When Hunter left his room that morning he knew something was wrong. A few hours before, her friend Brianna had stayed to sleep on her sofa, but when she entered the living room she had disappeared, leaving behind her clothes, shoes, and her mobile phone. Also, she had found some red stains on her pillow. Could it be blood?
Over the past few months, several college girls had been attacked in the campus area by a sexual predator. No one had been able to identify or apprehend him, but investigators were convinced it was the same individual who had abducted Brianna. The suspicions were true. James Biela, a former Marine and construction worker, stalked vulnerable young women under the guise of a normal life.
James Michael Biela was born in Chicago on June 29, 1981, but at the age of nine his family moved to Reno where he suffered the ravages of an abusive childhood. From an alcoholic and abusive father, the little boy grew up witnessing the beatings and torture that his mother inflicted on his mother, whom he beat every night.
That made James develop a rebellious and aggressive character, which he unleashed in martial arts classes. Although at the same time he could behave like the most fun and sociable kid. That duality, a good boy and a bully, led him from a very young age to know how to pretend and deceive if he didn't like something. That's why he originally fit in with the United States Marines.
After graduating high school, James enlisted in the Army and rose to the rank of first corporal, but was discharged from the force for drug use in 2001. A few months later, upon his return to Reno, he was arrested while intoxicated for threatening to with a knife to the neighbor of an old girlfriend. He was not convicted. The judge only imposed a restraining order on the girl and the obligation to attend some sessions of alcoholics anonymous.
Precisely, since this is a minor crime, the authorities only recorded his fingerprints and collected some of his DNA samples. Had he done so, it is possible that the subsequent incidents reported would never have occurred and a young woman would still be alive.
Despite these problems with the law, James managed to blend in with his surroundings, becoming a "pleasant and normal" young man, capable of maintaining a romantic relationship with his girlfriend and being the father of a child. Those who knew him described him as someone very ordinary with nothing peculiar to highlight about him.
Not even the policemen who were training in the same martial arts classes were aware of his abnormal sexual drives and obsession with women.
On October 22, 2007, James released his sexual predator instinct for the first time. Her victim was a University of Nevada (Reno) student whom he attempted to strangle and ended up raping in the campus parking lot before letting her go. The young woman filed a complaint for these events, but the investigation did not bear any fruit. On November 13, the ex-marine returned to acting.
Another university student was assaulted from behind, this time in the parking lot of an apartment complex on College Drive, and dragged by the neck until she was thrown to the ground between two vehicles. There, James tried to grope her, but, faced with the great resistance of the young woman who did not stop screaming, he decided to run away from her but not before kicking her head and arm. It was five in the afternoon.
The next sexual assault occurred on the morning of December 16 in the vicinity of another parking lot. Following the same modus operandi, James dragged her away as he tried to strangle her with his right arm. Unsuccessful, he suffocated her by covering her nose and mouth.
Later, he took her in his truck to a secluded place and there he raped her. When he was done, he drove back to the parking lot and threatened to come back. Before running away, James stole her panties.
According to the description provided by this victim, the assailant was a white male with brown hair, probably between 20 and 30 years of age, between 175 and 190 meters of height, with a large or heavy build and fingers. thick and meaty. In terms of language, the attacker spoke clear and fluent English with no discernible regional dialect or accent.
Regarding the clothes he was wearing: a short-sleeved red shirt with a blue neckline and a smooth finish in silk or polyester, which could have an embroidered word on the upper left part of the chest; and some sports pants made of a soft material and with an elastic waist, but without a zipper. Another of the details provided was a baby shoe in the front of the truck.
In relation to the physical evidence collected after the sexual assault, forensics recovered the DNA profile of the aggressor with a strange characteristic in his Y chromosome, apart from a gray fiber in his clothing. These two pieces of evidence would be relevant to solving the Brianna Denison murder case.
At this point, the Reno investigators began to suspect that they were dealing with a sexual predator with a predilection for petite, college-aged female victims with long, straight hair within a mile radius of the first assault.
In addition, everything seemed to indicate that the rapist was seeking to exercise his dominance and power over the victims, hence the attacks were increasingly violent. Despite these conclusions, the police were unable to prevent the murder of Brianna Denison.
In the early morning of January 19, 2008, Brianna, a 19-year-old psychology student, stayed over at her friend Hunter's house in Reno. After making herself comfortable on the sofa with a pillow and two blankets, the young woman fell asleep around 4:30 in the morning. Investigators believe that it was from that time on when the abduction occurred, because minutes before she was sending and receiving messages from an ex-boyfriend.
The next morning, when Hunter got up and made it to the living room, she realized that her friend had not only disappeared, but something bad had happened to her. She called the family and they filed a missing persons report. The search protocol was activated and investigators collected numerous traces from the scene.
The pillow had blood stains under the mascara stains, and the mascara stains contained saliva mixed with mucus or phlegm. According to the forensic analysis, Brianna appeared to have suffered "an active bleeding lesion in or near the mouth, throat, or nose, at a time when her face was being forcefully pressed against the pillow."
The authorities activated a large search device with dogs, helicopters, dozens of agents and volunteers deployed to comb isolated areas and surrounding hills, the banks of the Truckee River or the Union Pacific train tracks. In addition, several officers made door-to-door visits throughout the neighborhood.
At the same time, previous non-lethal attacks in the area on young college women were examined for links to Brianna's disappearance. This is how they realized that, since October, sexual assaults had occurred under the same modus operandi.
One of the details that caught the attention of the agents was the description of the van used to perpetrate one of the violations: a late model with an extended cab, gray or black upholstery and floor mats, a raised center console and automatic transmission, and the interior lights were located above the rearview mirror. With these data it was concluded that it was a Toyota Tacoma with four-wheel drive manufactured between 2001 and 2006.
Three weeks after she went missing, a passerby found Brianna's lifeless body: naked, clad only in brightly colored socks, half buried by a fallen tree and a large rock in a vacant field south of Reno. .
In addition, she showed obvious signs of having been strangled and raped, and a pair of thong-style panties had been left between her knees, one of them lace and one with faces of the Pink Panther.
In relation to the DNA remains extracted from said garments, the report concluded that they were used as a crime weapon and that the genetic material belonged to two different people, a man and a woman.
Likewise, it was also verified that the male profile corresponded to the one found in the previous attacks. Therefore, they were faced with a serial rapist.
Over the next few months, the police received more than 4,000 leads, but none led them to the suspect. Nor did the more than 100 interviews with sex offenders residing in the area work out. However, on November 1, an anonymous call put them on the road, providing them with a name: James Biela, 27 years old.
This secret witness told them of the young man's strange behavior, provided a description of his truck, and informed them that, at the dates of the attacks and disappearance, he was working as a pipe fitter in an area near the Reno campus.
The agents immediately went to question the suspect, but he denied the facts and refused to give a saliva sample to remove him from the list. According to him, it was a coincidence that he owned a 2006 Toyota Tacoma with gray upholstery, because on the indicated dates he had a solid alibi: he was with his girlfriend.
James summoned them to talk to her because she would confirm her whereabouts at the time of Brianna's disappearance. But it was not like that. Not only was the woman unable to account for the location of her partner, but she spoke of multiple nocturnal absences and the discovery of women's underwear inside the van.
Given the compelling evidence, the girlfriend offered the investigators a DNA sample from the 4-year-old son they had in common: she needed to clear up her doubts. On November 25, the analysis determined that the genetic profile of the child and that of the suspect were compatible and the ex-marine was arrested. They had found his killer.
Once at the police station, a DNA sample was taken from the detainee, which confirmed the results 100%. James Biela was the killer of Brianna Denison and also the sexual offender of two other students.
Two years later, the ex-marine's trial began before a Washoe County District Court jury, which found him guilty of the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of Brianna Denison and also the sexual assaults of two other women.
During the trial, one of these surviving victims confronted him on the stand and asked him to look at her. "Even though you have committed the unforgivable against me, I forgive you," she told him while the rapist kept his head down at all times.
On June 2, 2010, James Biela was sentenced to death, and on July 30, Judge Robert Perry also sentenced him to an additional four life terms for multiple counts of rape and kidnapping associated with attacks on two victims prior to Brianna's murder. Denison.
"Not only were these people terrified, but also the community," said the magistrate during the reading of the verdict and in the face of the murderer's indifference. "It's a good verdict, well deserved," said District Attorney Dick Gammick after the court hearing was over.
Over the following years, James Biela has tried to reverse his death sentence before the Nevada Supreme Court with various appeals, but in June 2019, the high court ended up denying it. Currently, the inmate is on death row at Ely State Prison, where he awaits the exact date of his execution.
For its part, Brianna's family created the Bring Bri Justice foundation to try to implement changes in justice for similar crimes. Their staunch fight led to the enactment of the so-called Brianna's Law in 2013: all those arrested for serious crimes have to submit a DNA sample. A law that is late, but will prevent future victims.
