samota case. Entitled In the Middle of the Night, it originally aired on NBC on June 8, 2012. [20]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darlie Routier</span> American prisoner on death row

Darlie Lynn Peck Routier is an American woman from Rowlett, Texas, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of her five-year-old son Damon in 1996. She has also been charged with capital murder in the death of her six-year-old son, Devon, who was murdered at the same time as Damon. To date, Routier has not been tried for Devon’s murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texas Seven</span> Group of American escaped convicts

The Texas 7 were a group of prisoners who escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, on December 13, 2000. Six of the seven were apprehended over a month later, between January 22–24, 2001, as a direct result of the television show America's Most Wanted. The seventh committed suicide before he could be arrested. The six surviving members were all convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Irving, Texas, police officer Aubrey Wright Hawkins, who was shot and killed when responding to a robbery perpetrated by the Texas Seven. Four of the six sentenced have since been executed.

Gregg v. Georgia, Proffitt v. Florida, Jurek v. Texas, Woodson v. North Carolina, and Roberts v. Louisiana, 428 U.S. 153 (1976), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court. It reaffirmed the Court's acceptance of the use of the death penalty in the United States, upholding, in particular, the death sentence imposed on Troy Leon Gregg. The set of cases is referred to by a leading scholar as the July 2 Cases, and elsewhere referred to by the lead case Gregg. The court set forth the two main features that capital sentencing procedures must employ in order to comply with the Eighth Amendment ban on "cruel and unusual punishments". The decision essentially ended the de facto moratorium on the death penalty imposed by the Court in its 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia 408 U.S. 238 (1972).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Tracie McBride</span> American murder case

United States Army soldier Tracie Joy McBride was kidnapped, raped, and murdered on February 18, 1995. Louis Jones Jr., a former soldier and Gulf War veteran, was tried and convicted in the U.S. federal court system for kidnapping resulting in death. The crime was a federal case since it started on a military base, and the rape was the prime aspect to the murder which made it a capital offense. Jones, who was sentenced to death, argued that he should be spared execution due to the traumatic effects of Gulf War syndrome. His appeals were unsuccessful and he was executed by lethal injection in 2003.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Texas</span> Overview of capital punishment in the U.S. state of Texas

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Texas for murder, and participation in a felony resulting in death if committed by an individual who has attained or is over the age of 18.

<i>The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town</i> 2006 true crime book by John Grisham

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town is a 2006 true crime book by John Grisham, his only nonfiction title as of 2020. The book tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted in 1988 of the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada and was sentenced to death. After serving 11 years on death row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence and other material introduced by the Innocence Project and was released in 1999.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.

Linda Anita Carty is a Kittitian-American former schoolteacher who is on death row in Texas. In February 2002, she was sentenced to death for the abduction and murder in 2001 of 20-year-old Joana Rodriguez in order to steal Rodriguez's newborn son. Carty claimed she was framed by her co-defendants who were drug dealers because she had previously been an informant.

According to the Louisiana Uniform Crime reporting program, there were 177,710 crimes reported in the U.S. state of Louisiana in 2018. 2018 had the least amount of non-violent criminal offenses since at least 2008. Violent crime decreased from 2017 to 2018, but 2012 still remains the lowest with its record of 22,868. Rape went up 12.7% from 2017 while murder/non-negligent manslaughter declined 7.8%. Additionally, robbery dropped 15% and aggravated assault dropped 1.5%. Handguns remain the leading murder weapon with a rate of 44.7% with firearm following close behind at 35.7%. Together, these two contribute for 80.4% of the murders. Similarly, robberies were committed mostly with firearms in 2018. Firearms were leading with 52% and strongarm listed with a percentage of 35%.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faryion Wardrip</span> American serial killer and rapist on death row

Faryion Edward Wardrip is an American rapist and serial killer who assaulted and murdered a total of five women. Four of the women were killed in Wichita Falls, Texas, and the surrounding counties. One woman was murdered in Fort Worth, approximately a two-hour drive southeast of Wichita Falls. Wardrip's killing spree began at the end of 1984 and lasted until the middle of 1986. All of his female victims were white, were between the ages of 20 and 25, weighed less than 120 pounds (54 kg), and were under 5+1⁄2 feet (170 cm) tall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Kirkland</span> American serial killer on death row

Anthony Kirkland is an American serial killer. Between 2006 and 2009, Kirkland murdered two women and two girls in the Cincinnati area, following a 16-year prison term for the 1987 killing of his girlfriend.

In 2002, a crime spree involving the murders of two women and one teenage girl occurred in the East End area of Houston, Texas. The three perpetrators were two adult men and one teenage boy: Edgardo Rafael Cubas Matamoros, a Honduran citizen; Walter Alexander Sorto, a Salvadoran citizen; and Eduardo Navarro, a 15-year-old boy at the time of the crimes.

Rosendo Rodriguez III was an American murderer sentenced to death and executed in Texas for the September 2005 rape and murder of 29-year-old Summer Baldwin in Lubbock, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Lee Corwin</span> Executed American serial killer

Daniel Lee Corwin was an American serial killer who was sentenced to death and executed for murdering three women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Botham Jean</span> 2018 murder case in Texas

On the night of September 6, 2018, 26-year-old accountant Botham Jean was murdered in Dallas, Texas by off-duty Dallas Police Department patrol officer Amber Guyger, who entered Jean's apartment and fatally shot him. Guyger, who said that she had entered Jean's apartment believing it was her own and believed Jean to be a burglar, was initially charged with manslaughter. The absence of a murder charge led to protests and accusations of racial bias because Jean—an unarmed black man—was killed in his own home by a white off-duty officer who had apparently disregarded police protocols. On November 30, 2018, Guyger was indicted on a charge of murder. On October 1, 2019, she was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment the following day. The ruling was upheld on appeal in 2021.

Gerald "Jerry" Walter McFadden, known as The Animal, was an American serial killer and sex offender who was executed in 1999.

Rodney Rodell Reed is an American death row inmate who was convicted on May 18, 1998, by a Bastrop County District Court jury for the April 1996 abduction, rape, and murder of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old resident of Giddings, Texas.

On January 26, 2017, Alianna DeFreeze, a fourteen-year-old girl from Cleveland, Ohio, was kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered by Christopher Whitaker. Whitaker, who had a criminal history involving grand theft, burglary, aggravated robbery, felonious assault, and sexual assault, took DeFreeze to an abandoned house, where he raped her. She was found beaten and stabbed to death using a hammer, a screwdriver, a nut driver, a box cutter, and a drill. DeFreeze, who attended school at E Prep & Village Prep Woodland Hills, was reported missing, causing a city-wide search. Her body was discovered three days later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Lisa Rene</span> 1994 murder in Arkansas, United States

Lisa Rene was an American teenage girl who was kidnapped from her apartment in Texas, raped over the course of two days, and buried alive in Arkansas. She was kidnapped on September 24, 1994, by four men: 23-year-old Orlando Cordia Hall, 21-year-old Bruce Carneil Webster, 19-year-old Demetrius Kenyon Hall, and 22-year-old Steven Christopher Beckley. Another man, 23-year-old Marvin Terrance Holloway, did not directly participate in her kidnapping, rape, or murder, but was present at times and provided financial assistance to the group.

David Elliott Penton was an American child molester and serial killer. Penton, an Ohio native and mechanic, was convicted of manslaughter in the child abuse death of his own infant son in 1984; during an appeal of his sentence, he fled and remained a fugitive until 1987, when he was charged and convicted with the murder of a friend's 9-year-old niece in Ohio. Penton was extradited to Texas in 2003 and charged with the deaths of three young Dallas-area girls in the mid-1980s. Penton signed a plea agreement admitting to the murders. Officials in Texas and several other states are investigating the possibility Penton may be involved with other unsolved cases and suspect that he could be the most prolific child killer in American history.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Torralva, Krista M. (October 11, 2022). "Man on Texas death row for murder of SMU student dies of heart attack". The Dallas Morning News . Archived from the original on October 14, 2022. Retrieved October 14, 2022.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. ↑ "Angela Samota, 1964-1984". MyHeritage.com. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Bever, Lindsey (June 29, 2016). "Her friend's brutal murder was unsolved for decades. This is how she helped find the killer". The Washington Post . Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  4. 1 2 Wynn, Christopher (October 15, 2017). "Architect suspected of SMU sorority student's murder cleared in surprise twist". The Dallas Morning News (published October 3, 2012). Retrieved May 14, 2020.
  5. ↑ Wynn, Cristopher (October 15, 2017). "From the archives: Architect suspected of SMU sorority student's murder cleared in surprise twist". The Dallas Morning News . Retrieved July 4, 2021.
  6. ↑ "Murder case followed neighborhood resident for decades". Lakewood Advocate. October 3, 2012. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  7. 1 2 "My best friend's killer got away - until I made police try again". BBC . June 26, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  8. ↑ "Dallas Floodway Timeline 1908-203" (PDF). U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 2014. Retrieved June 29, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Donald Bess Death Row Information". Texas Department of Criminal Justice .
  10. 1 2 "Donald Andrew Bess, Jr". The Texas Tribune . April 2018. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Woman testifies that she was raped by convicted killer years before SMU student's brutal death". The Dallas Morning News . June 15, 2010. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  12. 1 2 "Man on Death Row for 1984 Rape and Murder of SMU Student Loses Appeal". The Dallas Morning News . Associated Press. April 13, 2016. Retrieved June 30, 2018.
  13. ↑ "Donald Andrew Bess, Jr., appellant, v. the State of Texas" (PDF). The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas. March 6, 2013. Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Donald Andrew Bess, Jr., Petitioner v. Texas". Supreme Court of the United States. 2014. Retrieved July 10, 2018.
  15. 1 2 Steele, Tom (April 13, 2016). "Man on death row for 1984 rape, murder of SMU student loses appeal". The Dallas Morning News . Retrieved May 20, 2020.
  16. ↑ "Death Row Offender Information: Bess, Donald Andrew". Texas Department of Criminal Justice . Retrieved June 28, 2018.
  17. ↑ Mehrotra, Kriti (January 28, 2021). "Who Killed Angela Samota? Where is Donald Andrew Bess Now?". The Cinemaholic. Retrieved July 4, 2021.
  18. ↑ Angela Samota grave at Llano Cemetery, The U.S. Cemeteries Project
  19. ↑ Dodd, Johnny (July 9, 2016). "Solving My Best Friend's Murder: How a Stay-at-Home Mom Became a Private Investigator to Crack a Cold Case". People . Retrieved June 1, 2020.
  20. ↑ "In the Middle of the Night". Dateline NBC. Retrieved January 5, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.