The Murder of Angela Samota

The murder of Angela Samota happened on October 1984 when she was attacked, raped and killed in her apartment.  Samota’s case remained unsolved until DNA evidence surfaced in the 2000s and charges were filed against a formerly convicted rapist, who was tried and received the death penalty.

Background

Angela “Angie” Samota was born on September 19, 1964 in Pennsylvania.  She was enrolled at Southern Methodist University in Texas studying computer science and electrical engineering.

Assault

On the night of October 12, 1984, Samota and two friends, one male and one female, attended the State Fair of Texas.  Samota’s boyfriend did not go with them because, according to the police report, he had to get up early the next morning for his construction job.  The night’s activities also included participating in the University of Texas football team’s Red River Showdown facing the University of Oklahoma.  The three friends later went to the Rio Room dance club, staying there until around 1 a.m., afterwards, driving her two friends home, stopping by her boyfriend’s apartment to say goodnight, and then going on home to her apartment.

Not long after Samota arrived home, Samota’s boyfriend called police to report he had received a phone call from Samota that ended in disconnection.  After being let into Samota’s apartment by the apartment manager, they discovered Samota’s body dead and naked on the bed in the bedroom.  Autopsy showed that the victim was raped and repeatedly stabbed, dying from wounds to her heart.

Investigation and Arrest

For a long period of time, police suspected an architect who was 23 at the time of the murder, living in a Lower Greenville apartment.  He had gone out with Samota and another girl the night of Samota’s murder.  The victim’s at-the-time boyfriend was also a suspect.

The case went cold until 2008.

In 2006, then-Dallas police detective Linda Crum, who was on the case, used DNA evidence from blood, semen, and fingernail samples to find a match among persons with a criminal record.  In 2008, the results pointed to Donald Bess, who at the time of Samota’s murder, was on parole while serving a 25-year sentence.

Claims By Friend

Sheila Wysocki, who attended SMU and roommate of Samota, kept “badgering” police until the case was reassigned to detective Crum.  Crum became a licensed private investigator to assist in solving Samota’s murder.  Wysocki claims that the police state that the rape kit collected at the scene of the crime was lost in the Dallas Floods.

Legal Process

The defendant in the 2010 trial for the sexual assault and murder of Angela Samota was already serving a life sentence in prison.  Donald Andrew Bess, Jr. born in 1948 in Arkansas, was convicted in 1978 for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping.  Sentenced to 25 years in prison he was out on parole by 1984, where he raped and murdered Samota.  In 1985, a case unrelated to Samota’s murder, Bess was sentenced in Harris County, Texas to life imprisonment for once count aggravated rape, one count of aggravated kidnapping and one count of sexual assault.

During the 2010 trial’s punishment phase, several women witnesses testified they were raped by Bess.  Even the defendant’s ex-wife testified that he abused her and their child during their marriage.  They wed in 1969 and divorced three years later.

Bess was found guilty on evidence of a DNA match by the jury and, on June 8, 2010, received a death sentence.  A March 6, 2013, appeal filed by Bess was rejected and judgment of the trial court was affirmed.  On August 13, 2013, a certiorari petition was filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, and denied on January 13, 2014.

Aftermath

Angela Samota is buried in Llano Cemetery in Amarillo, Texas.  Donald Bess is still serving on death row in Polunsky prison, an execution date remains unset.  Wysocki lives in Tennessee practicing as private investigator.