Life at Twin Oaks wasn’t the same after 8-year-old Amy Yates was murdered.  The park’s owners filled in the ditch  and a makeshift memorial marked the place where amy used to play.

Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: What have you been through?

Tom Yates: Hell.

Shari Yates: My heart’s been smashed.  And, we’ve lost so much.  We’ve had our family torn apart.

The Yates moved out of Twin Oaks shortly after Amy’s death, trying to escape the bad memories. Angie and Joe Adams moved as well, while Jonathon struggled in the juvenile facility.

Stafford: You’re labeled the killer of Amy Yates.

Johnathon Adams: Yes sir. Accusing me of this and that and they started making fun of me say “You killed Amy Yates” and this and that and that’s most of the reason I got in fights there.

But Jean Gossett and her family stayed on at Twin Oaks. Amy’s friend Chris Gossett got his drivers license and worked on his high school diploma though through a special education program. Though he has the mental ability of a 9-year-old, Chris landed two part time jobs to help support his family. Still, Amy was never far from his mind.

Chris Gossett: I still cry sometimes about it.  I can’t stop thinking about it, cuz she was the one who played games and stuff with me.

Chris told Dateline he hadn’t felt right in the years since Amy’s murder and spent more and more time in church and at the bible studies offered in the neighborhood.

He says he experienced a conversion and asked to be baptized as part of a public profession of his faith.

Chris Gossett: Yeah.  I trust God more than anybody else. I feel different right now—I feel like a whole new person right now. 

But that new found peace came with a shocking admission just two months before the second anniversary of Amy’s death.

Jean Gossett: He got off the bus that afternoon and he kept pacing. I said Chris what’s  wrong with you? He said, “Momma, I did something bad.”  I said, “Did you hit a car?”  “No, Ma’am.”  “Did you wreck?”  “No, Ma’am.”

Nothing could have prepared Jean Gossett for what she was about to hear.

Stafford: What do you tell your mom?

Chris Gossett: I killed her.

Stafford: You killed her.

Chris Gossett: Yes sir.

Jean Gossett: And I said, “Chris you couldn’t have done that.  There’s no way in the world.  You’re incapable of doing it.”  And he said, “Momma, I killed Amy.  I killed her.  I killed her.

Stafford: He’s emphatic about it.  “I did this,” he said.

Jean Gossett: Yes.

Jean Gossett didn’t believe her son could kill his friend Amy, but she also knew Chris was not a liar.

Jean Gossett: I’ve always told the kids please be honest.

Stafford: And Chris has a reputation for being honest?

Jean Gossett: Yes.

Stafford: Do you feel an obligation that you have to report this to the police?

Jean Gossett: Yes.

Stafford: To turn your son in?

Jean Gossett: Yes, it had to be reported.

So Chris’s father took him to the sheriff’s department that same night. This time, detectives videotaped the confession.

Officer: OK Chris if you would just start from the beginning...

Chris Gossett:  Alright, I was at my tomato plants right?

Officer: Ok at your house, right?

Chris Gossett: Yeah, at my house

Chris took the investigators back to that Monday evening in 2004, the evening Amy rode her bike toward the Gossett’s home to deliver an invitation to her birthday party.

Chris Gossett: I told her to park her bike right there and I told her to follow me and into the woods to where that lake area is.

Chris  agreed to tell us what he shared with investigators...

Chris Gossett: Then I sat on top of her, and then put my hand over her mouth and stuff.

Stafford: And, what was Amy doing?

Chris Gossett: Kickin’, saying she can’t breathe—she can’t breathe.

Then deputies asked Chris to demonstrate what had happened.

Chris Gossett: I showed ‘em how I twisted her neck and I put my hands over her mouth.  I don’t wanna talk about that.

Officer: What was she doing when you twisted her neck?

Chris Gossett:  Nothing.

Chris Gossett: Then she was dead.  That’s why I said—

Stafford: And, how did you know that she was dead?

Chris Gossett: Cuz she wasn’t breathing.

Why would Chris, a boy with a reputation as a gentle giant, murder Amy, a girl he clearly liked?

Officer: Why would you want to kill an 8 or 9 year old little girl?

Investigators asked Chris for a motive.

Chris Gossett: Sex.

Stafford: That you wanted to have sex with Amy? 

Chris Gossett: Yes, sir.

Chris told police he didn’t touch her sexually, but did start to remove remove her pants.

Stafford: And, what did you tell the police about the pants?

Chris Gossett: I unbuttoned them.

Stafford: And, pulled them down or left them where they were?

Chris Gossett: Left them where they were.

Stafford: But unbuttoned?

Chris Gossett: Unbuttoned. unzipped. Yes sir

Chris also talked about the white folder Amy had been carrying when she disappeared. Remember police found it about 5 feet from her body.

Stafford: What did you do with the folder?

Chris Gossett: I said I threw it.

For 30 chilling minutes, Chris described the final moments of Amy Yates’ life.

Stafford: How does it feel to say all these things that you’ve been holding back?

Chris Gossett: It released me from a whole bunch of stuff.

Stafford: And what did that feel—

Chris Gossett: Like all the stuff building up in my chest.  Because my chest started swelling like somebody squeezed me hard.  And after I told everybody somebody let go.

But for Tom Yates, this new confession brought only doubt and confusion.

Tom Yates: You’ve just lived two years of your life believing that a 12-year-old boy killed your daughter. And you’ve said some horrendous things about this family and this boy.  You were so believing that this boy did it. And then somebody else says they did it and the big question of… why?

Now two boys are implicated in the murder... but who really killed Amy?

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A killing in Carrollton Images: Carrollton crime scene Images: Amy Yates Tom Yates on a father's grief Evidence: Johnathon Adams admissions Why do people confess to crimes they did not commit? Images: Chris Gossett's police interview Crime scene diagrams Why confessions should be electronically recorded Carrollton Murder Section Front   Add Carrollton Murder headlines to your news reader: