Waters: This kid, his only birthday wish was to spend
Christmas with his mother.
Woman: Your child is nowhere to be found.
Your mind just goes crazy.
What could've happened?
I love my boy. I love all babies.
I love you, baby. Don't give up.
We're looking for you.
Within minutes, fbi is mobilized.
It really takes a monster to do something like that.
I don't think any of us had any idea
What kind of evil was perpetrated.
Waters: Houston, texas, america's fourth largest city.
I served as a homicide detective
With houston's finest for over 23 years.
I've investigated over 400 murders
And solved 90% with a confession.
Once I have a suspect in the room,
I don't quit until I get justice for the victims.
I am homicide detective fil waters.
I'm a father.
I have a son, and this case involves a child.
I knew this was going to be tough.
There is a cacophony of questions going on in my head.
What do we need to do?
What did we not do that we should've done?
And when does this happen
Around the most joyous time of the year,
Christmas, where families are gathering together?
Scrimsher: My nephew, jonathan, came to live with us in 2005
At the age of 6.
My sister, angela, was not able to handle him or life,
So we told my mom that we would be happy to take him
And raise him in our family.
Meyers: Angela had had a rough past with relationships
And the different men in her life
And some financial troubles.
Scrimsher: Raising three boys as is wasn't any different than raising four.
Jonathan would be the first person to come
And give you a hug and say,
"hey, uncle glenn. How was your day?"
Jonathan was living with us for 5 years until he turned 12.
His wish for his birthday was to go
And live with his mom here in houston
And spend that next christmas with her.
In November 2010, his mother, angela, had been doing better.
She had a new husband, and she had a good job.
I remember taking him to the airport
To send him on the plane to houston.
Jonathan told us that he loved us
And was going to miss us.
On christmas eve, angela was working
At a specialty food store as a cashier.
Her job was only a couple of minutes from where she lived.
Her last words to jonathan before leaving the house is,
"don't answer the door.
If you need anything, give me a call."
Spence: Sometime that afternoon,
The manager received a phone call from jonathan,
And he's asking to speak to his mom.
They're telling him, "honey, I'm sorry.
She cannot come to the phone. She's very busy."
And he's insistent, "I need to speak to my mom."
Jonathan did have a sense of urgency that did alarm her,
And then the line goes dead.
By the time angela got to the phone,
There was nobody there,
And so angela had tried to call back.
He did not answer.
I know that she tried to call him several times.
Angela got out of there as quickly as possible
And headed towards the house.
She was only about half a block away.
Angela rushes in and finds this empty apartment.
There's a video game still on the tv.
Nothing is disturbed except...
There's no jonathan.
Rogers: She starts looking around the neighborhood
Trying to figure out where he must have gone,
And angela calls the police.
Waters: On christmas eve 2010,
Missing persons detectives are called in,
And their initial report was he may have run away.
Rogers: He's a 12-year-old kid.
He could've just wandered off to play basketball
Or snuck off to play video games.
Reporter: Police say they're looking for any clue
That may lead them to the little boy.
An amber alert has been issued,
And detectives want everyone to be on the lookout for him.
It was heartbreaking, and it really sort of captured
Everyone's attention at holiday time
That a 12-year-old would just evaporate.
Scrimsher: I received the call on christmas day that he was missing.
All that went through our minds was,
"where's my nephew? Where's jonathan?"
Meyers: Just kind of get thrown into a whirlwind.
It's just not normal.
Angela appeared on television distraught.
You know, she pleads with the community.
Find her son, jonathan.
Rogers: Angela, you know, gets in touch with equusearch,
And houstonians know that when equusearch is involved,
Then it's a serious, serious case.
Everyone takes notice.
Bogess: Equusearch is a search-and-recovery group.
Volunteers just come out of the woodwork.
Everybody wants to help,
Especially the day after christmas.
I was seeing 100 to 200 people.
If jonathan was still alive,
We were determined we would find him.
Rogers: It was packed.
There were reporters and cameras and volunteers out the door.
There were too many people to fit in the church.
Bogess: We started where jonathan had gone missing.
There was a abandoned apartment complex.
We spread out to the abandoned fields,
All the empty lots in those areas.
We were looking in barrels, ditches, dumpsters.
No one had seen him.
It was just like he just disappeared.
Waters: After the third day, my partner, brian harris, and I,
We received a call to meet missing persons detectives.
We know that, after 48 hours,
The results are not going to be good ones.
This was definitely a situation that my gut was telling me
It wasn't going to end well.
At the makeshift command post set up on texas equusearch,
Everybody we needed to talk to
Was essentially there at that church.
Waters: We're playing catch-up at this point.
The missing person detective is speaking with norma suarez
Who is the manager of the meat market
That angela davis, jonathan foster's mother, works.
Our spidey senses were tingling.
Something wasn't right about this case.
And all we know at that point is that a woman
With a angry voice might have jonathan.
Waters: On christmas eve 2010, 12-year-old jonathan foster
Has been reported missing from his home.
Reporter: Detectives with hpd think someone snatched him
From this northwest houston neighborhood.
After the third day of jonathan missing,
We were all hoping and praying
That jonathan would be found alive.
At this point in the investigation,
Brian and I are behind the eight ball,
So we want to first talk to the most immediate family members.
We make a decision to bring jonathan's mother, angela davis,
And his grandmother, mary gifford,
To homicide for interviews.
Unfortunately, from the very beginning
Of the interview with angela,
It was quite clear that she was much too distraught,
Much too confused that was going to prevent a coherent interview
From taking place.
Meyers: Your child is nowhere to be found.
Your mind just goes crazy.
I don't think you're ever prepared to be faced
With a situation like that.
Waters: And I interviewed angela.
Brian was going to interview mary.
Harris: I sat down with mary, the grandma.
"tell me about jonathan.
Tell me about angela."
Mary said that angela had a lot of problems in her history.
She had struggled with questionable partners
In her life.
Jonathan's father, he was not a very good person.
Mary tells a story to me about jonathan's young life.
I was about blown away.
Richard was eventually tracked down to a field
Where we actually found him asleep.
That was the beginning of his criminal career.
Waters: He's been handled for harboring a runaway.
He's been charged with burglary of a habitation,
And he's been charged with making terroristic threats.
We need to find richard foster.
We find out that richard foster
Is currently living in corsicana, texas,
Which is an hour or so south of dallas.
Because this particular case of missing child,
We take the resources from the fbi to locate richard foster.
Within minutes, the fbi is able to find him.
Richard foster explains,
"look, I haven't seen jonathan in years.
I was nowhere near houston, texas.
I've been here."
The fbi is able to alibi him out.
They're able to prove there's physically no way
Richard foster was in houston,
That he could've physically himself done the kidnapping.
They were able to completely clear richard foster.
Waters: Brian and I are both fathers.
Finding this child is paramount.
We learn that angela had married again.
Rogers: That previous easter, before jonathan was abducted,
Angela had married jonathan's stepfather, david davis.
We had seen david at the church where equusearch was setting up.
We had seen him in sound bites with the media.
He came across as being mature and, a key word here,
A stabilizing factor in angela's life,
Therefore would be a positive influence on jonathan.
And the grandmother, she thought that was true as well.
But david davis was not happy
That jonathan came to live with angela.
David even said that jonathan was a pest
And was getting in the way of angela and david's relationship.
Spence: Angela said, "you are not going to touch my child."
She wanted to keep her child safe,
And she needed to leave quickly,
And sharon opened her doors to her.
Strangely enough, 12 days later, jonathan is missing.
Harris: Is this motive?
Did jonathan's stepfather kidnap him?
Did jonathan's stepfather kill him?
Waters: So in my most charming way,
I asked david to come with me to homicide,
And I would like to talk to him.
He was more than a willing participant, almost too willing.
What I found out quickly was is that david davis liked to talk.
I believe he's out there.
I believe he'll be found.
And, whoever has got him,
Let him go and let him come home, please.
Reporter: A desperate plea from jonathan foster's grandmother,
Mary gifford.
Waters: It was apparent that jonathan foster's stepfather,
David davis, was exhibiting a little of jealousy
Because the attention that he had been given from angela
Was now shared with jonathan,
Despite the impassioned pleas to the media.
I love my boy. I love all babies.
My observations of david davis at the church,
The media, and from angela --
He was overly concerned about jonathan's welfare
With no degree of sincerity.
It was now time to talk to david.
So...
Well, right, right.
What I first notice about david, he likes to deflect
And say absolutely nothing.
Okay. Okay.
David denies there is any type of animosity
Towards jonathan, that he grew to love jonathan
And wanted to be a good father to him.
What I thought was most interesting, I cannot remember
At any point during this interview with him
Where he ever said jonathan's name.
But what was most important to me was the timeline.
Start with christmas eve,
And tell me where you were, what you did.
I'm not buying that for one minute.
Now all of a sudden, he's so excited to see davis.
Now he wants him to play video games with him.
I cannot imagine jonathan in any way, shape, or form
He would ask david davis to come in and play video games.
David said that he went inside only for a few minutes
Harris: Fil is picking up mr. Davis feels very guilty.
He keeps on saying, "I might have been the last one
To see jonathan," and so that stands out.
David eventually said, "I'm going to go get your mom
Because we're going to go christmas shopping."
I did not find david's story believable.
They were split up.
He was going to go out last-minute
Christmas shopping with angela, and they weren't even together.
Waters: He's telling these huge lies.
I don't think he has an understanding ever
That I'm not buying any of his bullcrap.
When he decides to shut down the operation
Of in search of a coffee grinder, where does he go?
Well, he goes to the bar.
I know that's where I would go
If I couldn't find a coffee grinder.
It's time to hit a beer, right?
Time to get a drink.
Certainly gives me an idea about his character.
Jonathan is missing,
And this boy that he says calls him dad
Is not near as concerning to him
As finishing that beer that he just bought.
Harris: He waits a couple of hours.
By now, angela is going door to door looking for her son.
He sheds no tear.
Other than this feigning concern,
He is void of any kind of emotion,
So the concern comes across as being hollow.
He knew exactly what happened to jonathan.
He knew exactly who the woman is on that phone,
And you know where jonathan is right now.
Fil waters has a heart as big as texas,
But I'll tell you what, he is as tenacious as they come.
I've had folks swear on their baby's eyes, and I'm like,
"oh, please don't do that because what you're swearing to
Is obviously false."
But I'm going to take him up on his offer.
He wants to take a polygraph.
And you know what?
Detective fil can make that happen.
I'm going to go out and try to verify his time line.
I find that there is no video at the cvs.
I'm going to go to the bar.
Fortunately for david,
He went to a bar that had video surveillance,
And he stayed at that bar for hours,
And while he was at that bar, he made phone calls.
The results of the polygraph that david took
Showed deception.
That leads me to believe that he may somehow be involved,
And so my question is,
Is he in contact with the woman on the phone,
The person that we believe has jonathan in their possession?
Reporter: Everyone is still looking for jonathan -- his family,
Texas equusearch and the police.
Investigators spent the afternoon with jonathan's mom,
Angela davis, and his stepdad, david davis.
Little fella, I love you.
I love you, baby.
Don't give up.
We're looking for you.
Waters: It's christmas holiday 2010,
And we are still no closer to finding jonathan foster.
My prime suspect, david davis,
It appears that he may have an alibi for the time
That jonathan foster went missing.
Oh, they drilled me like I thought I was in vietnam, baby,
But, you know, I know that's their job.
You know, "it's you. It's you. It's you," they kept saying.
I love my boy.
Upon checking david's apartment,
We found that not the neatest guy,
But there were no traces of jonathan,
And it didn't look like he had been there recently.
Harris: Canvassing jonathan's neighborhood, we needed to know
If davis actually was the last one to see jonathan.
The neighbor says, "I remember seeing a silver pickup truck
In the driveway when jonathan went missing.
I remember a very burly black male wearing,
I think, a ball cap and a white t-shirt."
Now we got a vehicle.
We have a black male that we got to find.
Is this the person that took jonathan?
Waters: As brian and I are now running on fumes,
We've gone way beyond 24 hours in this investigation straight.
We're running out of time finding jonathan alive.
We're directed by our lieutenant to go home and get some sleep.
I can tell you from experience though,
It's hard to sleep when we've got a 12-year-old missing boy.
My phone rings, and they said,
"we believe we found your missing person."
I said, "how do you know it's him?"
"we're pretty sure, but it's bad."
A witness walking down the street sees a form
In the ditch in the culvert,
And her first impression is that it's a dead dog.
It was burned all the way around.
There's no way to even determine
Whether this person was a boy, was a girl.
That body was so badly charred.
It was horrifying.
My mother calls me and tells me that they found a body,
But they don't know if it's jonathan.
I was hoping and praying that it was not him.
That body was 12-year-old jonathan foster.
I don't think any of us had any idea
What kind of evil was perpetrated on this young boy.
Spence: Jonathan was identified by his dental records.
His manner of death was ruled as homicidal violence.
The medical examiner was not able
To determine the actual cause of death.
Jonathan was alive when he was taken
Because his hands were found bound behind his back.
It was like the world fell away.
This little 12-year-old boy was murdered,
Rolled up in a piece of carpet and burned
And then thrown into a ditch on the side of the road,
Just discarded like it was nothing.
Meyers: It felt almost like an elephant was sitting on my chest,
And then I had to sit my children down and tell them.
That was one of the hardest things as a parent to do.
Now the question in our mind was, what kind of a monster
Would do something like this to a 12-year-old little boy?
Harris: Detectives notice in the distance a camera
On the side of an industrial building,
And they're able to get the video,
And what they see in that video looks like a silver pickup truck
With some distinctive bumper stickers in the back window,
And then we see a big burly person manhandling
What is believed to be a garbage can dumping jonathan
As if he is a piece of trash.
Jonathan's grandmother said without a shadow of doubt
The owner of that vehicle is mona nelson.
Everyone suspected it was the stepfather, david davis.
It was mona nelson.
Spence: Mona nelson was a former maintenance worker
At an apartment complex
Maybe half a block away from sharon's duplex.
Sharon and mona had been drinking buddies.
They were friends.
Sharon invited mona nelson to celebrate christmas
With them as well.
Harris: Sharon said, "there's going to be a little boy
There named jonathan. He's not going to let you in.
You just tell him his aunt sharon said it's okay,
And I'll be home in a couple of hours."
But the witness who's thinking it was a male,
Now we have a female.
Light clothing, well, a lot of people wear light clothing.
We were nervous about it,
But you got to go with what you have.
You got to go with what you've been dealt.
What is interesting is that mona from a distance resembled a man.
The next step is, we want to talk to mona nelson
And see if she's the woman on the phone.
Reporter: The big question everyone wants answered is,
Could a close family friend kill a 12-year-old boy?
On December 28th, 2010, 12-year-old jonathan foster
Was found brutally murdered just a few miles from his home.
There's no more christmases.
They're done for this family.
Scrimsher: It was heartbreaking.
It really takes a monster to do something like that.
We now have a prime suspect, and her name is mona nelson.
Harris: She was a professional boxer, even fought muhammed ali's kid.
She had a checkered history herself.
She was a coyote, somebody who transport illegal immigrants
Across the border, and they get paid for it.
We have decided that we're going to conduct this interview
As a two-man interview, and we're going to alternate.
We have to be careful not to interrupt.
Okay.
She has now put herself there, not just the witness.
So the difference that we have is the timing.
We're banking on the witness' time frame rather than hers.
It's the noncustodial interview that amazed me the most
Because they can leave at any time.
They don't have to take it, but they do.
So why?
Perhaps they believe they're smarter than us.
Mona was a licensed welder.
And that's when it snapped.
She tried to get rid of the evidence.
Well, that's pay dirt right there.
Now we've got her to make an admission about her welding
And the use of an acetylene torch,
Which is what we believe was used on jonathan's body.
There's no real emotion about the loss of this boy, jonathan.
I'm going pull up the actual picture
Of what I believe she did to this boy.
We discussed the video that we get from the industrial area
Where jonathan's body is dumped.
Waters: It's her truck.
It's her, and she's wearing the same clothes that she wore
When she dumped jonathan foster's body in that ditch.
Harris: What does the team of detectives find?
She had an acetylene torch.
She had a garbage can with some leaves
That look eerily similar to the leaves
That were under jonathan's body.
And then at the bottom of that trash can
Is a child's sweatshirt that would fit a 12-year-old boy.
And we turn around, and we tell mona...
Ugh.
She looks at me and says, "I'm not a monster, you know."
I simply say, "could've fooled me."
And then she says, "I want to explain to you what happened."
What does she confess to?
Driving the truck, having a garbage can,
Going to the location on hardy toll road,
Dumping something, but then she says davis is with her.
She is simply telling us a set of details
That adds david davis into the play.
She's not admitting anything about ever seeing jonathan.
She's trying to convince us
That the person we see in the video
Isn't her, but it's david.
On the video, there is no sign of another person in that car.
No way was david davis involved in this,
And david davis' saving grace was being at a bar
That had video surveillance.
It is mona in her white welding cap and her white t-shirt.
Mona nelson was charged with capital murder.
Spence: My theory of what happened is,
Sharon invites mona to come to the house.
Sharon said, "jonathan is there. Tell him that I said
That it was okay for you to wait there until I get home."
Nobody tells this to jonathan.
The door was locked, and jonathan said,
"she's not here," and he wouldn't let her in.
Jonathan had been admonished very heavily by his mother,
"do not let anyone in when we're not here."
We know that jonathan places a phone call
To his mother's workplace.
So much time has passed.
By the time angela gets to the phone, there's nobody there.
Mona gets aggressive with that child,
Perhaps punches him in the chest,
And then it's too far gone.
She knows that the mother is on the way.
She just takes the kid
Because she doesn't want to get in trouble.
Waters: Because of his hands being tied behind his back,
That he may have been laid in a place where he suffocated,
And then once that occurred,
The next thought in mona's mind is,
"holy crap. I have got to get rid of this body."
I'm praying that jonathan died before she tried
To get rid of the body
By burning it with that acetylene torch.
Any other scenario, I can't even imagine the torture
That that young boy went through.
And that's the horrible, horrible reality of what we see
And what we know.
She burned him with this torch at her house on that rug.
The evidence leads to one person only, and that is mona nelson.
Reporter: Now, with both sides done,
The judge will decide nelson's future.
Spence: Fil waters and brian harris
Honestly were responsible for solving this case.
Mona admitted that she was the person who was dumping the body.
Without that, this would've been a much,
Much more difficult case.
We want to remember jonathan as the wonderful boy
So willing to help anyone.
I feel that, with us, he had a wonderful childhood
As short as it was.
I had this tattoo made after jonathan had passed away.
Butterflies, for me, symbolize a loved one,
And it has jonathan's initials in it, jp,
Which is what we called him.
When I think of jonathan today, I think of his smile.
That's one thing that I wish I could see again
Would be just his smile.
Waters: Looking back over this case, mona nelson ranks right up there
With some of those most heartless,
Cold-blooded killers that I've ever dealt with.
What kind of a mind can do something like that
To a 12-year-old little boy whose only birthday wish
Was to spend christmas with his mother?