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When Brittani Marcell's mother Diane came home on September 11, 2008, she found her 17-year-old daughter bleeding and unconscious at their Albuquerque, New Mexico, home. Diane also saw a strange man standing over the teenager's body with a shovel. The stranger then threatened Diane and fled the scene before she could get help. Brittani sustained severe wounds, including head lacerations and skull fractures, but survived the assault.
While looking into the attack on Brittani, authorities found a very small amount of the perpetrator's blood at the crime scene, which he left behind while escaping. Years later, in 2016, Brittani was able to identify her attacker as someone named Justin, eventually identified as Justin Hansen. The blood evidence was later matched with Hansen's DNA, leading to an arrest the following year.
Brittani Marcell's assault case is set to feature on Dateline: Secrets Uncovered on Thursday, May 4, at 7 pm ET on Oxygen. The synopsis for the episode, titled The Match, reads:
"Diane Marcell walked into her home and found her daughter covered in blood, the attacker said she was next; a single drop of blood was the key to finding him, but it took nearly a decade to unlock its secrets."
Brittani Marcell underwent multiple surgeries, rehab, and behavioral therapy to regain her abilities after the assault
Brittani Marcell was a 17-year-old high school student when she was viciously attacked by a stranger at her family's Albuquerque, New Mexico, home in September 2008.
She drove home on September 8 from school for a scheduled lunch with her mother Diane and was waiting for her to arrive. However, the latter reached home to find her teenage daughter bleeding and unconscious on the floor with a strange man standing over her body with a shovel. Upon seeing Diane, the attacker dropped the shovel, threatened her, and fled the scene before she could get help.
Brittani was rushed to a local hospital where doctors noted that she sustained several lacerations to her head and face, multiple skull fractures, and a broken wrist and arm. They said that she was in critical condition with minimal brain activity, fixed pupils, a crushed ear canal, and severely damaged optic nerves. The teen recovered from her medically induced coma weeks later but lost all memory of the attack.
According to sources, Brittany was discharged five months later. Following this, her family moved to Texas, where the teenager was admitted to a rehabilitation center. Sadly, she lost her left eyesight and was declared permanently deaf in one ear, but over time was able to regain most of her abilities after going through cognitive behavioral therapy.
How was Brittani Marcell's attacker found after nearly a decade?
When police arrived at the crime scene in 2008, detectives found a bloody shovel, a roll of duct tape, and a knife left behind by the attacker. They also collected a drop of blood from the scene which the attacker had left behind after cutting himself on broken glass while escaping. The blood evidence, however, failed to produce a significant lead at the time, and with Brittani Marcell's memory gone, the case went cold from a lack of leads.
The case was re-opened in 2013, and the following year, Brittani was urged to undergo hypnosis to recover her memory. The practice partially helped her in remembering a vague description of the attacker as someone from work. By 2016, she recalled a name - Justin - who was then identified as Justin Hansen, who used to interact with Brittani at the mall where he worked.
Initially, Justin, who was by then, a married father of four kids, refused to give a sample of his DNA for testing and denied knowing the survivor. However, multiple witnesses remembered the two interacting at the mall.
Detectives then retrieved his DNA discretely from a McDonald's cup which matched the sample taken from the blood from the crime scene. He was arrested in July 2017.
Justin Hansen maintained his innocence but pleaded no contest to first-degree attempted murder and aggravated burglary in connection with Brittani Marcell's assault in 2008. He was given an 18-year prison sentence a decade after the attack.
Oxygen's Dateline: Secrets Uncovered will further delve into the case this Thursday at 7 pm ET.
