On Friday, NBC’s “Dateline” will air the story of Dale Scheanette, who was also known as the “Bathtub Killer.”
He was found guilty of several heinous murders and assaults in Arlington, Texas, that took place over the course of several years and eventually put to death, per the NBC affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth.
“Dateline” will feature the stories of his victims, including a survivor, and authorities who worked the case, according to NBC.
Who was the ‘Bathtub Killer’?
Terror gripped Arlington in 1996, per WFAA. Wendie Prescott, aged 22, and Christine Vu, aged 26, who lived at the same apartment complex, were killed three months apart in similar, horrible ways.
Both were found tied up, duct-taped and drowned in bathtubs, bearing evidence of sexual assault.
“There was a lot of fear in the community and in the Police Department,” Arlington police detective Tommy Le Noir told WFAA in 2009. “The fear is that you don’t want this to happen again. At that time there was some incredible panic in those apartment complexes. People moved out in masses. It was just an incredible time.”
At the time of the murders, police were also investigating a series of rapes. One victim, Adrienne Fields, told WFAA about being assaulted.
“I remember he said, ‘The devil keeps making me do it,’ and he said, ‘You are not like the others ... and that’s when I realized, he had done it before,” she said.
Although Fields survived and police responded, they could not identify who had assaulted Fields. Nor could they identify who was responsible for the other rape cases or the murders of Prescott and Vu, at least not for a long time.
Four years after the initial wave of attacks, criminal science techniques linked Dale Scheanette to the crimes.
What happened to Dale Scheanette?
Police had discovered matching fingerprints at Prescott’s and Vu’s apartment, per WFAA.
“We strongly suspected it was the same person without the forensics,” Le Noir said. “Eventually we did get a genetic link. We knew we had the same suspect. We also had, in both cases, some comparable latent fingerprints at both scenes.”
It took nearly four years to connect the fingerprints with prints in a criminal database belonging to Dale Scheanette, per NBC.
DNA evidence tying Scheanette to the crime was also collected from Fields’ apartment, according to WFAA. Eventually, Scheanette was linked to four other rape cases, and Scheanette was convicted of multiple crimes.
Fields said she didn’t feel at peace until police called her in September 2000, saying they had found her attacker. He was executed on her birthday — Feb. 10, 2009.
“The day of my birth, he lost his life,” Fields told WFAA. “So (it was) time for (me) to live again.”
How to watch tonight’s ‘Dateline’
This Friday, NBC’s Andrea Canning will cover the crime in a “Dateline” episode premiering at 7 p.m. MDT. The episode will later be available to stream on Peacock.