I Became A Private Investigator To Solve My Best Friend’s Murder

A Texas woman has revealed that she became a private investigator in order to help solve the murder of her best friend in 1984.

Sheila Wysocki said that after her roommate, 20-year-old Angela Samota, was raped and murdered, her life changed forever. The two women were paired up as roommates during their freshman year at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1982, according to Inside Edition.

They became close friends — but on October 12, 1984, Angie was found raped and stabbed 18 times in their home. She was so brutally attacked that her heart was practically outside of her body.

Wysocki learned of her best friend’s killing by a phone call. “The murder happened, and my entire life and security crumbled,” Wysocki told Inside Edition.

She said that she helped police with the investigation, agreeing to talk to a suspect about his alibi. She wanted to do everything she could to bring justice to her friend, but was terrified at the idea she might be going to speak with her murderer. The suspect’s alibi checked out — he wasn’t the killer.

“I was fearful because you know, at the very beginning, you didn’t know who killed her. You didn’t know if it was her boyfriend. You didn’t know if it was an acquaintance that we all ran around with. So going out was off the table,” she said. Eventually, Wysocki said she left school and moved back home. And over the years, the case went cold.

Angela Samota [Dallas Police Department]

Wysocki was able to move on with her life, and got married, moved to Nashville, and started a family. But she never forgot Samota — and in 1995, while watching the O.J. Simpson trial, she began to wonder if the new DNA technology could help in her friend’s case. She knew that semen and blood had been found at the crime scene, so Wysocki reached out to a New York–based organization that deals with cold cases.

Donald Andrew Bess [Dallas Police Department]

But she says that cold case organizations and police were reluctant to work with her because she did not work in law enforcement. So, in 2005, she decided to become a private investigator.

In 2006, Dallas police tasked a detective named Linda Crumb with reinvestigation the case, so she sent off the DNA found at the scene for analysis. It took two more years, but they got a hit. DNA found at the scene came back a match with Donald Andrew Bess, a convicted rapist serving a life sentence at Huntsville Prison in Texas.

Bess was convicted in 2010 of Samota’s murder, and sentenced to death. Wysocki founded her own private investigation agency in 2011, and today, she focuses on cold cases.

Wysocki said she still thinks often of the friend who had such a profound affect on her life. “I hope she’s resting in peace now,” Wysocki said.

To learn more about the Angela Samota case, watch the “Designing Murder” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Suspicion on ID GO now!

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Inside Edition

NBC4i.com

Main photo: Sheila Wysocki [Investigation Discovery (screenshot)]

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