Warning: The following post contains discussions of murder.
Nearly two years after 16-year-old Emma Walker’s murder, Dateline aired the Season 26 episode, “Noises in the Night,” which covered her shocking death. The episode provided insight into the case, and correspondent Andrea Canning interviewed her parents, friends, and investigators about what happened before and after Walker died.
Riley Gaul was ultimately charged and convicted of Walker’s murder, which occurred on November 20, 2016. From what happened to Emma Walker to the latest on Riley Gaul, TV Insider is looking back at the notable Dateline episode.
What happened to Emma Walker?
Emma Walker was a 16-year-old honor student and cheerleader living in Knoxville, Tennessee. She aspired to be a nurse one day. On November 20, 2016, Walker was found dead in her bed. Hours earlier, her father had heard a loud noise and got up to check on his daughter and son. He saw Walker asleep in her bed and didn’t think anything of it. The next morning, when Walker’s parents tried to wake her up, she was dead.
When the police arrived, they discovered a small bullet hole in the wall. A gun had been fired from outside the house and into Emma’s bedroom. The bullet traveled through the wall of the house and hit Emma in the head.
While the investigation was underway, speculation was rampant about the manner of Walker’s death. Attention quickly turned to her ex-boyfriend, Riley Gaul. Shortly before her murder, Walker had recently broken up with Gaul after what friends dubbed a toxic relationship.
Walker had been upset over Gaul’s bizarre fake kidnapping plot and a situation where a person dressed in all black was walking down her street and attempted to get into her house. The day before her death, Gaul’s grandfather had reported his gun stolen. The stolen gun was the same caliber as the one that killed Walker.
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Gaul confided in two of his closest friends, Alex and Noah, after being questioned by the police. He denied having anything to do with what happened to Emma, but he asked Alex and Noah to help him get rid of his grandfather’s gun, claiming that police were going to pin Walker’s murder on him. After that conversation, Alex and Noah contacted the authorities. They worked with investigators to obtain Gaul’s confession and even had listening and video devices on them to do so.
Alex and Noah traveled with Gaul on his trip to dispose of the gun in the Tennessee River. When they were parked at an apartment complex, Gaul pulled the gun out of a trash bag. Police were following Alex and Noah during this undercover sting operation and arrested Gaul that night.
What was Riley Gaul charged with?
He was charged with first-degree murder, stalking, theft, tampering with evidence, reckless endangerment, possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, and felony murder. During the trial, his legal team argued that Gaul never intended to kill Walker and didn’t think he would by shooting through the wall of the house. They were aiming for a reckless homicide conviction, which carries a lesser sentence, rather than a premeditated homicide one.
It was later confirmed that Gaul lied about his whereabouts the night Walker was murdered, and location tracking put him at Walker’s home. The jury deliberated for four hours and returned with a guilty verdict. “It’s a sense of relief,” Walker’s father said in the Dateline episode about his reaction to the verdict.
Walker’s parents and the investigators also praised Alex and Noah for their bravery in helping solve the case. When they were called heroes, Alex responded, “I just did what I had to do.”
Where is Riley Gaul now?
In May 2018, when he was 18 years old, Gaul was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree felony murder, and possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony, reckless endangerment, stalking, tampering with evidence, and theft of property valued over $500.
He was sentenced to 51 years in prison. He will be in his 70s when he is eligible for parole. In 2021, he filed a motion for a new trial, but his motion was denied. Today, Gaul is currently serving out his sentence at the Northwest Correctional Complex in Tiptonville, Tennessee.
Dateline, Fridays, 9/8c, NBC