I’m Going To Get You

Summary

20/20 – “I’m Going To Get You” (ABC News, Nov 15, 2025)

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Episode Overview

“I’m Going To Get You” delves into the harrowing 1996 murder of Debbie Dorian, a Fresno State student, and the multi-decade investigation that eventually brought her killer to justice. Through survivor testimony, interviews with detectives, and courtroom drama, the episode explores trauma, community fear, evolving forensic science, and the relentless pursuit of justice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Crime and Immediate Aftermath

• [00:18–03:33] The episode opens with Vince Zavala recounting a traumatic assault he survived, highlighting the randomness and brutality of such crimes.
• [01:34] Debbie Dorian is introduced: a bright, recently graduated student with her life ahead of her.
• [02:37–03:33] Her father, Peter, discovers her murdered in her securely-locked apartment—she is found bound, suffocated, and assaulted.

Quote [03:33]:
“He found the most horrific sight that any parent could encounter. And that was his daughter, Debbie Dorian, lying in the middle of her bedroom floor…”
— Vince Zavala

2. The Investigation Begins: A Community Shaken

• [05:34–06:27] Vince Zavala, then at the California Bureau of Investigation, joins the case—there is no forced entry, little disturbance, and only a handful of clues.
• [07:19–07:27] DNA evidence is recovered, but there is no national database match—a dead end for 1996 forensics.

Quote [09:04]:
“The Debbie Dorian case definitely stayed with me. The horrific way that she was killed and then the terrible impact on her family...”
— Narrator

• The campus and city feel a collective fear: “If it could happen to Debbie Dorian, it could have happened to any of us.”
  — [11:28]

3. Pursuit of Suspects: Dead Ends and Missteps

• [13:52–15:24] Investigators focus on Debbie’s acquaintances, including her boyfriend John Thomas, who is eventually cleared.
• [15:56–18:34] The search widens. Debbie had been looking for a roommate, and a list of names becomes the new focus.
• [18:45–23:45] Alvin, a would-be roommate, and his friend Maurice Dixon become persons of interest. Both are investigated intensely.
  • Alvin is cleared via DNA.
  • Dixon’s sample initially matches—he is arrested and jailed but is later exonerated when more sophisticated DNA testing shows he is not the killer.

Quote [27:39]:
“Tonight, he is free … and the investigation into the Debbie Dorian murder case returned to square one.”
— Narrator

• The emotional toll on Maurice Dixon, his family, Debbie’s family and the community is highlighted.

Quote [28:26]:
“People, you know, stare at me and, like, you know, accusing me but not knowing, you know, the full details of what happened.”
— Maurice Dixon

4. Years of Cold Case Work & Familial Persistence

• [30:36–31:43] Debbie’s father ultimately needs to step back from public advocacy, but her mother, Sarah Lovin, continues to push investigators.
• [31:50] Vince Zavala vows to never give up on the case—even promising not to retire until there’s justice.

Quote [31:50]:
“Sarah often said that solving Debbie's murder was like a million piece puzzle. If you keep putting one piece together … you're eventually going to get a picture.”
— Vince Zavala

5. DNA Links, Serial Attacks, and Breakthrough

• [34:35–36:49] A DNA hit is made: Debbie’s case matches a sexual assault in Visalia (an hour south), part of a string of similar attacks. The MO: a masked attacker with a gun targeting lone women.

• [41:23–43:01] Beth ("Jane Doe number one"), a brave survivor, recounts her assault in gripping detail and her resolve:
  “All I remember saying is, I’m gonna get you. You’re not gonna get away with it.” — Beth [42:38]

• Detective work identifies over 146 men for DNA comparisons in both cities, but the perpetrator remains unidentified for years.

6. Genealogy & the Modern Breakthrough

• [46:49–48:09] Arrest of the Golden State Killer (using genetic genealogy) inspires use of the same technology in Debbie’s case.
• Fresno and Sacramento investigators collaborate, building family trees from partial DNA matches.
• A match is finally made in 2019—Nikki Duane Stane. He is not on anyone’s radar: married, two kids, no criminal history, works in food service.

7. The Arrest, Confession and Character Portrait

• [54:29–57:05] Investigators retrieve DNA from Stane’s discarded razor blades (“trash pull”) to clinch the match.
  When confronted, Stane initially denies knowing Debbie but later, in interrogation, claims they met for consensual sex—unsupported by evidence.

• Stane also admits to multiple sexual assaults; in interviews, he boasts about sexual exploits and a “Fifty Shades of Grey” style lifestyle.

• The show presents Stane as the "guy next door" with a dark, hidden life, including running an Airbnb and filming roommates.

Quote [61:41] (Investigators find silk robes, sex toys in his home):
“He talked about his bedroom looking similar to 50 Shades of Grey.”
— Vince Zavala

8. Courtroom Drama, Victim Impact, and Justice

• [67:17–78:51] Stane is charged with Debbie’s murder and multiple sexual assaults. A plea deal is negotiated: he pleads guilty to murder and all assaults in exchange for life without parole, and the death penalty is taken off the table.

Notable courtroom moment [77:49] (Beth’s impact statement):
“My life changed forever that day. I tried moving on. I was always scared. I wish I was dead. I wish he did kill me. It would have been a lot better than having these thoughts in my head.”
— Beth, survivor

• Debbie’s mother, Sarah Lovin, reads a statement in Debbie’s voice, deepening the episode’s emotional resonance.

Quote [79:00]:
“I screamed and screamed, but he didn’t stop... I wouldn’t have a wedding. I wouldn’t be a beautiful bride. My dad wouldn’t walk me down the aisle... Though he took my precious Deb, he did not take my soul.”
— Sarah Lovin, as Debbie

9. Conclusion: Closure and Community Healing

• The years-long pursuit of justice finally concludes.

• [81:49–82:33] Vince Zavala reflects on both farming and investigating as careers demanding patience and stubborn hope:
  “It’s exciting to see all the hard work come to fruition. … It’s like a cold case again. You put all that work into it and we’ll see if there’s a rainbow at the end of it.”
  — Vince Zavala

• The community, survivors, and family members begin to process and heal, buoyed by the closure.

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Notable Quotes and Moments, with Timestamps

• “Why didn’t he murder me? … She had her whole life ahead of her, and I was the one that survived.” — Vince Zavala [01:10]
• “It feels like somebody took a great big spoon and carved out your heart.” — Sarah Lovin, reflecting on her daughter’s death [04:06]
• “It was frightening to think that this could happen to Debbie, because if it could happen to Debbie Dorian, it could have happened to any of us.” — Narrator [11:28]
• “Her name was Debbie Dorian. She was found murdered. You didn’t kill her, did you?” “No.” — Vince Zavala and Nikki Stane [55:56–55:59]
• “I did wrong … but the thing in Fresno there, I didn’t know that that went down. I didn’t know that happened.” — Nikki Stane, jail phone call [73:49]
• “My life changed forever that day. … I wish I was dead. I wish he did kill me.” — Beth, survivor [77:49]
• “Though he took my precious Deb, he did not take my soul.” — Sarah Lovin, as Debbie [79:00]
• “You saw a dry, leafless bush get leaves and now they’re big, red and beautiful. … You put all that work into it and we’ll see if there’s a rainbow at the end of it.” — Vince Zavala, on farming and cold cases [81:49]

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Chronology of Major Segments & Timestamps

| Time | Segment | |-------------|------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:18–03:33 | Zavala’s and Debbie’s stories; crime discovery | | 05:34–08:02 | Initial investigation, DNA dead end | | 13:52–23:45 | Roommate inquiry; focus on Alvin & Dixon | | 27:39–28:42 | Dixon cleared; community fallout | | 31:43–32:20 | Family/familial determination; Zavala's vow | | 34:35–36:49 | DNA link to Visalia assaults; serial predator identified | | 41:23–43:01 | Jane Doe's (Beth) survivor story | | 46:49–48:09 | Golden State Killer case unlocks genealogy method | | 54:29–57:05 | Trash DNA, arrest, confrontation with Stane | | 58:02–62:56 | Stane's confession, search of his home, lifestyle revealed | | 67:17–78:51 | Hearing, impact statements, plea deal, sentencing | | 81:49–82:33 | Reflections, closure, harvesting metaphor |

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Tone & Emotional Resonance

• The episode is empathetic but unsparing—recounting the violence without sensationalism, framing the story around loss, trauma, resilience, and the slow grind for truth.
• Law enforcement voices balance procedural detail with personal stakes and frustration.
• Survivor and family testimony is raw and humanizing, anchoring the events in lived experience.

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Conclusion

“I’m Going To Get You” is a compelling narrative of loss, persistence, and the long road to justice. It underscores both the devastation caused by violent crime and the extraordinary, years-long efforts to restore some measure of peace to its survivors and victims’ families. DNA technology, dogged detective work, survivor courage, and the unwavering support of family turned a million-piece puzzle into a full—if painful—picture.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Vince Zavala]

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[Narrator/Interviewer]

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[Vince Zavala]

Not available in all states. It was just like any other day.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I was working, doing ice cream, and.

[Vince Zavala]

It was on the same street I lived on.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So it was a bike ride away. I was about three blocks away from my house and I saw a gentleman pull out in front of me.

[Vince Zavala]

He grabbed my handlebars and had a gun. He told me to get off my bike and get on my knees. He told me if I didn't, he would kill me. And he sexually assaulted me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It's the first thing that goes through.

[Vince Zavala]

Your head is why? Why me? Why didn't he murder me? She had her whole life ahead of her and I was the one that survived.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I had to relive it every day, 25 years.

[Vince Zavala]

And he did the same thing even worse to her. In August of 1996, Debbie Dorian had recently graduated from California State University of Fresno. There's Debo taking up the heavy stuff. All right, don't drop it, don't drop it. She lived in the North Creek apartment complex, which is four or five miles just north of campus. We had just finished our briefing that we usually have in the morning. I was told that there was a female that was found in her apartment, Peter Dorian, Debbie's father. And Debbie had made plans that Debbie was to drive to Peter, her father's house. Thursday, August 22nd. She had planned to arrive around 7am.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She didn't show up. So after a brief amount of time, he went to her apartment, knocked on.

[Vince Zavala]

The door, rang the doorbell and received no answer. He then turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. And it opened, which it shouldn't have because his daughter Debbie was very security conscious, would never leave her door unlocked. He went into the apartment, didn't see her in the living room or dining area or kitchen, and then went towards the back part of the apartment. The TV was on. So he began to call for her and received no answer. He then began to look throughout the apartment and he found the most horrific sight that any parent could encounter. And that was his daughter, Debbie Dorian, lying in the middle of her bedroom floor on the carpet on her side.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She was naked from the waist down. Her shirt was pulled up, her ankles.

[Vince Zavala]

Were duct taped, her hands were duct taped behind her back, and she had Duct tape completely covering from the top of her head down to her jaw. We couldn't see her face. Obviously, she wouldn't have been able to breathe at all. Peter Dorian did what any parent would do. He thought if he tried to take off the duct tape, she would be able to breathe, which was impossible.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He immediately went to her phone in her apartment. He found that the phone was unplugged, tried to plug it in. Didn't seem to be working. He was very frantic. Peter Dorian is in such a state of shock, he actually calls his wife, Debbie's stepmother first. She's the one who calls 911. Go ahead, ma'. Am. My husband just called and went to his daughter's apartment. She didn't show, and he found her dead in her apartment. Okay, tell me what your daughter's name is. Her name is Deborah Dorian. And then Peter makes another devastating phone call to his ex, Debbie's mom, Sarah Lovin. Well, he was just, you know, straight on with, Deborah's been killed. I ran screaming through the house, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And that's all I could say was, no, no, no. It just feels like somebody took a great big spoon and carved out your heart. Debbie was working towards her degree in economics, but she was also thinking about going to graduate school.

[Vince Zavala]

When I spoke to Peter, he said that they were going to go to some other colleges to look at ideology programs because Debbie was looking at following in her dad's footsteps of being an audiologist. That particular apartment complex was inhabited with numerous college students. It's an area where that type of crime does not occur.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Vince Zavala spent 18 years with Fresno police and had just joined the California Bureau of Investigation before getting the call about Debbie Dorian's murder. This is where Debbie lived. It must have been crawling with investigators.

[Vince Zavala]

Crawling with investigators, quarreling with people who were worried.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

You had crowds gathering?

[Vince Zavala]

There were crowds, yes.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

According to police, Debbie's dad found her body in her bedroom early this morning.

[Vince Zavala]

There was no forced entry that we could see. I didn't see major disturbance in the living room or kitchen area.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

August 1996. My title was a senior criminalist. And I remember going to the. It looked like she had just made a sandwich. So the sandwich was there with some Doritos. I also remember going into the kitchen. There was a bag of Fruit Loop cereal that had been open, like, had been. It was ripped open.

[Vince Zavala]

A couple of things are possibilities. One, she knew this individual and let him in. Two, he displayed some kind of a weapon immediately, and she complied with his commands to allow him into her residence. Obviously, one of the things that does come to mind is whether or not it's a serial type of thing, Mostly because of the sophistication of how she was taped. The coroner determined Debbie's cause of death was due to suffocation because the duct tape had covered her entire head. In situations like this, the pathologist that did the examination, he knew right off the bat that he was going to do a sexual assault kit just because of the way she was found.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

There was semen found on the victim, and then there was saliva sample that was found. And they came from the same source. They were the same individual.

[Vince Zavala]

This profile was, as soon as possible uploaded into the national DNA data bank. There was no hit. In 1996, I was a lieutenant in the Fresno police department, assigned as the public information officer. It was frustrating that we had DNA evidence, but we had no one to tie it to. I knew it was a tough one, and so I immediately volunteered anything I could do to help them with that case before I took it over.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

What made you think, oh, this is.

[Vince Zavala]

Tough, because they were hitting brick walls left and right. It was a whodunit, and those are the most difficult homicides to solve.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But an eyewitness is about to offer a major clue. He had seen an individual approach Debbie store.

[Vince Zavala]

A short conversation to the effect, oh, hi, how are you? There is some very evil, demented predator out there.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

You're thinking, we have a murderer on the loose.

[Vince Zavala]

We didn't know if, when, and where he was going to strike again. Strike it rich. Advertised in the Fresno beat. Classified 8.7. KRZR Hanford, Fresno.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And Dave Rogers. It's the tragic story of a young woman's life that ended too early.

[Vince Zavala]

Debbie's murder was immediately covered by every television station, every radio station in this area. Front page news.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The Debbie Dorian case definitely stayed with me. The horrific way that she was killed and then the terrible impact on her family, and especially her father. Debbie's dad found her body in her bedroom early this morning. Just the thought of him finding her like that, it's just. Just really unimaginable. And bad news, as they say, spreads like wildfire. Just as the whole town is hit by the news of Debbie Dorian's murder, her childhood friends Katina and Heather are learning about it, too. I heard it on the news. It showed her apartment, and they gave her name. Family members and neighbors say Debbie Dorian, a Fresno state student, worked hard and had plans to specialize in audiology. And I couldn't believe It. So I immediately called Katina and she goes, something's happened to Debbie. And I said, debbie who? Because it wasn't registering with me. And she goes, debbie, you're Debbie. And she said, debbie's been murdered. And I slammed the phone down and I lost control. The fear triggered by Debbie Dorian's murder was felt throughout the entire city of Fresno. But the hardest hit right here in and around the campus of Fresno State, where her fellow students were left not just grieving her loss, but grappling with their own fears for their safety. There was a bubble around Fresno State, you know, and a hush, and people were whispering and there was a lot of fear. That's about that time Blue Light started going up. I mean, just the awareness started going up about not walking to your car by yourself. You know, just. Just all the things that we tell people today just started being said right about that time. It struck fear into Fresno. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Our parents were worried and everything. Yeah. Fresno's a sleepy little farm town.

[Vince Zavala]

Fresno's located in the heart of California. We like to say that we have. We're a big city, but we have a small town feel.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Not only is the temperature nice and warm in the summers, but people are wonderful here. And we have sort of a farming, you know, mentality. And if you're not in ag, you know, somebody that's an ag.

[Vince Zavala]

We produce more agriculture in Fresno county than anyone else in the world. But we also pride ourselves on just that community feel.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

We really have such a sense of family that we feel that, you know, Debbie was not only the Dorian's child, but she was Fresno's child too. It was frightening to think that this could happen to Debbie, because if it could happen to Debbie Dorian, it could have happened to any of us. All right, you're on camera, guys. She's the daughter that so many people have that you were afraid to let go to college because you didn't want anything bad to happen to her. She had a really bubbly personal. Always ready for a joke and a laugh.

[Vince Zavala]

Brawl time.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Deb Paroler.

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She was a big people person. We hung out at each other's houses a lot. A lot. A lot of girl talk. Go to the movies. Go to the movies. We would cruise. We'd drive. Waste gas. What was on the radio? I think it was cnc. Music Factory, maybe. Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam. Motley Crow. Guns N Roses. Guns n roses.

[Vince Zavala]

103.7. Krzr.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Dave Rogers here. Time for your concert update, brought to you by Budweiser. She went to Fresno State and she studied economics. She was president of the Econ Club. She sounds like the golden girl. Yeah. There literally is not a day that goes by that I don't think about her.

[Vince Zavala]

We tried to determine basically what her lifestyle was like, whether or not she hung around with people who might cause or had some kind of dealings that would cause this to happen. We formed a timeline of Debbie's actions prior to her murder. Debbie was killed between roughly 12 and 4 o' clock in the afternoon on August 20, 1996.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

One of Debbie's neighbors did report that he had seen an individual approach Debbie's door. And he noticed the individual because he didn't recognize him. He wasn't somebody that was normally in the area.

[Vince Zavala]

There appeared to be a short conversation, something to the effect, oh, hi, how are you? And that's all he saw. But nobody knew who it was. They only had a description of it being a white male, a certain age.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And height, with no obvious signs of forced entry. Detectives quickly turn their attention to any white males that Debbie knows, including her boyfriend, John Thomas. I knew he would be a suspect. I mean, it's obvious the first people they look at are people that they care about and that they're close to.

[Vince Zavala]

There's always that side of you that says, well, if he wasn't involved, he's going through some traumatic experiences right now, but as your job is, you have to interview him. My name is John Thomas. As of August 1996, we've been dating approximately two and a half years. Debbie was very outgoing, very extroverted, fun to be around. I was doing contract work for the U.S. forest Service Northeast of Fresno. I left town approximately a week before she was murdered. Since a sexual assault was involved in this murder, we had to ask John Thomas some tough sexually related questions. You actually get angry because. And I know why they're asking the questions, but it's almost like a character assassination. It's hard to hear things said about this person that you love that's been murdered. We were able to determine that John Thomas, at the time of Debbie's murder, was assigned to fighting a fire in Northern California. I asked for a DNA sample from John Thomas, and he voluntarily provided one. He was eliminated as being a donor of the DNA.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The last time I saw her was 10 days before she was killed, was John's graduation. She'd had her hair done and a new outfit, and she was beautiful.

[Vince Zavala]

That would be the last videotape of her, and they'd be some of the last pictures taken of her. It's hard to look at him today still.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So John Thomas is fully cooperating and able to offer investigators critical information about Debbie in the weeks leading up to her murder. Turns out Debbie had been looking for.

[Vince Zavala]

A roommate that sent up a really big red flag. She put ads and, and flyers up, which was pretty typical. Like a couple people had fallen through. So I don't think, you know, that could be stressful.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I think she was getting desperate. She needed to get some finances so that she could pay her bills. She needed somebody soon.

[Vince Zavala]

Could it be that someone who had come to visit her apartment did this? That became something that concerned us. She had some papers on her dining room table with names on it.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

A list of prospective roommates becomes a list of people of interest.

[Vince Zavala]

She opened the door for somebody.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So who was on the other side of that door?

[Vince Zavala]

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[Vince Zavala]

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[Vince Zavala]

A police spokesman says the department has two. Two detectives working full time on the Debbie Dorian murder case.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

They had a tremendous amount of pressure because the police had very little to go on. It's not usually a one time thing. Somebody doesn't commit a one time horrendous crime, they commit it again. And one lead jumps right to the top of the pile. Her search for a roommate. She had put ads in the paper. She had posted flyers from Fresno State. And she had a list of people's names on her table.

[Vince Zavala]

Anytime you have a list of people that you believe have had recent contact with the victim, those people are going to be persons of interest.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

A few of the names I remember specifically. One was Alvin, one was Laura, and one was Nick or Rick.

[Vince Zavala]

There was a person named Alvin who had actually made contact with her in person.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Alvin called the police department after he heard the news and said, hey, you know, I was supposed to rent a room from the girl that was murdered. I was at the apartment. He had provided a deposit and signed an agreement with Debbie to take the room, but he hadn't received a key yet. Alvin doesn't fit the neighbor's description of the white man he saw outside Debbie's apartment. Alvin is black, in his early 20s and over 6ft tall.

[Vince Zavala]

The interview with Alvin, what did you do when you went there? I knocked on the door. She invited me in. What time was it that you got there? We thought it was a little unusual that she would have a male roommate.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It was strange because she didn't rent to men, But I know how desperate she was to get a roommate.

[Vince Zavala]

You think about living with someone who's got a boyfriend? Actually, I thought it was kind of weird. On the other hand, I felt like, you know, it was a problem. That's her problem, not mine. A background was conducted and it was determined that he was a sex registrant in the state of California.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

That definitely sent some alarm bells going off in investigators heads because of the circumstances around Debbie's death. That must have made you think, oh, boy.

[Vince Zavala]

Absolutely.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And then he tells you something odd about going back to the apartment.

[Vince Zavala]

He went back because he was concerned since Debbie didn't answer the door, that maybe she was taking his money. He told me something about the door, and I do remember what that was on Wednesday night. I knocked their door. Nobody answered. Mine's were open. The TV was on, what I could see on the wall. I knocked the door to my answer. I tried to do it.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Of course, this raises big questions. He admits turning the door handle and finding it unlocked, but he says he doesn't enter. That statement must have struck you as odd.

[Vince Zavala]

Absolutely.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So you're questioning Alvin about his alibi and he gives you another name?

[Vince Zavala]

Yes.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And that is?

[Vince Zavala]

Maurice. Alvin and Maurice Dixon worked at the same place, a business called Grocery Outlet. They were friends at that time.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Dixon at that time was 28 years old. He was an army veteran. He didn't have any criminal record.

[Vince Zavala]

He transported Alvin to Debbie Dorian's apartment on several occasions. And on some of those occasions, he accompanied Alvin to the front door of Debbie Dorian's apartment. However, he never entered, never met Debbie Dorian, never been inside her apartment, and as I recall, never really had a conversation with her. So you've never seen this girl, don't know what she looks like, Never talked to her? No, not from. From all this started happening at first, you know, I never seen her. Just heard her voice on the phone. And then recently, like when we were talking. I've seen a picture on the. During the interview, he stuck to the story that he'd never met Debbie. We started getting into some of his sexual background. I'd like to go over to her house and check your things. Is that okay? I think I have a receipt for it in my checkbook. I bought two things of duct tape to tie up the ends of the rope. He said that the only duct tape he ever had was for a punching bag that he had at his home. That was a little suspicious to us that he would volunteer that kind of information. He wasn't told we were looking specifically at duct tape, that we were only looking at bondage type of things.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Dixon says he had been asked specifically about duct tape in an interview with another detective, which is why he brought it up.

[Vince Zavala]

What made you mention that? Somebody mentioned duct tape or something like that. Do you have any duct tape or do you know anything about duct tape or something? When was that? That was when I first came to question.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But investigators eyebrows are officially raised.

[Vince Zavala]

We were able to get consent to search his home. Found the punching bag that he had used. It had duct tape around.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Didn't match up with the duct tape that was used on Debbie's body or that was located on Debbie's body. The DNA from Debbie's body was compared to Alvin and he was excluded as being the contributor to that DNA. Alvin is eliminated. Maury Stixon's sample was also submitted to see if we could exclude and he could not be excluded. It didn't add up because he said he'd never been in her apartment since. So the fact that he said that and that the DNA at least had a preliminary match, I think everyone thought he wasn't telling the truth.

[Vince Zavala]

Our investigation is that you were the one that did this. No, I am not the one who did this. I have nothing to do with this at all. How many times I had to keep telling you? I did not go inside this apartment. I do not know this person. I never met her. As a result of that test, Maurice Dixon was arrested and charged with the murder of Debbie Dorian.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

When Dixon arrived home from work, undercover officers swooped in and he was arrested with his hands up, right in the middle of the street. He pleaded not guilty. His bail was set at over a million dollars. I think the feeling was that the case had been solved. Most people thought it was over. I think it's great. I Mean, hopefully it's the right person, but this case is far from over. As investigators keep digging, they're about to get a big surprise. It was a surprise to the police, to the media, to everyone you could think of.

[Vince Zavala]

Maurice, you have to understand something, okay, you're under arrest for murder. An arrest was made in the death of Deborah Dorian.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Police, out of nowhere, you know, they made this arrest of a man named Maurice Dixon, who had gone to the apartment with his friend, who was responding to Debbie and her advertising for a roommate. Residents were shocked that he is charged with Dorian's murder.

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah, very surprised. Yeah, this is quite neighborhood. You don't expect something like that. And like I said, especially coming from him.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Now, Dixon's arrest comes just one year after the O.J. simpson verdict, the so called trial of the century.

[Vince Zavala]

It was a vote of not guilty for O.J. simpson and a vote of no confidence in the LAPD. LAPD? Guilty.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

At the time, the general public, especially in California, was more aware of DNA, but there was also more scrutiny of police investigations. Well, actually, I don't want to go into race, but just knowing the background of a black man in society being arrested and the scared feeling that our family had with Maurice actually being in the system, I mean, really brought a lot of anguish to our family. There was a lot of racialized tensions in the air at that time. O.J. simpson's verdict had just come in that came on the heels of Rodney King, are we alive?

[Vince Zavala]

But to the people of South Central LA, that 30 hour rampage was more revolt than riot.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

There was a lot of pointing fingers, but the police had reason to be looking at Maurice. Oh, I definitely think there was a reason to look at him. He had been there in a very close proximity to the time that she was last heard from. And so, you know, he was definitely somebody that was on the list. Maurice Dixon walked into court shackled at.

[Vince Zavala]

The hands and feet.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

After Maurice Dixon was arraigned, police continued to investigate. So one of the things they did was conduct a more sophisticated DNA test. You have to remember, at that time, DNA technology was changing rapidly. Investigators initially relied on one test that compared six markers. But we're about to start using a more precise test looking at 13 markers similar to what labs use today. It was a matter of weeks between the first test and the second DNA test, the more discriminating one. That second, more powerful test reveals the DNA from the Debbie Dorian crime scene does not match Maurice Dixon. He is cleared and all charges are dropped. Maurice Dixon had been in custody for a little more than two weeks.

[Vince Zavala]

Tonight, he is free.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And the investigation into the Debbie Dorian.

[Vince Zavala]

Murder case returned to square one.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The fact that that DNA did not match, I think it was a surprise to the police, to Debbie's family, to the community, to everyone you could think of, except for Maurice Dixon, because he knew he didn't do it. Right now, we don't want to comment anything at this time. We're just happy that he's being released. So after Maurice Dixon was released from jail, I interviewed him. He told us that he was living with the shadow over his life, that there was this air of suspicion around him. He was potentially facing the death penalty for a crime he didn't commit.

[Vince Zavala]

People, you know, stare at me and, like, you know, accusing me but not knowing, you know, the full details of what happened. I totally understand his feelings. I understand the family's feelings, but it was all part of my investigation.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

We know that there is someone out there that have committed this crime, and basically the city is afraid again. We know it's hard on her family also, because they have to go through it again, waiting to see who they may arrest next. I just thought, okay, we're back to square one. We need to rethink this. I work with children, and I didn't want to be emotionally upset when I'm working with children. So for my lunch breaks, I go and cry for 20 minutes, and then I'd come back and we're okay for a while, you know, I just had to keep going. Yeah. Our future has been taken away. We will not see a wedding. We will not see grandchildren. She will not get to have a life. The one thing we can do and the one thing we strive to do is to get the person who did this. Every time something like this happens, it's like pulling the scab off a wound. Peter Dorian, her father was very committed to keeping the case in the mind of the community, in the mind of media. I would hope that a person would have the morality to come forward, forward if they know something just because they want to help or they feel maybe a little guilt about something. We put flyers everywhere. We put them all around Fresno State. We put them in all the businesses. The governor's reward was 50,000. Then our family reward was 10,000. So it's quite a big reward. I can't live with myself unless we've done everything we can do to help solve the crime. He was very active at first. I think it became so overwhelming that it just hurt too much to keep going, and so he decided he would retreat.

[Vince Zavala]

I Remember receiving a telephone call from Peter and he told me, he says, vince, he says, I can't do it anymore. She'll forever be in my heart. But I cannot hold out hope any longer.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But Debbie's mom, Sarah, pushes forward, holding investigator Vince Zavala to a promise.

[Vince Zavala]

I made a commitment to her I would never quit. And she asked me, well, what about when you retire? I says, well, I won't retire. I won't retire until I solve it. I've been a law enforcement officer for a little over 40 years and I farmed all those 40 years. In addition to working with a cold case, you pour your heart and your soul into it and all the time you have, and hopefully you solve the case. It entails a lot of patience. Just like farming. No matter what you're doing, you have to continue to farm or all the time will be for nothing. So if I had to come out at night and work on the case during the day, I'd come out at night.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Vince Zavala is the man you want on your side. And when he gets a hold of something, he doesn't let it go.

[Vince Zavala]

Sarah often said that solving Debbie's murder was like a million piece puzzle. If you keep putting one piece together, two pieces together, three pieces, you're eventually going to get a picture of who murdered her daughter.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And some of those pieces are about to fall into place. Fresno police are looking for a Caucasian male in his late 20s, early 30s. Thanks to a string of terrifying attacks just an hour from Fresno, we feel he's a predator.

[Vince Zavala]

He could strike at any time.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

This was a person who was repeating. And then the break investigators have been waiting for.

[Vince Zavala]

This guy is still around. We've got a shot at getting this guy now. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

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[Vince Zavala]

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[Narrator/Interviewer]

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[Vince Zavala]

Not available in all states. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match, limited by state law.

[Vince Zavala]

Not available in all states.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So this case became personal to Vincavala. He was determined to find Debbie's killer. Some of the investigators on this case continued doggedly to work on it. That's Fresno, you know, the Fresno PD never gave up. You know, how frustrating it must be for them to just wait, wake up every day, and not know who did it, why did they do it, how did they do it? Were there moments where you lost hope of solving the crime?

[Vince Zavala]

I never lost hope, Always had faith. But there were many, many times I was frustrated. It stayed with the department, stayed with me, even to this day. There was this desire to solve the case, but we needed evidence. Our investigation of the murder of Debbie Dorian focused basically on the Fresno area. Then I received a telephone call from our Fresno Regional Laboratory and was told that there was a DNA case to case hit.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Remember, the DNA from Debbie's case is all white in that national DNA database, codis. And now, finally, after six years, another case is a match. There was a lead where the DNA in Debbie's case matched suspect DNA in a sexual assault in Visalia. Visalia is about an hour away from Fresno to the south.

[Vince Zavala]

So in July 1999, a sexual assault occurred on the south side of Visalia. Over the period of the next three years, several other similar crimes occurred in Visalia. I believe these crimes were committed by the same suspect. In each of those cases, the suspect was described as a white male adult in his 30s, generally from 5, 6 to maybe close to about 6 foot, medium sized build. So his MO would be that he'd find a young woman, late teens, early 20s. He'd find her alone. He produced a gun and told them that he'd shoot them if they didn't do what he said. He was described as either wearing a bandana or his face, or he was wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up over his face. The victims described him as wearing black pants and black shoes, which eventually lead us to think that maybe he was involved in the restaurant business.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Police aren't able to collect physical evidence from every assault, but in one case, they get lucky collecting DNA from the suspect that will become the critical puzzle piece linking these assaults to Debbie Dorian's murder. Jane Doe number one was riding her bike home from work. A man approached her with a gun.

[Vince Zavala]

Tells her to get on her knees, fondles her under her clothing.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She was able to show investigators where the sexual assault took place, so they were able to collect DNA from that area. And now they know that whoever left that DNA is also the person who murdered Debbie Dorian. They just don't know who it is.

[Vince Zavala]

It brought it to a whole new level because now we got a guy that is running around in the Visalia area that has killed before. It gets everybody's attention. Once I heard of the case to case hit, I was so excited I jumped in my car and immediately went to Visalium. This guy is still around. We've got a shot at getting this guy.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Now working together, the team in Fresno and Visalia conduct background checks, interviews. They collect and test well over 100 DNA samples, but they just can't seem to hit their mark. They were chasing what seemed like a ghost and the clock was ticking.

[Vince Zavala]

Once we had exhausted our leads in Visalia, we were desperate. You never know when he's going to get the urge to hit again. You never know if he's going to escalate or he's going to go back to something else. He could strike at any, at any time. There were times I couldn't sleep at night because what can we do? So as the years go by, I said, you know what? We have to preserve the cases that we have. You know, statute of limitations on sex, right. Was 10 years in California and we were approaching the 10 year mark.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

So the clock is running out. The prosecutors decide, well, we have the DNA, we have a commonality, we can identify this DNA profile. We just don't have a name. We just don't have a name.

[Vince Zavala]

Lt. Puder wrote a John Doe warrant for the DNA profile and that was very instrumental because what it did was preserve the statute of limitations.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The warrant officially stops the clock on the statute of limitations. It's the first of its kind in the county, say authorities buying the team more time to find their John Doe. We knew that if we could find this person, that we really had him, which, you know, is a big part of the puzzle. A puzzle that's about to get some help from an unlikely source. A serial killer. I'm sure the detectives back then couldn't imagine this. It's crazy.

[Vince Zavala]

I really felt this was going to crack the case.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

A killer with decades old secrets is in their sights. Peter.

[Vince Zavala]

Sorry, but we gotta check all the boxes off.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And the victim, the survivor who promised to take her attacker down.

[Vince Zavala]

All I remember saying is, I'm gonna get you. You're not gonna get away with it.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

What went through your head when you realized the man who assaulted you is also charged with murdering somebody?

[Vince Zavala]

Why didn't he murder me?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Debbie's dad found her body in her bedroom early this morning. It could happen to Debbie Dorian. It could have happened to any of us. This case is often referred to as a million piece puzzle. This is just a sample, right?

[Vince Zavala]

This is a fraction of what was collected. Trace evidence, fibers, fingerprints. We have to find this monster out there. Have you ever seen that girl? Nope. Nope. You don't know her.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

On the surface, he did seem like your next door neighbor. His alter ego, Nick Steele. Online, More of a fantasy.

[Vince Zavala]

He talked about his bedroom looking similar to 50 shades of gray.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It was crazy. It was crazy.

[Vince Zavala]

Her name was Debbie Dorian. You didn't kill her to attend.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Here's this bogeyman of your nightmares. And yet everyone described him as the guy who could be your neighbor.

[Vince Zavala]

Who was your neighbor. We got to help you find him. I hope we do catch the guy.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Here in this quiet city of Visalia, nestled in the Sierra Nevadas, the same man who brutally murdered 22 year old Debbie Dorian begins a brazen string of sexual assaults against other women. One of them is attacked riding her bike home from work. One tries to escape the predator by cutting through a field. And another, just a high school student at the time, Attacked as she was walking home from school. Another is assaulted here while waiting for a bus. All of these women's identities have been shielded from the public by law enforcement. Each of them referred to simply as Jane Doe. But tonight, for the first time, one of these brave survivors is stepping out of the shadows. We're rolling. You were Jane Doe number one for many years.

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But you're comfortable now with saying at least your first name. At least my first name? Yeah. And you're comfortable going on camera?

[Vince Zavala]

I wasn't for a long time.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And when we sat down for her first interview, she told us she was ready to reclaim her voice, Taking back what she says was stolen from her. At just 19 years old when she moved to the Central valley of California. It was your love of horses that drew you here. Yes. You kind of had your future mapped out in your head. I wanted to be a horse trainer. And you were an independent young woman. Yes. Where I thought. And then you're riding your bike home from work. One day, I was about three blocks away from my house and I saw a gentleman pull out of a street.

[Vince Zavala]

It was 10:30 at night. There was nobody on the road. He grabbed my handlebars and had a gun.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And you saw the gun?

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah. Told me to get off my bike and get on my knees. He told me if I didn't, he would kill me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And I believed him. I was 19.

[Vince Zavala]

You have a gun to your head. You do what you're told.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And the whole time, all I remember.

[Vince Zavala]

Saying is, I'm gonna get you.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

You're not gonna get away with It. That's feisty.

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

With a gun pointed at you. I didn't know what else to do. Beth says the man concealed his face. She could only see his eyes in the dark. She was sexually assaulted. And then she says, the man fled.

[Vince Zavala]

He told me to stay where I.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Am, count to 10 and turn around and go home. If I turned around or tried to come and find him, he knew where I lived and he would kill me. He told you he knew where he lived? That is so frightening. By the time I got to my apartment, I threw my bike on the grass, called my sister. About a minute later, four detectives and.

[Vince Zavala]

Police and everybody was in my apartment. Jane Doe had the presence of mind to quickly report reporting. Patrol officers were able to quickly locate the crime scene and collect the DNA evidence. And then over the course of the next three years, we had another three different crimes, all of similar moving.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Really.

[Vince Zavala]

It wasn't until maybe the third or the fourth crime that we realized we.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Had the same suspect.

[Vince Zavala]

And we had a pattern.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The DNA collected in Beth's case is compared to other crimes in the national criminal database called codis. And that's when things take an unexpected turn that case to case hit.

[Vince Zavala]

Whoever left the DNA at Debbie Dorian's crime scene committed that sexual assault. Knowing he was in the Visalia area was the first big boost we had since the murder of Debbie Dorian.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I like it. What went through your head when you realized the man who assaulted you is also charged with murdering somebody?

[Vince Zavala]

Why didn't he murder me? That's the first thing that came to my head.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Because I asked when the murder was. It was 96 and mine was 99. Why do you think you survived?

[Vince Zavala]

God only knows. I don't know.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And as the years clicked by, I.

[Vince Zavala]

Would get a phone call every five years or so saying my case is still open. And they're like, oh, okay, well, thanks for the call. And that was it. The thought that we would never catch this guy was not something I wanted to live with. You know, for the victims in Visalia and then for Dorian family, it's something that I. I want to do everything in my power to find this guy. Sorry, I'm getting emotional.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The string of attacks on women seems to suddenly end. But even though the perpetrator appears to have spoken, stopped Vince Zavala won't.

[Vince Zavala]

In the debudoorian case, we had over 286 pieces of evidence submitted for analyzation. Delia moved up the ranks and eventually became the director for the entire Fresno Regional Laboratory. Whenever I needed Help pushing evidence through. I would call Delia.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He was very persistent. He would bring additional references, maybe registered sex offender cases that sort of look similar.

[Vince Zavala]

We collected DNA from over 146 individuals and compared to evidence left at Debbie Dorian's crime scene.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

146 DNA tests. And that's on top of the mountain of evidence Vince has collected throughout the years and shared with new detectives who would join the case. This is just a sample, right?

[Vince Zavala]

This is a fraction of what was collected at the evidence warehouse. It's just shelf upon shelf of evidence.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

In 2018, after nearly two decades of investigating, this now very cold case is about to heat up thanks to the arrest of another serial predator.

[Vince Zavala]

We have identified Joseph James DeAngelo as the sole suspect in the in the Visalia Ransacker crime series. The Visalia Ransacker case was really kind of criminal lore throughout Visalia throughout my entire career. Ultimately, that entire case would become the Golden State Killer. We begin with that bombshell arrest. They say cutting edge DNA testing allowed them to make a match. I heard like everyone else, and then a thought came to my mind. Why couldn't we use the. The same DNA technology used to capture the Golden State Killer on Debbie Dorian's homicide case? Visalia Police department worked on that task force, and I knew a lot of those detectives, and that started the ball rolling.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

A very dear friend of mine who's the retired Sacramento county da, Anne Marie Shubert, who was just an essential part of solving the Golden State Killer case. We found the needle in the haystack, and it was right here in Sacramento. She called me and said, hey, we need to come down to Fresno because this technology is amazing. I'll bring my staff. And so then we started to work together with them.

[Vince Zavala]

Sacramento county, their DA's office gave us a blueprint how to move forward with this new investigative technique.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

They are able to come up with family members who are likely to be related to this suspect.

[Vince Zavala]

You can build out essentially a family tree and then start investigating backwards to see who are the relatives that could potentially be a suspect within maybe a week.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

We got a lead, and bells start to go off.

[Vince Zavala]

Exactly. A witness had seen a suspicious male outside of Debbie's apartment. Apartment on the day in question. And as I read that description and I'm looking at the photograph of the suspect, I'm like, this is our guy. This really is the picture matched up to the descriptions. I'm like, Mark. It was like, this is him. Standby. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

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[Vince Zavala]

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[Vince Zavala]

This is a pomegranate orchard. This is what I farm. I've been farming probably a good majority of my life. Farming is much like investigating cold cases because there's a lot of unknown, there's a lot of hard work and you don't know what you're going to end up with. You got to be very patient, watch it grow and hopefully you get fruit.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

After nearly 40 years of being a detective and a farmer, the time finally comes for Vince Zavala to retire from his day job. But there is one unsolved case he can't let go of. It was tearing at your heart.

[Vince Zavala]

Absolutely. But I'd made a promise to Sarah when I retired, I talked to Chief Dyer because we were friends. I realized as a police chief, there's more than I can do and it's bring Vince back. He allowed me to come back as a reserve police officer, which gave me police officer powers when I was on duty and that was important.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But no police officer pay.

[Vince Zavala]

I told him I didn't want to be paid.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

With that genetic genealogy DNA match in hand, Vince was more hopeful than ever that his years of investigative work were about to bear fruit.

[Vince Zavala]

Probably the best lead we've had in over 23 years. This could very well be our guy.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

They are able to take this genealogical DNA and ultimately they came up with the name Nikki Dwayne Stain.

[Vince Zavala]

He married, had a couple of kids. His work history was very solid. No criminal past that we could see. This is a normal guy, but then you think, well, a normal guy could have committed this. That's why we haven't been able to find him. He was living in Viceroy in the city.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He raised his kids, was at the pta. His focus was the family and he did work for charity organizations. Now that detectives have a name, they want to talk to this guy. They discover that he's been divorced and working at a food court in the local mall. Turns out that early hunch that their suspect may work in the restaurant business was spot on.

[Vince Zavala]

We were all hands on deck. Let's do what we got to do. Let's get a DNA sample from him. Our primary mission was to look for anything that he would publicly discard that we could obtain a DNA profile from. So we thought a trash run might be the best opportunity. My partner and I dressed down in plain clothes, put on a vest as if we were part of solid waste. We removed the trash cans from the street and replaced them with the empty trash cans.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It's called a surreptitious trash dump because once he throws it away outside on the street, it's free game.

[Vince Zavala]

We found male razor blades that appeared used and were discarded. And so we sent that up to be tested to see if it had any DNA on it. I was excited, but I'd been excited before, so that kept me from totally jumping in.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But two weeks later, his phone rings.

[Vince Zavala]

I was at home. It was the middle of the day. I put it on speakerphone.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I said, hey, Vince, you got to sit down, because I have news. We got the guy.

[Vince Zavala]

It's him. My wife was close to me. Once she heard it, she cried. So did I. As I've gotten older, I've gotten more emotional. I'm pretty old now. I was happy.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

It was good. It was a lot of years of work.

[Vince Zavala]

Nikki stain was our 147th individual who we obtained a DNA sample from for comparison, and he was the match. Okay, you're good. We're out of the car.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Their next stop is that shopping mall in Visalia to surprise Nikki Stain with a visit.

[Vince Zavala]

There's a couple of customers. Chris, you don't feel comfortable with the. We'll just wait. Hang back. Yeah. They're off. See how we're going to be able to talk to more of the county. We went to his workplace asking for him. Hi. Is Mr. Stane in?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Mr. Stang?

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah. Hi. Hi, Mr. Stane, my name is Vince Zavala. This is Bob Sotis. We're doing some grunt work here. We're looking into a matter that happened a while ago. Take five minutes. That's fine. We begin to ask him some questions. Question, have you ever seen that girl? Nope. Nope. You've never committed any violence against her? No, I haven't. Anything? I. I don't. I don't know her, so I wouldn't know how to. Yeah. So have you never committed violence against Anybody? No. No violence against anybody.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But Vince hasn't waited this long and come this far to take no for an answer.

[Vince Zavala]

Her name was Debbie Dorian. She was found murdered. You didn't kill her, did you?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

No. No. Nikki Stain denied knowing Debbie.

[Vince Zavala]

During our conversation with Nikki Stain, I told him, I says, look, we've been asking everybody we talk to if they would voluntarily give us an oral swab to compare to evidence that's at the scene. But if you haven't been there, I mean, you know, it's just kind of a mundane thing. Yeah, it sounds like. I don't know. That sounds like. I don't know if I want to do that.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Stane refuses to turn over his DNA, and the interview seems to come to an end.

[Vince Zavala]

We thanked him for his time. As we were walking, Nikki Stane stops. He looks me in the eye and he says, yeah, I hope you find him. I hope we do catch the guy. And thank you. Have a good day. We had an arrest team standing by the exterior door, 267 to the arrest team standby, where he was going to have to reenter the mall. Back to his place of work now. Buster. Nikki Sting. Hands around your back. Turn around, man. Five seconds later, he's arrested.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He was ultimately arrested at that time on the sexual assaults from the Visalia cases.

[Vince Zavala]

Shortly after Nikki Stain was handcuffed, I missed a telephone call to Sarah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He called me, and he says, we actually have him. We have him in custody. And I said, really? Really? This is really something. Yeah. Called all my friends, called everybody. Guess what, Guess what, Guess what. Yeah, it's really happening. As police begin talking to Nikki Stain, they're about to discover that he is anything but the guy next door.

[Vince Zavala]

If you have my phone, you'll be able to see that because it has, like, 400 videos on it. Turn around, man.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

After Nikki Stain is arrested for the sexual assaults in Visalia, he's brought into the police department to be questioned.

[Vince Zavala]

Go ahead and have a seat in that chair.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And to the surprise of detectives, he seems to have a lot to say.

[Vince Zavala]

Nick, do you know why you're here today? Yeah, I do know why I'm here. From the beginning of the interview, he knew why he was there for the Visalia cases, and we just let him talk. I know I've done a couple things that here Visalia that I shouldn't have done. So when you say a couple things in Visalia, what. What are the couple things that you're talking about? Oh, there's a couple times that I approach women that out on the street that they know and stuff and. And coerce them into having some final oral. And so those are. Those are things I shouldn't have done against their will.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Yes, Detectives. Then walk Nikki stain through each of the sexual assaults he's accused of.

[Vince Zavala]

Sussex pulled fletcher over his face and then placed handgun in her side. He escorted the victim and concealed their location behind some bushes. Requested the victim unbutton her shirt. That might happen. I think that one happened. She was standing alone, waiting to catch a bus. Suspect approached the victim. Suspect told the victim not to run or he would kill her. I say that sounds like me, but I. I don't think that was me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The worst thing that any defense attorney can hear Is when you're questioned about a crime, it's like, well, I don't know, but it sounds like me.

[Vince Zavala]

Do you recall what you wore during those? I recall wearing a hoodie. Just something that I said with my demeanor, I think really brought some comfort to him to really open up about our sexual assault cases. So, you know, I kind of had some bad things that go on in my life, and I can say that I've had a problem with, I guess, sex or sex addiction. If you have my phone, you'll be able to see that because it has, like, 400 videos on it, probably 100 different women. During my interview, he did mention that he began sleeping with prostitutes starting in high school, all the way up until his arrest, but had so many encounters with women. You know, I'm talking about, like, paid for encounters or this or that or, like, start talking with them, and then all the next thing we know, we're doing something. He did brag, Seemed proud about his sexual promiscuity with. With prostitutes. I'm a single guy for the last two years, and it seems like the really. The only women that paid me any attention are the younger ones.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He was happy to talk about himself and all the sexual things that he had done in his past. It was crazy. It was crazy.

[Vince Zavala]

I'll tell you the truth. I don't really think that hiring an escort or having a sugar babe or anything like that. I personally don't think that that's a wrong. He talked about his bedroom looking similar to 50 shades of gray. Oh, my God. I had all pictures of those types of room, dark rooms on the Internet. I said I wanted to. To paint it that way. Now everybody sees it when they did the search.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And he had these silk robes in his closet and sex toys.

[Vince Zavala]

During our investigation, we learned that Nikki stain was operating an Airbnb operation out of his home. He would also rent rooms out to younger females. He talked about providing for these young females.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Investigators also find what appears to be a fake Facebook profile where Nikki Stain calls himself Nick Steele and claims to be chairman of a Fortune 500 company. His alter ego, Nick Steele. Yes. Online pointed in a different direction. Yes, I think more of a fantasy. He also posted videos of himself on that Facebook page. Going out to party.

[Vince Zavala]

Okay, I'm going out tonight.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Was he sort of baiting women online? Oh, I don't believe so. I think it was more about this is me. I'm capable of this. I'm so attractive. I'm so, you know, my proudness is such that, you know, these things happen in my life.

[Vince Zavala]

During our search warrant at his residence, we located that he had a wall plug, camera, and one of the roommates bathrooms that was associated to a younger female.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

There were also allegations of peeping Tom. It's kind of a voyeurism, obviously, and then it steps into inappropriate actions. Inappropriate actions that land Nikki Stain with a misdemeanor peeping charge. Stain pleads not guilty to the charge, which is eventually dropped. He definitely had some sexual deviances. But as Nikki Stain's defense attorney points out, sexual deviance doesn't necessarily equate to murder. It was separate and apart. Usually people move forward as far as the seriousness of their crimes. And so it was odd that there was this homicide, but then later there's peeping Tom activity and assaults. The violence seemed to de. Escalate. Yes. And back in that interrogation room, when the conversation turns to Debbie Dorian's murder. Nikki Stain's not done talking yet.

[Vince Zavala]

The detectives there today, before you guys arrested me, he brought up an interesting case, one that, you know, it does shock me.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

When detectives show up at the mall to confront Nikki Stain at his workplace. They ask him about Debbie Dorian. He claims he's never seen her before.

[Vince Zavala]

Have you ever seen that girl? Nope. Nope. You don't know her. Okay.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But when they get him into the interrogation room, he has a different story.

[Vince Zavala]

The detectives there today, before you guys arrested me, he brought up an interesting case. I was with that girl, you know, several times and stuff like that. You were? Yes, I was. So, you know, to be honest with you, she was. I picked her up on. On in the present there, on the street there at one time, you know, after I dropped her off, I thought that was going to be the last time I seen of her. Okay. And then. And then she, you know, found her way to my workplace. You Know, you know, on other occasions and asked me if I, you know, would want to again. He acknowledged that he did know Debbie and that he had been to her apartment multiple times for sex.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The stunning allegation that Stain and Debbie had met for consensual sex is something prosecutors dispute, but his new defense team will now try to prove. Brian Pinto is the defense's lead investigator.

[Vince Zavala]

I spent a lot of hours in the jail with Nikki Stain. He was probably one of the most intelligent clients I've ever had, but he's also one of the most complicated and mysterious.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Brian attempted to track down co workers and acquaintances from Stain's past to back up his story. Did you have any verifiable evidence that they had met before or that this was consensual in any way?

[Vince Zavala]

A lot of people that he gave me that would potentially back that story up were people that he worked with that he only remembered first names.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

There was some evidence that she may have gone into his place of work, but, you know, we weren't able to really chase those folks down because it was so long ago. There was nothing to support that she had come into contact with him in any other way. It was completely concocted. After his police interview, Nikki Stain is booked, fingerprinted, and now that he's under arrest, has no choice but to turn over his DNA. The authorities reach out to Beth, who spent years as Jane Doe number one with the news she never expected to get.

[Vince Zavala]

They told me that they got him. Say that again. It took me a couple times for them to tell me that they got.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Him and that there was going to be a press conference the next day.

[Vince Zavala]

It was the last press conference that I held as a police chief, so it meant. It meant a lot to me. Nikki Duane Stane is the primary suspect in the rape and murder of Debbie Dorian. I locked myself in my room, and I watched it, and I bawled my eyes out, and all of those emotions that came came back hard.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Nikki Stane is every woman's nightmare. And what did you mean by that? Nikki Stain looks like an average guy. He looks like a normal person. He blends into the background. Yeah, he blends in. Almost 12,000 days of waiting, searching, hoping, disappointments and frustrations. What this arrest has finished is the struggle to always be searching. Nikki Stane is charged with four counts of sexual assault in the Visalia attacks and for the murder of Debbie Dorian. In 2020, the Fresno DA's office takes the lead on prosecuting the cases. Stane pleads not guilty to all the.

[Vince Zavala]

Charges.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I'm the city hall and courts reporter at ABC 30 Action News here in in Fresno. It was definitely a big story to walk into as a 22 year old just a few months out of College. Live at 5, clear to proceed.

[Vince Zavala]

Nikki stain.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

The contrast between the two sides of this courtroom really could not have been any different. On the right side of this courtroom you had Deborah Miller and Caitlin Drake, two very straight to the point senior deputy district attorneys. And on the other side you had Jane Bulger, somebody who really believes in defending her claim client, in protecting the process that everybody in this country is entitled to. Jane was the defense attorney of the very first court case I ever covered. And at one point Jane had asked me how old I was. And when I told her, she said, gabe, I have pants older than you. It was the fall of 2023 when.

[Vince Zavala]

This preliminary hearing started.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

But in so many ways that courtroom went back to 1996. The judge old that no civilian witnesses can be shown on camera. I put on the neighbor who had seen the white male at Debbie's doorstep on that Tuesday.

[Vince Zavala]

He basically knocked on the door and it wasn't a confrontational kind of encounter, but she let him in.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Nikki Stainless ste matches the description. It makes you wonder whether or not the person that was seen in her apartment was Nikki Stane. One of the items of evidence that I presented was the list that was located at Debbie's apartment on her kitchen table, which appeared to be a list of potential roommates. And what does it say by number six?

[Vince Zavala]

By number six it has the name Nick and then scratched out or Rick and says we'll call Tuesday to 12 o'. Clock.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

We'll call Tuesday, 12 o'. Clock.

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

What I believe happened is that Nikki Stane called Debbie on Tuesday, said I would like to come by and look at the apartment. She said, sure, gave him the address and he showed up on her doorstep and she let him in. I put Peter Dorian on the stands. After years of not speaking publicly about his daughter's case, Peter Dorian has to recount those horrible moments when he finds her in her apartment. What did you see when you entered Debbie's bedroom?

[Vince Zavala]

She was lying on the floor.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Was she moving?

[Vince Zavala]

No.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Is there anything else about Debbie that you noticed that morning?

[Vince Zavala]

Well, she's lying face up. Her mouth and nose had been taped shut with some gray colored tape so that prevented her from breathing.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

We had two of the sexual assault victims from Visalia testify at the preliminary hearing. When you saw him in the courtroom, did anything register? The eyes and the, the eyes and the voice. You're always going to remember that voice. What went through your mind when you heard it. That's him.

[Vince Zavala]

Holy crap, that's him.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She was able to describe what happened to her in the courtroom in front of Nikki Stain. It was something to watch. How dare you be able to go on living knowing what you did? That you have destroyed who knows how many people's lives, and you can continue.

[Vince Zavala]

Your life like nothing happened? How dare you.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

When prosecutors and the defense said that she was free to go, she just sat there and she wept. You could tell that she has never walked away from this, that it has been with her every single day. And prosecutors have one more piece of evidence up their sleeve. Hello? This call is from a correction facility. Recordings of Nikki Stain's phone calls from jail. Hello?

[Vince Zavala]

Hello? Mom?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And Nikki Stain just keeps talking. This call is from a correction facility and is subject to monitoring and recording.

[Vince Zavala]

Can you hear me, Nick?

[Narrator/Interviewer]

During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors introduced calls that Nikki Stain made to family members while he was being held in the Tulare County Jail. And on those calls, he doesn't hold back.

[Vince Zavala]

Yeah, I can hear you. Hear what? Those hurting people and things like that, that was in my past. I know I need to get punished for it. I just know that I'll be here the rest of my life. One could say that the jailhouse phone calls were a sense of admission because there was no denials. But you're innocent till you're proven guilty. My book. You know what you did. We don't. We're gonna say that you're innocent until. Until they proved otherwise. My opinion. That's the way America works. I'm guilty. I'm guilty. You know, I did some bad things. I'm not trying to kind of, like, hide them, you know, I mean, I'm ashamed of them. But. But, you know, they're there now, so it's just like, you know, quit running from it and just take it. Are you innocent of any of those crimes? No, not really, Mom. I was kind of, like, involved in all of them.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

To us, that's an admission that he committed all of these crimes, including Debbie Dorian.

[Vince Zavala]

Those revealing phone calls could be key.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Evidence if the case proceeds to trial. But the defense insists that Nikki Stain never admitted to killing Debbie Dorian, including in that police interrogation.

[Vince Zavala]

I did wrong, okay? And even the things that I did back, you know, in here in Visalia, that. That those things are haunting me forever. But the thing in Fresno there. I didn't know that that went down. I didn't know that Happened. I didn't feel remorse for that or anything like that or anything, because I didn't know that it happened.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

During the preliminary hearing, the defense was trying to attack the investigation, specifically with the arrest of Maurice Dixon initially and the DNA testing originally. So that's a mistake.

[Vince Zavala]

I'm not gonna say it's a mistake.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

You refuse to say that arresting the wrong man on faulty lab work is a mistake. Did you get the right.

[Vince Zavala]

He was eventually cleared.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Yeah. So he was the wrong guy. But prosecutors maintain that the DNA evidence in this case tells the whole story. There was no other foreign DNA on Debbie's body. The only DNA located was Debbie Dorian's DNA and Nikki Duane Stain's DNA. When the preliminary hearing wraps up, the judge decides there is enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial. The defendant is held to answer on all counts and charges. Prosecutors announce they're going to seek the death penalty. But ultimately, Nikki Stain is ready to make a deal.

[Vince Zavala]

Nikki Stain's case was heading toward a jury trial early next year, but now.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

A possible deal with prosecutors. Just five weeks after the judge had set a trial date, we got word that Nikki Stain would be entering a change of plea. Stain's defense team had asked prosecutors if they would allow him to plead guilty to just the murder charge and dismiss the sexual assault charges. I contacted the. Peter was on board because Nikki Stain would receive life without the possibility of parole, and he did not want to have to testify at jury trial. Sarah Lovin had a different opinion, and she wanted him to admit and plead guilty to everything that he did. And she wasn't the only one who felt that way. Why did you feel so strong that you wanted those sexual assaults? Because those victims deserved to have him say, I did this, and I'm gonna get sentenced for it. I'm gonna be punished for. That's right. And I am gonna serve not just time for Debbie Dorian's murder, but for the crimes I committed against you. Ultimately, Nikki Stane was willing to do that. He didn't want to go forward to trial. The district attorney's office also agrees to forego the death penalty. He would serve life without the possibility of parole.

[Vince Zavala]

Unlawfully, endless malice at Fort Butt committed murder against Deborah, Sarah, and Dorian. Mr. Stane, how do you plead? Guilty.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Why plead guilty? To save his life. To save his life. I believe if we had gone to trial, it would easily have been a death penalty verdict. I just knew that because we're emotion driven, it's almost impossible to be unbiased. We all have our biases. She was an attractive young woman. She was doing positive things in her life, going to school. Her life was just beginning. She had, you know, parents that loved and adored her. And I just was fairly certain that he would end up with a death sentence. The courtroom was full for Nikki Duinstein's sentencing.

[Vince Zavala]

The honorable Judge Harel presiding.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Jane Doe number one steps up to the podium and delivers her impact statement with cameras carefully trained on her hands.

[Vince Zavala]

My life changed forever that day. I tried moving on.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I have tried to forget to be every man with him.

[Vince Zavala]

I was always scared.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

I wish I was dead.

[Vince Zavala]

I wish he did kill me. It would have been a lot better.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Than having these thoughts in my head.

[Vince Zavala]

And flashbacks the night playing over and over again in my head.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Your statement is incredibly powerful.

[Vince Zavala]

Hopefully it got through to him, that I wish he would suffer just as much as all of us did. I hope that he knows that I got him.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

That's it.

[Vince Zavala]

I think you didn't. Go on.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

And you also said you wanted to speak on behalf of other survivors. Yes. And give voice to them if anything comes of this.

[Vince Zavala]

I would just hope that people come forward and people will get the help that they need because it took me a long time.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Time. But the final words spoken in that courtroom would stun everyone. It was a raw moment. I screamed and screamed. Everything went dark. I knew my life was over. I wanted people to know that Deb was a real person. She was a beautiful baby, a darling little girl. She went through all the things that children go through. These are her ballet slippers when she was 5. And these are her riding gloves. I just want people to know she had these little hands. They felt things, and they were sweet. We have waited and searched for this murderer for 28 years and 10 months, 29 Christmases, and almost 29 birthdays. Sarah Lovin was the last to deliver an impact statement. She shared what she thought Debbie would have wanted to say, speaking in her daughter's voice. Adrenaline flooded my body. I screamed and screamed, but he didn't stop. He wrapped my head in duct tape covering my mouth. I couldn't breathe. Everything went dark. I would never take a hike with John, the love of my life, spend time with my mom. I wouldn't have a wedding. I wouldn't be a beautiful bride. My dad wouldn't walk down the aisle. I knew my death would break my mom's heart and change my dad forever. The pain that they suffer is deeper than anyone can know. Though he took my precious Deb, he did not take my soul. I am wiser and stronger than ever from having to go through this ordeal. He has the rest of his life to pay for what he did. And he will pay for his evil actions. It was a powerful statement. It was a powerful and emotional moment for everyone in the courtroom.

[Vince Zavala]

At this point. Sir, you are a man in the custody of Franklin county sheriff to begin serving your time.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

He no longer has the power. Whatever he wants for power, it's behind bars. To my dear Vince, you know how much this case has meant to us. You know how many years it has taken and you've carried us all through this. And I love you. You're about to harvest pomegranates. What's that moment like? How fulfilling it must be.

[Vince Zavala]

It's exciting to see all the hard work come to fruition. You saw a dry, leafless bush get leaves and now they're big, red and beautiful. It's like a cold case again. You put all that work into it and we'll see if there's a rainbow at the end of it.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Finally, having him behind bars must have been a real capstone to your career.

[Vince Zavala]

There were many capstones, but this is the one at the top.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

She was a precious person. Sweet and loving and smart and a wonderful young lady.

[Vince Zavala]

A mother's never ending love. Debbie's mother Sarah did get to meet and hug that brave survivor Beth in court.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

As for Nikki stain, David, his plea agreement included a provision that he forfeits his right to appeal his conviction. That's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'm Debra Roberts.

[Vince Zavala]

And I'm David Muir. From all of US here at 2020 in ABC News, good.

[Narrator/Interviewer]

Foreign.

[Vince Zavala]

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