Collision Course

0:20The car crash happened on November 17th of 2009 on a dead end street in West Denver. It was about 1.40 in the morning. There was a loud bang outside. So I actually jumped up, I came out, and when I came out, I looked over towards the street and I saw a vehicle. I came down, started dialing 911. No, no, he's freaking out. She's draining his arms, okay? Okay. She's dead, I think. Okay. In the driver's seat was a female, and in the passenger seat was a male holding the female in his arms and was shaking her. Kept saying, Brittany, Brittany. She was later identified as Brittany Brashears. Brittany was an incredible person, an even better friend.

1:12After she graduated high school, she didn't really know what she wanted to do. She just told her dad one day, hey, I'm going in the Air Force. And that's how we originally met. She loved everything outdoors. She was really into fitness. Her passion for life was just, it was huge. She didn't talk about it, she did it. She was amazing. She would just catch every pass, and it's like she had done it before, like it wasn't her first day. I guess it was a pretty legit girls football team that she was playing for.

1:46Brynn and Brashears is my older sister. She got to be one of my best friends and my role model. You miss her? Oh, every day.

1:59The night of the crash, Brittany had been drinking. Her toxicology levels came back above the legal limit. Could you, in your mind, come up with any conceivable reason why they would have come here? No, no. The closest thing I could come up to is they just got tragically lost. Her car ended up right back at about this angle here. At first glance, it looked like an accident. Like she'd been drinking, and she'd been driving, and she crashed.

2:35She didn't have her seatbelt on, and sitting next to her was someone by the name of Robert Walters. He did have his seatbelt on.

2:47She's staring straight up at me. There's just blood everywhere. And I'm staring at her, and I'm yelling at her to breathe. I'm yelling at her to breathe. Britney, breathe.

3:03When I learned that Robbie Waters was in the car with her, I knew that something was wrong. Something wasn't right. There was something more to the story.

3:26I got a phone call in the middle of the night, 2 o 'clock in the morning. The call to Barry Brashear's Illinois home was the call parents dread the most. It was about his daughter, Brittany. A traffic officer had said that Brittany had been in a wreck and told me that I should go to the hospital. That hospital was half a continent away in Denver, so he got the terrible news long distance. I talked to the doctor and he told me that she was no longer with us. I was like, yeah, yeah. It was, yeah. Brittany's brother John was there with his dad. Honestly, we both just kind of sat there. I know I couldn't cry.

4:13That night I couldn't. I was just in so much shock, like, there's no way it's actually happening. They learned someone else also was in the car. Brittany's one-time boyfriend, Robbie Walters, who miraculously survived the wreck unhurt. Barry had met him once and was not impressed. Guys come and go. I'll be honest, I don't even remember one word Robbie said. And did she ever say anything about, you know, Dad, I really like this guy. No, but she wouldn't have said that to me. Brittany didn't tell him much about her personal life, he says. She always had confided in her mom. A vibrant woman who shared her passion for the outdoors, her mother died of cancer when Brittany was 17.

5:00What was the impact of her death? It affected Brittany the most. They were best friends. They did everything together, talked about everything. She took it hard and began running with a crowd that, in her father's eyes, partied a bit too much. So he was thrilled when at age 20, Brittany suddenly signed up for the Air Force. She really needed the discipline, being a part of something. So you felt this would give her some direction? Exactly. And she seemed really committed to it? Oh, absolutely. She was one of our top performers, so that's how I looked at her. Retired Master Sergeant Art Figueroa was her boss at the Air Force Dental Lab in Colorado Springs, where Brittany was a technician.

5:48She loved what she did. I mean, she helped people out. She was easy to like, and everybody liked her. In February 2009, Brittany was deployed to Iraq. Assigned to non-combat security, she ended up spending a lot of time with a cute airman from Southern California, Robbie Walters. She had so much energy. She was such a free spirit and amazing girl. But you pretty much immediately clicked. Yeah, right away, right away. She was all smiles every time I talked to her.

6:23Brittany's best friend, Tiffany Peoples, watched the relationship grow. My impression of him was, you know, he's a funny guy. He always has to be, you know, the clown. But Brittany was not amused when she learned that Robbie was married. No problem, he told her. It was a marriage in name only. Going to Iraq, they give you family separation pay. They give you all this incentive to get married, like this extra pay. So that's the only reason you got married? That's the main reason I got married. And Brittany believed that? There was no reason for her to believe anything else. That July, fun-loving Robbie's disciplinary problems got him kicked out of the service with a less than honorable discharge.

7:07After a four-month stint in Iraq, Brittany returned to the Air Force Dental Lab in Colorado, and Robbie was right behind her. It was all good for probably a month, and then Brittany went from being this vibrant girl and being this superstar airman to just showing up to work late, wanting, you know, calling in sick, just kind of pushing everybody out of her life. Everyone, that is, except Robbie. I started to really dislike Robbie. What kinds of things was he doing? He would do crazy things like park her car in the middle of a four lane in traffic with her in the passenger seat, take the keys out, and run with her sitting there in the car.

7:52Robbie denies ever doing that, but contrary to all his assurances, his marital status was a problem. Adultery is a serious offense in the military, and Brittany's boss found out about the marriage. When you looked into it, what did you discover? We had a nice conversation. I was like, I understand if you guys have feelings for each other, fine. I said, but let this situation with his wife play out. When he's away from her, they're divorced, and then maybe you can pursue a relationship. But any time in between now and then, I said, it's not legal, so I suggest you not do that. Still, the affair continued on and off.

8:29I asked her a hundred times, why are you doing this to yourself? Why are you staying in this relationship when you know it's not healthy? And it was, I love them. I love them. Then, on October 24, 2009, just eight months after they'd met, an overheated argument outside Brittany's home turned into a physical fight. Brittany ended up with bruises, and Robbie ended up with a few days in jail. Sergeant Figueroa issued a formal no-contact order. Now, if Brittany saw Robbie again, the Air Force could kick her out. And she had told me that she had broken up with Robbie. He was coming to get his stuff.

9:10He was moving back to California. She was completely done with him. She was ready to move on.

9:18Three weeks later, Brittany, always an athlete, had a new passion, football. She signed up to play in an all-female league. The night before her team's photo shoot, Robbie sent her a text begging to see her just one more time. He knew her weaknesses. They were close enough to where he knew what to say, what button to push to get them to meet up. I think she loved it enough that at one point where she would honor what he said this one time, and then everything would be okay. She could not have been more wrong.

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11:09It was a sport that we didn't get paid to do it. We just did it because we loved it. It was something for us to do as women. Brittany Austin-Goyne says the Foxy Football League was serious stuff.

11:27It's eight on eight, and it is full-on tackle football. We had helmets, we had mouth guards, shoulder pads. It was awesome. As team captain, she was delighted when another Brittany, Brittany Brashears, signed up in 2009. She seemed so dainty. She just looked fragile. And then when practice started, Brittany was a natural. She was very athletic. Very much so. On November 16th, both Brittany's drove to Denver for the team's publicity photo shoot. We all at one point eventually had no top. And we would have the body part of someone else covering. So you couldn't really see anything. But it's supposed to be like a sexy kind of football league.

12:11And everybody was having a good time. We had an amazing time. We really did. Not everybody. Although the shoot was supposed to be closed, Robbie Walters tagged along. He was kind of hunched over, kind of covering his face like this. You know, he had his hand or his phone in his hand. And he kind of looked like he was like shaking or panting or just, you know, when you kind of laugh. And then all of a sudden, I saw just tears coming down his face, dripping to the ground. He's sobbing. Yeah. Sobbing and texting. Robbie was sending text messages to Brittany's boss that night. I was sad the relationship was coming to an end.

12:55He was turning her in for seeing him against orders. This is my way of getting back at her. She put me in jail. I figured if I got her in trouble, that would be the end of it, and I could just leave and go to California. Whatever anger Robbie was feeling about the photo shoot, about the breakup, the couple was seen leaving together around 1230 AM. Was Brittany drunk? Oh yeah. And were you? I was definitely drunk. I put my head down and I was listening to the music and I wasn't paying attention to the driving at all. About an hour later, Brittany's car slammed into a parked vehicle on a dead end street.

13:36That's when Steve Sanchez heard the crash, ran outside and called 911. Hello, this is the paramedic. Yeah, I got two people in this car right here, and one don't look very good at all. Are you with the person that's hurt now? I'm standing right after the car. What did you think? He was shaking her, and when I came out, I told him, you're going to hurt her. Quit shaking her. She might be hurt. And then he looked over at me like surprised and started crying her name out. Do you remember the actual crash? No, no. Why was she off the freeway in this strange neighborhood? I don't know. I don't even know where we were at.

14:17And you were asleep? I wasn't asleep. I was in the process of going to sleep. I was slipping into unconsciousness, definitely.

14:37Detective Troy Bisgard says at first, Robbie's story seemed to make sense. He said that he just woke up and Brittany was in his lap and unconscious. You can see the windshield there. So that's her head hit right there. Yeah. But homicide was called in because the cops at the scene thought something just didn't look right. They're the ones telling me, look. It was a car accident, but it wasn't so significant that she should be dead from it.

15:15Medical examiner John Carver was baffled. Here's this accident. I don't understand why this person is dead, but maybe the toxicology will show something. Brittany's blood alcohol level was over the legal limit, but only barely. There were no drugs in her system, and she didn't hit the windshield all that hard.

15:40Brittany didn't have any significant injuries of long bones or internal organs or the base of the neck or the spinal cord or the skull or the brain. The injuries Brittany did have weren't what Carver expected to see. There's extensive bruising around her temple and over her right cheek. More alarming, he saw telltale signs that she might have been strangled. The main thing were these pinpoint hemorrhages on the skin of the face and surrounding the eyes. But strangulation was hard to confirm. Brittany's anatomy was different. She was missing a piece of cartilage in the throat that usually is crushed when someone is strangled.

16:27There was nothing to injure or to break.

16:34So Dr. Carver was in a bind. Without more proof, he couldn't rule Brittany's death a homicide. But it sure didn't seem like an accident. The cause of death to me was undetermined, and the manner of death to me was undetermined. Undetermined? Undetermined. I don't know.

17:00Undetermined meant no ruling of homicide, so officially no crime, and no grounds for arrest. But the more Bisgard learned about Robbie, the more convinced he became that this was murder. First off, there was a statement Brittany gave police after the October fight that landed Robbie in jail. The officer's report specifically stated that the victim told them that he had threatened to crash the car and hurt or injure them both.

17:34And Bisgard had discovered something else. A hidden recording on Brittany's phone left after that fight. you, I hate your gun. I'm tired of defending you. You me over, I hate you. She had actually disguised the recording as the name of a ringtone, and that's where it was. So it was just pure luck that we found it. I hope you die. I hate you. Why would you leave a message like that? Why would I leave a message like that? That message was left after Brittany called the cops on me and I went to jail. And I was angry. Bisgard also wondered why Robbie couldn't remember anything about the crash, but was crystal clear about one specific detail from that night.

18:27He told me at some point during that photo shoot that she took her top off. What did that have to do with anything? I don't know, and that struck me as odd. Why would you say that? I didn't get that.

18:43In his grief, Brittany Brashear's father, Barry, was confused. So when you heard that she had not been wearing a seatbelt... Oh, that was absolutely a red flag went up. She would never move a car without putting her seatbelt on. Never. You were convinced that he had had something to do with it. Oh, that he had some... She was dead because of him. To what extent, I had no idea what. Barry soon was urging Bisgard to keep investigating, find something. but undetermined on that autopsy report meant Bisgard's hands were tied. It just, it didn't matter what I thought. It didn't matter what anybody else thought.

19:21We had nothing. Without a cause of death for Brittany, I had nothing. I just did not see a chance of proving this case.

19:39It may not be everyone's idea of a dream wedding outside a parking garage in the dead of winter. I now pronounce you husband and wife. But that's where Robbie and Elena Walters tied the knot on a frigid day in January 2009. I was like, Elena, I love you. You're my girlfriend. We've been together for several years. If I get married right now, I can get paid more before I go to Iraq. and she was like, well, I don't really want to get married for money. I want to get married because I love you. And I was like, well, I love you. Days later, the groom was deployed to Iraq, where he soon would both lie to and cheat on his wife, Elena, whose face we've agreed not to show.

20:25They're finally insane. She apparently took her wedding vows much more seriously than her new husband. After Brittany died and knowing all about their affair, Elena took Robbie back. The couple reunited in California. In Denver meanwhile, Detective Troy Bisgard was frustrated, convinced that Robbie was getting away with the murder of Brittany Brashears. All I could think about was Barry. I'm talking to the guy whose baby girl was murdered, and I am never going to be able to prove this. Never.

21:09Then, four months into the investigation, Bisgard got word that Robbie had had a big fight with his wife. Looking for any possible shred of new evidence, he gave Elena a call. And I said, it's time for you to tell me what you know. And what did she say?

21:34Hello? Hi, is Elena in? This is her. Hi, Elena. This is Detective Troy Bisgard. I'm a detective with the Denver Police Department. Hi. She started telling me everything. And then he's like, I did it. I'm like, did what? He had confessed to strangling Brittany and covering it up with a car accident. He's like, I killed her. I was like, Robbie, you're talking crazy. You've been through a lot. He's like, no. He's like, I did it. I didn't have to pry this stuff out of her. And once she started talking, she didn't stop talking for a couple hours. I think he said that they were on the freeway. Okay.

22:14Or the highway, something like that. And then that's the first time that he reaches over and he punches her in the face. She started telling me how many times he had told her this. He just kept telling her over and over again. First thing is he tried to stop her from breathing, so he kind of like pinned, pushed down with his forearm. Elena was in a quandary, reluctant to believe that the love of her life was capable of murder. He's always had an imagination. He's always been different in the head. So it's hard to think that this is this person that I know who I've known my whole life. Something like that, right.