'Bathtub Killer' Murdered 2 Women in Same Apartment Complex. How Did Authorities Bring Him to Justice?

The case of the "Bathtub Killer" is examined on tonight's episode of Dateline, airing Friday, June 7, at 9/8c on NBC

The murders were both shocking and terrifying.

On Sept. 17, 1996, the strangled body of 26-year-old elementary school teacher Christine Vu was found bound with duct tape in a half-filled bathtub in her apartment in Arlington, Texas, according to WFAA.

Just over three months later, the same killer struck again — and close by.

Wendie Prescott, who was Vu’s neighbor, was discovered tied with duct tape and strangled in her bathtub on Dec. 24, 1996, per WFAA.

Like Vu, the 22-year-old teacher’s aide had been sexually assaulted.

"The crime scenes were absolutely horrific -- brutal and violent, the worst nightmare for anyone confronted with that kind of attack," Arlington homicide detective Tommy LeNoir told NBC5 in 2009. "I don't like to think what the ladies went through."

Their brutal deaths are the subject of this week’s all-new, two-hour episode of Dateline. Titled "Dark Intentions," the episode airs Friday, June 7, at 9/8c on NBC. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)

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Although investigators pulled a fingerprint from a TV stand in Prescott’s apartment, they were unable to identify the killer for four years.

Dale Devon Scheanette was finally connected to the killings in 1999. He had burglarized a car audio shop in DeSoto, Texas, and his arrest for that crime is what cracked the case.

"We got a search warrant, blood samples and made a DNA hit on two murders," LeNoir said, per NBC5. "From that point, we started getting hits on other cases, the sexual assaults. It just snowballed."

Scheanette, who was dubbed the "Bathtub Killer," was later linked to four more sexual assaults between September 1998 and October 1999.

He was found guilty of capital murder in the death of Prescott in January 2003. He was charged but never tried for Vu’s killing, per FOX News.

At his execution in Feb. 2009, Scheanette, 35, was asked if he had any final words.

He responded, "My only statement is that no cases ever tried have been error-free. Those are my words. No cases are error-free," per FOX News.

Dateline’s all-new two-hour episode, "Dark Intentions," airs Friday, June 7, at 9/8c on NBC. Andrea Canning reports.

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