The Preacher's Passion

Produced by Chuck Stevenson, Greg Fisher and Sarah Prior
[This story previously aired on June 1, 2013. It was updated on Aug. 2, 2014.]

It was the morning of Sept. 11, 2009. A frantic Brian Randone called 911 to report that his girlfriend wasn't breathing. EMTs were on the scene in minutes, but it was too late to save her.

Detective Richard Doney from the Monrovia Police Department was the first cop on the scene that day.

"As I walked in the bedroom -- oh my God ... looked like a bomb went off," he told Maher. "The closet was broken, there was globs of hair on the floor, the bedding was all over the floor...there was a big wet spot on the bed..."

"What time did you arrive on the scene?" "48 Hours" correspondent Maureen Maher asked Detective Brian Schoonmaker of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau.

"Got here about 3:30 p.m.," he replied.

"The chaos was over, but the scene was still intact."

"Right, it didn't look ransacked," he replied, "like it looked like upstairs... upstairs was a completely different story."

"48 Hours" took Det. Schoonmaker to a vacant apartment next door to the actual scene; the layout is identical.

"When you came around this corner just took a first glance at this bedroom...what was your impression..." Maher asked.

"There'd been a fight," Schoonmaker replied.

"So this is an outline of where the bed was?" Maher asked Schoonmaker.

"Right this would have been where the king size bed is," he explained. "There were two large blood stains... one near the head of the bed...and one kind of in the middle of the bed.

"The doors were off the rails," the detective continued. "The center door was actually broken through--what we saw was blood...

"There was hundreds of blood spots back and forth...and there were smears... so you can tell that the person that was bleeding was moving in a crouched position back and forth against this wall."

"You think she crawls in here?" Maher asked.

"She crawled in here to hide..." the detective demonstrated, moving side to side.

"I believe that he was trying to get from this side... she'd move to that side...he'd come to this side...she'd move to this side ... and as I walked into the bathroom there was the victim laying on the floor...she was naked, she was laying on her back, her eyes were open and she was staring straight up," said Doney.

The girl on the bathroom floor turned out to be 31-year-old Felicia Tang, a model and actress with the typical Hollywood dream of fame and fortune.

"She was my best friend...for many, many years...and probably the only friend I had for a while..." said her friend, Christina, who asked that "48 Hours" not use her last name.

Christina knew Felicia for 10 years.

"I just know she was making a ton of money!" she explained. "She had a lot of gigs...it just escalated..."

Mike Ferrara got Felicia started in modeling. He runs DSport magazine, a business built around fast Asian cars and models.

"She loved the cars, she loved the crowds...and she was just really into it," he said. "The DSport cover formula is a bad ass car and a hot model."

He put Felicia on the cover.

"She was born in Singapore, came over here to the United States and was...chasing that American dream," said Ferrara.

For Felicia, it worked, snagging a couple of small roles in blockbuster movies with big stars like "Rush Hour 2" and the "Fast and the Furious".

"She was really hoping to get that big break," said Ferrara.

But that really big break never came and by 2009, after 10 years of the fast life chasing her dream, Felicia decided to slow down and start school.

That's the time when she met Brian Randone. He was a successful salesman and born again Christian who found a unique way of spreading the gospel.

"Oh, he definitely has a lot of presence..." Christina said. "He's some type of Bible mime...so he's got this thing about him."

"I use my body like dance and movement and mime and speaking," Randone explained. "Just travelled all over the world and showed people basically how to apply the Bible to life...

Strangely enough, Randone, the preacher, also loved Las Vegas. That's where he met Felicia in April 2009.

"He just went straight at her...with that intensity and he just went -- boom -- right at her," said Christina.

"She was like the perfect girl," Randone added, "she was like my dream girl."

"It felt like that guy who's just trying to score," Christina continued. "He was just trying to pull her into

him as if he was already gonna walk away with her... that's when I turned around and I say, 'Hey you already got her number.' Like that's it...enough is enough."

But Brian Randone was charming, attractive and successful. So a few days later when he called, Felicia agreed to a date. Christina was skeptical.

"What kind of guy says to you on the first date, 'What would your parents think if you married a white guy,'" she said.

But that suggestion of marriage may have been exactly what Felicia was looking for.

"...she wanted to create a home and that type of lifestyle," Christina explained, "that's what she was like. ...she was Betty Homemaker."

And they found out they had a lot in common.

"We liked hiking, we liked jet skiing, we liked dancing and we liked partying,' said Randone.

In just two months, Felicia was practically living in Randone's suburban L.A. apartment.

So on the day that paramedics found Felicia's body and Brian's bedroom destroyed, it seemed fairly logical that police would suspect Randone. He had been home, he was the one who called 911, and according to the cops, he was acting a little strange.

"When I walked in the room, I noticed the boyfriend, Mr. Randone, was sitting with his arms on his legs and he had his head down... and he was just sitting -- very quiet, very still," Det. Doney explained. "The impression I got was that he wasn't upset. ...there was no emotion, and my God, I mean even if I had a dead stranger upstairs in my bathroom, I'd be very emotional...

"... I asked him point blank... asked him, 'What happened?'" Doney continued. "He looked up at me, he was not crying. ...which again I thought was a little strange, and he said, we both used GHB and were having rough sex."

GHB, Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, is a naturally occurring substance found in the body, but it can also be made synthetically. In the last few decades, it's become a popular illegal party drug that's supposed to make you feel sleepy and sexy. It's supposed to be sipped by the capful. Felicia drank it like water, Randone says, from a bottle on her bedside table.

"Did you tell a cop who was there that morning that the two of you were having rough sex?" Maher asked Randone.

"No. I saw that in the police report," he replied. "Like where does a guy get this from?"

"You never told anyone that?"

"Never...we never had rough sex," said Randone.

"Why would I lie about that? I have a clean, perfect record. I'm a straight arrow..." Det. Doney said. "If it's true that they did have rough sex ... sometime during this rough sex he got too rough with her... I firmly believe that this is a murder case and he killed her."

Randone was charged with Felicia Tang's murder just hours after she was pronounced dead. Randone says the charge was not only a rush to judgment, but a flat-out lie.

"Did you kill Felicia?" Maher asked Randone.

"Absolutely not," he replied.

"Did you beat her? Did you lay a hand on her in any way?"

"I've never hit Felicia," Randone said. "I've never hit a woman, and I just -- I just -- I don't do that. I did just the opposite."

"THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE"

"There's a proverb that says, 'If you know the truth, the truth will set you free,'" Brian Randone told "48 Hours." "It's a tragedy, it's a nightmare. I mean Felicia died. I'm in jail ... this is just the worst thing in the world."

Fifteen-hundred miles from an L.A. County jail, a squeaky clean Brian Randone grew up in Nebraska. He played football, and when he was a senior in high school, found Jesus. That's also when he discovered a deep desire to spread the gospel.

He created his own preaching style -- a sort of religious performance art.

"I had a drama where I start out with 'Rockabye Baby' music...and this guy's a little baby, he's playing around in his pen, he's holding onto these bars. The whole theme was, you know, babies are in their pens cause they're immature...when they get older if you start to do things that can hurt your self or hurt other people you know, your freedom's taken away again," Randone explained to Maureen Maher.

"And isn't that ironic," she said.

"Yeah."

Eventually, Randone went to Bible school. He became a youth pastor and hosted a radio show for Christian singles in Dallas.

"I had read you were committed to celibacy for a while?" noted Maher.

"Well, I still believe in that, I mean I believe you should be celibate until you're married," he replied.

But Randone admits he had a hard time sticking to that one.

"...I have a kind of a... ADD kind of personality. So I just like excitement... " he explained.

And it was the promise of an exciting life that lured him to the bright lights and big stars of Los Angeles in 2000.

"What took you from Dallas and religious performance art to Los Angeles and kind of a wild and crazy and somewhat lewd life? " Maher asked.

"I started doing some acting, I started doing commercials," he explained. "...then I got selected by FOX for the 'Sexiest Bachelor in America' show.'" Randone was Mr. Nebraska.

And Los Angeles did not disappoint. Brian Randone had moved there to become an actor, but quickly realized his real talent was in sales. He started his own business, worked hard and made a lot of money selling phone and internet services.

By June 2009, just two months after meeting the woman of his dreams, Randone says he was already planning their life together.

"We were gonna get married," he said.

"Really... had you proposed?" asked Maher.

"No, I hadn't actually proposed," he replied. "I mean, I told my parents."

He took Felicia home to Nebraska for the Fourth of July.

"When he called...he said, 'Mom, I met a girl,'" said Patty Randone, Brian's mother.

"He said, 'Well, Dad, what do you think of Felicia?' I said she seemed -- very pretty, very nice," Terry Randone said. "He said, 'Well, good.' He said, "Because I think I'm gonna marry her.' ...I said 'Whoa! Ho!' I said, 'When did this happen?'"

It happened before Randone had time to learn about Felicia's past.

"When she told me about some of her past it was...like wow," he said. "She had done...some nude stuff, soft porns before, but she hadn't done anything for years, you know, before I met her."

"Did she have a nude website?" asked Maher.

"She did, but she didn't tell me about it until July," Randone replied.

"My grand kids said, 'Grandpa, she's got a - a -- a thing...on the computer.' I said, 'What?'" said Terry Randone. "...holy mackerel."

Soft core porn wasn't the only part of Felicia's life that Brian Randone says he hadn't known about; the other was drugs.

"She pretty much introduced me to the drug, the terrible drug GHB," he said. "...she goes, 'Look, I do this all the time ... I know what I'm doing with it.' ...but she said, 'if I ever do too much of this...don't ever call 911."

On the night of Sept. 10, 2009, the night before Felicia died, Brian was late getting home and Felicia was mad.

"I got back to the car about 12:05...and flip open my phone...and see all these texts that say get home right away," he said.

Felicia's texts got pretty angry, pretty quickly:

"You r the HURTFUL one!"

"I don't like the fact that you F***ING DISRESPECT me by hanging up"

"I am freaking out..."

"I got home...and then she was like a tornado coming at me," said Randone.

About 3 a.m., Brian says, she calmed down and they both drank some GHB.

"I take some...and then she grabs it and she goes gulp, gulp, gulp," said Randone.

"She downs it," Maher pointed out. "And was the point of taking it because the two of you were going to have sex?"

"Probably, yeah... it hit me and all of a sudden it hit her. And she kind of went like this," Randone said, moving to the side. Basically it was like two drunk people, and I just remember her rolling off the bed..."

And that, according to Brian Randone, is when a normal night of sex and drugs began to spiral out of control.

For the next several hours, according to Randone, Felicia was freaking out and thrashing about and at one point, flung herself head first through the closet doors.

"So the two of you fall through the closet door?" Maher asked Randone.

"Yeah...well, I remember she fell through...and then I was just trying to pull her up...then I thought, no, you know, just rest here...because this is safer than out in the room," he replied. "I passed out...and at about 6:30 in the morning and I hear this slow, methodical... I wake up, and I'm thinking 'where am I...what happened?'

"...she was slowly thrashing about...so I just thought I gotta get pillows. So I grabbed as many pillows as I could and I shoved them all around so that if she was doing this movement type thing that she would hit the pillows."

A couple of hours later, Randone says, Felicia seemed fine.

"...she had no blood on her face," he said.

"...but I've seen the pictures of her on the floor in the bathroom," Maher pointed out. "There was definitely bruising and cuts and scrapes... When you saw her at 8 o'clock in the morning, which is four hours earlier than when the paramedics arrived, there was no blood, no cuts, no scratches, no scrapes, no bruising on her face anywhere? On her arms? On her legs?"

"I didn't see her arms and her legs 'cause, remember, the room is dark," said Randone.

"OK, but on her face?"

"She had little, little red beads up here...but nothing like you saw...like, her face just looks like she's high," he said.

Randone says he left the bedroom and started his work day downstairs.

"I had payroll coming up, and all my sales guys were calling up," he said.

Then, at about 11:30 a.m., Randone says he came back upstairs to the bedroom. Only then did he see the extent of Felicia's condition.

"I saw her arm was all bruised up," he told Maher. "I looked at her legs and she had all these little scratches down there. I looked and said... 'Baby, you look terrible...let me get some stuff.'"

Finally, according to Randone, hours after the chaos began, he ran to get a bottle of hydrogen peroxide to try to help the woman he loved.

"I said, 'this, this is gonna hurt,' I said, 'so just be prepared.' So I poured some on this big, long scratch on her leg...and it kind of bubbles up and she's like [he throws his head back]. And I'm like, 'Felicia, Felicia, Felicia.'"

"SHE WASN'T RESPONDING"

It was the morning of Sept. 11, 2009.

"So, you're tending to the scratches, and you pour the peroxide on. You warn her, 'This is gonna sting,' and there's no reaction," said Maureen Maher.

"Very little reaction," Brian Randone replied.

"So it's now 11:45, and -- now I'm freaking out," he said.

"Now you're freaking out, and you're freaking out because..."

"Because she wasn't responding."

"So what happens from that moment, because..."

"Well, at that point, that's like a 5 or 10 minute time between...the time she actually stopped breathing and then I called 911, un I just --" said Randone.

"--but you weren't on the phone with payroll people in between the time that she didn't react to the hydrogen peroxide and you calling 911, were you?" Maher asked.

"You know, I was getting so many calls right after the other. ... As I was, I mean I can do two things at one time, I mean, I'm on the phone, I'm, looking around, thinking..."

"Yeah," Maher cuts in, "but she's not reacting."

"...I thought I gotta get her to the shower. So... I pulled her as fast as I could to the shower, and I started -- I called 911 at the same time," Randone told Maher.

911 operator: Is she conscious right now?

Brian Randone: No, she's like half-conscious, I'm giving her mouth to mouth.

911 operator: Is she breathing?

Brian Randone: She's breathing, yes.

911 operator: OK, if she's breathing do not give her mouth to mouth.

Brian Randone: You know, when I breathe into her she's breathing but--

911 operator: So she's not breathing, you're breathing for her?

Brian Randone: Yeah...

When paramedics arrived, Felicia was dead, but the EKG still showed a signal. It's called PEA -- pulseless electrical activity -- and it's going to play a very important role in this case.

The presence of PEA indicates Felicia had been dead no more than 30 minutes.

When police canvassed Randone's apartment, they found some mysterious clues and started to piece together what might have happened in the hours leading up to Felicia's death.

"It looked like the place might have been gone through and cleaned up maybe," Det. Richard Doney explained, "--like someone was doing a load of laundry..."

"--the dryer was actually cycling," added Det. Brian Schoonmaker. "When we were searching inside we found bed sheets and pillowcases that belonged to the king-sized bed in the master bedroom."

The pillowcases in the dryer appeared to be bloody and police say the stains matched the stains on the bedroom pillows. And there were odd clumps of hair on the floor.

"Myself and the sheriffs believe he dragged her by the hair... 'cause we found such big globs of hair in the bedroom..." said Det. Doney.

"Was your gut reaction murder?" Maher asked Det. Schoonmaker

"Oh absolutely, yes," he replied. "She did not -- get in this condition by herself."

"There were dozens and dozens of wounds all over her body," Schoonmaker continued. "Her knees down to her feet, her elbows down to her hands. Solid, dark, purple bruising."

In all, Schoonmaker says he counted some 320 bruises, lacerations and abrasions on Felicia's body. He strongly believes that pattern -- from knees to the feet and elbows to the hands -- is a hallmark of defensive wounds. According to the detective, Felicia wasn't flailing about and out of control; she was curled up, defending herself.

"These parallel marks... they are wrapped around her legs," Maher asked, referencing a photo of Felicia. "How does someone get a mark like this?"

"I think he was probably whipping her with some kind of instrument," Schoonmaker replied. "...if she bends her knee...these two patterns line up."

"So you're saying that if she was -- let me get down and do this if I can -- if she's in this defensive position ... and the leg goes down... [the marks] would match straight across?" Maher asked.

"Correct."

"And you think this was a whip? Hanger?" Maher asked.

"It could have been a wire hanger," said Schoonmaker.

"Abrasions or lacerations on the forehead, both eyes, bridge of the nose, upper lower lip, inside the lip. She had bit through her tongue. ...the right breast is lacerated, bruising on the left, and then, really, the most bizarre part of it were these double, these parallel lines that were all over her legs. It is an extraordinary amount of bruising and cuts, would you not agree?" Maher asked Randone.

"Yeah," he replied.

"It seems almost impossible to believe that someone could inflict of all that on themselves."

"Yeah."

"But you believe and you say that she did all of it to herself?" Maher continued.

"Yeah. I mean I don't believe -- I know," said Randone.

"Is it possible that, yes, there was an altercation, but she still did die of an overdose?" Maher asked Schoonmaker.

"Yeah, I would consider that," the detective replied. "But the thing that convinces me and that persuades me that this is a murder is the medical examiner who actually did the autopsy says all the markers of smothering are present."

Those markers include the dark mask of bruises, abrasions and scrapes on Felicia's face and forehead, the teeth marks inside her lips and the bite through her tongue.

The medical examiner concluded that Felicia was smothered -- forcibly suffocated by covering her nose and mouth. He believes that the deep bruising on her face and the bite mark on her tongue were a result of Felicia's desperate struggle to breathe.

Brian Randone was charged with murder, but prosecutors didn't stop there. When they saw the extensive bruising and cuts on Felicia's arms and legs, they added another charge: Torture.

"THIS WAS A CASE ABOUT GHB"

"I was locked in a cell," Brian Randone said, " ...and I just remember bein' just so sad and so devastated... I just remember saying, 'God, you know, you have to get me through this.'"

On Nov. 14, 2011, two years after Felicia Tang's death, Randone entered a Pasadena courtroom to be tried for murder and torture.

"I definitely wanted to know what happened that night. You know, what if it was -- what if it was an accident?" said Felicia's good friend, Christina.

The cops didn't think so.

"She did not-- get in this condition by herself," said Det. Brian Schoonmaker.

"We had our victim, we had our suspect, and we knew what happened," said Det. Richard Doney.

Randone's defense attorney, Mark Overland, says the case is simple. Felicia died from an overdose.

"The prosecution was trying to prove a murder when there was no murder," he said. "This was a case about GHB, and the effects of GHB. ...The problem with GHB and why it's so dangerous is that there's no way to measure what that lethal level is."

The toxicology report did show Felicia's GHB level was very high, but because of those facial markers, the L.A. medical examiner still calls it smothering. In fact, at trial, the medical examiner admitted he concluded it was smothering before even seeing the toxicology report. Something the defense says is just bad science.

"They reached conclusions that were just medically unsound," Overland said. ""Smothering is something you reach when you don't have any other explanation."

Look no further Overland says, GHB is the explanation.

"It's almost like drinking a little capful -- it's almost like drinking six beers with a touch of PCP on top," explained Trinka Porrata, a retired Los Angeles Police Department narcotics cop.

"I like to put people in prison. I love the sound of handcuffs morning noon or night. But I like for them to be guilty... and...there just wasn't enough there," she said.

Since retiring from the LAPD, Porrata has become an activist and go-to expert on GHB. She is testifying for the defense.

Porrata has amassed a video library of people under the influence to help illustrate the dangers of GHB.

"It has a great amnesia affect. It has a sexual component for many people. It also requires a very tiny amount to cause these effects," she told Maher. "... you can die from the same amount that another person has a good time on."

"In your opinion, was this a murder case?" asked Maher.

"Based on the information I was given ... this to me is a GHB death," Porrata replied. "And I don't believe it was a murder."

"When you first look at those photos, they're pretty devastating," said Maher.

"But it does look like the people that I deal with...many of whom bang themselves into things," Porrata said. "They have what we call sometimes a head snap when they take their dose. ...One young man broke the mirror in his bathroom six times from the head snap."

"No. No," Doney said. "I was a narcotics detective for 22 years. I saw a lot of overdoses. Never saw one where it was violent. Where people, you know, threw themselves into a closet or where people, you know, thrashed themselves up. Never saw it."

But Porrata says the videos she showed at trial prove it. They show GHB users flailing about and out of control. One man falls down repeatedly during a traffic stop, hitting his head several times against the car door. Another man is crumpled nearly in half as he tries to navigate around his own home, his head snapping back over and over.

But Detective Doney argues overdoses are quieter than this.

"They usually fall down -- right where they're at, and, you know, massive heart attack or their heart just stops. Or they wake up in the morning not breathing, and they're dead," he explained.

And on that point, Porrata agrees with the prosecution. That's because she believes Felicia took two doses -- one the night before she died that caused a rage...

"Based on her text messages and what was going on with her, it's obvious that she was, you know, in a rage for whatever reason," she said. "He - it -- says that he -- tried to stop her. They fell through the closet door. "

And then, the next morning, Porrata believes, Felicia took another dose -- the fatal dose.

"They slept for a while. And I think that when she woke up while he was downstairs, she took more," said Porrata.

The defense brought 17 witnesses over six days.

"It all sounded very scientific, but none of that made any sense," said Christina.

But Christina says the worst part of the trial was the defense painted Felicia as a low life.

"I felt like I was just going to a really bad funeral day after day, having to see those photos and them just, you know -- picking her apart as some druggie," she said.

The defense maintains Felicia's many wounds were nothing more than self-inflicted scratches -- a far cry from torture.

"To torture somebody, it's gotta be a - methodical -- infliction of pain for a sadistic purpose," said Overland.

"You didn't feel that the scratches and lacerations and bruises, etcetera, spoke to that?" Maher asked.

"Torture by scratching?" scoffed Overland. "Hardly. No."

And what about those stained pillowcases in the dryer? When lab tests were completed they showed no blood -- hardly a case for murder says the defense. And what's more, the defense adds, Brian Randone simply had no motive to kill Felicia.

"We had plans to go to Houston...we had plans to go to Las Vegas for a concert," Randone said. "And then, after that, we were gonna go to my parents' 51st wedding anniversary. So, our relationship was -- was fine, you know? It was actually really, really good."

And Brian Randone did not take the stand. So the jury never heard him tell his version of what happened that night. They only heard about the brief statements he made to police that afternoon and his desperate 911 call.

But they didn't need to hear from Brian Randone given what they were about to be told by former San Diego Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Harry Bonnell.

"There's no way was she smothered or was it a homicide," Dr. Bonnell testified.

Dr. Bonnell says homicide is simply impossible--and claims the PEA paramedics found in Felicia's body proves it.

"PEA stands for pulseless electrical activity," he explained. "So you have the electrical system of the heart working but the heart itself isn't pumping."

Dr. Bonnell says there are only two causes of PEA: "With reasonable medical certainty the causes of PEA are drugs or blood volume loss," he said.

And Dr. Bonnell went on, telling the jury there is no PEA in smothering.

"There was no murder. There was no evidence to support a murder," he told the court.

That is when a real-life courtroom drama unfolded. The prosecutor, who was clearly surprised by this testimony, begged the judge for an opportunity to call a rebuttal witness. The judge refused.

"So were you concerned going to jury?" Maher asked Schoonmaker.

"Absolutely," he replied. "I was -- I was wondering, is this a fatal-- point in our case?"

THE VERDICT IS IN

"There's a verse that says 'knock and the door will be opened. Seek and you'll find,'" said Brian Randone, "and I just believe that whenever you seek after the truth, you find the truth."

Brian Randone's murder trial lasted four weeks. The trial had become quite the sensation, with local media dubbing it the case of the case "the preacher and the porn star."

"The newspapers just grabbed onto that," said Brian's mother, Patty Randone. "...he wasn't preaching, he just -- believed."

Brian's parents had come all the way from Nebraska to Los Angeles for the trial.

"We didn't know the streets, we didn't know anything," Brian's father, Terry Randone said.

They stayed the entire month. "We didn't want to miss a lick," said Terry.

The defense had scored some points during trial -- especially when the prosecution lost the opportunity to rebut Dr. Bonnell's testimony. Prosecutors still believed they had a very strong case: Felicia's injuries, and that busted up room. They believed the only explanation was murder.

"In my opinion, yes, I thought we had a slam dunk case," said Det. Richard Doney.

The jury got the case on a Thursday morning. They were back on Friday afternoon. The verdict: Not guilty of torture. Not guilty of murder.

"I was stunned. I was literally speechless. I -- actually, I said, 'OK, stop joking. Really, what'd they say?' No. Not guilty, both counts," said Det. Brian Schoonmaker.

"That really was the worst day of my life," said Christina said of the verdict.

"...Sometimes if you have a complex case...it's hard to explain that to 12 people and make them understand what happened," said Det. Doney.After the trial, two of the jurors agreed to speak to "48 Hours" about their decision.

"First picture that they put up on -- on the screen across the room was her face all bruised. And I'm a nurse but I - it -- it shocked me. I remember almost jumping in my chair," Juror 6 told Maher.

Those photos might have made her jump. But, surprisingly, as the jury pored over the evidence, what police thought was the strongest point of the case -- Felicia's injuries -- did not seem to impress either one of these jurors.

"But...when we were actually in the jurors' room and saw them up close it became obvious to me that they were more like -- scratches with scabs on them, almost like what a drug addict does when they pick," said Juror 6.

And what about that charge of torture?

"Did the charge of torture seem reasonable in this situation?" Maher asked.

"No," said jurors 6 and 10.

"Overkill?" Maher asked. "Yes," replied Juror 6.

"And did that affect your deliberations?"

"Yes," Juror 10 replied. "When you think of torture, I -- I didn't -- my personal opinion was her injuries did not substantiate that definition."

"When you first looked at those pictures, though, I mean, she is covered literally head to toe," Maher remarked. " She has these scratch marks, these--"

"Yeah, but they're scratches," said Juror 10.

Murder, however, did seem possible to at least one juror.

"What did you think of the idea of the prosecution -- their medical examiner said she was suffocated. Did you believe that?" Maher asked.

"I did. And one of the reasons is because no one can give me a reason why she has all the bruising on her face," said Juror 6.

But the other juror "48 Hours" spoke to says she thought it more likely that drugs killed Felicia.

"Being, you know, a drug addict...or even having that as part of your lifestyle, you know death always comes with the territory," said Juror 10.

And it turns out Dr. Bonnell's testimony was crucial.

"Was the testimony about PEA the deciding factor for you?" Maher asked the jurors.

"It was," Juror 10 replied. "I didn't think he was guilty. But the PEA pretty much solidified my decision."

"Were you bothered by the fact that the prosecution did not have an answer for what the defense experts said about PEA?"

"Yes, 'cause they never even explored it. They never brought it up," said Juror 6.

The jurors were totally unaware that the prosecutor had tried to call a rebuttal witness. And several medical examiners "48 Hours" consulted made clear they would have testified that Dr. Bonnell was incorrect. They say PEA is possible in smothering.

It was a complicated case. But for one juror, it was clear: Not guilty was not the same as innocent.

"Do you think a killer was set free?" Maher asked.

"Yes," Juror 6 replied. "I -- I don't know whether he actually physically killed her or not, but I think he had something to do with her death."

The problem, this juror says, is that the prosecution simply was not able to prove their case.

"I wish I could have come up with -- a guilty verdict, but with what we had to work with there wasn't any way that I could," said Juror 6.

Asked if it haunts her, she replied "It does."

"You walk away from this experience feeling what?" Maher asked.

"We did what we could with the evidence and the information that we had," said Juror 10.

Juror 6 added, "And I wish we'd had more."

"I think it's a travesty of justice. I firmly believe that he killed her," said Det. Doney.

"It was like it -- they made it OK. Like it's OK for Brian to kill somebody," Christina cried.

Mark Overland says Brian Randone "is not a killer."

"He does have a life, he does have a future. And that future shouldn't be besmirched by these false accusations," Overland said. "There is not a killer walking the streets."

Brian Randone thinks the whole thing comes down to a cop with tunnel vision; One cop: Detective Schoonmaker.

"I would think that after he was examining the facts and doing an investigation, he would say this doesn't make sense. You know, there's not one text from Brian saying, 'Oh, I'm so mad you.' There's not one voice mail from me saying, 'Oh, I'm gonna,' you know," Randone said. "...she has this huge level of GHB. ...and I call 911, I'm doin' CPR, and you -- you would think this doesn't make any sense. ... When the facts don't fit your theory, change your theory to fit the facts."

Six months after the verdict, Randone was asked to come back by the same people who had accused him of murder. This time, he was back spreading the good word, preaching to religious volunteers in the L.A. jails at the podium of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

"She was really beautiful. ...She's a go getter. And I believe that anything she chose to do in life, that she would take it all the way," Christina said of Felicia."But in trial it was the opposite. ...he's a preacher and she's the ex-porn star. That's what they said."