Teen blogger murder trial

John Larson Correspondent

CRAIG, ALASKA -

John Larson, Dateline correspondent: If everything had gone perfectly, how would this story have played out? Let's say you had gotten away with it.

Brian Radel: Gotten away with it? There would have been no way that could happen.

You're about to hear a story about a girl with a killer imagination.

A story about an Alaskan teenager who imagined and told stories of wild things - even murder.

Brian Radel: If she made it up, she made up a story but that's all she did.

Larson: Hell of a story.

And the stories were so seductive, men would kill for them.

Brian Radel: Somebody ended up dead in this story.

It happened in this beautiful place of cold, deep water and endless spruce forest. Paradise to some, yet the beauty of the fishing village of Craig, Alaska on Prince of Wales Island is surpassed only by its isolation. You can get here only by ferry or tiny float plane.

Everyone knows everyone here. The locals will tell you there's no reason not to leave your keys in your car... no need to lock your doors at night. At least there wasn't, until one rainy night back in 2004.

What happened down this road took all the natural beauty and solitude of the place and overnight made it seem ominous. A murder so brutal, and different because it may have begun as the fantasy of a teenage girl. A story that included tales of abuse, prostitution, even witchcraft. But what was real... and what was imagined?

It was Saturday, November 13th. Lauri Waterman, a 48-year-old special education aide, wife and mother spent the evening volunteering at a Chamber of Commerce dinner.

Jann Martelli, Lauri Waterman’s sister-in-law: Lauri Martelli Waterman was the consummate mother. And a beautiful, lovely woman, very selfless and very giving.

After dinner, she returned to an empty house. Her husband "Doc" was out of town. Her daughter Rachelle — an honor student and athlete at the local high school — was 400 miles away in Anchorage, playing in a volleyball tournament. So Lauri climbed into bed sometime after eleven p.m. and went to sleep, alone.

The next morning, Lauri didn't show up for church. And when Doc and Rachelle returned home that afternoon they discovered Lauri and the family van were gone. No one had seen her and she'd left no explanations. Doc called his best friend and next door neighbor Don Pierce.

Don Pierce, friend of the Waterman family: He called about 3:00 in the afternoon to ask if Lauri was at our house.

She’d been expected, but never showed up. And inside the Waterman house,  Lauri's husband and daughter had found some strange things --  the bed unmade, odd fibers, the fingertip of a rubber glove on the bedroom floor... and on the kitchen counter, an empty wine bottle: odd because Lauri rarely drank.

Pierce: Lauri wasn't one to go around without people knowing that she was gonna go somewhere.

Doc searched the town and then called police. But the next morning, a Monday, there was still no sign of Lauri. Her daughter Rachelle, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy, went to school... where she shared fears that her mother was dead -- perhaps even killed in a drunk driving accident.

And then Rachelle heard the rumors spreading like fire through the high school... rumors that a van was found in the woods... with human remains inside.

Pierce: I got a call asking me to take Rachelle home because she was losing it.

Don, the Watermans' closest friend, teaches at the high school.

Pierce: Rachelle was just totally in tears. She was rocking back and forth in the passenger seat of my truck, um, she was saying Hail Marys.

When Don and Rachelle arrived at the house, police did, too... and shared the devastating news: the van found smoldering in the woods some 40 miles away from their home -- was, in fact, Lauri's. The fire burned so hot, it stripped the paint off the van, melted the license plates. On the floorboard behind the front seat was a pile of ash and a human skull.

Larson: What was Rachelle's reaction when she found out there was a body in her mother's van?

Pierce: Tears. We weren't even sure it was Lauri and she was beside herself. Her world was crumbling down.

Three days after her disappearance, it was confirmed: the remains were Lauri Waterman's. And when investigators examined the evidence -- the heat of the fire, the location of the remains, the trail of gasoline leading from the vehicle, it was clear that this was no accident.

Lauri Waterman had been murdered. But who would kill one of the most-loved people in town?

Pierce: I could upset more people in an hour than she could in a lifetime.

Even though there was evidence someone had broken in, it was clearly not a burglary, so police began doing what they routinely do -- looking first at those closest to Lauri... from Doc... to friends like Don Pierce. Soon, their focus turned to someone they knew had been a source of friction in the Waterman house -- Rachelle's 24-year-old boyfriend, Jason Arrant.

Pierce: I don't think that any of us really knew Jason. We knew who he was but we didn't really know him, what he was capable of.

Arrant was a janitor and a Marine Corps dropout. And it was no secret that Lauri Waterman had not approved of her 16-year-old daughter's relationship with the older man. And then there was Arrant's best friend, 24-year-old Brian Radel. He was a hulking man with wild red hair and a goatee who turned up in town a few days after the murder... with his head and face shaved.

Pierce: Brian Radel, he scares me. He has a look to his eye that kind of leads me to believe that he's not all there.

Radel had also dated Rachelle at one time. He was known around town as a pied-piper of sorts who gathered high schoolers to his computer shop where they played video games and dungeons and dragons. It didn't take police long to suspect that Radel... Arrant... or both men had something to do with the murder.

So the janitor, Jason Arrant, was brought here for questioning and the mystery quickly unraveled. He told police his best friend Brian Radel had killed Lauri Waterman. Police then asked him if he would wear a wire to help gather evidence on his friend and the plan worked. Brian Radel not only implicated himself, but Jason Arrant was clearly involved in the killing, too.

The two men soon confessed and poured out the horrific details of the murder. They had planned to make it look like a drunk driving accident. Radel shaved his entire body to avoid leaving evidence behind. He broke into the Waterman home and forced Lauri to drink a bottle of wine, then drove her in her own van to a remote forest service road, where he met Arrant. Neither man had ever done anything like this before, but the killing began.

Brian Radel, convicted of murdering Lauri Waterman: It's not like I’m a professional killer. I don't really know how to kill somebody. I didn't do any of it very well. Breaking her neck, I definitely wasn't successful at that. Didn't kill her right away when I hit her in the throat.

When that didn't work, Radel smothered her. They realized her death would not look like an accident as they had planned. So they drove to another location, doused the inside of the van with gasoline -- with Lauri's body inside -- and lit it. They burned other evidence as well. At one point before the fire, before she died, Lauri spoke.

Larson: What did she say to you?

Radel: She said, “Can I ask a question?'” And she just kept repeating that, “Can I ask a question?” Jason asked me, “What do you think she wants to ask?” And I said, “I think she wants to know why in the world this is happening.”

It was the same thing her family and friends wanted to know: Why? The answer was almost impossible to believe.

Radel: I felt pressured that I needed to protect Rachelle.

Protect Rachelle? From her mother, known by everyone in town for her acts of kindness? It made no sense to anyone who knew Lauri Waterman.

MORE FROM DATELINE

Dateline Section Front

Mystery of the murdered millionaire Death on the Palouse You might be rich: Check for unclaimed property Killings in 'the biggest little city' Divers recount 19 hours in troubled waters Dateline's 9 unforgettable 911 calls The secret life of a soccer mom 2008: Year of the tornado Mysterious death at Pictured Rocks Park Inside the murder trial of Neil Entwistle Dateline Section Front   Add Dateline headlines to your news reader: