Jill Strong opened the employee entrance of the Austin, Texas, Pizza Hut just after eight in the morning. She had pulled into the parking lot a few minutes earlier, expecting to get a jump on her shift. She was a team manager, hoping to become a shift manager. Inside, she noticed a plastic ice cream tote that had been used the previous evening to transport the day’s cash receipts.

It was sitting there, but something about it bothered her. She counted the deposit for the prior evening and found it was $90 short. She called the company’s drive-in division to report the discrepancy. At 8:33 a.

m. , a regional manager called the store. The phone rang several times and went unanswered. It rang again at 9:50.

Still nothing. At 10:20, the regional manager called Jill Strong directly and asked if she had heard from Nancy. Jill said she hadn’t, and that she had found the store empty and the back door unlocked. The regional manager drove over.

When he arrived, he found the hose used to clean the store’s grease trap stretched across the parking lot, and the back door propped open with a bag of flour. He walked in and saw a pool of water spreading across the floor near the men’s restroom. The water was running under the door. He pushed it open.

Nancy DePriest was on the floor, unclothed, her hands bound behind her back with her own bra. There was a large amount of blood around her head. The regional manager ran out and called 911. Paramedics arrived and found Nancy still had a faint pulse.

She was rushed to Brackenridge Hospital. Detectives began processing the scene. Nancy’s clothes were on the bathroom floor. A .

22-caliber shell casing lay nearby. A blue apron had been stuffed into the sink drain, and the faucet was left running, flooding the floor. In the dining area, crime scene technicians found a short strand of hair that did not match Nancy’s. It was collected for testing.

The walk-in safe in the floor had been cleaned out. Nancy’s first task of the morning would have been to remove the money and count it. The cash from the previous night was gone. Detectives believed someone had entered the store to rob it, and had also sexually assaulted Nancy before shooting her.

There were no signs of forced entry. Employees were required to keep all doors locked during pre-opening preparation. That left two main possibilities: either Nancy knew her attacker and let him in, or he had a master key that opened all the Pizza Hut locations in the area. All assistant managers, including Nancy, carried one, as did many higher-ranking employees.

The list of people with access was long. Doctors worked to save Nancy, but the damage from the bullet was severe. She was placed in a medically induced coma. They told her husband, Todd, there was no chance she would regain consciousness.

He made the painful decision to remove life support. Later that night, her loved ones came to the hospital to say goodbye. An autopsy confirmed a . 22-caliber bullet in Nancy’s head had caused massive brain damage.

There were no signs of a struggle, suggesting she had been taken completely by surprise. The examination also confirmed she had been sexually assaulted. Biological evidence left by the killer was recovered. But in the late 1980s, DNA testing was still in its infancy.

The tools available to investigators were extremely limited. The strand of hair found in the dining area had no root, so no DNA profile could be obtained from it. It could only be compared microscopically to hair samples from suspects. Investigators first questioned the regional manager.

He had spent the entire morning in his office making calls and speaking with staff at other locations. They learned that at around 8:30 a. m. , Nancy had called the company’s supplier.

The regional manager had tried to reach her at the same time, but by then she was no longer answering. This narrowed the time of the attack to approximately 8:30 a. m. or shortly after.

It also allowed detectives to clear Nancy’s husband. Todd had arrived at the military base before Nancy made her last call, so he could not have committed the crime. Over the next few days, detectives interviewed every employee who worked at Nancy’s store. None raised any serious suspicion.

They obtained a list of employees at other Pizza Hut locations across the city who held master keys and began examining them one by one. On November 9, about two weeks after the murder, the store had reopened and hired a security guard. One evening, he reported something suspicious to the manager. Two young men had parked outside the restaurant and sat in their car facing the building for a while with the headlights on.

They eventually came in, ordered some beers, and raised their glasses in a toast to Nancy’s memory. The guard thought the behavior was strange, but things became more suspicious when one of them approached him and started asking questions. The young man wanted to know how long the restaurant had had a security guard, whether police had any suspects or evidence, and what was known about Nancy’s murder. At one point, he asked whether it was true that Nancy’s body had been found near the cash register, and even suggested there must have been two killers.

The guard later learned both men worked at another Pizza Hut location. One of them said he had been opening his own store at the time Nancy was killed, which was supposed to provide him with an alibi. The guard reported the encounter to the manager, who contacted the detectives. The two men were identified as Christopher Ochoa, 22, and Richard Danziger, 18.

They worked at another Pizza Hut and shared an apartment. Richard was also dating the manager of that location, a woman named Donna. Both men had access to a master key and were familiar with the morning shift routine. After speaking with the manager of their store, detectives learned Richard had been scheduled to open the location at 8:00 a.

m. on the day of the murder. When the time came, no one was there. The manager called Richard’s girlfriend, Donna, who said he was at her house and had overslept.

The manager eventually had to go open the store himself. Richard and Donna arrived about thirty minutes later, sometime after 10:00 a. m. Detectives went to the apartment Richard shared with Christopher, but neither was there.

They went to Donna’s house and found Richard inside. The officers said they wanted to ask him a few questions and invited him to the station. His reaction raised immediate concern. Richard said he had expected them to come and was surprised it had taken so long.

Then he pointed at Donna and said, “This is my alibi. ”

According to Richard, he and Christopher had gone to Donna’s house the previous night and stayed there drinking until late. Richard spent the night with his girlfriend but overslept and missed his shift. He woke only after his manager called Donna.

She confirmed Richard’s account but added that the alcohol had made her sleep very deeply. If he had left the house early that morning, she might not have noticed. The detectives found a contradiction. According to the security guard who first reported the men’s strange behavior, Richard had specifically claimed he was opening his own restaurant at the time of the murder.

But detectives now knew he had not arrived at work until several hours after the crime. Richard eventually agreed to go to the station. He made several statements. He knew Nancy had been killed with a .

22-caliber weapon. He knew the killer had plugged the sink with a blue apron to flood the restaurant. Neither detail had been released to the public. Richard claimed he heard about them from the security guard at Nancy’s store.

But detectives had already interviewed the guard, who said he knew almost nothing about the crime. When confronted, Richard changed his story and said he might have heard it from his manager. A detective called the manager immediately and asked about the caliber of the bullet and the color of the apron. The manager could answer neither.

When detectives told Richard outright they suspected him of killing Nancy, he remained defiant, insisting they had no evidence and would never be able to pin the crime on him. Despite his suspicious behavior, police had to let him go. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crime, and therefore no basis for a charge. Detectives then brought in Christopher for questioning.

His behavior was noticeably different. While Richard had seemed calm and confident, Christopher was clearly nervous. He denied any involvement in Nancy’s death but confirmed that the three of them had spent the night before the murder drinking at Donna’s house. According to Christopher, Richard stayed there all night while Christopher drove back to their apartment alone.

The detectives felt Christopher was hiding something. They suspected he might have been involved in the crime himself, or that he was trying to cover for his friend. Christopher had no criminal record, had been a good student in school, and came from what seemed to be a respectable family. Over the next few hours, they pressed him.

They warned him that if he continued to protect Richard, both could face the death penalty. They told him his only chance was to explain what really happened. Eventually the pressure began to work. Christopher changed his account.

He first claimed Richard had confessed to killing Nancy. Then he said he had gone to the Pizza Hut with Richard but stayed outside while Richard committed the murder. When he repeated this story during a polygraph examination, the examiner concluded he was being evasive. Christopher changed his story again.

Finally, he said that while they were drinking at Donna’s house that night, Richard suggested robbing another Pizza Hut. They had a master key, and they knew the previous night’s money would still be in the safe. Christopher initially refused, but Richard eventually persuaded him to go along. The next morning, they met near Nancy’s store around 7:00.

They watched her say goodbye to Todd and go inside, then followed her in. Using the master key, they opened the door and made their way to the kitchen, where Nancy was preparing pizza dough. She knew both men and asked what they were doing there. Richard responded by pulling a gun and demanding money.

Nancy opened the safe and handed over the cash. Richard then ordered Christopher to bind her hands. The two men took turns sexually assaulting her. Then Richard shot her in the head, knowing that if she survived, she would identify them to police.

After Christopher told this story, detectives placed him in a hotel, since he still shared an apartment with Richard, who might discover he had talked. On November 15, both men were arrested. Prosecutors faced a serious problem. Under state law, a confession and accomplice testimony alone were not enough to guarantee a conviction.

Richard still refused to admit any involvement. Much of the case depended on DNA evidence. Experts compared the biological profile from the semen found on Nancy’s body to samples from both suspects. The tests available at the time were extremely limited.

They could only exclude someone based on blood type and a few genetic markers, or show that a suspect could not be ruled out as a possible source. In Richard’s case, the results showed the semen was definitely not his. Christopher could not be completely excluded as the source of the sample. For the hair found on the restaurant floor, the prosecution brought in an expert who compared it to Richard’s hair under a microscope and concluded they were very similar and could have come from the same person.

The evidence was not conclusive, but combined with Christopher’s statements, it was enough to proceed. The two men remained in jail awaiting trial. During that period, several incidents occurred. Once, Richard attacked Christopher and poured boiling water on his face, screaming that Christopher had snitched on him.

About a week later, Christopher agreed to a deal in which the prosecution dropped the death penalty in exchange for his testimony against Richard. For Richard, the prosecution decided to charge him with sexual assault rather than murder. That charge required a lesser level of conclusive evidence while still carrying the possibility of life in prison. The trial began in January 1990, more than a year after Nancy’s death.

By that time, Christopher’s story had changed again. He had previously claimed Richard fired the shot. Now he admitted he had pulled the trigger himself. Christopher described in more detail what they had done to Nancy during the assault.

The testimony became so graphic that Nancy’s mother became ill and had to leave the courtroom. Christopher insisted he had not wanted to participate but claimed Richard had forced him to by threatening him. According to Christopher, Richard later handed him the gun and ordered him to kill Nancy. Christopher shot her.

Then together they dragged her to the restroom to wash away any possible evidence. They wiped the surfaces they had touched, plugged the sink, and left the faucet running before moving Nancy’s body to the hallway. Donna testified as well. What she told the jury did not help Richard’s case.

She said that after her manager woke her that morning, she and Richard drove to the restaurant. She noticed the driver’s seat was pushed back much farther than usual. Donna had not given anyone permission to use her car. The keys were on a hook inside her house, and that morning they were still there.

She also told the court that several days after the crime, while she and Richard were discussing what had happened, he looked at her and asked, “You were with me, weren’t you? ” The prosecution believed Richard left the apartment early that morning while Donna was deeply asleep, took her car to Nancy’s store, committed the crime, then returned and went back to sleep, creating an alibi for himself. Richard continued to insist the entire story was false and that he never left Donna’s apartment. Despite his denial, the jury found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.

Several days later, Christopher received the same sentence. The case appeared to be closed. Richard continued to deny any involvement and tried to appeal his conviction. But shortly after, something happened that changed his life forever.

About a year after his sentencing, another inmate attacked him and repeatedly kicked him in the head. Richard was rushed to the hospital, where doctors had to remove part of his brain. The injuries left him unable to care for himself. He became effectively disabled and required ongoing medical assistance.

Once he was released from the hospital, he was returned to a general prison where he was abused by other inmates. His lawyers continued to challenge the conviction, arguing that no physical evidence linked Richard to the crime and that under state law, he could not legally be convicted on accomplice testimony alone. But the appeals court ruled the circumstantial evidence was sufficient and allowed the conviction to stand. Christopher did not appeal because of the deal he had accepted.

For years, the case seemed finished. In 1996, the Austin police chief received a letter. Copies were also sent to a local newspaper and a civil rights organization. It was written by a man named Achim Marino, who was serving three life sentences for sexual assault and robbery.

In the letter, Marino claimed he was the one who killed Nancy DePriest. He said he could not understand why two other men were in prison for the crime. He insisted he had acted alone and had never met Richard or Christopher. As for why he decided to confess, Marino explained he had become a Christian and now felt it was his duty to help free two innocent men.

He described the crime in detail and said he could easily prove his responsibility for it. Marino had been arrested on unrelated charges just weeks after Nancy’s murder. Some of the stolen items from the restaurant were still in his home. He urged police to go there and collect them.

The police chief assigned investigators to check the information. They went to the home of Marino’s parents and found two Pizza Hut bags used to transport cash, along with $150, the amount employees said should have been in the safe when Nancy arrived for work. Police also recovered a master key to the restaurants and a pair of handcuffs Marino claimed he had initially used to restrain Nancy. Despite all this, investigators were not prepared to accept that Marino was the killer or that the other two men were innocent.

The case saw almost no progress for years. It was not until 1998 that investigators decided to speak with Christopher again. They did not tell him everything they had learned. Instead, they asked whether a third person had been involved in Nancy’s murder.

Christopher said it was just the two of them and continued to stick to his confession. Investigators tried to find any connection between Marino and Christopher or Richard, but found nothing. They also learned the gun Marino claimed to have used was still held by the El Paso Police Department. They requested a ballistics examination.

The results could not confirm that the bullet removed from Nancy’s body had been fired from that weapon. With no conclusive answer, police let the case fade into the background again. Christopher could not stop wondering why investigators had suddenly come to question him nearly ten years after the crime. Later, he heard a rumor that a prisoner in another jail had confessed to killing Nancy, but police had not believed him.

Christopher began searching for organizations that helped wrongly convicted prisoners. He eventually wrote to the Wisconsin Innocence Project. The project had been recently founded and had not yet helped exonerate anyone. But the team became interested in Christopher’s case.

It was run by two law professors at the University of Wisconsin who reviewed potential wrongful convictions with the help of their students. In his letter, Christopher claimed for the first time that he had nothing to do with Nancy’s death and that his confession had been coerced. He said he confessed only because he was afraid for his life. According to Christopher, investigators convinced him he would face the death penalty and that confessing was the only way to save himself.

He insisted he and Richard had no role in Nancy’s murder. When police first brought him to the station, Christopher said he genuinely believed they were simply interviewing everyone who worked at Pizza Hut. He had grown up in a law-abiding family and had always believed police officers were there to protect and help people. He was completely unprepared for what happened next.

One detective, Hector Polanco, claimed people on the streets called him the devil and told Christopher there was no way out of this. Over the next twenty hours, the investigators kept him under constant pressure. Polanco repeatedly told Christopher he would be sentenced to death. At one point, he grabbed Christopher’s arm, pointed to a vein, and showed him where the lethal injection would be administered.

He also showed him pictures of other executions they had carried out and told him the same thing would happen to him. Then the detective placed photos of Nancy’s autopsy in front of Christopher and forced him to look at them. Christopher was not actually under arrest and was free to leave at any time, but he did not know that. When he asked for a lawyer, he was told he could only get one once he was formally charged.

According to Christopher, Polanco also threw a chair in his direction, slammed his hands on the table, and yelled at him. He even said Christopher would become easy prey for other inmates once he was sent to prison. By the end of the interrogation, Christopher was so frightened and exhausted that he began simply agreeing with the investigators because he wanted it to stop. He claimed they gave him no food or water and allowed him no real break from the questioning.

Eventually, they told him that if he testified against Richard, he would be allowed to go home. Christopher agreed. Investigators tried to record his confession on camera, but it soon became clear he did not know important details about the crime. The officers had to stop the recording repeatedly and correct his account.

Eventually, they realized they would not be able to record a confession that would hold up in court, so they brought in a typewriter instead. Christopher was asked to sign a blank piece of paper. Detective Polanco then typed a statement for him. At that moment, Christopher still believed the truth would eventually come out and that his innocence and Richard’s would become clear.

Instead, he was charged with murder and told the only way to avoid the death penalty was to accept a plea deal and testify against Richard. Investigators had no evidence directly linking Christopher to the crime. So, according to him, they asked him to change his story again and claim that he himself had fired the shot. That would make it easier to convict Richard of the actual assault while allowing prosecutors to seek a life sentence.

Christopher also explained why he had insisted his original testimony was true when investigators visited him in prison after receiving Marino’s letter. By that time, he had lost all confidence in the police. He believed they might try to implicate him again, which could destroy any chance he had of getting parole. Because of this fear, Christopher decided to stick with the account he had already given, convinced no one was truly trying to help him.

After reading Christopher’s letter, the Innocence Project tracked down the lawyer who had represented him at trial. To their surprise, the lawyer claimed police had found Christopher’s fingerprints on the murder weapon and that two witnesses had seen the suspects near the restaurant that morning, making their convictions clear. The team was ready to dismiss Christopher’s case. But before doing so, they called him in prison and asked why he had hidden such important information.

Christopher insisted none of it was true and begged them to check for themselves. When they did, they discovered he was right. Police had never found the murder weapon, and there were no witnesses who placed Christopher and Richard outside Nancy’s store. Christopher explained he had tried repeatedly to tell his lawyers his confession was false, but even they refused to believe him.

Instead, they insisted accepting a guilty plea was his only chance to survive. Even Christopher’s mother begged him to accept the deal, not because she thought he was guilty, but because she was terrified he would be sentenced to death. At one point, the pressure became so great that she was hospitalized with heart problems. It was one of the reasons Christopher eventually agreed to cooperate with the prosecution.

The lawyers also discovered another troubling fact. Several years earlier, Detective Polanco had been suspended after someone recorded him hitting a suspect while trying to extract a confession. Despite this, Polanco was eventually reinstated and allowed to continue working as an investigator. As they examined Christopher’s confession more closely, the lawyers found several major inconsistencies.

Christopher claimed Nancy was killed in the hallway, but the empty shell casing was found inside the men’s restroom. Crime scene photos also showed blood spatter on a bucket inside the restroom itself, providing additional evidence that this was where Nancy was actually shot. The timeline made no sense at all. As we know, Todd had first driven Nancy to the restaurant, then taken their daughter to the babysitter, and returned to give Nancy the car keys.

Nancy came to the door and everything seemed perfectly normal. Yet Christopher claimed he and Richard entered the restaurant immediately after Todd first dropped her off. If that were true, Todd would not have been able to return an hour later to find Nancy unharmed. By this point, the Innocence Project lawyers were convinced Christopher had nothing to do with the crime and began working on the case.

They learned the biological evidence collected from Nancy’s body was still preserved. In February 2000, they formally requested a new DNA test. DNA technology had advanced considerably by then. When experts compared the semen found on Nancy’s body to samples from Christopher and Richard, neither matched.

Then they tested a sample from Achim Marino. This time the result was conclusive. There was no longer any doubt that the semen belonged to him. Experts also re-examined the hair found on the restaurant floor and determined it did not belong to any of the three men.

Since the original microscopic hair comparison had been one of the key pieces of evidence used against Richard, the new result undermined the entire case against him. Once the police department learned of these developments, investigators finally went to speak with Marino in person. He confessed again and described Nancy’s murder in stunning detail. Marino said that on the morning of that fateful day, he was looking for a restaurant with only one employee to rob.

He wore work clothes, carried a folding ladder, and walked around the area looking for a suitable location. He first tried another restaurant on the same street, telling the employee that management had sent him to do some repairs. They let him in, but when he realized the only person working there was a man, he left. Marino explained that he held a grudge against an older blonde woman who had hurt him in the past.

Because of that, he decided that if he found another woman who resembled her, he would kill her for the thrill of it. Minutes later, he knocked on the door of the Pizza Hut where Nancy worked. She had no reason to be suspicious and believed his story about being there to do repairs, so she let him in. Marino stayed in the restaurant for some time before pulling a weapon and sexually assaulting Nancy.

Then he took her to the restroom and told her he was going to tie her to a pipe so she could not call the police. But as soon as Nancy turned her back to him, Marino shot her in the head. He then looked for the empty shell casing but could not find it. Afraid his fingerprints might be on it, he decided to flood the restaurant, hoping the water would destroy any evidence he had left behind.

Marino also told investigators he had tried repeatedly to help free Christopher and Richard, but his letters to officials went unanswered. In 1998, he had even written to George W. Bush, who was then governor of Texas. The letter was simply ignored.

At that point, investigators had no doubt that Marino was the real killer and that Christopher and Richard had spent nearly twelve years in prison for a crime they did not commit. Police requested another examination of the gun Marino claimed to have used. This time, experts were able to confirm that the casing found inside Nancy’s restaurant had been fired from that weapon. Along with the DNA results, the ballistics evidence left no room for doubt about Marino’s guilt.

In January 2001, a judge ordered Christopher’s immediate release. Richard’s situation was more complicated because his brain injury meant he required ongoing medical care. His family needed several months to prepare their home for him, but eventually he was released as well. Marino was then charged with killing Nancy.

He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. He did not deny killing her but claimed he had been hearing voices and believed human sacrifices would give him supernatural powers. Medical experts concluded Marino had been aware of what he was doing. Prosecutors announced they would seek the death penalty.

However, Nancy’s mother asked them not to. She explained that the lives of two innocent men had already been destroyed, and she did not want to add another death to everything that had happened. Marino was eventually convicted and given another life sentence, in addition to the three life sentences he was already serving for robbery and assaulting other women. Lawyers for Christopher and Richard later filed lawsuits against the authorities, and the cases were ultimately settled.

Christopher received $5, while Richard received more than $10 million. Richard’s family also filed a separate lawsuit against Christopher, because his testimony had sent Richard to prison. The two sides eventually reached a settlement in which Christopher paid Richard $500,000. Christopher repeatedly expressed regret for what happened to Richard and said he felt responsible for what Richard had suffered.

After his release, he attended law school at the University of Wisconsin, the same university where the Innocence Project that helped prove his innocence was located. He later worked as a lawyer. But in 2021, Christopher found himself going back to prison. He pleaded guilty to an investment fraud scheme and agreed with the other people involved to repay $3.

5 million to the victims. As a result, he was sentenced to 29 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Richard spent the rest of his life under the permanent care of his relatives, unable to care for himself or perform simple daily tasks without help. His condition continued to deteriorate over the years.

In 2021, he died of cancer at the age of 50. As for the investigators who pushed Christopher to confess to Nancy’s murder, their fate was very different. They were sued, but the court found insufficient evidence that they had forced Christopher to take responsibility for a crime he did not commit. As a result, none of the investigators faced consequences, and they all kept their jobs.

The most infuriating part concerned Detective Polanco, the man Christopher said had pressured him the most. After being suspended for forcing another suspect to confess, Polanco sued the department, claiming discrimination because of his Mexican ancestry. In the end, he was not only reinstated to his job but also received a $290,000 settlement. Nancy DePriest was twenty years old when she died on October 24, 1988, in the back of a Pizza Hut where she worked the morning shift to make time for a softball game that night.

She left behind a husband, Todd, and a daughter, Sylvia, who was barely a year old. The case that was supposed to be solved in days took more than a decade to untangle, and by the time it was over, two innocent men had lost twelve years of their lives, one of them his health forever. The investigators whose actions helped destroy those lives never faced any real consequences at all.