COLD CASE FILES MEGA MARATHON - Fan Favorite Full Episodes of ALL TIME | A&E

foreign [Music] went to her grave knowing a lot about a lot of people [Music] two people the same family the same year too much there to be coincidence we live in fear fear started to locate the first bone you just got a cold feeling could this be the unknown crime scene we've been looking for all these years Nation runs out of leads it becomes a Cold Case years pass and hope fails but for the families of the victims these cases are never cold [Music] the truth takes time [Music] in the Deep Woods of Appalachia Nothing Is What It Seems when her sister disappears Reba is desperate for answers [Applause] meanwhile a detective spends decades determined to uncover the one thing he knows might close the case the crime scene [Music] when zerphia was born I was just so excited because she was born a day after my birthday I was 10 years old I made her bottles I changed her diapers she was just like my real life baby doll she loved writing poems and she loved unicorns she collected them get down to like a child's level always you know wanting to joke and play and just how fun everybody's kids loved her so much she was my favorite aunt I loved her with all my heart I really think I loved her more than I loved my parents at times I myself had an amazing bond with her but it was nothing like Jeremiah's Jeremiah was zelfia's nephew he was a very quiet person he hardly ever would talk much to anybody [Music] they were sort of like brother and sister because they were so close to each other Jeremiah was raised in some pretty rough circumstances his father Eddie was gone quite a bit and I think it was a neglectful relationship [Music] there was one time zelfia and Jeremiah witnessed something really bad they were part of Eddie's girlfriends house 80 comes entails them to leave then right after they leave he burns the house down zelfia and Jeremiah they didn't go to no authorities or nothing like that they just kept it quiet told a few family members and that was it [Music] my brother had been coming back to Marion and he seen Jeremiah's truck on the side of the interstate Jeremiah was living with his friends at the time the boys that he was staying with said that he left and went to his daddy's and that was the last time he was ever saying Jeremiah Was Missing but there was no real evidence of a crime there was not a lot of concern on the part of the investigators at the time they had heard rumors that Jeremiah had probably gotten in a truck with a truck driver and gone somewhere to Texas they had hoped he was somewhere where he wanted to be on a beach in Mexico you know enjoying the sunshine zelfia knows he did not leave town Delphia had come to my house and she was just really upset she said Jeremiah would not have left without telling her and she goes I want to tell you about a dream that I had last night she dreamed that Jeremiah's on Daddy Eddie Pittman had killed Jeremiah and have buried him and put lime on him it made my heart mate so fast and she told me she was going to confront him and I begged her to not confront him because I was scared for her life she wasn't going to stop till she found out what happened to Jeremiah she was not going to stop [Music] thank you zelfia was a waitress she worked at the truck stop which was just a little ways down the road from her house Delphia would walk to work back home sometimes you know if somebody didn't give her a ride one day zelfio didn't come home after work I followed a missing persons report the sheriff's department didn't believe us law enforcement at the time felt that she's not missing she's just gone because she wanted to be gone zephia was was pretty much a free spirit she liked to have a good time it wasn't that unusual for her to decide that she was going to be gone for two or three days [Music] we had two family members missing they was making every excuse in the world they could to keep from looking for Jeremiah and selfie everybody in that Sheriff's Office was awful you could walk in and they looked at you like yours trash like you know we wasn't Worthy one time they told me to go do my own investigation to get rid of me I go to the truck stop and I start asking questions nobody wanted to talk to me about it I tried everything that I could I wanted to know what happened I wanted it for her I wanted it for us my family [Music] [Music] laughs [Music] there were some Hunters out in a remote area of our County around Lake James [Music] who ran across the remains there were some fragments of hair and some tissue adhering to some of the bones but the remains were skeletonized almost completely there wasn't any type of burial or real concealment [Music] appeared like that the body was just left on top of the ground and there had been some animal activity [Music] was also a sheet and a towel and some clothing that was identified as if I know it was her I could feel it before they even confirmed that it was heard she had suffered severe trauma to the Head [Music] her skull was almost crushed completely her remains had been dumped there there was another crime scene somewhere they just did not know where that was said Celsius remains for fan they have to they have to activate all of a sudden law enforcement says it's time to pursue this thing now we have a murder [Music] Marion is a rural community at Appalachian Foothills [Music] the mountains have their own kind of culture with our share of problems as well I took an interest in the Lowry caves early on I was working in a small town in the neighboring County I heard that there had been a body found the first day I came to work there was a case File left on the desk of one of the investigators and that was elfia's case File I've always been one that likes a challenge and so I approached the detective captain and ask him do you mind if I pick up that file and take a look at it he looked at me and he said get it take it solve it the scene where zealthiest remains were recovered as certainly one crime scene that we had if we could locate that second crime scene that's probably where we're going to find a murderer at the same time I was going through that file I was trying to digest the Jeremiah Pittman file we had two people in the same family in the same year go missing one of them turns up dead one of them's still missing these cases either have to be related or it is a real coincidence when you're taking on a case you have to pick up the ball from where it is it's kind of like drinking from a fire hose because there's so much information and it's coming at you like crazy first we needed to go back and talk to people at the last place elfio was sick the truck stop one of the individuals who discussed last C in zelphia said that she got in the car with someone but nobody knew who he was where they were going we needed to try to get some more information I visited McDowell County Jail jails can become a somewhat of a rumor meal there were people who for one reason or another wanted to interject themselves into this case one individual talked about being with some guys when they had taken a blonde-haired girl wrapped up in a sleeping bag carried her out in the woods and left her there another guy claimed that he had been asked by a drug dealer to take this girl away because she had been healed I heard 11 or 12 different versions of what happened to Delphia it was kind of a moving Target so to speak I arranged I sit down with several of the family members to see what information they might be able to give we were so desperate to try to find out something I was just happy that there was someone to listen and and try to help we had two family members missing Sophia and Jeremiah to me all signs pointed to one person Jeremiah's daddy Eddie Pittman I told detective green about zelfia's dream zelfia just knowed that that dream was telling her Eddie had killed Jeremiah if he killed Jeremiah he could kill her too Reba described a dream from an investigator's standpoint we have to deal in terms of evidence that we have and and dreams or visions um are not evidence so I said okay I really thought that Eddie did it and I'll tell you why Philadelphia and Jeremiah witnessed Eddie burning the house down for his girlfriend Rosemary so she can get insurance money if Eddie burned Rosemary's house and they had witnessed that that could be a possible motive for murder we felt like we had enough information to talk to Eddie Ed was in denial of having anything to do with Jeremiah's disappearance and he was in total denial about zelfia doesn't know anything about her murder we've got to do something with this lead here we've got to be able to develop it further or eliminate it and so we just keep working at it over the next several months [Music] thank you one day the chief Deputy came back to my office and he looked at me and he said Rosemary gehrings in the lobby wants to talk to you and I looked at him I said what about and he said I don't know [Music] she was led back to my office and came in and she had a concerned look on her face and I'm like Rosemary how can I help you today and she said well I wanted to come see I think Eddie's going to kill me why do you think Eddie would want to kill you she said because of what I could say [Music] when Rosemary walked in my office that day the last thing I thought I'd be doing would be driving her around while she's pointing where to go she had said I think Eddie Pittman is going to kill me because of what I know we ride down to this real remote area all of a sudden she stops she walks over to a ditch points in the ditch and she says it's right there start digging [Music] we spent quite a bit of time digging we weren't finding anything she walked over to the ditch she said you're in the right place but you're not deep enough continued to dig and we started to locate the first bone [Music] exactly where she pinpointed is where Jeremiah's remains were found [Music] your heart's jumping through your chest and so she began to tell the story of witnessing a confrontation between Ed and Jeremiah where Jeremiah ended up dead Eddie picked up the hammer so he could finish Jeremiah off they had taken Jeremiah's truck and abandoned it out on the interstate Rosemary had gone with him to dispose of the body part of what they did in in disposing of him was to pour the lime in the in the hole and Celsius nightmare came true her dream was killed her for a reason zelfia knew where Jeremiah was she knew exactly where he was whoa here this is not just some abstract dream this is real blunt force injury to the Head it's just like zelfia's murder Ed Pittman for heaven's sakes killed his own son killed him the same way zelfia was killed in the same county during the same year there's too much there to be coincidence was it actually a dream we don't know but she knew what happened to Jeremiah yeah [Music] we went to Ed's house a number of us went out there not knowing what Eddie might be capable of advised 80 that we had a warrant for his arrest and he was under arrest for murder and I'll never forget the reaction Eddie gave me he said who's murder [Music] now we're really convinced Eddie could have killed zelfia I said let me ask you a question what happened to Sylvia he hadn't seen her and he didn't know anything about her Eddie don't confess to nothing we haven't found any evidence to connect ed to zelfia nothing solid we've got her body that's all we have he was charged with Jeremiah's murder he pled guilty and there was a plea agreement to manslaughter I really thought that Eddie did it but he got rid of zelfian because of her suspicions of him I think Eddie Pittman got away with my sister's murder I think the family thought that Eddie could have killed himself yet but we're not finding anything sure there's a lot of speculation some suspicious circumstances but nothing you can really hang your hat on I started to think that Eddie Pittman had nothing to do with this [Music] the longer a case goes the less likely they are to be solved you know that statistically with zelfia you don't have suspects you don't have a direction to go you don't have really any indication of what happened the case was cold very cold [Music] all those years you not know hearing nothing I didn't know who killed her but I knowed somebody in that town knew something [Music] the 10-year anniversary of Sylvia's murder detective green gets a story to run in the local paper he hopes the story might spark a confession I was trying to pull it some heartstrings there emotions can be a strong motivator for somebody to talk foreign ER in jail his name was Ricky he gives us a name Ronald Ricky thinks that Ronald may have been involved in zelphia is dead several years ago Ronald had shown up in a van with a fairly significant blood stain shortly after zealthiest disappearance we are cautiously optimistic that this may be the break we've been looking for and so we'll begin trying to find that van we found the van we ultimately ended up finding it in a junkyard it had been there for a long time there were some stains in that van that appeared like they could be blood stains there's a chemical called phenolphthalein which is a test for the presence of blood and when phenolphthalein reacts with blood it turns a bright pink color it were not blood stains and so Ronald's van was not the crime scene but as if his family came to us with a suggestion that we might want to talk with Ronald Ronald was friends with my son one day Ronald had told my son that he knows what happened to my sister I remember sitting down with Ronald and pretty much one of the first things that Ronald comes with was I can tell you what happened to zelfia Ronald said that at the time that Sylvia disappeared there were two guys who lived in a mobile home near a friend of Ronald's Ronald said that his friends had gone over there one night to ask him to turn some music down and that they was real suspicious the way they'd answered the door and wouldn't let anybody in and then later that night Ronald's friends actually saw two guys moving something that looked like a rolled up carpet or something to that nature Ronald said that maybe he's hauling her body away [Music] the first reaction is could this be real this story that Ronald was telling us could have just been a smoke screen to throw us in another Direction yet at the same time he had given a pretty good description of where that trailer was we made a decision to try to find that trailer and you know it's been 11 or 12 years is the trailer even still there well Dudley went out to the area that Ronald had described I found the landlady she walked over pointed out the trailer here it is it was an abandoned old single wide trailer and she confirmed that he yelled back around 1993. there was a guy that had lived at that mobile home and she gave us the last name of Whited Robin why did at that point I got a cold feeling animals had been in the trailer just the sheer um cold feeling that I got strange very strange I don't know I almost wondered it almost had that feeling about it I don't know foreign could this really be where his Alpha was murdered could this be the unknown crime scene we've been looking for all these years we weren't sure whether this was our crime scene but we had a name this guy Robin might be able to give us some answers the landlord told us that Robin had moved back to what she thought was Richmond's Virginia area [Music] we went to Virginia seeing if we could locate this Robin and have a conversation with him I was able to locate where Robin was working at a a car dealership he was very polite and acknowledged almost right away that yeah they had partied with some girl and she had a strange name I mentioned the name zelfia and he said yeah that sounds right showed him a picture of zelfia and he acknowledged that yeah that's the girl that he had partied with he remembers this blonde-haired girl coming over to party one night that he had had sex with her but the next morning she was gone he did not know when she left exactly and he had no knowledge or clue that she had met with any kind of Foul Play if he'd said I don't know what you're talking about don't know this girl never saw her before he basically would have shut us down again and we would have come back empty-handed but now we have direct information that places zelphia at that trailer and now we're walking away with a suspect thank you we really didn't have any physical evidence against Robin but because of what Robin had said we're even more convinced that the trailer is where zelford was murdered we knew zelfia had died from extensive blunt force trauma the medical examiner had told us we likely had a bloody crime scene so we had hoped best case scenario we might be able to find some blood even after all these years it had been somewhat open to the elements so we knew we were up against some pretty staggering odds it was the ultimate Hail Mary pass myself and the other detectives were taking swabs of any place in every place that blood spatter might still be not likely but you always have that hope after several hours every one of us was just drenched with sweat but we weren't finding anything at this point he'd probably done 150 swabs sometimes you see something that you didn't see before I knew that flies were naturally attracted to blood and flies constantly excrete and regurgitate whatever they get into they're leaving traces of that somewhere I was looking up at the the bathroom ceiling and saw these dozen or so little brown specks I'm thinking it might be fly spec so I climbed up on the edge of the tub and just swabbed the specks and handed those down for analysis all of a sudden one of those swabs it lights up really get paid yes this is what we've been looking for I mean there were some high fives went up happy as we were that still didn't say whether this was zephia's blood we did not have anything to compare a sample with calls in 1994 when zelfa's remains were found DNA wasn't as prevalent a science and so there was no sample of her DNA that was preserved where do we go from here I knew we had to do it in order to get her DNA when you reach out to a family and say we're headed down this road as an investigator that's not something you take lightly [Music] told them to do what they needed to do and they wanted to know if I wanted to be there when she was zoomed but I couldn't do it I couldn't read bury her [Music] it's something that needs to be done with dignity and respect [Music] and yet at the same time you're on a search for evidence since it was just bones they put all of her bones in a little baby casket and that's how we buried her I never will forget to look on my son's face when I went home that day and I went home to change clothes he asked me why I got so dirty and uh you know explained to him he knows what Daddy does for a living and but yet didn't necessarily think about his dad going digging up a grave you know that's one of those things that stay with you but it was a pretty good day when that lab report came back I was crying I was saying oh my God the DNA matched in that trailer that's when you know you're on the right Road there's no doubt there anymore we're going to get these guys we're going to get them [Music] detective Shook and detective green came into the District Attorney's office and what they told me was that they had a suspect Robin White and now I've got a piece of physical evidence I could take to the jury this is a circumstantial case we're building a Brick by Brick by Brick by Brick [Music] Robin I'm just going to ask you about the death of Sophia Lowry I came in from work that evening Bobby had this girl's phone number do you say Bobby Bobby Taylor yes okay Robin was able to give us a name and that was Bobby Taylor Bobby has an extensive criminal record with some violent offenses on his rap sheet Robin was having sex with zilfa Bobby wanted his turn but zelfa doesn't want any part of Bobby Taylor Bobby Taylor becomes angry with silpha then slams elf his head into the floor several times Robin said that he had personally witnessed Bobby Peter to death we've got an eyewitness to a murder Robin was charged as an accessory we find out where Bobby is Bobby's in federal prison Bobby remembered this blonde-haired girl had come over to his trailer and partied one night but his story was that when he had last seen her she was alive and well so we started confronting him with some of the things that Robin said Bobby pretty well shut down and I said Bobby I've been doing this for 25 years and he looked at me and he said what you don't understand is I've been doing this for 25 years and he was sitting in prison at the time he was no stranger to trouble this was something that Bobby was kind of accustomed to before the trial of Robert Taylor Robin comes down for an interview and brings with him a videotape this is the videotape Robin White had made a long about the time of zelphia's disappearance as the trial progresses we played this videotape for the jury it's the crime scene as it was 13 years ago [Music] at one point he zeroed in on the bathroom before zilfer died argue to the jury that Robin knows what happened that he has a guilty conscience of it that he did what Bobby Taylor told him to do because he was scared of Bobby Taylor that his guilty conscience made him this videotape the jury has reached a verdict then the judge has Bobby Taylor stand up [Music] when he got up he looked and stirred each one of family members was sitting on the seats and smiled this smirky smile at us he had the devil in his eyes I seen the devils in his eyes thank you when we were able to bring this case together I felt like it was the answer to a lot of prayers mine too green and the McDonald County Sheriff's Department finally delivered justice as Bobby Taylor is imprisoned for the murder of zelfia after 15 years zofia's family finally has the truth and hopefully some comfort this is where she died right here I loved zelfia more than anybody in this world the paint's still there I still feel it I thought see it just demolished get rid of the evilness [Music] I have dreams of her she looks the same in my dreams as she did when she was 24 years old I really do think that dreams are given to us sometimes for reasons in my dreams selfie is always smiling and I'm just happy now she can rest in peace foreign [Music] to the city she comes to Ohio and she gets killed she was covered in blood when she ran from that apartment we just slipped out of his hands blood and the blood spattering is horrible homicide we knew that he was either in on it or he knew who the killer was this is my last chance she was the last suspect that we had to go on when an investigation runs out of leads it becomes a Cold Case years pass and hope fails but for the families of the victims these cases are never cold [Music] the truth takes time [Music] on a quiet Sunday morning anime Florence gets ready for a day of shopping with her family there's a knock at the door but it's not who she's expecting her killer Slips Away leaving a single clue a partial bloody fingerprint [Music] that morning anime Florence was waiting for her sister and brother-in-law to pick her up they were going to go for a day shopping Lily and Alonso went up to her apartment and I started screaming inside the apartment anime yells out to Alonso to kick the door in as he's getting ready to kick it this woman comes running now she was covered in blood when she ran from that apartment we had her tight but she just slipped out of his hand Alonso chased after and said that she was running away she told me to get away from her or she would shoot Alonso came back and they went in there and they found her on the floor and she was bleeding quite a bit [Music] they found with the core around her neck she was conscious he asked her who was that she said she didn't know and then she was gone he's been stabbed she been beaten [Music] she's been murdered just like if she's gonna oh he's taking her away from us [Music] when we entered anime's apartment apparent that there had been an extensive struggle there was some overturned furniture and then the amount of blood and the blood spattering the knife worms near her neck there's going to be probably arterial gushing squirting all over the place as she is struggling with the assailant horrible homicide they were going through that place they collected a fan a chair several large items of property out of all the evidence that they collected in that place the real evidence was a single bloody Prince the fingerprint was gold in this case the detectives caught out a portion of the wall that had one unidentified partial print it made sense that this female inside the apartment just had bumped her hand along the wall enough to make the fingerprint [Music] she was my dad's sister that I dearly loved and she was brought up here by her sisters and brothers from Alabama we brought her to the city to give her a different look of life and she comes to Ohio and she gets killed we cleaned out from the apartment there was blood where she lied on the floor the police kept saying they had nothing really to go on all they had was what my aunt told him that she was a black girl the detectives back then they used what they had to work with DNA wasn't around yet fingerprints interviews and and that's all they had the original detectives thought that the suspect lived in that neighborhood so they canvassed the area to several neighbors he did have witnesses that saw a young female dressed up really nice one door-to-door asking for money one witness had said back then it was for a funeral detectives interviewed several young girls that lived in a neighborhood that fit the description they took fingerprints hoping to get a match to the partial print that they had got from the crime scene at that point they all met with negative results and none of them could be charged [Music] at this point there's nothing we just wait for that one piece of evidence that one phone call there was a tip called in this tip had some valuable information he had been at a party and he had heard a female talking about her involvement in the homicide they have it two or three times here you have somebody that calls in on their own anonymously with information about a homicide case how great is that scratches on her hands and stuff you know I guess when somebody had been grabbing her and she had a couple bruises on her arm hell you could run all day with this stuff the only reason why I'm doing this is because you know I have people that live over there well we need all the help you want to give us your name at this time no not really he didn't want to give his name up because he had promised he would not say anything to anybody the detectives tell them you're not a suspect in this uh okay my name is Odell he provided his social security number on his birthday Odell was a big lead I know no doubt someone the suspect was a female by the name of the Navy County animal Denita we wanted to obviously talk to Odell in person I'm in the headquarters we asked Odell if he would be willing to make contact with Danita this was a big development he was going to try to help and uh trap in Danita [Music] but then all of a sudden he decided he didn't want to be involved at that point the detectives lost all contact with Odell frustrated yes I would say half the time informants disappear their world this doesn't coincide with law enforcement's World a lot of the times but with the information from Odell they still have one promising lead they were interested in tracking down Danita to get her prints and try to compare them to the print that was on the wall there was plain clothes officers looking for her and once they had located and Danita driving around in her vehicle a traffic stop was conducted she was removed from the vehicle her prints were taken right there on the hood of her car the detectors took the prints to the fingerprint unit and they compare those fingerprints to that fingerprint on the wall they thought it had to be a matchup it had to be danina the original detectives at one unidentified partial print so they were attempting to match this print to the needa they did locate her and they got a princess scene at that point that's all they had to work with and that took some time they were in there for a while if it's a poor quality print you may look at it for days there was a smear of Blood on the print it was on the wall so the quality of the fingerprint taken wasn't that good the detectives that had originally worked that back in 1987. they did good work but at that point they had nothing else to go on because nobody was talking if people do not talk to the police your chances of solving crimes are basically shot the girl's car she was gone when your information dries up [Music] an Abrupt home anime's case went to the edge of the desk and we had to move on to other cases the police kept saying they had nothing really to go on that's why it became a Cold Case my dad he just couldn't handle that he was angry everybody keeps calling it Detective find that girl who killed my sister I wanted that girl to be found so that he could have peace it actually aged him and made him a die pastor before he passed he made me promise that I would find that girl who killed his sister I knew that I had to do it after her father's dying wish Becky makes hundreds of phone calls to the police trying to reopen her aunt's case one fateful day a new detective answers her call [Music] I was at my desk and phone rang I asked her who's working on the case she's talking I'm punching the computer pulling this up making sure we actually do have a case when I saw the details that led up to the homicide you're sitting here thinking this is a true victim anime Florence Church going woman in her own home and somebody just came in and just tore that family apart senseless these people need answers to their case nobody is at peace until these cases are solved there comes a time where their case be five years old 10 years old 30 years old God wants it taken care of we pretty much started at the beginning for me to get a feel for anime I had to go to the cemetery itself and it just makes it more real for me it may not work for another detective but it works it works for me now this may be all the people may be older but to us it's new it's just happened as I was reviewing the case my focus was that we needed a new angle I wanted to look back into evidence Witnesses Prince and the crime scene try to find anything missed in the original investigation everything happened inside the apartment that's where the story is this is a aerial shot as it looks today and the crime scene would have been in this area here that has since been torn down and new houses have been built on that site the crime scene was tore down after this murder the crime scene's gone we need to find something that the original detectives missed but we were going to have to do it with the sight of the crime completely demolished all we have left is the evidence we came up with a game plan okay we're going to go over to the property room and we're going to look at the evidence this stuff has to be done you know there ain't no fiddle around with this stuff you just do it people either remember they don't remember they lie or they don't lie but your evidence never lies in Cold Case your job is to find out what happened to the victim and a lot of times you're turning back time we knew this was going to be made on Prince so we're trying to look at this evidence for Prince any identified Prince anything they missed the crime scene was really bloody you know we knew that the suspect had touched certain things this chair was kind of tipped over in a crime scene like that the fan was also tipped over and was close to the victim's body this butcher knife here is the actual murder weapon it was found laying next to the victim this door was really bloody that this poor lady she was struggling for her life in there that's what it says just by looking at the evidence at some point during the struggle the victim was struck possibly with this part of the phone by the uh suspect I'd be lying if I say it didn't bother me yeah it bothers me but puzzles not together until you check all these pieces we gotta find something else as clue before we gotta keep going here as I was going through every piece of evidence we had found some tapes there were six cassette tapes there was a second interview the whole Dell we turned back to the P informant from the original investigation Odell maybe on these tapes he said something else who even knew that those cassette tapes were even going to play after being 25 years in storage that you can recall from that conversation the lady had a social security check she didn't take the change we knew the welfare check it was still in the purse only the killer would know that the victim had a welfare check in her purse during my conversation and she had a little bit and the lady had a social security table she didn't take the check no she didn't take the kids just the paper money and there's no way that that information had been leaked out to the public the only reason that Odell would have known about that check being in the victim's purse is if he had been told by Danita if we could find a better fingerprint I could put her inside that apartment in 87 traffic stop was conducted her prints were taken on the hood of her car at that time just one print was noticed at the scene but it was a partial fingerprint we couldn't match that print up with Danita what other evidence do we got I have to use those photos from 25 years earlier and these things together I want to see it so I'm trying to place things where it had been documented animes purse was laying there right by the kitchen counter close proximity of where anime was found on the floor there was a lot of blood it was a violent scene it was a lot you could tell that there was a big struggle inside that place and you're talking a small apartment there was blood on the phone phone cord and the phone had a lot of blood on that anime must turn her back the suspect struck her on the head with the phone anime could have possibly grabbed a knife from the kitchen in self-defense the suspect would have overpowered anime taking the knife from her then proceeded to stab anime then somebody came to the door which would have been Anna's brother-in-law Alonso next to the window by the front door because that's where she had left a bloody fingerprint on the wall I'm looking through the graphs there was a sense that there's something wrong something's missing something's not where they're supposed to be did I miss something I'm trying to find something that the original detectives back in 1987 had missed some things seemed out of place there was a jar of mayonnaise sitting on the chair by the front door just kind of stood out it just seemed in a weird location probably wouldn't have paid too much attention to it if the mayonnaise was on the kitchen count she made a sandwich for lunch that mayonnaise jar wouldn't be sitting on the couch and be in the kitchen maybe Danita touched the mayonnaise jar [Music] so I started looking at the the evidence list they got the fan and phone and the knife lo and behold that jar of mayonnaise had been collected [Music] I want to see the mayonnaise jar proceeded to the property room with Kim Bladen Examiner and we looked for the evidence we're pulling all the evidence out and I mean we pulled everything out foreign the detectives back into that era in the 70s and 80s they didn't have the technology now there's new technology where we can retest evidence that jar was brought back to this lab and it was processed by super clue fumi they use super glue and they put it in a little metal tin with some water in the Heat and it will fume and it adheres to all the sweat that was left behind I looked at this over and over and over again with my magnifier and I really examined the whole entire thing and then right where the rim is there was a fingerprint I'm like holy crap after 25 years in storage she found a print on this mayonnaise jar and she says this is a good print the strange thing is that fingerprint flowed in the wrong direction on how you would open a jar because you know most people would grab it like this twist like that but this fingerprint was just like that as if the mayonnaise jar was held upside down maybe as a weapon probably when the person knocked on the door she panics and picked this up you're making sense let's just compare danita's Prince to that fingerprint on the mayonnaise jar and then we got her I go over to the property room and look for danita's fingerprints but they're not in the file they're gone we found out that the detectives lost the fingerprint card unbelievable we needed to have her fingerprinted again so now we had to track down Danita you know luckily there had been a warrant out for Danita a real real light worn it pays the right people for jaywalking you know how many cases you know you saw by just uh someone being issued a warrant for something so small they arrest her and they bring her into headquarters and Recovery fingerprint Ralph brings me this fingerprint card and says Kim you need to do it quick paired that to the known primp of the mayonnaise jar while Kim was going over you know you know the fingerprint seeing if it was a match we're doing a good interview Kathy could be a bull she's wanting her admit that she killed that woman but she won't the only problem was we only got a certain amount of time it's a jaywalking Warren it's not a murder War we can't keep her here for 12 hours for something like this if you're interviewing your suspect and this is your one and only interview and you throw something out there that they know is crap you're done it was a lot of pressure because we cannot make any mistakes we have to be 100 accurate after 26 years finally we found that one piece of evidence that we needed thumbprint on the Manny's jar and sitting in an interview room on a jaywalking warrant we got our suspect Danita I'm looking at the print looked at the mayonnaise jar that's not Danita the prince did not match we're back to square one Kathy can call me like two or three times a week you could tell that she really wanted to solve the case it made me feel good to tell stories about my aunt anime was born in Alabama things were different in the south restrooms still has black and white on them and they were also still sitting at the back of the bus the Ku Klux Klan was very prevalent it was a different time when Annie Mae's husband died she didn't have no kids my father sister did she come here to Columbus and my aunts sisters and brothers they felt as though had they left her in Alabama she would have still been alive family didn't deserve that this woman didn't deserve that as a detective they're putting all their trust in you to solve the case it doesn't make any sense at all why would Odell implicate Danita either he was in on it or he knew he was involved the original detectives lost 30 years ago they just let him go so I did a search on driver's like after a couple days we had Tracked Down his new home address we kind of felt like this is it we need to finish this up we went out to talk to him armed with a tape recorder and the tape we said O'Dell we have to straighten this out [Music] okay my name is Odell okay that is you on that tape 65 Edinburgh and he said yeah that's my address that's my social security number but that's not my voice and I was living I've had it you know this is on tape here you know they recorded you back then who else would it be he said that's not me I'll tell you why yeah that's my previous address but the way that guy's uh spelling Edinburgh I I couldn't have spelled that like that because I can't read and I can't write it kind of shocked me but it hit me with uh he's telling the truth he can't read and write this case is really weird because they informative provided accurate information however the information about his own personal identity and the identity of the suspect was inaccurate and it gets all emotional tearing up Brian and he gets scared because whoever's on this tape is providing officers with his name his Social Security number so the next question to him is who do you know that knows that much about you and he uh listen to the tape several times said you know who that sounds like my cousin Chris back in 87 Odell used to apply for jobs at an unemployment office his cousin Chris would always go with him and his cousin Chris would fill out his applications back in nineteen eighty seven Chris is the one who wanted headquarters and saying he was Odell the original detectives didn't look at a picture ID how stupid is that I want to meet Chris in person I want to look at him I want to talk to him I mean not over the phone alone I want to sit across the table from him I want to look him in the eye if there was one person that could tell us the truth as to what had happened it was Chris at this point we have identified our informant and we have his real identity now we need to interview him so we hope to the residents his mom answers the door and he's sitting right there [Music] we finally are face to face with our informant he was getting nervous [Music] if you called in that tip back in 1987 you're not thinking that 20 some years later you're going to be sitting across a couple of detectives and they're going to hit you with the facts that would make me nervous explain to him we're trying to find out who killed this woman and good cop bad cop stuff forget that you got two homicide detectors sitting in your house and I want to know what's going on [Music] he denied anything about a tip he denied it so I said you're the one that initiated this you're the one that started this back in 1987. we're just trying to finish this up Chris was not forthcoming with any information Chris family members are calling and they want to know what happened to their aunt if something happened to your relatives when you want us to be doing this and he continued it on it we're at a point where okay he's not going to admit it what can we really do I'd have to say the turning point was his mother I had Chris's mom listen to that cassette tape and I said do you know who this voice is we need Chris to tell us the truth told her son you tell him detectives what you know too much time's gone by you be honest with them there was some trembling in his voice he said that he did call on the tap [Music] he does admit to knowing Danita he said she's innocent somebody else did it then he told us what some other girl had told him back in 1987 the day after the homicide had taken place [Music] he said we were just friends she came over and sat on my porch and she had to tell me something she said that she owed a drug dealer some money and she was going door to door asking for money anime had given her a couple dollars she saw there was more money in that purse that's what took over this is all we need from you we need a real name and he said Xena Roberson and he says I've held on to this for all these years just because she was my friend he had posed as Odell because he wanted somebody arrested for that homicide he just didn't want Xena and he had heard that Danita was involved in some illegal activity thought that okay she'll go to jail for this and I'll feel a lot better you know knowing I kept my secret with Xena for 26 years you keep that secret the family didn't need 26 years of unknown if we had not confronted him he would never have said anything Xena was the last suspect that we had to go on this is my last chance that case goes back up on the show Xena was the last suspect that we had to go on this is my last chance the name Gina is a real uncommon name but in our searches you have to have more in a name we knew that Xena lived two doors down from where Chris used to live back in 1987. after doing a computer check come to find out she had a driver's license when she was 16. finally we get a hit she was arrested in Georgia a shoplifting charge so her prints are on file had to send away for the prince they were actually in Georgia Kathy said Kim if this isn't her you're not gonna look at any more people this is it we're done these prints are gonna put her in that house or the case goes back up on the Shelf I'll call Becky up and say hey Becky we gave it the best shot we had I have nothing further to run with these fingerprints pulled out zeta's fingerprint card I looked down on my desk with my magnifier make that right thumb look at it kind of raised up so I look at it again car we got her Xena we know that the fingerprints match but we don't get happy until we make an arrest this is the first new suspect in 26 years and as a possibility she's somewhere in the Rome Georgia area [Music] we got to the wrong police department and we met with the detective that was going to assist us because at that point we wasn't sure if Zane was there they said that what we normally do for stuff like this they they have a Facebook so they took the picture of her put on their Facebook page they didn't say what for but they just said has anybody seen this woman I don't think it was two minutes they got a response a person answered and said this is a lady I see at the bus stop at this intersection every morning and we went wow we said we have this address we want to check we get to her apartment at that point you know you're kind of on alert you don't know what's going to happen Michelle opens that door so when you make your move you got you got to make sure you're making a rain move it was 10 15 people in there that might be a real bad situation the door opened and uh I wasn't even sure right off the top my head that was her he answered the door she could have slammed it in her faces but she didn't you know and I said um you know we're homicide Cold Case detectives from Columbus Ohio you could kind of read it on her face it was kind of like between shock and relief kind of like I knew you were coming I didn't know when but I knew this was going to happen she invited us in and uh she reached to the lens of the couch you know to ease herself into the seat and I've never seen anything like it but every poor on her body opened up [Music] and I mean it looked like a river coming from the top of her head all the way down you describe it as a poison and it poisons your system and it poisons your whole life because you're you're not running but you're not turning yourself in either nothing needed to be said it was just body language you know she kind of looked down she knew I know why you guys are here because I used to live in Columbus but I don't know anything about a homicide and uh I said well you're gonna have to you got to come with us [Music] we had her yeah [Music] we start the interview and of course right away we want to you know we want to get that get through that rights waiver get that out of the way [Music] a lot of our suspects they want to know how caught they are and once they realize they're caught they don't want to play anymore you can almost hear her thinking the real element we needed was her to admit she had never been in that apartment because we knew we had evidence putting her there is the only one that can tell us that is you what's the word lawyer comes out of their mouth your interview's over however they say it you think I need a lawyer will somebody call me a lawyer and I'm just getting the feeling that she's gonna say the word here in a minute so I pulled out a picture of the victim I kind of wanted to shock her into this apartment we had her a new apartment we have two separate fingerprints from Xena inside anime's apartment help yourself you said it three times I believe she had never been inside anime Florence's apartment [Music] [Music] she just wasn't somebody you just threw away she was somebody to care about and I did love her and I still love her and she meant a lot to the family I spoke out for my aunts in the courtroom I don't know if she cared or not but it made me feel good to tell her [Music] Kathy Justice and Ralph Taylor bring closure to anime's family after 27 long years the mystery of who killed anime is finally solved we love them and we appreciate everything they did for us and we appreciate you guys all hanging together as family family is important before there was not an ending now there's the ending well you know anime she deserves some justice I know it was the first time I really started feeling peace I have felt that her spirit now can rest [Applause] thank you [Music] I think Brad knew something was going on and they killed him for it [Music] this young man is murdered in a violent and horrific manner I was blaming God for what happened he was a good guy and why would God let him die this piece we know that the suspect handled and I'm thinking this case may actually get solved when an investigation runs out of leads it becomes a Cold Case years pass and hope fails but for the families of the victims these cases are never called [Music] the truth takes time 22 year old Brad Perry works at the local gas station in the close knit community of Brigham City Utah to earn a little extra money for college and his upcoming wedding Brad decides to work the night shift but by Dawn he'll be brutally murdered and the small Mormon Community where he lives will never be the same again [Music] on Memorial Day Weekend 1984 two students Sabah and barish studied all night for a final test they wanted to put the books aside and go for a drive and have some breakfast that was one trip that they will never forget approximately 350 to 4 a.m the two students arrived at a gas station they pulled up to a self-service pump someone came out to serve them which they thought was unusual they were explicitly told not to go into the store and asked what they wanted the student who was driving specifically asked for five dollars in fuel and gave this attendant five one dollar bills the other student wanted cigarettes and gave him I believe a five dollar bill the attendant returned to the store to retrieve the cigarettes came back out the cigarettes came to one dollar exactly which was also odd and four one dollar bills were returned to the student and all of a sudden they noticed wet blood transferring from this person's hands they noticed that he had blood on his fingers and also on his shoes Italy they in their words decided they better get the hell out of there stopped about five or six miles down the road at the next phone booth [Music] within five minutes two officers arrived too [Music] the officers noticed that there was blood on the tile that led to the back room [Music] [Music] a person was laying in a pool of blood bound with a wire behind his back he was deceased the victim had been stabbed with a foot long screwdriver that penetrated through his upper chest there was a large cast iron bell appeared to be hidden the side of the head with that and had a skull fracture from that the coup de grat was a large soda canister would weigh probably in the neighborhood of 40 pounds that was used to crush his skull a wallet in his back pocket had a driver's license ID it was quite traumatic for the officers because both officers had known the victim personally in fact everyone in Brigham City knew Brad Perry [Music] Brigham City was a small bucolic almost sort of a Mormon Mayberry kind of a place [Music] many people were related everybody knew everybody the victim and his family [Music] they're well known for being good people Brad had everything going for him he was engaged to be married he worked full-time went to school so there was a heartfelt concern for the family back in 1984 my mom and my little brother and myself all left on a trip to go to California and go to SeaWorld Brad stayed behind he would take extra shifts at the gas station and this time he took a graveyard shift to work overnight because he was trying to save money for college and to get married when we left the Sea World a friend of my husband came and said he heard we were down there and he was in Southern California so he thought he'd give me a ride back to the motel we obviously didn't have cell phones back then my dad knew we had to be notified he said well I've got a friend that is a fireman down there and he could do it we go back to the hotel [Music] so he took my mom into another room and told her that her son was dead and I said well what happened to him he's well somebody killed him like that I just lost it we started to drive toward Utah [Music] and then I remember us on the freeway in California getting a flat tire the worst part for me was to see my mom get out and get physically ill [Music] I was the oldest son at that point with my brother God and I just was like as a as a man I was like I got to protect my mom but there was nothing I could do for I could just see she was physically ill and I was thinking wow this is it I just couldn't even hardly fathom what I was seeing foreign the two students from the gas station Sabah and barish they were brought in for questioning they had a police sketch artist who attempted to sketch the attendant that they saw come out and serve them as they were there at the gas station Sabah became frustrated with the sketch artists inability to capture what he believed he saw quite a good artist and he actually sketched two sketches they were very consistent with their description of the suspect's eyes [Music] and they talked about the emptiness looking into those eyes and how dark they were [Music] the officers tried to get all the information on the victim and his duties at the station they determined that it is highly possible that someone that works at the station was evolved in this crime for example when barish and Sabah pull up to the gas pumps the gas pumps have to be reset from inside the gas station somebody would have to know how to do that and then you have the fact the floor safe was opened up Brad had no access to that the only person that had a key to that floor safe was the assistant manager Thomas nager Thomas nanker That was supposed to show it up for work at 6 A.M didn't show up [Music] the police had the the crime scene secure they had the owner of the station there then they noticed it Thomas nager is in the background of all the people behind the tape he was expected to report to work at six o'clock on the morning of May the 25th and he did not he didn't just come forward which kind of brought red flags the police described his demeanor as being nervous kind of scared they also noticed that the composite that the witnesses Drew resembled Thomas nager police asked Thomas how come you didn't show up for work he eventually said that he did oversleep that he was at home Brad was supposed to call him and wake him up that didn't happen that's why he didn't show up in the 1980s fingerprint evidence was where DNA is today the technicians that dusted for the prince told us that they could tell a fingerprint just like they recognize a face they brought in one of the internationally recognized fingerprint experts from West Valley City in Salt Lake who diligently were trying to make some sense out of the fingerprints they had the insight to use a forensic vacuum to vacuum the fight area and it's from that vacuuming that we were able to locate some hairs there were hundreds of prints that were compared and yet Tom nager's fingerprints weren't found Thomas snager's Prince should be at the station he worked there for years they should be all over that place we had to release him but nager was still considered a person of interest [Music] it was evening when I finally pulled in in my driveway and my friends first added there that was hard that was the hardest part because then I think this is real when we got home of course everyone wanted the story there were already newsmen here at the house yeah my parents have been best friends with the Perrys for as long as I can remember my father was very much involved with helping Perry's deal with the media the reporters would camp out on the lawn they were like vultures and my father would go and tell them they needed to give them space [Music] later on that evening officers traveling on Highway 89 noticed a male walking southbound who'd match the description of the suspect that the students provided when the officers stalked Mr Ellsworth they noticed blood not only on his shirt but on his hands their thought was we've got the suspect foreign they bring in the students who witness the person come out and pump the gas neither student said that Mr Ellsworth was the person that came out and pumped the gas [Music] it's disappointing a lot of people thought they had the suspect there aren't enough links in that chain to make it link up we just wanted something to go forward you keep praying something's going to happen and it doesn't [Music] Perry's after burying their son needed to get away it helped when we went to Montana because we got it was to get our minds off of what had happened hopefully and something more positive in our minds at that point but when they came back they noticed that their home had been vandalized and burglarized whoever did it broke into her house vandalized it stole some stuff and even went so far as to defecate in Brad's bedroom why would somebody do something like that I have to admit that I am the one that said why don't you look next to her I thought Craig Martinez was involved Craig Martinez lived in the same neighborhood as the Paris and was certainly not a model citizen by anyone's stretch of the imagination Craig Martinez did have criminal history people that were around Craig did not want to set him off because they knew how violent he could become the police searched Craig Martinez's bedroom they found items from that burglary under his mattress crime looked highly personal police had some witnesses come forward who said that Craig Martinez came up to a party up above Brigham City the night of the murder with blood on his clothing in looking at Craig Martinez and the burglary at the Perry's house the police found out that Craig Martinez was friends with Thomas nager in doing several interviews detectives determined that Thomas nager was dealing drugs at the gas station thank you in the mid 80s in that Community there was a lot of drug activity I always thought the kids went to Salt Lake or the big city in Ogden or somewhere further south and they got their drugs there to know that they were selling it out of this convenience store that people knew that's where to go buy it that was a little bit more of a shock than I expected [Music] Craig Martinez was somehow involved with nager as a purchaser or otherwise involved with nager's drug distribution scheme did Brad Perry somehow become aware of the fact that Tom Nader was dealing drugs out of the store Brad was a good kid if somebody's breaking the law Brad would have said something or even called the police the theory came up that Brad knew something was going on and they killed him for it Brad Perry was 6-1 and he had great strain it would have taken two people Craig Martinez and Thomas nager to do what they did to him Craig Martinez his nickname sums it up they called him monster it's because he would lose it over nothing we get the warrant on Craig Martinez to collect his fingerprints and to compare it with the evidence that we have [Music] but again we couldn't make the link between the fingerprint evidence that could be found and a suspect at that point there was not enough evidence to charge either Martinez or nager with something related to Brad Perry's homicide was terribly frustrating everything was calmed and re-combed and combed again we needed at the very least a witness or some evidence that would Vector to a particular person [Music] the case was just largely at a dead end it was a Cold Case [Music] for Brad's family the pain of the loss remains fresh they try to restore purpose to their lives without the person who held them together now we're talking two and a half three years after the murder nothing's really been done we didn't think they'd probably ever solve but we thought we just we were through and that's not fair you missed Brad whether it's cold hot or whatever it is because he just was such a good person [Music] I was angry and frustrated I just kind of backed away and started to separate myself from my parents my family [Music] Lee decided to alter his driver's license to get beer which the LDS church does not allow I was struggling not only that he'd been killed and and I'm thinking why would God let him die and it was about that time when I discovered Brad's journals as members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints we are encouraged to keep track of our history Brad liked to write in his journal what he was thinking what he was filling After High School Brad was serving an LDS mission on his mission he was riding his bike and he had a terrible terrible accident he was in a major trauma unit down in Louisiana he had severe facial injuries the message I got from his journal was these things are not God's fault they happen sometimes these kind of things become challenges for us and God will bless us to overcome them and that's where the journal brought me back from a negative direction of being mad [Music] Sheriff Jensen came to me and said I know you're new and detectives but I want to give you the Perry case and I about fell over in my chair I'm a spiritual person the first thing I wanted to do is meditate with the Lord I was in my office one day and I received an answer in my heart that this was going to be Saul [Music] I started to review the case the photographs fingerprints and so on I watched the crime scene video maybe a hundred times trying to see something that possibly we missed we had this hair found at the scene that was been sealed and collected what I realized was it had never been analyzed we needed to compare the hair at the scene to the main suspects Craig Martinez and Thomas nager we picked Thomas nager up on the way to the station he became irritated and blurted out that why do you have me you know Craig Martinez killed Brad Perry [Music] Thomas nager prompted me to get the warrant on Craig Martinez to collect his air and to compare it with the hair found at the scene that has been sealed and collected I get a phone call one day A friend of mine who worked in a police department and they say hey did you hear they have a suspect in your brother's murder case that's the first time I knew they'd open the case up and I was like really they weren't giving us a lot of Hope and then all of a sudden we hear that they were going to the state prison where Craig Martinez was and that's when we realized they were going after the bear on Martinez they wouldn't be looking to match the hair if they didn't think he was a viable suspect at that point and I'm thinking this case may actually get solved [Music] at the time Craig Martinez was an inmate at the state prison the SWAT team has to bring Martinez down because of his violent history so they bring him to me and he is shaved completely he turns to me and he says I guess you won't be getting my hairs why would you shave yourself from head to foot if you had nothing to do with this crime I mean it's not like he's on the State Penitentiary swim team from a common sense perspective who does that absent an intent to obstruct Justice the nurse actually said uh I'll find a couple we found him and she found two on his nipple getting the hair evidence was to facilitate a hair fiber comparison if that hair sample if they can find hair on him and match those two we might actually find out who did this [Music] they do the hair it doesn't match now does that logically prove Craig Martinez wasn't present absolutely not it simply proves he didn't contribute that particular hair we're like okay great now what at that time I didn't feel anything but discouragement so I said many prayers on behalf of the Perry family and I put their name in a prayer box at the temple Heavens that's where Amy came in I wanted to try to do as much as I could for this case and for the parries to give them some peace Brad would babysit for my parents when they would go and play cards with Claudia Newell he used to like to be the monster underneath the blanket he'd put a big blanket over the top of him and you know if you came anywhere near the blanket he'd be he'd grab you and you know take a Leanne and he was just wonderful she had gone through law school and was a lawyer approximately 18 years after Brad's death I ran for County attorney I just knew that it would go cold if I didn't do something I sat down with Scott Cosgrove I asked him we tested all the evidence that we have for DNA and he told me no at that point in time DNA testing was in its very beginning stages in the state of Utah and they were pretty parsimonious with their willingness to test things we had to go to our County Commission to get some additional funding and Amy facilitated those additional funds results from the DNA testing are reported to us all of the DNA related evidence was Brad Perry's blood it was incredibly discouraging for me frankly we didn't really have anything to be able to move forward on a trial and that's when I remember there's one last thing to be rechecked [Music] the blood on the dollar bill [Music] all these years the dollar bill had been stored at the State Crime Lab preserved in their freezers the State Crime Lab tried to convince me that the blood on the dollar bill was a victims and I said well okay if it is it is but this piece we know that the suspect handled and it's been in your custody ever since [Music] a month or two went by and that's when I received the call Scott tells me that we had a hit but the name he gave was somebody we had never even heard of who the hell is Glenn Griffin we have a DNA hit on the bloody dollar bill and it belongs to a Glenn Griffin so I immediately did all the research on who is this guy Mr Griffin the time was in federal custody in Lompoc California serving time for operating at clandestine meth lab he'd been in and out of a jail and prison for almost all of his adult life we immediately get a hold of Griffin's probation records so we can start to build a sense of of who his friends are who his family are that's how we located his mother [Music] driving over the hill to Hiram not far from Brigham City that's where Glenn's parents live I meet with them and I just ask them to tell me about Glenn the mother said that they had problems with him as he grew up he was acting out stealing money out of the till at the store harming animals and I asked for photos of him in 1984 to compare it with a suspect sketch [Music] it was an exact match however I was convinced that Glenn didn't do this alone and I asked who he associated with and she said that he was always with his buddy Wade Bond they got into criminal activity and drugs together she explained Glenn was the leader he often threatened weighed or made fun away so Wade was kind of a follower Wade was the weak link and if anybody would give me good information it would be weighed just after Brad's death Wade moved to Spokane Washington and doesn't come back based on that information I traveled to Spokane Spokane police said that Wade was a witness in another investigation so I said can we use that to get weighed to your Police Department where we could interview him and they said sure okay so we got your permission to to record this and that's when we said Wade this is not about that incident that occurred here in Spokane this is about the murder of Brad Perry in 1984. this is the crime we're talking about oh my God Wade I I can't express this enough you've got to be open and honest with us so what happened when you got him in the back room at first Wade didn't want to talk look at this kid he's 22 years old he had a fiance he had his whole life in front of him and somebody snuffed it out but then we got into the conversation and I says Wade Glenn is being released from federal prison and you could see the blood just strained from his face [Music] early in the morning you know I did I do remember it Wade was at the station with Glenn and they got in an argument with Brad over beer the dispute arose over change that Mr Griffin was supposedly entitled to Brad told them to leave the station immediately so Glenn became irritated and confronted Brett gotten an argument Glenn went berserk that became violent escalated into a physical altercation in the front of the store as that's occurring the students show up out front Glenn goes out at that point Brad was still alive Glenn comes back inside the gas station Brad is taken in the back Glenn tortured him [Music] and then he killed Brad Perry and I says Wade I understand a lot of that it's being truthful however there's no way Glenn did this on its own and he said this and I'll never forget it I was on the guy's legs all I did was help tie him up and keep him down [Music] he said once Glenn goes off I can't stop [Music] Curative Glen okay real scared the county attorney said that Glenn will be on a bus Monday because he's being released there was a short clock we were under a stopwatch because if it's released we knew that he would disappear and we would never be able to find him no we knew that Mr Griffin was due to be released from federal custody in the next several days and so Cosgrove immediately went down the interview Mr Griffin [Music] when I first meet Mr Griffin I immediately see those dark beady eyes that the witnesses described and I knew at that point we have the person that killed Brad Perry he was familiar with the station where Brad worked but he claimed that he's never been to that station that's when I told him we had a hit on his DNA on a bloody dollar bill that came from the crime scene I said how do you explain that his claim was that his blood must have got on a dollar bill because he was always cutting his hand at work and then it would have passed in the Stream of Commerce to the gas station and at that point he stopped talking we knew the case was going to be difficult to prosecute as it was because it's 30 years old and so we needed evidence that was beyond A Reasonable Doubt we did have what Griffin's buddy wademann told us about what happened that night but he feared Glenn even though Wayne mon was granted immunity he nevertheless refused to testify at this point we know we have substantial evidentiary problems we need to look at what do we have that could help us Place Mr Griffin at the gas station still had the hairs that were found around the crime scene as we're proceeding to trial the opportunity came up to have the mitochondrial DNA test which was a brand new technology had never been used in the Utah court and we were able to compare the hairs with Mr Griffin's DNA and we have a DNA match that he made an absolutely Ironclad unanswerable case he might be able to explain why his blood was on the dollar bill he might have been able to explain why his hairs were in that store he certainly could not explain both of them at the same time together with the drawing in a way that was anything other than he in fact murdered Brad Perry yeah [Music] Mr Griffin's friend wademann was tried and the jury found him not guilty that was a grave disappointment to me but I respect the jury's role in this case [Music] despite the acquittal of wademon the conviction of Glenn Griffin gives the Perry Family some closure and helps heal a wound left open for 24 years [Music] I was satisfied that this was salt I'm convinced that Brad was with me on this journey and he wanted me to find some peace for his family [Music] well that helped me probably the most is the gospel is the church I belong to [Music] I feel that Brad's Fine he's just on to another sphere and I feel like I'll see him again because of Brad and because of his death led me to where I'm at and allowed me to do the things I've been able to do I became a law enforcement officer to protect good law-abiding citizens from being hurt from people who are doing bad things and that's what I do every day when I go out and do my job try to find the Glenn Griffins of the world [Music] they seen the girl being taken that's how I found out that Shawna was kidnapped I just walked out on the bridge and I looked down and there she was you get a sick feeling in your gut you know I'll never forget what happened to her Darkness conceals a lot of evil he said it's basically a cold case it's basically dead I said yeah so is my daughter when an investigation runs out of leads it becomes a Cold Case years pass and hope fails but for the families of the victims these cases are never cold [Music] the truth takes time [Music] [Music] it's Halloween in the Rust Belt community of Oil City twelve-year-old Shauna Howe is leaving a Girl Scout party her best friend offers to Walker the extra block home Shawna goes it alone she would never be seen alive again in Halloween would change forever [Music] I used to love Halloween I used to love to dress the kids up Sean of loved Halloween too [Music] she loved trick-or-treating she loved just anything to do with it that year she wanted to be a gymnast [Music] I remember that morning Shawna come over and she says mom I've got the Girl Scouts tonight we've got the Halloween thing we're going up to the nursing home she got dressed in her outfit she had tights on and a body suit and she had gloves on her arms I believe she give me a kiss and a hug and told me she loved me [Music] and then she was gone and that was it [Music] they got out of Girl Scouts at between 7 30 and 8 o'clock Shauna and Joey Ellwood left together nobody was there to pick up Shauna because I forgot they come out of the alley where the Girl Scout meeting was and at the corner there Joey L went straight down and Shawna made the left and was coming up the street [Music] I was looking for her as it was getting dark I believe is the time change just that week or so Lucy calls and I said you know Sean ain't home yet what time's that girl scout stuff she says that should have been over I started getting worried I mean even the latest party for the Girl Scouts wouldn't last that late I told John to call like the hospitals to see if there had been any type of accidents or anything because I didn't have a cell phone by the time I got home it was 10 o'clock there's no way she'd have been out there that long and that's when I started panicking I just called the police the police showed up they come to the house maybe she was lost maybe she stayed at a friend's I think that was the hope and then other reports started coming in you know they have the little walkie-talkie things and there was a squeaky thing on there they had this guy Peyton at the police barracks and he's saying that they seen the girl being taken and that's how I found out that Shawna was kidnapped Dan Peyton was walking on West First Street in Oil City we saw a little girl walking on the other side of the street he then sees a tall skinny guy wearing a ball cap he hears a short screen she was grabbed and taken into a car that left immediately Dan thought it was a small red carp this is before the cell phones so then he now at eight o'clock at night has to knock on doors to have somebody call the police station [Music] I was a patrol officer on the night shift 11 at night till seven in the morning we got called in to help look for Shawna Howe there's a lot of emotion involved there's a little girl missing how could this happen it was almost unbelievable one of our children will miss it right away we set up a roadblock you stop people you talk to them you ask them if they'd seen anything suspicious everybody's looking early on at least 20 to 30 Law Enforcement Officers looking for Shawna we're looking everywhere we're talking to people on the street going back over again to the intersections the area we start to look for the vehicle driving the streets just literally doing grid patterns up and down every street every alley there was that urgency in that concern after 24 hours of likelihood of finding them alive decreases almost by the minute we knew nothing just wandered the house all night long [Music] I don't remember sitting down I remember when the light broke the next morning word got out everywhere and I remember looking out the window [Music] all these people in my front yard a lot of them were friends family there were some people I didn't even know local people started Gathering to go out and do their own searches that's how this community responds there were hundreds of people out volunteers just walking and looking the general consensus Was Fear the pressure to bring that child home for the community and the parents was unbelievable I wanted to go out and search you know the cops are like no stay here in case somebody calls what if it's a kidnapping you know and they want a ransom or something so they wouldn't let me out of the house you ever see like a cage lion just walking back and forth and back and forth that's what that living room feels like it's like walking around in circles because there's no place else to go you just want to scream at the top of your lungs just let me out but nobody would [Music] cultures hole it's a hunting area some swimming it's secluded it's private people go out there to drink maybe alcohol underage use drugs those type of things in that area there are some camps and one fellat was driving away from his Camp to go home and he noticed something under a bridge [Music] foreign we got a call that they found something and they specifically wanted me to identify it I walked up to it and took a close look at it there in the bush was her uh body suit it had been there like overnight the moisture it was like on it I was on patrol duty at the time I was called down to the scene when I arrived I I learned what had been discovered it now had become very serious they tested the gymnastic suit there were several several deposits on the soup I'd known that with the gym clothes being there that way she'd been raped or molested somehow the lab in Erie knew that they had a semen stain and there was enough on there to get DNA as long as Sean is missing and we don't know where she's at there's a chance that we might be able to find her you always want him to come back alive and until you prove to me that she's not we're looking for her like she is thank you the day after the body suit was fun we were at the station and A call came in this guy had gone to a nearby Cottage down by quarters hole and he said I just walked out on a bridge and I looked on and there she was she wasn't there the day before because we were out there her shoes were found on the bridge and there was a candy wrapper in close proximity the area was combed by law enforcement the day before and then she's found there at daylight clearly indicating that the kidnapper had went back in during the dark with the child and then killed Shauna and dispose of her body there to have the veracity to go into that area with the victim on the opportunity of getting caught it was a taunt just like the shoes on the bridge the likelihood of those shoes being found on the bridge one facing One Direction one facing the other and not falling off the bridge that was placed there and that denotes of sophistication that is not common among criminals so who killed China Howe somebody was toying with us look what I did can you catch me [Music] the bodies found on a Friday it was dark and from where the body was there's nothing from there until the next roadway it was a little girl she was thrown from The Trestle which is over 33 feet high down to the creek bed there was of course physical evidence of injuries that she sustained her knees were scuffed and scraped [Music] we believe that she was alive when she was thrown from The Trestle she was alive probably for five ten minutes something or other before she died you know I'll never forget what happened to her [Music] foreign [Music] and uh all of a sudden I hear Clump Clump Clump coming up the steps my brother Keith's literally Falls in my lap says says it's Shawna I'm like no it can't be it just can't and Claire wraps his arms around me and he says it is sis I seen her and I said no and I lost it Lucy started crying and let out a whale that I'll never forget it's one of those whales that goes to your soul you know what it is it speaks to something very primary and it's the whale of a mother losing a child [Music] they canceled Halloween people were keeping a real close eye on their kids they weren't letting them out when you have a body of that little girl it's hard not to get a little bit emotional but you have to look at it objectively too we had DNA that was the start it was a blood hunt if this case was going to be solved you had to find a match for that DNA a stranger abduction is more rare than an abduction from someone that knows the victim so you have to look first at the family we DNA tested her stepdad John Brown we DNA tested the uncles we looked at them hard okay they even wanted a DNA test for my son and I looked at him and I said you want what and of course they're saying it's to eliminate him finally John got me calmed down enough and carry John's like Mom just let me do it boy he was probably old enough to um ejaculate you have to start getting into everybody that she was involved with we got into her school looking for admirers anything like that went through all of the Girl Scouts and their parents it was an intense search there was nobody not looked at we never got a hit I felt like I was leaving a stone unturned you know what I mean that night we knew that she was grabbed and probably taken into a car a description of a tall thin guy small red car one of the people we were looking at was Bill Crabtree the guy who fined the body what was he doing out there is he trying to throw everybody off he was driving a small red car [Music] they went through the vehicle they looked for evidence obviously they got his DNA none of that matched but then somebody called in and said that the description fit the guy named Ted Walker Ed Walker met Shawna that's a piece of shopping if Walker was working for some reason he'd always want to give the girls a hug and the girls would run from Walker so that he couldn't touch them we know he's familiar with the family and he had a small red car but eventually the DNA cleared him too so many dead ends looking at family friends other possible motives that's just came up alike one of the main things I did was to interview folks around the neighborhoods where Shawna lived who had not been thoroughly investigated now Michael Pruitt came under suspicion because he lived just a couple of Doors Down from the location of the abduction very suspicious guy the day after her corpse was found he got on a bus and left town he became top of the list as far as potential suspect Michael Pruitt's house was searched there was a cubby hole that had been described to us Shawna at autopsy she had injuries to her knees they were scuffed and scraped she was kept somewhere this cubby hole would have been a good place where a child could have been contained somebody would have had to keep Shauna alive for three days Michael Pruitt's house was searched we looked at him very very hard the primary focus was on this cubby hope that he had beneath the stairway when his DNA didn't match believe me that everybody was upset there were at least a hundred DNA samples taken in this investigation back then you couldn't get a DNA sample with a swab we had to take him in for a blood tests anybody that I looked at hard I got DNA samples from them there's a reason they took 100 DNA sales that was somebody that somebody was looking at and saying to themselves here's our suspect the list was going on and on and on you didn't do anything wrong let's get you you know let's get your name out of it I couldn't tell you how many of those we did over that couple of years period all the DNA tests came back negative it was negative with all of them it was negative with all them foreign [Music] I'm on my night off I get a call from officer Tom McClellan he said winner we need you down here somebody just tried to abduct a girl I said what they tried to kidnap her they beat her up pretty bad she's down here I need you down here she was walking down the street he stalked her he followed her out and tried to bushwhacker it's a violent attack and they're trying to put somebody in the trunk of car who's capable of doing something like this Jimmy O'Brien is Tim and Jim O'Brien were brothers Timmy older than Jim there wasn't a cop here that didn't know the O'Briens they're sexually violent offenders Jimmy in particular the guy's evil the victim said I just know if I'd gotten the trunk I'd be dead so I fought with everything I had I arrested Jimmy for attempt to kidnap me crime it was on the same route that Shawna had walked home it was on East 2nd Street the same area she had left and went through [Music] we're still having our meetings about Shawna Howe and I said if you looked at the O'Briens we knew who the O'Briens were I arrested both of them many times but they couldn't have done Sean as kidnapping because they had been in jail when that occurred [Music] there still were no answers I bought a computer and got the internet and they have that thing on there where you could go and see where all the pedophiles were around you and stuff and when I pulled that up I got the shock of my life of how many pedophiles lived around me the person that took my daughter and killed her could be walking up and down the street in front of my house and I wouldn't know it thank you around Halloween we always had extra Patrols because when you don't know who did it you don't know when they'll do it again that Killer's still out there there's always dread every time a child came up missing for 30 minutes and you found them at the neighbors oh my gosh did this happen again it was the five-year anniversary of the day they found Sean Howe that Shanae Freeman came up missing out of her backyard five-year-old little girl gone disappeared family looks for a period of time before they call us so it is going from dust to dark Darkness conceals a lot of evil and a lot of things that's five years later there's still no arrests there's still no suspects so the fear kicked back in again are they at it again when I came down to the station there's hundreds of people waiting outside wanting to hear something It Was Fear there's nothing but fear the grip the community how could this happen again I was thinking about showing how I asked God give me all my best game man give me help because that same fear was still there it's getting dark the boogeyman's out there he's back [Music] we heard that another girl had went missing that brought up the idea of could it be connected because he was around Halloween time too and we decided to go and help that family because their daughter was missing their child was missing there was a tremendous amount of pressure put on those persons investigating this case but we had a whole different game we were ready here search was immediately put underway we had no eyewitnesses that observed her abduction so we wanted to talk to anyone that was in the search party or around the scene at the time of the incident there was a young man that didn't look right his name was Nicholas Bowen I saw him talking janae's mother and he said we're going to help we're going to find your daughter and bring her home when I talked to him his body language it just didn't seem right when you get in close to someone like this they'll start to Lean Into You and if you can just casually physically touch them they'll collapse on you if you got it right I said I'm asking for your help because I think something bad happened he laid his head in my chest and started to cry and he's like she's hurt bad she's bleeding bad and I said I've seen a lot of people believe bad and limb you got to get me to her we discovered SHINee buried in a shallow grave when you see what's done with the child 50 evil [Music] I heard that mother let out that scream and I knew what it was once you hear it you would understand it because it's the most soul-touching scream that a woman will ever let out most people knew that he'd been arrested there's a couple hundred people across the street easy he was six foot two 200 some pounds You Know a Man by every other standard but his age he was only 17 and a half that would have put him at 12 at the time Nicholas Bowen was too young to have been involved in showing a house murder when they said that they had found the guy in that he wouldn't have been old enough when Shawna was murdered I was mad I mean I've been waiting five years and there's still nothing you don't have any more information to give me in 97 than you did 92. from the outside looking in what have you done the leads slowed sometimes you wouldn't nobody would call anything in for weeks after a while it got to a point where I was pretty much on my own somewhere around that time I retired and it went cold he said it's basically a cold case it's basically dead I said yes I was my daughter the investigation grinds to a halt and time moves on but the Howe family still needs answers [Music] no longer a patrolman Rich Graham now works as a detective to close the how case you're trained not to become personally involved in any case but how do you not particularly a child who's murdered this way he came to the house one day and he introduced himself he looked me right directly in the eyes and he says I'm gonna solve this you know there was no hesitation after years waiting for somebody to do anything felt good I continue to carry a normal caseload he had I believe 72 cases but every night he was reading the Shawna Howell case I'm slow he's dyslexic when I read something I read it several times to make sure it sinks in and I've got it right sometimes the second or third look you'll see maybe a word or a phrase that you didn't pick up on the first time he looked at the autopsy photos and he looked at the corners report he said this doesn't make sense one of the things was a Mark we saw on her cheek it appeared to be a partial shoe print that there was not even any mention of that in the autopsy Betsy and I went to see helbert villanger a renowned medical examiner we reviewed photos of shawna's corpse helbert agreed that that appeared to be a shoe print we saw on her cheek he said this was a violent rape sick he said somehow they held her in captivity for a couple of days but there's no evidence of any restraints [Music] that suggested to him that it was quite possible that more than one person was involved for many years I always believed that it probably was just one person this was an ocean moment this is not one person this is most likely to and probably more [Music] there was only DNA from one suspect on Shauna's body and that may be the basis for thinking there was only one person involved but that's not necessarily true just because you don't have a DNA match does not mean that the person wasn't involved or had knowledge of the crime were assisted in some way we decide to do a big sweep again we go back to all the local departments one of the places we went was the fire department 1992. the fire department got called to a fire a red car that car belonged to Ted Walker Ted Walker's name had been brought up numerous times he had met Shawna at a pizza place Walker opened his house to young kids in the area it's like a little bit of a flop house in Ted fit the description perfect if Walker's car was the Chevy Chevette the witness saw and he fit the description throw that together with a car being set on fire did Ted have her in the back seat did something take place back there I think that that was done to destroy evidence Mr Walker are you aware that this conversation is being recorded yep and no problems you do not have a problem that's been recorded [Music] Mr Walker was interviewed here by the state police on more than one occasion how is it did you first learn to Shauna house abduction Tim and Jim O'Brien came and told him [Music] he hears about the case from Jim and Tim O'Brien who come into his house he could have made up any name nobody would have been able to question him on that they just came running and told me that the little girl our girl was kidnapped downtown Ted Walker says the O'Briens told him about shawna's abduction so I asked Chuck Daley hey Chuck do you ever look at the O'Briens and Chuck said yeah they were in jail they couldn't done it that's when I realized I had never seen a report documenting that they had been in jail on the night of the abduction so that's when I get a hold of Trooper John McLean who's a friend of mine I told him I'd like for you to get on and check if the O'Brians were in jail when Sean was abducted and then he came back to me and said Rick they weren't there they had bonded up now I'm believing that these guys are good for this and we and we've spent all these years and all these resources all the while believing that they were incarcerated I'm high on the O'Briens and I went down to interview Tim O'Brien at the county jail Tim O'Brien is in jail for a sexually assaulting a girl and his brother Jim O'Brien had been arrested by the Oil City police for trying to abduct the woman trying to suffer into a trunk it was really a brief conversation I said well Tim would you mind giving us a DNA sample for the Shawna Howe case and he hesitated just for a couple of seconds and just the way he responded he said well I I'll have to check with my attorney and as I went to leave I saw this candy wrapper [Music] Jill went down my spine chill that starts up at your neck and runs down to your tailbone and uh kind of a little shiver I want to get the DNA because I think these are Brians are good for this after all these years I think we may have finally found of the killers [Music] early February is when I got the call from the crime lab Jim O'Brien's a match when the DNA is discovered Ted Walker's name comes in as the one who mentions The O'Briens it just adds up it is three people Jim and Tim O'Brien and Ted Walker [Music] Ted Walker was arrested as an accessory to the to the homicide Ishmael we're going to take this back to 1992. we know that a witness saw somebody walk up to Shawna house isn't that right right and who was that personal witness saw right so you walk up to her and as you're approaching her you said you asked her what she didn't sound girl okay and and why do you ask her that because I like working girls I know that but just make her feel at ease know your feel at ease then what do you do while I grab a hold of her and take it back did you grab her and hide it around the shoulder you grab her carry down 100 to 10. you hand her to 10. so there's Walker handing her off to somebody but then there's somebody driving a car and they're all three involved in that you get back to your house what's the next thing that happens they come in carrying shot up the steps The O'Briens those guys have a little girl that to them that's a playground once they got upstairs I heard her screaming leave me to get off me he actually I didn't tell one time he yells it down to keep her quiet and they want to know then how do we keep her quiet and he says well you know get her get her some candy we pick Halloween night it was always supposed to be a prank and other than Walker these guys have never talked these guys have never admitted what they did but what happened I think is they assaulted her upstairs then they left and that's when they were not decoders whole but this bodysuit I think they took her and they assaulted her again not there now this child doesn't have clothes so they kept her in that car overnight in the trunk she had these brush burns on her knees and I think that was from the the carpeting in the car we know we had an alpha male and Jimmy and he was a true Society about we know we have Timmy who is the follower then when you have Ted Walker who plays the dummy but he's not the dummy at all I mean as far as I'm concerned Ted could have been the Mastermind right behind Jimmy they decide that they've had their their way with her their pleasure or whatever uh perhaps the the heat is on now because they're they're all these investigators in town so they decide she can identify us we got to get rid of her they take her out and throw off The Trestle I'm glad for Shawna but but the other thing is I just feel sad I feel sad that uh this happened to her that she didn't get to grow up and live a normal life the detectives of Oil City delivered justice as the O'Briens and Ted Walker are imprisoned for the murder of Shana Howe and after 13 years the Howe family finally has the truth and hopefully some kind of peace I think about her every day I miss her every day but I can say I love you Shauna and go on with my day I'm not Frozen in that time anymore I love my daughter I miss her with everything that's in me but she's not in pain what they did to her can't hurt her anymore [Music] and I know I still love her till this day and that's not going to go away no matter what [Music] thank you

Channel: A&E

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Keywords: a&e, aetv, a&e tv, ae, a&e television, a&e shows, a and e, a+e, a&e full episodes, the first 48, crime, true crime, crime investigation, solving crime, police, detectives, attorneys, police procedure, cold case files, cold case, murder investigation, true crime show, cold case files new episodes, watch cold case files, Cold Case Files full episode, Cold Case Files clips, Cold Case Files full, cod case, unsolved mysteries, crime show, unsolved crime, cold cases solved, killer

Id: ObZOYd2xxS0

Length: 172min 18sec (10338 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 02 2023