• Kris Russell's 2003 Yahoo profile, including a photo of his dead wife
• Kris Russell's 2006 Yahoo profile
• Court testimony about Kris Russell meeting women on the Internet from April 2003 (Note: Very large PDF)
• Court testimony from Kris Russell's parents from June 2003 (Note: Very large PDF)
• Samantha Lezark's autopsy report
• Texas arrest warrant for Kris Russell
• Search warrant for Kris Russell's home in Texas
• Review of Tara Russell's autopsy by Dr. Jerry Jones
(Also includes the initial statements by Kris Russell and Renee DeHaven to the Chadron Police Department.)
WICHITA FALLS, Texas - Police knew they had a murder from the moment they saw Samantha Lezark.
They strung yellow crime-scene tape across her yard, near the desolate downtown in the Air Force base city of 100,000 in northern Texas.
Her worn, two-story rental house had a wide front porch with brick columns that hinted at lost glory.
In her upstairs bedroom, her 5-foot-7, 125-pound body looked like a life-size doll thrown to the floor. Her head rested in a puddle of blood that seeped into the cream carpet.
Someone had cracked her in the back of the head with a household fire extinguisher, wrapped a coaxial cable around her neck - one, two, three times - and strangled her.
In a disturbing finishing touch, the killer tied the cable in a square knot under her chin.
Friends and neighbors immediately pointed police to the 28-year-old's new boyfriend, a guy named Kris who worked at a local photo shop and drove a motorcycle.
They had seen the couple together the day before she was found dead Jan. 6, 2003.
On Sam's computer desk, police found a sticky note with the name “Kris” and a phone number.
The number led to a full name: Kristopher Kyle Russell, whose motorcycle registration and physical traits on his driver's license matched what neighbors had described. Police saw the cycle parked at the photo shop.
A detective tracked down Kris' Internet screen name, i_am_elliot, and looked up his online profile.
He was startled by one of the events listed as “the latest news” in his suspect's life.
Recently widowed.
A month later, a police mug shot of Kris Russell's expressionless face flashed across Texas television.
Within minutes, his former mother-in-law heard the news from one of her daughter's friends.
Guess what? Kris is up for murder.
Tara Russell's mother, Donna Greene, had been urging police and prosecutors in Chadron, Neb., to look further into her daughter's death Nov. 6, 2002.
Tara's family and friends never believed a pathologist's determination that she died of pneumonia.
Her mother dialed the detective on the Texas case and gave him her opinion.
I think he killed our daughter.
Finally, Donna thought, something was going to be done about Tara.
Homicide detectives rarely have search warrants for homes with crisp wallpaper borders and matching bedding.
Kris, 21, had been living with his parents, a computer trainer at Sheppard Air Force Base and a school counselor, in a modern brick house.
In Kris' basement bedroom, lined with wallpaper of red bandanas and cattle brands, police found a loaded 9 mm semiautomatic pistol nestled in his cheery red bedsheets.
Undated, hand-drawn plans for a massacre at his junior high, including recipes for explosives, which could be distractions while gunmen shot principals.
A book on knots.
Paperwork from his $50,000 life insurance benefits from Tara's death. He had spent part of it on another motorcycle.
In the garage, police found a photo collage made for Tara's memorial service.
At the bottom was a gap above the caption “Kris & Tara at Halloween.”
The photo, taken the week before she died, had been pulled from the tagboard.
Kris had posted it on his online profile - the one that introduced him to Sam.
Less than a month after Tara died in Chadron, her husband was picking up women online, as her mother was searching for answers about her daughter's death.
Dec. 5: Sam's computer saves online messages between her (meow_mix28) and Kris (i_am_elliot).
i_am_elliot: Seriously, my wife passed away and I didn't wanna be in Nebraska anymore for a while.
meow_mix28: How sad. I'm sorry.
i_am_elliot: It's part of life.
meow_mix28: Yeah, my husband left me for my best friend.
i_am_elliot: I'm more sorry for you dear. Anything I can do to help, let me know. The pair chat about piercings and tattoos. He tells her he has a Marine Corps tattoo he needs to cover because he's trying to get into the Army Special Forces. Actually, the Marines had kicked him out after nine days.
Dec. 13: Donna documents her quest in neat, cursive handwriting on random envelopes and Post-its as she questions the pathologist, investigators and the county attorney about the pneumonia diagnosis. Viral infection in lungs. Sent twice to verify. Visual inspection couldn't see. Case closed Pneumonia.
Dec. 20: The Dawes County Attorney's Office mails Tara's autopsy report to her family. Kris and Sam get together for the first time. They watch a movie at her house and have sex. From their online chat that day:
meow_mix28: Hmmmmm, I wouldn't kill someone.
i_am_elliot: wouldn't kill someone??????? what are you talkin about
meow_mix28: You asked what kind of things I wouldn't do. Had to think about it. Lol
i_am_elliot: ahh. Lol
Jan. 5: Sam invites Kris over to watch a movie.
Jan. 6: Sam's co-worker finds her dead.
Chadron Police Chaplain Rod Long sank in his chair when he read about Kris' arrest in the local newspaper in February 2003.
He had been suspicious of Kris since spending time with him the morning of Tara's death.
Now the husband had been charged with first-degree murder in Texas. The chaplain reassured distraught Chadron officers, who wondered whether they had let a killer get away.
Did you do all that you knew to do at the time?
Then quit kicking yourself, he told them. You could not have done anything more.
Local officials decided to try again.
As investigators and prosecutors from Nebraska and Texas compared notes, they discovered eerie similarities between Tara and the Texas victim.
Both slim, tattooed brunettes met Kris through the Internet.
They had the same birthday - May 13 - one year apart.
They were found dead exactly two months apart.
Dawes County Attorney Vance Haug, the county coroner, now sought help from the Nebraska Attorney General's Office and the cold-case investigator from the State Patrol.
They decided to get a second opinion on Tara's cause of death.
Nebraska has a limited number of pathologists who perform autopsies in suspicious deaths.
Some states provide government-employed medical examiners or set criteria for which doctors can perform autopsies in certain types of cases.
Nebraska doesn't.
Despite minimal requirements, Dawes County transports bodies 100 miles to use doctors with the highest credential - board-certified forensic pathologists.
In Tara's case, Dr. Donald Habbe in Rapid City, S.D., decided she died of pneumonia, a diagnosis that family, friends and the police chaplain didn't believe.
For a second opinion, authorities consulted Dr. Jerry Jones, a board-certified forensic pathologist in Omaha who has done more than 7,000 autopsies.
There was no body for him to examine.
Tara had been cremated - a long-standing request of hers.
Dr. Jones reviewed what he could: the autopsy report, photographs and microscopic slides; photographs from the death scene; police reports; written statements from the husband, the best friend and the police chaplain.
He felt he had enough information to conclude that the first doctor was wrong.
“I do not find any evidence of pneumonia,” Dr. Jones wrote.
He found no other disease. He noted the abrasions on Tara's face and put the eyelid hemorrhages in context: They “may be associated with asphyxiation but cannot be considered to be specific for asphyxiation.”
In other words, Tara might have been murdered.
But Dr. Jones didn't have enough evidence to say for sure.
Nebraska needed a confession.
The Nebraska cold-case investigator stood on the doorstep of the suburban-style home in Wichita Falls with the Texas detective.
Kris, out on $600,000 bail, allowed investigators inside his family's home.
Nebraska State Patrol Sgt. Bob Frank laid police photographs of Tara's body in front of her husband.
You were the only one with her that night, he told him.
You know you're a suspect.
Then Kris' mother came home.
Conversation over.
With no evidence to build a case, Nebraska authorities decided to step aside until after the Texas murder case.
Any hope of justice for Tara would have to wait.
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
