He said, christy's been murdered. She was taken so soon and so violently, I couldn't stop shaking.

A young teacher leaving for school, murdered before she could get out the door.

This was a horrific scene.

It was a nightmare scene. She had Christmas presents that she was taking to her students that day.

I was petrified. I just thought, who? Why?

We looked at suspect after suspect after suspect.

The crime was a mystery. For decades.

We were still with no answer.

I mean, this poor family. We thought we might be able to solve this case.

Could cutting edge science yield a new clue?

This was a huge lead.

Absolutely. This wasn't someone that they had had a reason to look at or talk to before.

He was here. He was here the whole time.

You are literally talking to Christie's killer.

Right? Face to face.

Evil comes in all packages.

It certainly does.

Who was the killer hiding among them? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with facing the music.

They were having so much fun. A group of girlfriends hitting the town one Saturday night, lost in the music.

We would go to different clubs, and we probably made ourselves known. We're here. Come look at us in a fun way.

This was the playground. They knew by heart. This was the home where they felt safe. They were invincible.

You were in this bubble. You're 25, like nothing's gonna happen to you.

And then less than 48 hours later, one of them was gone, murdered. And the killer was at large.

And I remember being paralyzed, like, not being able to leave the house.

Not only stole your friend, it stole your innocence.

Yeah, it said it did.

It would take another 25 years to find the killer. A most unlikely suspect. Always there, watching them, daring them. You are literally talking to Christie's killer.

Right. And I kept thinking after the fact, and, like, he had to have known who I was when I was standing in front of him. Absolutely. He had to have known who I was.

Some things are so life altering, you can't forget them, no matter how hard you try. For Harry Goodman, that moment came the morning of December 21, 1992. Harry was the principal of an elementary school in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. His star teacher, 25 year old Christy Merak, was late for work.

Christy was there every morning right around 08:00.

When eight became 830. Harry grew uneasy, and the kids had.

Started to come into the classroom. So I called her apartment about five times. Nothing.

He contacted her family, who lived about a two hour drive north. Christy's brother, Vince Merak, the kind of person she was.

We just thought something was wrong. It was that gut feeling, the family.

Told Harry they hadn't heard from Christy that morning. Harry couldn't wait any longer. He knew she lived nearby with a friend. So you decided to jump in your car to go see what's going on with Christy?

I was prepared to go down and change a tire along the interstate.

That's what you were expecting?

That's what I was expecting.

You thought, okay, her car's broken down, right? But it wasn't. And when he eventually pulled up to Christy's apartment complex, I saw her car.

There, and it was iced over. And then I started to freak out.

Her front door was open. He went inside and looked to his left. He saw her in the living room, lifeless on the floor. He ran to call 911.

I was a total mess. I mean, I was. I was in hysterics, in total shock.

It was pretty apparent that she had been murdered.

Craig Stedman is a former Lancaster county district attorney. Back in the early nineties, he was a young prosecutor. This was a horrific scene.

Yeah, it was a nightmare scene. You know, not only the fact that you had this young teacher who was brutally murdered, but she had been sexually assaulted. On top of that, did it seem.

Clear, at least at first glance, how she died?

No. Other than that there had been a brutal struggle.

The medical examiner would later determine that in addition to being sexually assaulted, Christy had been beaten and struck, strangled to death, likely that very morning.

I mean, she had her gloves on. So most people, when they're getting ready to go to work, it's the last thing you do is you put your gloves on beforehand. She had Christmas presents that she was taking to her students that day that were strewn about as part of the struggle.

So brazen, too, that this would happen at that hour of the morning when people are going to work, to school, and those places are close together, and there's a lot of cars around there and people.

A lot of people around. The number of witnesses that could have been there. I mean, that person was very determined to do whatever he wanted to do.

Police collected crime scene evidence, including DNA the killer left behind during the sexual assault, and they canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses. Her brother Vince says he had no idea what was happening until he arrived at the police station.

The session was started with, you know, there was an accident. She passed away, of course. Obviously, we said, what happened? And that's when they told us she was murdered.

Christy's roommate, Mary, got a call from police asking to meet back at the apartment, something about Christy being in trouble. When she arrived, a detective approached her.

And he brought me into his car, and he said, christy's been murdered. And I just remember, like, being doubled over, just trying to stop the shaking.

Mary explained that she left the apartment around seven that morning. Christy was still getting ready for work.

I was driving away, and I'm like, oh, I should go back and get my lunch. And I'm like, ugh, I'm already this far. I'm just gonna keep going.

That meant Christy was murdered sometime between seven and just after nine that morning. When Harry Goodman found her, investigators asked Mary to do a walkthrough of the apartment. Right away, she saw scuff marks on and near the front door.

There's something from his shoes or her shoes. She dug in. It's what I thought. She, like, just dug in. Like, he was dragged. Like, she was dragged. And then there was just a lot. There's a slot of blood on the.

Carpet, and you had to see that. Yeah. Has to be so traumatizing.

Yeah, it was.

Investigators believed Christy opened the door to leave, only to have the killer drag her back in. Something else caught their attention. Mary's final conversation with Christy.

Before I left, I went and said, okay, we're gonna meet up later. And she sounded distant. And I said, are you okay? And she's like, no, I'm fine. So then I just went to work.

What do you think it was?

I don't know. I don't know if she was just thinking about the day or just. She was preoccupied.

Christy had something on her mind and only moments to live. Investigators had to find out if the two were connected.

When we come back, clues to a mystery. A boyfriend.

She had told me that things were ending. She was finally ready to move on.

This was a big deal.

And a mysterious visitor at Christie's school.

I thought I may have just been face to face with the killer.

Lancaster county is Pennsylvania amish country, a place where old ways and modern suburban sprawl meet. The brutal murder of a schoolteacher just before Christmas 1992 upset that sense of peace.

A lot of people in Lancaster county, particularly back then, they just didn't lock their doors, they didn't lock their cars. Very trusting community.

And yet former DA Craig Stedman says Christy Merak's killing didn't have the mark of a stranger.

7730 in the morning. Home invasion, sexual assault. It would be highly unusual for something like that to take place at that time of day in someone's apartment, just at random.

Police wanted to know if Christie had any enemies. The answer was no. Her brother Vince says his sister had tons of friends she was kind, caring, and focused. From the time she was a little girl, she wanted to be a teacher.

We had a little thing set up in our, in our garage where she was the school teacher. Now it's the summer, and kids want to go out and play, and my sister's pulling them in to teach them.

When she wasn't playing school, she was goofing around like a normal kid.

You can ask anybody and they'll tell you the same thing. She always was laughing, smiling, just a good, good.

Having a good time, and always dancing. There she is as a high schooler in the yellow top groove into the eighties, in the old tv dance show, dancing on air. And you, Christian Ross, what's your favorite.

Attraction here at Hershey park? Um.

Oh, it's a stumper. After high school, she took her work play ethic to Millersville University in Lancaster, where she met her other family. Were you all like sisters?

Yeah, absolutely.

Christy's circle included that roommate, Mary Franciscus, Chris Walter, Lisa Bailey, and Marianne Taylor.

We've shared clothes. We've shared hair products. We share everything.

Everything.

I don't think there's anything about each other that we don't know, and that's such a rare friendship.

And when it came to Christy, her friends knew she could hold her own, especially when they'd go out.

If someone came up and she wasn't interested, she had no problem telling people, hit the road, I'm not interested.

She was also protective of her friends. When they graduated, a few of them set up house in that apartment complex just outside downtown Lancaster.

Christy was always a very safe person, like, lock your doors, always leave with a buddy.

And we did feel safe.

There was no where. I mean, our backyard was an amish farm. It was a dairy farm.

By then, Christy had already landed her dream job as a teacher. Here she is leading a 6th grade class in science.

These are the ways we would classify any type of animal.

Harry Goodman saw something special in her.

She had the kids motivated. They were captivated. Some people would drag themselves into work. Christy didn't look at it as work.

If only you could bottle that.

Oh, my gosh.

And sell it.

Yeah, tell me.

But investigators did find one loose thread in her life.

She loved him. So loyal to him.

Christy had fallen for a man who went by the nickname Dagger. It wasn't exactly her friend's idea of a catch. Christy was 25, and he was not.

He was old. I remember thinking how old he was. I thought he was 20 years older than.

Yes, almost twice Christy's age. But he had a good job as president of the local teamsters, and he was generous.

I think she felt cared for. I don't even know exactly how, whether that was financially or what, but I think she felt cared for.

Christy didn't divulge much about her boyfriend or his past, but her friends could tell he was in no rush to the altar. They thought that bothered Christy, especially as the friends started moving out and getting married.

Maybe having just been to Chris's wedding that September, I'm thinking maybe that's that. She was realizing that's the life I deserve, too.

Two days before she was killed that Saturday, Christy had come to a decision.

She had told me that things were ending with dagger. She was finally ready to move on.

This was a big deal because she had been with him for years.

At this point, she looked happy. And we saw Christy back, bubbly, happy, ready to get out there and live.

And that night she did. The friends went out downtown, hitting the clubs. Now police had to consider whether Christy told dagger she wanted to break up. If so, had he taken it badly? Was that on Christy's mind the morning she was murdered? Or had Christy angered someone else from that Saturday night? Police wanted to know more.

Where did you eat? Where did you go dancing? Where did you go after that? Who was there?

Then something bizarre. The day after Christy's murder, a man walked into her school. He clearly didn't belong there.

I approached him and said, may I help you?

Bob Wilderson was an assistant school superintendent.

He said, oh, I'm just here to see Christy Mirack. I said, well, unfortunately, you're going to have to leave. Christy has passed.

The mysterious visitor said he hadn't heard the news. He claimed he was Christy's friend. Then he left.

It was hard to believe that anyone in Lancaster county would not have heard about it.

Bob Wilderson's mind raced. He'd heard stories of investigations where the criminals seemed eager to catch the attention of police.

Immediately after that is when I called the police. I thought I may have just been face to face with the killer.

Whoever that mystery man was, police knew they had to find him immediately.

Coming up, it would have been shocking to her to see him come in that building.

A surprise was in store about that surprise visitor.

It was something to do with him.

There was no other logical explanation. We were terrified.

When DatEline continues.

Bob Wilderson was one of Christie's colleagues. He was certain the man who'd shown up at school a day after the murder, claiming to be her friend, had instead been her killer.

I was convinced in fact, I said, we're going to get the guy who did this right now.

Today, he called police, told them the story, and gave them the man's name. Turned out it was no random visitor at all. It was none other than Dagger, Christy's longtime boyfriend. Police brought him in for questioning. They found out Dagger had a secret. He had a wife.

He was married. So he was pretty high on the suspect list. And I can tell you, just even talking to the investigators, they were absolutely convinced that, you know, that he. This was him.

But dagger insisted it wasn't. He said when Christy died, he was hundreds of miles away in Virginia, where he'd recently moved with his wife. Christy's friends were stunned. She never mentioned dagger was married. They weren't sure she even knew. Now they had to wonder if her decision to break things off with him two days before her death had doomed her. He might not have liked that.

I mean, she was devoted to him, and I'm sure that would be a loss for him to not have that in his life anymore.

And it was years. I mean, you don't just cut that tie and have it not mean anything.

And when they heard he'd shown up at Christie's school, their suspicions grew.

We were all thinking he was trying to establish some kind of alibi or to show that he had no involvement. Look how much I love her. I'm ready to make it public.

And it was so odd because it was everywhere that she had been murdered. I mean, everywhere in Lancaster. So I just never understood how he didn't know. And he. It was very uncharacteristic of him to show up at the school.

I think it would have been shocking to her to see him come in that building. Like, it would have been a. For her to have her worlds collide like that.

But the idea that dagger did it fell apart. Police confirmed his alibi. He had been in Virginia at the time of the murder. They also tested his DNA against the DNA the killer left during the sexual assault.

He was eliminated through alibi as well as scientifically.

Still, her friends wondered if he might have been involved in Christy's death somehow. To them, Dagger had always been a man of mystery. He didn't talk about his life or work. Their imaginations ran wild.

He either hired a hitman. Right, or it was revenge.

It was something to do with him. It was somebody that wanted to get back at him for whatever reason.

Yeah. There was no other logical explanation for us at the time. We were terrified.

But investigators didn't buy the hitman angle.

Professional hitmen do not usually get into hand to hand physical combat with their victim, and they certainly don't leave multiple DNA samples behind. You wouldn't think that anyone would do it at 715 in the morning in her apartment. There'd be way better ways to do this. It's just not consistent with a professional type hit.

So police needed to consider other men Christie might have crossed. Her friends did mention one incident from that Saturday night. They ran into someone who dated another one of their friends who was not.

A good guy, and we called him out on it.

They believed the man had been abusive to their friend, had even killed her dog.

I think we yelled puppy killer.

Puppy killer.

Oh, my gosh. How did he react?

He was scary.

Yeah, he's a sociopath. Big scary.

Yeah. Mm hmm.

So did you tell the police about him as well?

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, talk about emotive. That's something we latched onto. Yes, because we thought Christy angered him by calling him this name in a very public place.

Police looked into it, but eventually cleared him, too. In the meantime, her friends kept trying to help with the investigation.

They had her photo albums, and we would go through all the guys in the photo album and give them their names.

As it happened, police were already interested in someone else. His connection to Christie was more recent and compelling than those old photos, and he'd practically driven himself into the heart of the case.

Coming up, I walk in the door and they start to fingerprint me. I'm thinking, what they think I did this.

A principle under the microscope.

What's their tone? What kind of questions are they asking you?

Extremely accusatory. First question, did you murder Chrissy Marak?

After Christy Merak's murder, her principal, Harry Goodman, says he got a phone call to come down to the police station.

And they said, we want to talk to you and ask you questions about Christie's teaching and those kind of. So I walk in.

He thought they would ask routine questions about Christie's background. He was wrong.

I walk in the door and they start to fingerprint me. I'm thinking, what? They think I did this. I'm mourning the loss of our teacher and our friend, and all of a sudden, I'm being interrogated.

Why do you think they zeroed in on you?

I found her.

And that's it? Yeah, that one.

So many times I found her.

Actually, there was a bit more. The DA said investigators found Harry's drive to check on his employee that morning. Very strange. A lot of bosses when someone's only you know, 30, 40 minutes late. They don't jump in their car, you know, to go, to go see if someone's okay. Why did you feel the need to do that?

That's just who I am. I knew something was wrong. I thought Christy might need help.

He says. Police asked where he'd been in the hours before her death. Harry recalled going to the gym, coming home to change, and heading back out to work. What's their tone? What kind of questions are they asking you?

Extremely accusatory. You know, why would you have hired her? What was it about her that you liked so much? I mean, they were coming at me with all ends.

Detectives asked if he would take a polygraph.

I'm thinking, I've got nothing to hide. Hook me up. First question, did you murder Chrissy Merak?

Harry told them no. After answering all their questions, he says he passed the polygraph. They later confirmed his alibi, and his DNA was not a match. But Harry knew some people still suspected him.

My teachers would always come up to me, Harry, you should have heard what so and so was saying. And I said, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Police began looking elsewhere. They even considered the possibility that Christy might not have known her killer. That's when her friends recalled something that had happened months earlier at the apartment. Back then, they brushed it off. Now they wondered, you have a bizarre incident one night where dagger comes and sees somebody in the bushes. They went after the stranger.

We immediately jumped up and started screaming at him. And we chased him down here and all the way down there.

And what gave you the courage to go after this person?

Because he violated us. He was peeking in our window.

But they never got a good look at the guy. That wasn't much help to police. Investigators needed to focus on the solid leads they did have. Neighbors told them they'd spotted a white car outside Christie's apartment just before the murder.

There were four, five, or six people that saw at some point that morning a white car driving around that complex.

Some thought it was a Toyota celica like this one. But one witness who saw a man get out of the car near the apartment that morning described a different make and model, a Dodge Daytona. Police decided to focus on that type.

Of car, so they took that information and then they put it in the registry for Pennsylvania, for anyone that had a similar type vehicle.

But her friends didn't know anyone who drove that kind of dodge. They started to worry the killer, whoever he was, might come back for one of them.

I remember going to go to work. And I saw a car that was meaning the description of the car that they were looking for. Being paralyzed, like, not being able to leave the house because he's waiting for me. I remember writing their license plate number down and putting it in my pocket. So when they found my body, they would have this clue.

This has to strike fear into people when a young girl like that is brutally murdered and the person who did it is at large was out there.

That person was out there this whole time.

The investigation dragged on. Weeks became months, then years. Still, police believe that white car and the DNA from the crime scene would lead them to Christy's killer. Do you remember how many people were tested for their DNA?

Well, it was definitely dozens. We looked at suspect after suspect after suspect. As time went on, we started just reaching out to just. Well, could it be this person? Could it be this person?

And when the FBI created a national DNA database, CoDis investigators on Christie's case uploaded a sample from the crime scene. It didn't match the DNA of anyone in the system. The waiting was especially hard for Christy's mother. A decade after the murder, she died not knowing who killed her daughter.

I promised her that I wouldn't give up, you know, because I knew it was, you know, she was leaving. And we were still with no answer.

Vince took up the cause, staying in touch with police, even putting up a billboard looking for any new leads, but nothing.

Just hitting this dead end all the time was just. It was just extremely frustrating for us as a family.

But a breakthrough was coming, a new way to analyze DNA and catch criminals, a new way to find Christie's killer.

Coming up.

So what we're looking for is the pieces of the DNA for that person's eye color, their hair color, their face shape.

Could a DNA breakthrough break the still mate? In Christie's case, he could look a.

Lot like this, right?

When DATELINE continues.

Time seems to pass more slowly here in the rolling farmlands of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. But for Christy Mirack's loved ones, it felt like time had stopped altogether. Nearly 25 years had gone by since her death, and investigators were no closer to catching her killer. It must have bothered you, knowing that whoever did this was getting away with it.

Oh, yeah.

They were still out walking around.

Or was he? I think there were times where we thought this person could be dead by now, and we'll really never know.

Still, they wanted to know, needed to know who her killer was. They just had to wait a little longer.

Some things in law enforcement are just through hard work and dedication, some things are just through coincidence and a little bit of luck.

In 2016, the DA's office heard about a new tool that uses DNA to solve cold cases. Genetic phenotyping allows scientists to create a composite of a suspect using the DNA left at a crime scene.

So we're reading the information out of that DNA that determines what that person looked like.

Ellen Graytak is director of bioinformatics at a company called Parabon, which has helped pioneer the use of DNA phenotyping.

So that DNA built that person, and that's what we're looking for, is the pieces of the DNA that coded for that person's eye color, their hair color, their face shape, and then we can tell that to the detectives.

This isn't the first time phenotyping has come up investigators constructed a family tree and narrowed it down to their man.When you read about it and you see it, you just say to yourself, what did I think about this? I mean, it's completely brilliant.Parabon's genetic genealogists did the same thing in the hunt for the man who murdered Christy. Sure enough, they found relatives who shared DNA with her killer.In a couple of days, they're able to take these few people who share DNA with our unknown killer and build to who that person could have been.Remember, they knew the killer had european and latino ancestry. One man in the family tree stood out. He matched the ancestry and lived near Christy when she was murdered. But that didn't mean investigators in Lancaster could make an arrest.We don't arrest people on what genetic database is saying to us. We needed to get his sample, and we needed to have it confirmed through a the state police crime lab.So they staked him out, hoping he'd leave behind something with his DNA on it.We had a couple undercover guys watch him all day long to try to see him abandon something. He abandoned nothing. He took everything with him. We completely struck out.They tried again. State troopers eventually followed the man to, of all things, an event at a public school. This time, success.An undercover female trooper befriended him, and she was able to get some things directly from him.What did she get?She was able to get a water bottle and gum that he had used.The state crime lab compared the DNA from those samples to the DNA from the crime scene. They matched. Now, investigators were confident they had their man standing right where they least expected him, in the shadows of the dance floor.Coming up.He slept on my bed that night. You just don't know what to think.Who was the man who murdered Christy? His stunning identity revealed at last.Oh, my gosh. You are literally talking to Christy's killer.Right? Face to face.Detectives believed they'd finally found Christy Mirack's killer. They matched his DNA to the crime, and they were ready to arrest him. Until you realize he's not even home. He's on vacation.We found out that he was actually on a trip across America with his wife and daughter.Now, DA Craig Steadman had an agonizing decision to make.Do we arrest him out there? Nothing. Have our investigators try to interview him? Do we risk the safety of his new wife and adopt a daughter.So what do you do?Well, so I made the decision to wait.Thankfully, their man returned to Lancaster, and on an early summer day in 2018, they arrested him outside his house. What was his reaction?He kind of was acting pretty calm. Oh, well, this is, you know, kind of a joke, right? And they kept telling him, no, you're arrested for criminal homicide of Christy Mirack.He denies it.He denied it. He denied ever knowing her. Today we are announcing the arrest of Raymond Charles Rowe for the murder of Christy Murak from December 21, 1992.Raymond Rowe, who was he?Never heard of the guy. I don't know who this person is.Turned out many people knew the accused by a different name. DJ Freeze. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Christy's friends were floored.He was the local DJ everyone, everyone wanted. He was the guy who went to the same church as me.He had been raised in Lancaster, and he had essentially stayed here for his life.Around the time of Christie's murderous, Rowe worked a warehouse job by day and performed in clubs at night. Aside from a brush with the law in 2001, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, he stayed out of trouble. Over the years, he married four times and built a name for himself as a DJ.A lot of our officers knew who he was. A lot of our officers had been at events that he had been at.He was living in plain sight.He was living in plain sight. He had been living in plain sight. He never hit it.Now he was charged with murder. Investigators quickly connected him to another key piece of evidence. That white car. In 1992, Rowe owned a Toyota Celica similar to this that some of Christy's neighbors had mentioned. Not the Dodge Daytona police focused on.I had sitting in my office a pile about this big of all the Dodge Daytonas that were registered in Pennsylvania back at that time.But not the Celica.Not the Celica.Why not go through both in the database?I did not have an answer for you on that. I think that they felt like, based on the information they had, that the Dodge Daytona was the way to go.Investigators now believed Rowe drove that car past Christy's doorstep often.We discovered that he worked very, very close proximity to where Christie's apartment was.Steadman says it's even possible Ro was the peeping Tom that Christy's friends chased just months before her murder. The what if haunts them.The thing that bothers me is if it would have. Like, what if it was him? If I would have caught him, then.It gets you upset, like, just thinking about it now. Investigators also knew that Ro might have spotted Christy in one of the downtown clubs, like that Saturday before her death. Was he at the club that weekend? One of the places you went to?We don't know. We didn't know him. He didn't stand out if he was there.And yet the DA thinks it's likely the two met.I think it was targeted. I think that she hadn't encountered him at some event beforehand. My guess is, had spurned him and he saw her out there at that apartment.At some point, the DJ's connection to Christie seemed tenuous. But Stedman says the DNA proved Roe killed her. In fact, the odds of the killer being anyone other than him on the entire planet weren't just one in a.Million, non million, octillion, a thousand trillion, trillion things like this. You can't even actually conceive of a number with 27 zeros or 30 zeros, which is what we ended up getting.It's remarkable.I just have. I've never heard of a case with this much.And remember that composite from the killer's DNA? Turns out it was a pretty good match to Roe even then. It was hard for some in Lancaster to believe Rowe could commit such a horrible crime. Especially this woman.He was the life of the party.Her name is Monica Whelan. She was engaged to Roe when Christy was killed. This was the first time she publicly talked about their relationship. You're learning that they believe he brutally murdered a woman, sexually assaulted her, and then came home to you.Yes.How do you process that?You just don't know what to think. I mean, he slept on my bed that night. You know, we had Christmas four days later and we got married months later.And you're none the wiser. No. But Monica does remember Christy's murder being in the news and talking to Ro about it. He was concerned about your safety after this murder.Yeah.It's outrageous to think that he's advising you on your safety, worrying about you when he was the killer.Yeah, it is surprising.The couple divorced almost six years later. There must also be a part of you is like, what didn't I see?Yeah, there was that. There was. It could have been me. You know, why wasn't it me? Why did she have to die?Rowe was now facing trial and if convicted, the death penalty. But it didn't come to that. In January 2019, he pleaded guilty to the murder and rape of Christy Merak in exchange for a life sentence. Her family felt relieved, but also cheated.He's been doing what he wanted to do for the last 26 years, and she's been dead for the last 26 plus years. And I still think he got off pretty easy.Christie's friends are angry that Ro was able to live among them for so long, never hinting at what he'd done.He was the guy I talked to when my daughter was planning her wedding. No, at a wedding expo. Face to face.Oh, my gosh.Spoke to him.You are literally talking to Christie's killer.Right. And I kept thinking after the fact, I'm like, he had to have known who I was when I was standing in front of him. Absolutely. He had to have known who I was.Now she'd like to have one more chance to meet him face to face.How did you know her and why did you do this? I still want to drive to the prison and see if he'll let me in. I just want to ask him. I just don't understand why he did this.Since then, Raymond Rowe has been appealing his conviction, saying he was pressured into pleading guilty. Rowe's lawyer says DNA testing on additional evidence could help clear him. Those closest to Christy say they try not to think about him anymore, only about their lost friend. What she meant and still means to them.I'd like to think Christy's kept us together. You almost feel guilty that we were able to get married and have kids, and we still think about Christy like that. She never got to have that.She was a huge light in this world. That was just taken way too soon. Just way too soon.That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.So many twists and turns.There are more surprises on the way.I'm Andrea Canning. Welcome to DATELINE True Crime Weekly, a new podcast covering breaking crime news around the country with the best reporters on the case, NBC News analysts and Dateline producers on the ground.Prosecution.I'll dive into stories that are catching DatelIne's attention this week.This is sort of baffling investigation.Get to the bottom of what you need to know. The question is, did you really think that you were going to get away with it? DatelIne, true crime weekly. Listen now and catch new episodes every Thursday.

investigators constructed a family tree and narrowed it down to their man.

When you read about it and you see it, you just say to yourself, what did I think about this? I mean, it's completely brilliant.

Parabon's genetic genealogists did the same thing in the hunt for the man who murdered Christy. Sure enough, they found relatives who shared DNA with her killer.

In a couple of days, they're able to take these few people who share DNA with our unknown killer and build to who that person could have been.

Remember, they knew the killer had european and latino ancestry. One man in the family tree stood out. He matched the ancestry and lived near Christy when she was murdered. But that didn't mean investigators in Lancaster could make an arrest.

We don't arrest people on what genetic database is saying to us. We needed to get his sample, and we needed to have it confirmed through a the state police crime lab.

So they staked him out, hoping he'd leave behind something with his DNA on it.

We had a couple undercover guys watch him all day long to try to see him abandon something. He abandoned nothing. He took everything with him. We completely struck out.

They tried again. State troopers eventually followed the man to, of all things, an event at a public school. This time, success.

An undercover female trooper befriended him, and she was able to get some things directly from him.

What did she get?

She was able to get a water bottle and gum that he had used.

The state crime lab compared the DNA from those samples to the DNA from the crime scene. They matched. Now, investigators were confident they had their man standing right where they least expected him, in the shadows of the dance floor.

Coming up.

He slept on my bed that night. You just don't know what to think.

Who was the man who murdered Christy? His stunning identity revealed at last.

Oh, my gosh. You are literally talking to Christy's killer.

Right? Face to face.

Detectives believed they'd finally found Christy Mirack's killer. They matched his DNA to the crime, and they were ready to arrest him. Until you realize he's not even home. He's on vacation.

We found out that he was actually on a trip across America with his wife and daughter.

Now, DA Craig Steadman had an agonizing decision to make.

Do we arrest him out there? Nothing. Have our investigators try to interview him? Do we risk the safety of his new wife and adopt a daughter.

So what do you do?

Well, so I made the decision to wait.

Thankfully, their man returned to Lancaster, and on an early summer day in 2018, they arrested him outside his house. What was his reaction?

He kind of was acting pretty calm. Oh, well, this is, you know, kind of a joke, right? And they kept telling him, no, you're arrested for criminal homicide of Christy Mirack.

He denies it.

He denied it. He denied ever knowing her. Today we are announcing the arrest of Raymond Charles Rowe for the murder of Christy Murak from December 21, 1992.

Raymond Rowe, who was he?

Never heard of the guy. I don't know who this person is.

Turned out many people knew the accused by a different name. DJ Freeze. All right, ladies and gentlemen, Christy's friends were floored.

He was the local DJ everyone, everyone wanted. He was the guy who went to the same church as me.

He had been raised in Lancaster, and he had essentially stayed here for his life.

Around the time of Christie's murderous, Rowe worked a warehouse job by day and performed in clubs at night. Aside from a brush with the law in 2001, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, he stayed out of trouble. Over the years, he married four times and built a name for himself as a DJ.

A lot of our officers knew who he was. A lot of our officers had been at events that he had been at.

He was living in plain sight.

He was living in plain sight. He had been living in plain sight. He never hit it.

Now he was charged with murder. Investigators quickly connected him to another key piece of evidence. That white car. In 1992, Rowe owned a Toyota Celica similar to this that some of Christy's neighbors had mentioned. Not the Dodge Daytona police focused on.

I had sitting in my office a pile about this big of all the Dodge Daytonas that were registered in Pennsylvania back at that time.

But not the Celica.

Not the Celica.

Why not go through both in the database?

I did not have an answer for you on that. I think that they felt like, based on the information they had, that the Dodge Daytona was the way to go.

Investigators now believed Rowe drove that car past Christy's doorstep often.

We discovered that he worked very, very close proximity to where Christie's apartment was.

Steadman says it's even possible Ro was the peeping Tom that Christy's friends chased just months before her murder. The what if haunts them.

The thing that bothers me is if it would have. Like, what if it was him? If I would have caught him, then.

It gets you upset, like, just thinking about it now. Investigators also knew that Ro might have spotted Christy in one of the downtown clubs, like that Saturday before her death. Was he at the club that weekend? One of the places you went to?

We don't know. We didn't know him. He didn't stand out if he was there.

And yet the DA thinks it's likely the two met.

I think it was targeted. I think that she hadn't encountered him at some event beforehand. My guess is, had spurned him and he saw her out there at that apartment.

At some point, the DJ's connection to Christie seemed tenuous. But Stedman says the DNA proved Roe killed her. In fact, the odds of the killer being anyone other than him on the entire planet weren't just one in a.

Million, non million, octillion, a thousand trillion, trillion things like this. You can't even actually conceive of a number with 27 zeros or 30 zeros, which is what we ended up getting.

It's remarkable.

I just have. I've never heard of a case with this much.

And remember that composite from the killer's DNA? Turns out it was a pretty good match to Roe even then. It was hard for some in Lancaster to believe Rowe could commit such a horrible crime. Especially this woman.

He was the life of the party.

Her name is Monica Whelan. She was engaged to Roe when Christy was killed. This was the first time she publicly talked about their relationship. You're learning that they believe he brutally murdered a woman, sexually assaulted her, and then came home to you.

Yes.

How do you process that?

You just don't know what to think. I mean, he slept on my bed that night. You know, we had Christmas four days later and we got married months later.

And you're none the wiser. No. But Monica does remember Christy's murder being in the news and talking to Ro about it. He was concerned about your safety after this murder.

Yeah.

It's outrageous to think that he's advising you on your safety, worrying about you when he was the killer.

Yeah, it is surprising.

The couple divorced almost six years later. There must also be a part of you is like, what didn't I see?

Yeah, there was that. There was. It could have been me. You know, why wasn't it me? Why did she have to die?

Rowe was now facing trial and if convicted, the death penalty. But it didn't come to that. In January 2019, he pleaded guilty to the murder and rape of Christy Merak in exchange for a life sentence. Her family felt relieved, but also cheated.

He's been doing what he wanted to do for the last 26 years, and she's been dead for the last 26 plus years. And I still think he got off pretty easy.

Christie's friends are angry that Ro was able to live among them for so long, never hinting at what he'd done.

He was the guy I talked to when my daughter was planning her wedding. No, at a wedding expo. Face to face.

Oh, my gosh.

Spoke to him.

You are literally talking to Christie's killer.

Right. And I kept thinking after the fact, I'm like, he had to have known who I was when I was standing in front of him. Absolutely. He had to have known who I was.

Now she'd like to have one more chance to meet him face to face.

How did you know her and why did you do this? I still want to drive to the prison and see if he'll let me in. I just want to ask him. I just don't understand why he did this.

Since then, Raymond Rowe has been appealing his conviction, saying he was pressured into pleading guilty. Rowe's lawyer says DNA testing on additional evidence could help clear him. Those closest to Christy say they try not to think about him anymore, only about their lost friend. What she meant and still means to them.

I'd like to think Christy's kept us together. You almost feel guilty that we were able to get married and have kids, and we still think about Christy like that. She never got to have that.

She was a huge light in this world. That was just taken way too soon. Just way too soon.

That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us.

So many twists and turns.

There are more surprises on the way.

I'm Andrea Canning. Welcome to DATELINE True Crime Weekly, a new podcast covering breaking crime news around the country with the best reporters on the case, NBC News analysts and Dateline producers on the ground.

Prosecution.

I'll dive into stories that are catching DatelIne's attention this week.

This is sort of baffling investigation.

Get to the bottom of what you need to know. The question is, did you really think that you were going to get away with it? DatelIne, true crime weekly. Listen now and catch new episodes every Thursday.