[ominous music] I was sleeping on my
stomach, and apparently he dove on top of me. He had told me in the beginning
that if I opened my eyes he would slit my throat. I mean, it's-- it's the most
prolific rapist I've ever been a part of. I've never had a
defendant ask for more time and actually get
it from the judge. [theme music] [ominous music] [dog barking] KRISTINA RUTH (VOICEOVER):
But there was a dog that lived next door and the
neighbors used to let him out all the time, and
it was February. It was dark. It was cold. NARRATOR: 11:00 PM, and
the dark heart of winter comes calling, rolling up
against the locked doors and windows of Columbus, Ohio. Inside a frame house,
23-year-old Kristina Ruth hears a noise outside,
and opens her back door. I went ahead and
opened the door. And suddenly this person,
like, came into my doorway. And I went to shut the door,
and he reached out and, like, slammed the door open. NARRATOR: The man forces
his way in, turns out the lights before Kristina can
get a look at him, and attacks. We made it to the living
room, is where he had me-- had his hands around my
neck, and was choking me and was beating my
head into the floor. And he kept saying
he was gonna kill me. NARRATOR: Kristina Ruth
has a choice to make, and chooses life. She submits to her attacker, who
begins to tear at her clothes. Meanwhile, Kristina lets go of
her physical being and retreats into her mind. You pray. [laughs] You step
out of your body. It's just my body. It wasn't me. It was just my body. NARRATOR: After three
hours, the rapist leaves. Kristina dials 911, and is taken
to the hospital where semen is collected. As Columbus Police
work the case, the victim braces for
a long investigation. And there just really
wasn't much for them to go on. And I knew that, even with DNA,
it's just like a fingerprint. Unless you have a person to
go with that, it doesn't help. NARRATOR: Within weeks,
leads are run down and out, and the case goes cold. Meanwhile, a predator
remains at large, walking the streets of Columbus,
selecting the time and place for his next attack. [ominous music] It's the upper Linden View
neighborhood of Columbus, pretty much from
Webber Road north. And then he-- a
lot of his attacks were on those streets that
would intersect Webber Road. NARRATOR: John Weeks is a
detective with the Columbus PD. But he committed attacks
all the way up and down this-- this segment of
neighborhood here. NARRATOR: In the 12 months
since Kristina Ruth's attack, five more women have been
raped, each attack centered in the Linden
neighborhood of Columbus. A lot of the earlier attacks
were in this close concentrated area here. You know, the distance here
between, like, attack one and attack two, the location's
probably a half a mile or less. NARRATOR: All of the
attacks share the same MO. Even better, although the
rapist tried to hide his face, some of the victims were
able to provide the police with the beginnings
of a description. Male Black, usually six foot
or taller, a little bit heavier build, usually would commit
multiple sex offenses, usually armed with some
type of a household knife. It was not uncommon for him
to converse with the victims before, during, and
after the attacks. [upbeat music] NARRATOR: Sketches
are circulated, and residents warn to be on
the lookout for a man now known as the Linden Area Rapist. Investigators believe their
suspect will continue to hunt until he is caught. Investigators, however, are
wrong, as in the fall of 1992 the attacks suddenly stop. We often thought that he
was a resident somewhere in that neighborhood,
a current resident. But we kept-- you would think
over time that you would stumble on to him in that
respect, and we never did. So we really didn't know
where-- where he was or who he was,
obviously, and didn't know what to think about him. NARRATOR: After nearly
two years of terror, the streets of Columbus
again grow quiet. And the community begins
to relax just a bit. [ominous music] YTONNE MURRELL
(VOICEOVER): I'm sleeping. And then the next thing I felt
was someone leaning on the bed. NARRATOR: Just after
8:00 AM, Yvonne Merrill wakes to a stranger in her bed. I was scared. And then he just threw
me to my side real quick and told me not to
look, and had a knife. And-- and he was real
close to me, his face was. And then he had a
knife by my throat. NARRATOR: 8 and 1/2 months
pregnant, Yvonne begs for mercy but finds none. I did tell him don't hurt-- you know, I'm pregnant. Please don't hurt baby. And then he kneeled on the bed
and pulled my underwear down. So then, at that time, I
knew what he was going to do. So then I said, please,
please, you know, I'm pregnant. You know? But he went ahead. NARRATOR: After the assault the
rapist walks out the back door, and Yvonne calls police. Hey, John. It's Sackstetter. NARRATOR: Sergeant Jeff
Sacksteder reviews the case, and immediately touches base
with John Weeks on the Linden area rapes. Both men agree Yvonne Murrell
is part of a larger pattern. His positioning of
the-- of the victim, his entry into the house,
his language spoken to her-- He was back in that Linden
neighborhood of the city. We couldn't account for that-- that gap of time between the
'91, '92 attacks, and then his sudden reoccurrence in '94. We didn't know if he'd had been
sent off to prison, if he'd gone-- a military commitment, whether
a job had moved him out of town. We had no way of knowing. [upbeat music] NARRATOR: Detectives step
up the investigation, releasing new sketches, and
ordering a heavier street presence for police. The Linden Area Rapist, however,
continues to stalk and to hunt. Seven more women are
assaulted in their homes, and detectives are
still without a suspect. Oh, yeah. It became real frustrating. It was-- it seemed like
all the effort you put in, and you could never
get any closer to it. NARRATOR: By the spring of 1995,
the total number of attacks stands at 15, when once again
the assaults suddenly stop. We didn't know who he was. We didn't know anything about
him, didn't know where he was. If you don't know
those things, you don't know what the likelihood
of him returning is. NARRATOR: For seven years,
the Linden Area Rapist again goes quiet, his
victims making their way into the cold files, until
the summer of 2002, when the predator returns. [ominous music] It's important for each case
to be recognized as a person, and as an individual. NARRATOR: Dave McKee is a
detective in the Columbus Sexual Abuse Squad. On a slow afternoon, he
decides to take a look at a string of unsolved rapes
from the early '90s, known in the community as
the Linden area rapes. We had multiple cases here,
and we took them out of a-- out of the boxes and laid
them out in a room. And, at that time, I think
it hit home on how many cases and how many people
were really involved. NARRATOR: Original detectives
had linked cases from 1991 through 1992, and a second
set from 1994 and 1995, based on geographical
proximity and MO. McKee believes the working
theory to be sound, and uses science to confirm it. So we took the DNA
from the first series and compared it to DNA
on the second series. And it was determined that they
were both the same suspect. NARRATOR: Detective John
Weeks worked the original set of crimes, and believes
the timeline of attacks holds a key to
IDing the offender. We kind of came
to that conclusion that the number of years
that he kept disappearing would be consistent with
someone being sent off to-- to be incarcerated somewhere. A year and a half,
6 and 1/2, 7 years-- those are consistent
with prison terms. [ominous music] NARRATOR: In Ohio, DNA
from felony offenders is uploaded into CODIS, a
national databank of DNA profiles. If the Linden rapist has,
in fact, been in prison, his DNA should be in the system. In a criminal
investigation, however, should be doesn't
always work out. But we weren't given any hits. It was-- it was kind of the
situation where everybody was geared up and were
thinking, well, we're going to get hit
out of it, and we didn't. NARRATOR: McKee and Weeks are
resigned to a strategy of wait and see. Their best chances for solving
the case, slim and none, unless the Linden Area
Rapist decides to rape again. We had had a another
sexual assault occurring up in that Linden
neighborhood again. [music playing] NARRATOR: The date
is June 20, 2002. Detective Weeks takes a
call on a sexual assault that has the look and feel
of the Linden Area Rapist. When you looked at
the offense on paper, and you compared the
description of the suspects, and his characteristics,
and his behavior, and the location he had
committed the attack, and the method he
had entered the home, you felt pretty certain that
this was probably this man back again. NARRATOR: DNA testing
confirms Weeks' suspicions. After seven years of
inactivity, the Linden Rapist is back, doing what he
does best, raping women. Where has be
been all his time? What-- what is it about
that neighborhood up there that keeps drawing him back? We got to-- we got
to stop this guy. We got to get him
identified somehow. NARRATOR: The new attack causes
Columbus to assemble a task force. This time, they will not
wait for their suspect to attack another woman. Instead, they will
hunt the hunter. There was fear up there,
but there was this urgency, if you will. These people wanted him caught. NARRATOR: Detectives
revisit each case files and compare notes. What they realize is the rapist
is getting smarter and bolder. He changed area, changed MOs. When I say areas, it's just on
the other side of the freeway to the campus area. He really started
hitting there at the end. And he did a couple
on Hudson Street, going towards High Street. We realized how far he
had spread out, like, that number nine
attack over there. We thought for a number of years
that he was concentrated just in this neighborhood. His description was so-- I mean it went from one
extreme to the other, from 5'5" to 6'3". Well, it went to-- the one victim said that
she was, what, 5'11"? We had to pull everything
together from over years and years of reports. NARRATOR: Over a
period of 11 years, the Linden Rapist has assaulted
at least 16 women, none of whom got more than a glimpse
of their attacker. It kind of demonstrates when
you got a victim in a situation like that, where they may-- because it's so
traumatic, may not be able to completely give you a
full description or an accurate description. I mean, you, knew he had two-- like, there were some instances
where we had two attacks where we knew it was him
because of the DNA match. But when you looked at the
physical descriptions-- Right. --they-- there was
big disparities in it. Yeah. His MO was-- We really didn't know
who he was, obviously. And each assault just
added to that frustration. You're-- you would hope that
at some point in time he'd make a mistake. That never seemed
to be the case. So, you know, the
frustration just-- just kept compounding. NARRATOR: The task force
begins pulling in suspects, taking saliva swabs and
sending them to the crime lab for genetic comparison. More than 50 suspects
later, the Linden Rapist is still unknown, still at
large, and still active. [suspenseful music] I-- I had no idea
what was going on. And at--at first, I mean, I
was half asleep, pretty groggy. You know, all I knew was
that I couldn't breathe. NARRATOR: On a Sunday morning,
20-year-old Diana Cunningham wakes up to find a
man on top of her, his hands around her throat. DIANA CUNNINGHAM
(VOICEOVER): You know, he's telling me to shut
up or he'll kill me. And he had told me that
if I opened my eyes he would slit my throat. NARRATOR: The man
demands money, then makes it clear he is not
going to leave the apartment before he rapes
Diana Cunningham. When I just kind of realized
that this is going to happen, there's nothing I could do
to stop it, I started crying. At first, he, you know,
kept saying, shut up, stop crying, that kind of thing. Although, later on when I cried
a little bit, he would, like, wipe my tears away. [ominous music] NARRATOR: The man attacks
Diana for more than an hour, all the while insisting
she keep her eyes shut. There were times when I knew
that he could not see my face, that I did open my eyes and try
to see anything that I could. NARRATOR: Even as
she is being raped, Diana Cunningham is
collecting evidence, trying to form a mental picture
of her attacker for police. During the assault itself I-- I don't know what he
thought I was doing. But I kind of felt around on
his head, face, arms, you know, found the scar on his arm. And that was another
identifying characteristic. I got the bald spot on
the back of his head. NARRATOR: She also
engages her rapist in an almost constant stream of
conversation-- a ploy she hopes will save her life. I had actually read a magazine
article from another woman who had been raped in her own home. And that was one of the
tactics that she had used, and I remembered that. It makes them see
you as a person. Just any attacker in general--
if you can get them talking and open up a little
bit about yourself, and get them to open up a
little bit if it's possible, it just helps them to
see you as a human being. And it makes it harder for
them to attack you, really. It makes it harder
for them to hurt you. NARRATOR: Diana's
strategy seems to work, as the rapist makes it clear
he is not going to kill her. On the other hand, he is also
intent on not leaving any kind of forensic evidence behind. Basically he said,
I'm sorry, but you're going to have to take a shower. And he watched me wash myself,
to make sure that I did. And while I was in the shower,
wiped my apartment for prints, actually poked his
head in the bathroom to let me know that
he was leaving, told me to lock the door to
keep people like him out. I knew there was a house full
of just collage students, all guys, across the street. And so I grabbed a
knife from my kitchen, went across the street,
knocked on the guy's door, told them what happened. They sat with me and let me use
their phone to call the police, you know, stayed with me
through the whole thing. NARRATOR: Columbus
Police converge on Diana's neighborhood,
and immediately recognize the work of the Linden Area
Rapist, a man who has eluded authorities for 13 years, a man
whose luck is about to run out. [ominous music] This computer system is
part of the CODIS database. NARRATOR: Reena Clarkson is
a forensic scientist working for the Columbus
Police Crime Lab. The first thing she
does on Monday mornings is check with the woman who
runs the labs CODIS system. Each weekend the computer
processes any new entries into the data bank, and compares
them against unknown rape profiles. On Monday, June 7, the
administrator finds a red star beside the unknown DNA profile
pulled from the Linden rapes-- a series of at least 19 attacks,
stretching over 13 years. She said, oh my, or
something to that effect. And I looked over her shoulder
and I said, that's him, isn't it. This is the 31.38 in the
convicted offender profile matching the 31.38 38
in the unknown sample. NARRATOR: For Reena
Clarkson, the forensic hunt is over, the identity
of the Linden Rapist seemingly established to
a scientific certainty. This 22.25, and it
also matches the 22.25 in the unknown profile. This match was a match in
all 13 loci that we look at, as well as the
amyL agenda, which is the sex of the sample, which
is the best match that you can get. [ominous music] NARRATOR: The profile belongs to
Robert Patton, a name Detective John Weeks is unfamiliar with. He's a-- he's a
convicted felon. He'd been in prison in 1995. He'd entered the
Ohio Prison Systems. NARRATOR: Upon his
release, in 2001, Patton was required to provide
a saliva sample for DNA testing. Unfortunately, that sample sat
in a backlog for three years. So he's been stockpiled
somewhere for some reasons that's beyond me to explain. And it had never been taken,
and processed, and entered into that indexing
system until 2004. In the meantime, Robert
Patton continued to rape women. I believe the system failed,
not advising law enforcement agencies that, yes, we're
swabbing your suspects, but we're not running
the test from the swabs. And that was never given to us. And that's the
failure of the system. NARRATOR: Detectives now put
their frustrations aside. With a warrant in hand, they
pulled Patton off the streets, and sit him down for some Q&A. [ominous music] JOHN WEEKS (VOICEOVER): Well,
we went in there hoping that he would at least talk to us. NARRATOR: Around 5:00 PM,
Detective Weeks comes face to face with a man he has
hunted for more than a decade, a man weeks believes to
be the Linden Rapist. I was surprised how
candid he really was, and how forthcoming he
was with the information. NARRATOR: Patton reviews
crime scene photos from 19 separate
sexual assaults, and claims responsibility
for all but two. NARRATOR: Within five
minutes, Robert Patton appears to put an end to all
the questions police might have. Then Patton goes further and
tells detectives all the things they don't know. He says, well, you obviously
know about these cases, but there's more out there. There's more cases out there
that I'm responsible for. NARRATOR: That night, Patton
hops in a van with detectives, and leads them on a tour of
a 17-year career in crime. And I didn't see him
get upset, excited. I didn't see him really
show a whole lot of emotion. He's pointing out things,
and telling us to turn down this street and stop here,
and we're one street too far, and, you know,
that sort of thing. NARRATOR: As Weeks
drives, Patton talks. And detectives discover that
Robert Patton's penchant for rape is far beyond anything
they have ever imagined. He took us to 69 locations,
and of those 39 were the rapes and 30 of them were burglaries. And the list that we were
looking at and working from, primarily was 17 known rapes. NARRATOR: During the
drive around town, Patton has graduated from
terrorizing women in Columbus, Ohio, to one of this country's
most prolific serial rapists, eventually being linked to
at least 37 sexual assaults. Weeks deposits
him in a jail cell and prepares a long
list of charges. [ominous music] CHRISTIAN DOMIS
(VOICEOVER): I mean, it's the most prolific rape
case I've ever been a part of. NARRATOR: Christian Domis
handles the prosecution of Robert Patton. When he walked
into the courtroom, the first thing he said was
let's get this party started. And he's got this smile on
his face, and he's smirking. And the judge asks him,
you know, how do you plea. And he smiles and says,
guilty as charged. NARRATOR: In his first
court appearance, Robert Patton has not
changed his story a bit-- still fully cooperative,
and willing to plead guilty to the Linden rapes. The next time he
appears in court, however, Patton is
singing a different tune. And he said, well, I'm not
going to plea to anything. I want my trial and
I want it today. NARRATOR: Despite
Patton's confessions, Domis must now
prepare for the trial. Seven months later,
jury selection is under way, when
Patton suffers another change of heart. He pleads guilty to
58 counts of robbery, and 76 counts of
rape and assault, and demands the judge give him
a lot of years in jail time. At one point he said
50 years isn't enough. So the judge, after hearing that
he wanted more than 50 years, granted his request
and gave him 68. I've never had a defendant
ask for more time and actually get
it from the judge. NARRATOR: Many of Patton's
victims sat in the courtroom, and watched as the
man who terrorized them answers for his actions. For Diana Cunningham
the sentence is bittersweet, one that brings
some closure to a crime that never should have
been committed. When I found out that they
had the evidence to put him away in 2001, that just
astonished me. That, I'm still having
a little trouble with. It's-- it's very hard not to
be bitter about something like that. But, aside from that,
what's important now is just making sure that every
state reduces their backlog and keeps up on it. Had they done what
they were supposed to do in the very beginning,
it never would have happened. That was a period of time
that it was extremely sensitive. We didn't have relationships
with the police. We were a counterculture. So to call the police and to--
to actually initiate some sort of contact was a big deal. I was able to call and say, yes,
you're on to the right person. [rock music] (SINGING) Bang, bang, bang. I was going through
our cold cases at the Mendocino County
Sheriff's Department, and Lieutenant Smallcomb
told me about a case that he had worked in 1993. NARRATOR: Kevin Bailey
is a homicide detective with the Mendocino
County Sheriff's Office. In April of 2004, Bailey
opens up the cold murder book on Jerry Sullivan, a
hitchhiker found shot to death in the summer of 1975. The first thing I
do when I get assigned to a case like that is I go
through the case file itself. In reviewing that evidence
list and reconciling that with the case file, I saw that
there was a pretty particular important piece of evidence. And that was a fingerprint. NARRATOR: The
fingerprint was lifted off the inside of
the victim's wallet, almost 30 years earlier. It is a lead that takes
cold case detectives back to a counterculture revolution,
and murder, inside a patch of woods in Northern California. Well, here we're at
Navarro, California. We're about approximately
15 miles from the coast. NARRATOR: In the fall of
1975, Detective Ralph Maize and criminal technician,
Grover Betherds, walked through the woods
and into a crime scene. He was lying face down. All you could see was
the top of his head. And I recall the sleeping
bag was zipped open slightly. GROVER BETHARDS: Slightly, yes. NARRATOR: Inside
the sleeping bag is the body of Jerry Sullivan,
a cast on his left leg, and a bullet in his brain. We could not see
anywhere, where somebody had been scuffling or any
fighting or anything went on. We'd not only search
this immediate area here, we searched up-- we expanded our search
area all, you know, all up into these Redwood trees
here and all around. I remember, you know, we walked
down along the highway looking for whatever we could find. NARRATOR: Police back up an
assortment of items, including the victim's sleeping bag,
maps, and the cigarette butt discarded near the body. What investigators
don't find, however, is anything that
helps ID their victim. --no wallet, no other
cards or anything with him. And so we try-- of course,
one of the things you try for, of course, is fingerprints. NARRATOR: Bethards checks the
victim's prints against the DMV database, and pulls
up Sullivan's license. The 20-year-old is originally
from New York State, and hitchhiking up the coast. RALPH MAIZE (VOICEOVER): In
the '70s they called them the hippies, you know-- everybody living free,
and doing pretty much what they wanted to do,
kind of living for the day. NARRATOR: Detective Maize
contacts Sullivan's family members, but they can
offer no clue as to who might have wanted Jerry dead. That is, until two days later,
when Sullivan's family receives a package in the mail. Inside it, the victim's wallet. The wallet-- the insert,
including the driver's license, had been mailed back to
the address that appeared on the driver's license. It was given to me
by Sergeant Maize. And he wanted me to see
if I was able to develop any fingerprints on it. And I was able to develop a
nice print on the plastic case to the driver's license. NARRATOR: The unknown print
is entered into California's fingerprint database. In 1975, it fails
to generate a match. With the cast on his
left leg, you know, that was a pretty obvious-- Yeah. That would be pretty
obvious you saw that. Yeah. It was clean, though. NARRATOR: Mean time,
detectives continue to pick through the back
roads of Northern California, looking for anyone who
might have picked up a hitchhiker wearing a cast. [music playing] I mean, of course, I wasn't
real happy to be seeing the Mendocino County Sheriff
because, you know, at the time I smoked a lot of marijuana
and I wasn't real-- you know, what are
they doing there? NARRATOR: In 1975, Cathy Smith
is 24 years old, and living the life of a hippie. I lived in an old
apple orchard, like-- like, in a tent. And so it was living
very close to the land, and it was really nice. It was beautiful. I loved it. I loved it. NARRATOR: Three days after
Jerry Sullivan turns up dead, Smith's commune with
nature is interrupted by a visit from police. Locals in the
nearby town of Philo tell police Smith picked
up two male hitchhikers. Smith says she had picked up the
two men several days earlier, and one was wearing a leg cast. I picked 'em up, and I told
'em that I wasn't going all that far, probably five or
six miles down the road. So I had both of them get
into my car-- one in the back and one in the front. NARRATOR: Cathy Smith
is one of several locals who apparently picked up the
two hitchhikers, one of whom detectives believed
to be Jerry Sullivan. The other hitchhiker, quite
possibly, Sullivan's killer. We interviewed several of the
people that gave them rides, and I did what they called
identikit of a person's features and face. So we made up a
composite of this person. We had several different
composites made up. After we had developed the
composite drawings we were able to, in talking to enough
people, learn of a free school, they call it in them days,
up the coast from here, probably about 25
miles up the coast. NARRATOR: According
to witnesses, the free school,
called Summerhill West, was mentioned by the
second hitchhiker as a place he had once attended. Maize heads north to see
if anyone at Summerhill might be willing to talk. [ominous music] There was this huge movement,
actually, to Mendocino County. And we were part
of that movement. And even though
we were a school, they called us a commune. We were Summerhill Commune. NARRATOR: In 1975, Heidi Bohan
is living at Summerhill West, a destination of choice
for a lot of young people heading north out
of San Francisco. In October of that
year, Detective Maize arrives on campus,
asking a lot of questions and carrying the
composite sketch of his mysterious hitchhiker. That was a period
of time that-- it was extremely sensitive that
you didn't have relationships with the police. I interviewed and talked
with a lot of paranoid people. You know, they were always
wondering, you know-- you know, why-- you know, what are you
looking from me for? We were a counterculture. And so to call the police
and to-- to actually initiate some sort of contact
was a big deal. NARRATOR: Heidi Bohan
might not like the police, but murder is a serious matter. When Bohan sees the composite
sketch of the man believed to be Jerry Sullivan's
traveling companion, she decides to come forward. I thought it was this young
man that had not been there very long. I wasn't close to him. It wasn't someone
I knew real well, but his name was Bob Holt. NARRATOR: The name Bob
Holt is one of many to land in Detective Maize's notes. Efforts to track down
Holt, however, go nowhere. And it was disheartening. You know, like I said, Mr.
Sullivan the father would always-- you know,
we were in contact. And he always wanted to
hear something positive. And, oftentimes, there was
nothing good to tell him, you know? NARRATOR: An unknown
fingerprint, a hitchhiker, and a name. Jerry Sullivan's
murder is a puzzle-- one detectives won't piece
together for another 30 years. [ominous music] I was referring to the wall
of shame to the hall of fame. The wall of shame
is this when we-- Mr. Sullivan's case started. NARRATOR: Kurt Smallcomb is a
detective with the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office. In 1993 he opens up the
file on Jerry Sullivan, a hitchhiker found shot
to death 18 years earlier. When I started going through
it, just reading the case and then coming across the-- looking at the latent print
and the information like that, it was-- OK. It's workable. Let's-- you know, let's go
to work for the Sullivans. NARRATOR: Smallcomb runs the
single unknown print lifted off the inside of the
victim's wallet through AFIS, the Automated
Fingerprint Identification System. That led to the
department to just come back with a hit on Mr. Cordero. NARRATOR: Mr. William Cordero
is a resident of Oregon-- a man with no hard criminal
history, but someone with a lot of explaining to do. My reaction was, hey,
this could be our guy. We felt that, hey,
you know, this guy is going to have to have
a pretty good reason why his fingerprint would be
inside the victim's wallet. NARRATOR: In the 1970s, Cordero
had ties to the Mendocino area, often going there to fish. Smallcomb decides to
travel north, to Oregon, to talk to Cordero and perhaps
do a little fishing himself. [music playing] WILLIAM CORDERO (ON RECORDING):
What's going on here? NARRATOR: Inside an interview
room, 250 miles north of Mendocino County, Kurt
Smallcomb begins digging at the newest suspect in
the Jerry Sullivan homicide. I started going up
there, and it was all about getting the statement. Getting the statement
from Mr. Cordero-- if I can put him
in the location-- --putting himself in that
location, I'm thinking, this guy is pretty good. He absolutely denied knowing
anything about Mr. Sullivan or ever finding anything
belonging to anybody else in Mendocino County. NARRATOR: Cordero is never
told about his print found inside the victim's wallet. After their interview,
the suspect lawyers up and refuses to speak to
police a second time. Without enough evidence
to charge Cordero, detectives are
once again stymied. And the case again goes
cold until 11 years later, when a fresh set of eyes
gets involved and gives an old cigarette
butt a second look. Our victim, Gerard
Sullivan, was not a smoker. And I noticed that in '75 they
had collected a cigarette butt from the crime scene. NARRATOR: In April of 2004,
Detective Kevin Bailey inherits the Sullivan
file from Kurt Smallcomb. Bailey believes William Cordero
to be his first and best suspect, but needs more evidence
before he can charge Cordero. That is when Bailey notices a
single cigarette butt sitting in the Sullivan file. I felt if we did get DNA
off that cigarette butt, that it would match Mr. Cordero. NARRATOR: Bailey sends
the butt out to be tested. While waiting for the
results, the detective heads north with DA
investigator Tim Kiely, for another chat with Cordero. NARRATOR: Bailey and Kiely
confront Cordero with a search warrant. Initially, they don't
tell the suspect about his fingerprint found
inside the victim's wallet. He maintained there was no
contact with Mr. Sullivan. He had never hitchhiked
with anyone with a leg cast. He'd already told
us that there was no-- that he'd never found a
wallet, that he'd never seen the victim's body. And so he couldn't
come back now and say, yeah, I did find a
wallet or some excuse. So we felt it was
safe to tell him at this point about
the fingerprint. He went through
various emotional states. At one point he was lying on the
ground outside his residence, almost weeping. NARRATOR: Emotions
aside, Cordero offers no credible
explanation for the print, and is asked to
provide a DNA sample. Detectives promise they
will be back in touch-- next time, perhaps, with a
warrant for Cordero's arrest. This is the main DNA
extraction laboratory. This is where we
sample the evidence. NARRATOR: In the summer of
2004, DNA analyst Deanna Kacer has a stack of cold
cases to work on-- one of them almost
as old as she is. I was born in September
of 1974, and this-- this case happened in 1975. So, yeah, I thought it would be
interesting to do a case that was almost as old as me. NARRATOR: Kacer
pulls out a cigarette but collected from the Sullivan
crime scene 29 years earlier. She suspects DNA extraction
will be a long shot, until she notices that the cigarette
was actually hand-rolled. DEANNA KACER:
Presumably, the saliva that's in between these two
creases is somewhat preserved because it's not exposed
to the elements in any way. It's kind of smashed between
the two pieces of paper. NARRATOR: Kacer
is able to extract a partial genetic profile. Before she compares
it to William Cordero, Kacer runs the sample through
CODIS, the state's DNA database. When she does, Kevin
Bailey's murder investigation takes a turn. She says, I did get DNA
off the cigarette butt, and I do have a match. Of course, we're all assuming
it's going to be Mr. Cordero. Then she gave me the bad
news, says it was not. It came back to Robert Vaughan. NARRATOR: Robert Vaughan is a
convicted murderer now sitting in a California prison. Even better, Vaughan
carries a history of attacking hitchhikers. Robert Vaughan had
attacked a man with a rock while the two of them
were camping together in a rural area, very
similar to this murder. It's definitely one of
the reports that jumped out at both of us. And, you know, that
was almost T for T the motive that
happened in ours. NARRATOR: Bailey and Kiely do
background on their suspect. Deep in the paperwork, they
discover a second connection to the Sullivan murder. In reviewing Mr.
Vaughan's rap sheet, I see that one of his aliases
is Robert Holt, H-O-L-T. I go through the case. I find a scrap of paper that
was written by Detective Ralph Maize at the time. On that scrap of paper I
find the name Bob Holt. NARRATOR: In 1975, a
20-year-old named Heidi Bohan ID'ed a student named Bob
Holt as a possible match to a composite
sketch of the killer. Bailey tracks down Bohan and
emails her some recent photos of Robert Vaughan. I just asked her, look at the
photograph and tell me if this is the person you knew
as Bob Holt back in '75. When I opened it, I
actually immediately said, that's Bob Holt. You couple that with-- with the DNA evidence,
his violent history, and the assault that he did
with the person that survived with the rock in the
head and, you know, this looked like a sure thing. NARRATOR: Tim Kiely might
think it's a sure thing. Assistant DA Richard Martin,
however, feels otherwise. I told him I
need a confession. I need this guy to
admit that he did it or an eyewitness
that saw him do it. Because right now he can't say
that he was not at the scene. We can prove that, you know,
without any doubts at all. But we have to show that he
was involved in the homicide. NARRATOR: Bailey and Kiely
need more than a cigarette butt to make their case
against Vaughan. They decide to sit
down with the suspect and see if they can
get him talking. [suspenseful music] I told him, well, we're here
investigating a homicide that occurred about 30 years ago. And I think that
maybe you can help us. NARRATOR: Robert Vaughan
doesn't really want to talk, but remains intrigued as to how
and why detectives suspect him in Sullivan's death. He seemed very curious
as to why we were there. We told him it was a homicide. In our minds, of course,
he knows why we're there very, very well. Tim-- Tim told him
we're gonna get there. And what Tim told him is,
you're going to love it. But you're going to tell us your
story before we tell you ours. NARRATOR: Vaughan is doing 15
to life on an unrelated murder charge, and is up for
parole in a couple of years. Bailey lays out a few hard
truths for the convict-- what his life will
be like if Vaughan refuses to talk to police. What I told him
is, you know, you've been before the parole
board you've been denied. And you plan on going again. This case is not
going to go away, and you're the guy that did it. Now, you can go before
the parole board every five years for
the rest of your life saying I don't know
anything about this case. And I'll be sitting in a chair
behind you saying that you're good for it. I said, or you can
probably, for the first time in your right
life-- in your life, do the right thing
for the right reason. And he said, I think I
can clear this up for you. He goes, I can tell you
the caliber of the gun. And that started the dialogue
for the-- for the interview. NARRATOR: Robert Vaughan
provides Bailey and Kiely with a full confession,
and eventually pleads guilty to Sullivan's murder. He is sentenced, according to
1975, laws to a term of seven years to life. William Cordero is eventually
cleared of any involvement in the murder,
although the existence of his print on the
victim's wallet remains, to this day, a mystery. After his confession,
Vaughan presses detectives, still curious as to
how they got onto him-- what clue he left behind. Robert Vaughan says something
like, isn't that something? You know, my favorite show is
the "Cold Case" documentaries. I love that show. And one of us said, well, maybe
someday you'll be on that show.
