COLD CASE FILES MEGA MARATHON Part 4 - Fan Favorite Full Episodes of ALL TIME | A&E

Christy was my middle sister she was a very secure person and was very opinionated she wasn't someone who would give in very cautious of her surroundings I think it was something that was ingrained from our childhood her parents taught us that so when this happened I'm like I didn't know this person there was no way she would open that door [Music] [Music] on a chilly morning four days before Christmas the halls of a Lancaster Elementary School Buzz with holiday excitement but something is wrong sixth grade teacher 25 year old Christy merak is missing Chrissy was never late for school I thought what you know it was just so unlike her so I called her apartment about five times nothing I left messages Christy where are you we're worried about you and that's when I called her mother my mom was kind of in a panic saying you know Christy didn't show up for work today which was really odd we didn't know what to do Christie's family lives two hours away principal Harry Goodman volunteers to check on her himself so I pull up to her apartment and her car is iced over and I knew something was wrong and then I saw that her door was partially a jar I rang the doorbell a number of times and I'm screaming her name Christy Christy where are you so I made the decision yeah just to to walk in to see if I could help her I walked into the apartment [Music] and I was in total shock I've never told anybody what I walked in on that day it affected my whole life I had screaming nightmares for about five years I had intense therapy yeah it totally changed my life Christy was my middle sister who's the kind of person that she always was smiling always energetic she was that kind of person also you know just kind of trying to make everybody laugh this was Christy and I at our senior prom in May of 1985. it happened to be our friend's birthday that night so we got a cake and we had everybody sing Happy Birthday to her and she was mortified but Christy and I loved every minute of it because she was mortified and we had such a good time she was a very kind person she was the kind of person that would really do anything for you and I know a lot of people say that but she truly was her dream and goal was always to be a school teacher she knew that at such a young age there was times she would be like we're all going into the garage and I'm gonna you know have a teaching session she would have her you know chalkboard up and just throw some things out there as far as just teaching for a short period of time to us [Music] he graduated high school went to Millersville University here in Lancaster Pennsylvania and got her degree in elementary education and teaching students I was a principal for 27 years and there are certain classrooms that you walk in and the teacher is teaching and you get kills the kids were really in tune with her and I could tell that she enjoyed what she was doing and that's something you can't teach as a love of teaching and I think she just felt like things were going all in the right direction which it sure seemed like they were [Music] I ran outside the door and slammed it shot and I was in shock I remember I was staggering going from apartment to apartment pounding on the doors just screaming and finally somebody let me inside and I called 9-1-1 within minutes of Harry Frederick 9-1-1 call police and rescue units arrive at Christie's apartment when the officers entered they did see the body of a young woman to their immediate left in the living room she had some significant facial injuries there were marks around her neck so potentially a strangulation was involved she's nude from the waist down with the exception of her socks and her clothing that she had from the waist up were pushed up to her upper chest any detective would have a logical conclusion that there's a sexual assault involved here it was immediately apparent that there was a struggle it ensued right inside the door as evidenced by the scuff marks both on the floor on the frame of the door on the door the struggle continued into the living room there was bodily fluid on the carpet so they cut the carpet out around that stain and it was eventually sent to the lab for processing and Analysis what the crime scene is being processed Vince and his mother received the devastating news we were told that basically there was an accident in Christian passed [Music] they wanted us to come down to Lancaster as soon as we could it was the longest two hours I think that I ever had in a car I think we cried more than anything once safely at the station police tell them iraqs that it wasn't an accident Christy has been murdered he was extremely difficult on on my mother and at that point it was just a sure panic when I found out I don't remember crying I really don't remember anything after I just couldn't believe that this was happening back at the scene of the crime police began canvassing the neighborhood a woman who lived in the same complex said that right around 7 15 that morning she was walking her dog she saw a light colored or a white collared vehicle parked in the Overflow parking lot which was directly across the street from Christie's townhouse she saw what she described as a white male with a muscular type build stringy dark hair exit that vehicle and walk into the area of Christy's apartment across the street as she was observing all this her roommate came out and as they were engaging in conversation they heard this really loud kind of high-pitched screen they weren't sure if it was Christy or not but it came from the direction of her apartment so the detectives developed a sketch of the person that was seen in the area that morning they wanted to get that information out to the public quickly as well as information about a vehicle that was seen the public did call and participate in providing information that they they thought was useful but when followed up by police it wasn't something that could pan out so that was like a dead end they were able to locate Christie's roommate she had left the apartment right around seven o'clock in the morning Christy usually left for work around 7 30 to 7 45 in the morning this was a murder that occurred in broad daylight so this was really a Brazen act for somebody to enter into the apartment and leave without being seen now whether she knew her assailant or not was unknown Harry Goodman found the door open slightly that doesn't necessarily mean that she opened the door that only means that whoever did this to her left the door open during that first day of the investigation detectives had really hoped that they would get one piece of evidence or one interview that would immediately give them a piece of information and unfortunately they just didn't have that I don't think anybody could comprehend anything that happened the question just kept saying was why what happened here [Music] today is the last day of school here at Rohrerstown elementary school before the holidays where Christy was a sixth grade teacher the students will all go home and try to make sense of the tragedy there was a male who showed up at the school where Christy worked asking to see her [Music] the staff said well she's not available are you sure you didn't hear what went on here and he said no I'm not aware of what's going on they're thinking oh my gosh was this somebody she knew or was it not somebody she knew was it a random person so they called police right away when the police department arrived they were able to identify him as dagger dagger happens to be Christie's ex-boyfriend who agrees to be interviewed at the station he gives investigators the details of his relationship with Christy dagger he was almost twice Christie's age 20 years older than than she was they met at the local bar they had been in a relationship for a couple of years she was excited that she met this guy I was like oh great and then she said and he's married and I'm like just be careful Christy kept that private she kept that secret her family didn't even know about that relationship it wasn't something that she was very open about she was now living you know on her own so I really didn't know a lot about uh you know any um you know boyfriend I think Christy he was just comfortable at him and then I think her friends were starting to get married she felt like she needed to move forward that Saturday before the murder Christy met with dagger and that was the day that she ended their relationship so when he would try to call her and check to see how she was and she wasn't answering her phone especially on that Monday now he's getting concerned and that's why he came to the school dagger's story seems suspicious so he has questioned about where he'd been the morning of Christie's murder The Alibi he provided was that he had moved to Virginia to be with his wife and at that time in the morning on uh on the 21st he was actually in Virginia getting his vehicle registration and his driver's license changed to his new address at his wife's home when that information was corroborated his Alibi checked out he agreed to a polygraph examination which was conducted and submitted DNA for analysis that also cleared him so it was very frustrating for detectives at the time the community was on edge and they wanted to know who had committed this this heinous act [Music] things like that didn't happen in Lancaster that's very trusting community and very little drama I think that changed for everybody [Music] the day after the murder Dr Wayne Ross performed an autopsy on Christy mirak during the autopsy there is the actual examination of the injuries to her neck there was a lot of bruising those ligature marks there was a fracture jaw Dr Ross also determined that Christy had been sexually assaulted the results of the autopsy revealed that her cause of death was strangulation and her manner of death was homicide during the autopsy several swabs are also collected and sent to the lab for testing to get the DNA tested and once you come up with an actual DNA profile that is entered into hodus in 1992 the combined DNA index system known as CODIS is that its infancy and only has DNA profiles of previously convicted offenders from 12 States investigators compare their unknown DNA samples to The Limited profiles in CODIS and hope for a hit it was determined that there was no hit on this DNA profile so this profile was to an unknown male contributor so investigators at the time were kind of at a loss they didn't know whose DNA this was that had committed the murder of Christy murak and so what were they going to do with this DNA evidence this could be anyone they could be out there anywhere in the entire country and this was really a clear who done it [Music] [Music] I went down there first of all thinking I was going to tell them about her teaching and her background [Music] within 48 Hours of Christy morax Burger the tech teams are already hitting dead ends so they turned their attention on the last person who saw her [Music] the lead detective had called and said to come down to the police station and answer a few questions and they fingerprint me right away I'm thinking my God they think I did this and they take me an interrogation room I was in total shock Harry Goodman was in the crime scene so obviously the detectives back then had to focus on him and he started asking me questions about Christy did you think Christy was attractive were you having sexual relations with Christy and I said to the lead detective how dare you defame Christie's memory how dare you defame me and they couldn't understand well why would you go down there you know is it typical for a principal to do something like this and I said yeah I was I was worried they wanted to power graph me and I said sir go ahead I've got nothing to hide hook me up they got somebody from the state police who power graphed me what is your name where do you live did you kill Christy merak that's how it went I was not going to allow them to intimidate me I got into a Zone I passed the polygraph and it was incredible I couldn't even mourn for Christie during that time five days after Christie's death her family has to do the unthinkable say goodbye her funeral was one of those days that I try to forget it was a very painful uh sad day for for for us and our family I remember standing in the church and like it's one of those things where you don't hear any sounds it was truly almost like a movie moment you're there but you're not really there and somebody said to me turn around and I turned around and I looked and the church was absolutely packed and this person said that just shows how many people loved her we couldn't understand why I mean it just didn't make any sense how does something like this happen and no one sees or knows anything the fact that she wasn't there with us was is still the hardest thing that we deal with [Music] as the investigation moved forward there were at least 500 people interviewed detected they were interviewing everybody imaginable the detectives also learned about a couple of peeping Tom incidents that occurred right there in Christie's townhouse complex although the Peeping Tom incidents were reported and they were investigated that led nowhere because the description given was very general they were leaving no stone unturned trying to find information to build on and move forward just couldn't do it for the next two years few leads developed the days turned into weeks and weeks turns into months and months turned into years by 1995 there were at least 1500 people that were interviewed nearly 60 people that had been cleared as suspects in this case it was hard to believe what we were going through and still had very little answers to where we started from that day sir and you don't know why you don't have an answer and there were just simply no other leads or anything more to follow up on and then at this point in time the case is what investigators would say became cold foreign [Music] extremely frustrating how can we not at this point have anything or at least the person who was held responsible for this this dim Iraq's murder remains chillingly cold the passing years without answers for her family and friends only bring more heartache I still kept in close contact with the lead investigator but the frustration levels seemed to get worse every year every day was a struggle it was a struggle for my mom she had cancer reoccurred they cured her reoccurred in December of 2002 my mom unfortunately passed but she just made sure she's like please don't ever let this go and I assured I wouldn't there was not a bone in my body that said I would give up on this I couldn't go through life without knowing who did this and why [Music] so around 2007 I had a idea with another victim's family we came up with the idea of putting up a billboard on a major highway in Lancaster the sign said do you know who murdered us I mean we wanted to make it as chilly as it was as it was to us we didn't get approval from the police I basically told them this is what we were going to do I think people driving there every day maybe look at like you know what this has really been bugging me for all these years it's time I need to talk you get a lot of information from the posting that billboard but unfortunately nothing was concrete enough that we would uh get an answer the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office takes on the case hoping to bring much needed closure to Christie's family I was a senior in high school at the time that Christy murak was murdered she reminded me a lot of myself and my girlfriends I was a really young prosecutor and it was a case that I had always wanted to work on it was an important case to Lancaster County it was just something that I had a vested interest in solving when the District Attorney's office got the case and reviewed things with me they really reassured myself in our family that you know they had the confidence here that they can get this solved I knew that the case could always be solved because of the DNA evidence and I knew that technology was changing I knew that just getting the additional resources would be able to help to solve the case detectives herb and Martin had gone to a conference and they learned about parabon and how you could submit DNA and you would obtain these profiles through a DNA analysis the phenotyping predicts basically a genetic makeup of a person and it would tell you the skin tone of that person their area or country of origin how their face would have been shaped their eye color their hair color but it can't tell you how heavy the person was or what Life Choices they made to affect their appearance a second DNA test of the sample from Christie's apartment is submitted reigniting the case they have algorithms that they use to provide an age progression in this case we felt that the age of 25 would be good because that was right around the same age as our victim in this case we also knew she dated to somebody who was 20 years older than she was so we wanted to go to age 45 and age 55. when we saw these pictures we were trying to think does this look like anybody that we believe is a potential suspect so we got a hold of all the people close to Christie we looked over those images hundreds of times trying to think of somebody that it may look like and I couldn't pinpoint one person we did as much as we could until we exhausted all means so we thought maybe we need to get this face out to more people the phenotyping images of the killer are presented to the public what we're doing today hopefully will spark the information a tip a lead that will finally bring some some closure to the family I remember seeing these pictures come out and I again had that fresh hope I had that fresh hope that wow this is something even further with technology and this could be it we're hoping that some tips that are going to be generated are going to provide us some useful information in the investigation well that didn't happen things just weren't transpiring the way I thought they were gonna I I gotta admit like I said it was it was it was deflating [Music] all right we got to go back to that breaking news we told you at the time we were finishing dinner up and the News was on an arrest in the case of the Golden State killer has been made and I stopped for a minute and listened we knew we could solve it you innovative DNA technology available at this time I'm like wait a second this is something we need to look at so you know the first thing I did was emailed Chris herb and Christy Wilson it was like you know can we look into this this looks like another advancement in this technology that I didn't even know about [Music] 25 years after Christy barak's murder there is no hope thanks to the genetic genealogy technology used to capture Joseph D'Angelo the infamous Golden State killer foreign [Music] State case I was made aware that there was a DNA sample uploaded into a publicly available genetic genealogy database analyzed and linked back to him we receive an email from parabon saying hey we're now offering genetic genealogy services that were used in the Golden State killer case we already had this the sample was submitted to them from the phenotyping so they used the sample we had on file from the carpet as are unknown that's when I got started thanks to the original crime scene investigators we had DNA both from Christie herself and from the carpet that was underneath her well the phenotyping process where images of the suspect were generated the crime scene DNA that had already been analyzed was prepped for the genetic genealogy process we were able to upload that to Jed match and then wait for the relatives to appear when you upload a file to gedmatch you could get a close relative or just very distant cousins but I was very excited when I opened up that match list and saw that there were close enough cousins that I thought there was a pretty good chance we would be able to identify the person that probably killed Christy so once I have that match list I need to build the family trees of those potential cousins so I have to identify who that person is who their parents are grandparents and so on so how far back I go in the tree is really based on how much DNA a person is sharing once the expanded family tree reveals a common ancestor CeCe flips the tree upside down to perform reverse genealogy now I'm building forward in time trying to find all the descendants of that ancestral couple I'm looking for a man who might be the right age in the right place and have the right ancestral mix to potentially be the suspect which leads to a specific family in Lancaster Pennsylvania that is a primarily Northwest European descent however I knew that the suspect was going to have some Latin American ancestry and specifically Puerto Rican because a snapshot phenotype had also predicted that the suspect was going to have some Latin American ancestry that meant I really needed to dig into contemporary sources like newspaper archives social media and I found this male who was the right age and in the right place but I couldn't determine what his father's side of his ancestry was so I really wanted to figure out who his father was and see if that might connect to the Puerto Rican side of the family that I needed to find and so I dug very deep into the local Lancaster newspapers finally she gets a hit there was a article that talked about how he liked to cook Puerto Rican food because his biological father was Puerto Rican and that was like Hallelujah that was the moment where I knew that Raymond Rowe was very likely Christy Marek's killer [Music] but there aren't going to be any arrests based on what I provide they're going to have to vet that lead I remember just being in a State of Shock Raymond Rowe had been living in the community and had remained in the community the entire time since 1992. this person was pretty well known throughout the Lancaster Community as a celebrity I guess that's what you would call him he was a DJ at House Parties which ultimately led to him becoming quite successful DJing at local nightclubs the moniker that he used was DJ freeze in later years he became a wedding DJ that had quite a successful business we were able to dig deeper into his background and his criminal history and he did not have any prior felony convictions which was clear why he had not been in the CODIS database we immediately looked to see what kind of a link that there could have been between Raymond Rowe and Christy did she go to the club that he was a DJ at she enjoyed her friends they had a good time they went out and enjoyed Lancaster The Nightlife in 1992 Christie and Raymond Rowe also lived in close proximity to one another so it's really anybody's guess where they could have potentially come into contact Raymond Rowe did strongly resemble the profiles but in order to make an actual arrest you have to obtain a DNA sample that is going to match the DNA sample that has been entered into the CODIS database there was surveillance teams established with the assistance of the Pennsylvania State Police [Music] the Pennsylvania State Police followed Raymond to an event at a local elementary school they were able to send at least one undercover Trooper into the event she was able to mingle with um Ray Monroe at the closing of that event he left behind a water bottle and a cup containing a piece of chewing gum so the trooper was able to secure those they were able to compare it to multiple swabs that we're taking from Christie's body at autopsy so there was no question that Raymond Rowe was responsible for this murder [Music] I was so excited I was excited that the family was ultimately going to have an answer good afternoon thanks for coming today we are announcing the arrest of Raymond Charles Rowe for the murder of Christy murak I got a call from the victim witness's office in Lancaster who I've worked with since day one and she called to tell me that you know they just made an arrest and then I was like who and you know when they said the person's name I had no idea he is being charged with one count of criminal homicide when I saw the press conference at first I was shocked and I went from shock to being very angry because I finally had a face to put that anger to it almost brought me to my knees when I saw that they made an arrest I it was surreal I never gave up I've always had Faith this was going to get solved thankfully by the grace of God we um got the answer we need [Music] Christie's case was and is the most personally satisfying case of my career to date it was something that really took a lot of perseverance I think it really just goes to show you that if you stick with something then you'll get the end result that that you hope for on June 25th 2018 detective herb interviews Raymond Road during the course of the interview he was denying having any contact with her he denied knowing her having anything to do with her but I when I mentioned the Peeping Tom he kind of distance himself by leaning back away from me and then we were able to eventually get to the vehicle that was seen in the area of the murder the day that the murder happened came around admitted that yes he had a white Toyota Celica everyone wants to know motive but our working theory is that he was potentially obsessed with her and had stalked her and had been the Peeping Tom and had watched her and tracked her movements leading up to this crime but as far as what the exact motive was is anyone's guess here it blows my mind he saw everything I'm sure he saw everything you know the newspaper articles the news I mean everything is right there it doesn't sit well with us the fact that um somebody blatantly ignored families Cry for Help did what they did uh it takes a real sick person to be that way I believe to avoid the death penalty Raymond Rowe pleads guilty to murder in the first degree rape and burglary he is sentenced to life without the possibility of parole plus 60 to 120 years I think that we definitely were able to get Justice for Christy and also for her family it's reassuring to know that her killer will spend the rest of his life in prison knowing Christy like I did she would be one that would have forgiven him and I know that she's at peace I know that she's with her mother and I can't wait to see her and I will and I'll go give her a huge hug and say Christy you made such a great impact on everybody from Christy I learned how to just live in the moment and be happy you don't have to think so far ahead in your life that you start to worry about things it's going to work out she just wanted to be happy in the moment seems like forever ago that we were all together but um definitely see her smiling all these pictures like I remember like it was yesterday I wish we all could be together because um I would just like to restart from where we left off at and just keep continuing life the way it should have went [Music] Jessica's murder became the biggest unsolved murder case in the state [Music] somebody taking your 17 year old kid is killing her my God we had a killer in the neighborhood you see this little girl it's bad [Music] the shocking thing about this case was that it was right there in front of them nobody did a thing about it when an investigator education becomes a Cold Case years pass and hope fails but for the families of the victims are never cold [Music] the truth takes time it's early morning in Bullitt County Kentucky family goes about their usual routine but lets sixteen-year-old daughter Jessica sleep in when Jessica's mother comes back from grocery shopping Jessica's bed is empty her car is parked out front and her cell phone reads 9-1 Shepherdsville as a community is a town where everyone knows everyone and everyone else's business it's a very remote area with generation to generation to generation of the same families in this small town Jessica's murder became the biggest unsolved murder case in the state September 10 1989 it was just like any other morning about 5 30 I would get up be ready to go to work I walked in and out to her car kissed her bye now I come in and got Bubby and Chris up I told him I said get up boys I gotta go to work now I looked in Jessica's bedroom she was asleep and I went out and got my truck and I went to work the boys would catch the bus and then about 6 30 I guess Jessica would be getting her car headed to school when I got home I look around and I'm hollering Jessica Jessica trying to figure out where she's at 30 Edna called me and asked me if I had took Jessica school that day I didn't take her to school she said well is her car working I said I don't know why she said well if you're in the driveway I said well you got a key to it go out there see for the start I opened the door I knew something was wrong her purse one shoe everything that she would have had with her was in her vehicle pulled in and then that's a mic there's something wrong [Music] we found a cell phone with 9-1 dial on it we was thinking that she maybe was trying to dial 9-1-1 for help that she's in trouble it was like I couldn't breathe and I just knew something was wrong I called the school but they said she hadn't been to school that day we went down to the Sheriff's Department it's about five o'clock and we told them what was going on he told me he said well maybe she's a runaway I said no she's not no runaway with one she run once you off they told us to go home and come back that next morning like someone's got to help you know our daughter's missing and no one wants to help the day that Jessica Dishon was reported missing State Police should have been called in immediately her car is in the driveway there is one shoe in the car the other one is missing a female's prized possession is her purse in the car that should have been termed as a critical missing person [Music] we went back to the police station it was pretty early we told them well I told us that she didn't come home come back down we're down here what are y'all gonna do after that you know they sent some cops up here I figured they'd swore misplaced you know but only two officers pulled up he searched Jessica's car no gloves no nothing if we're any fingerprints on the car before he had messed them up because his hands was already all over the car too then they got back in the car and went back to Shepherdsville there's an abandoned car a missing girl wouldn't you think there was something wrong and maybe you needed to take further action immediately the car should have been impounded and the investigation should have started at that point because there's a girl that's still missing [Music] I don't think the police is doing their job if they was doing their job they would be here the dishen family would get on TV and accuse my husband of not doing his job and that's understandable they wanted to know when to find their daughter and of course there's their child you know if that was my child they couldn't do enough for me either we miss a we just want everybody only people that ever look for Jessica was the people that lived here in the community my brother Stanley he said well somebody was going to kill anybody and put him anywhere so they'd put them in the river bottoms [Music] the river bottoms it's a very spooky eerie place first time I was down there made their hair stand up on the back of my neck anything that could happen down in Bullitt County that's bad it'll usually happen down in the river bottoms we wanted to search even though it was rough on a family Stanley my brother he got sick and they had to take him home because he started vomiting we all looked we didn't find nothing out there it was kind of hard to come back home when Jessica was still missing well we couldn't sleep and she was in there making the beds I was doing the dishes Crisco was out to feed the dogs and Chris runs in the house said that I think I heard Jessica holler help me [Music] so I ran in my bedroom I got my gun [Music] and out the door I went I went to find her and if I caught somebody with her whoever it was I got my gun and out the door and went I went to kill when we run out the door my brother Stanley was pulling in the driveway and he asked me he said what's going on I said Chris said he thought he heard Jessica and he said well come on we jumped the fence we went up on the Hills we started looking around the pond [Music] there's somebody burning a bunch of clothes up on the hill and it was Bucky Brooks the properties of the dishens and the Brooks family were adjacent to one another and at that point in time the relationship between those two families was boiling over when Jessica come up missing Bucky Brooks kept harassing us lucky called us on the phone Breathe hard on the phone and he holler please don't kill me please don't kill me like he know that maybe Jessica was pleading for her life so that night I asked Bucky if we could search their farm for Jessica The Birches it was the only people that did not want third Farm search it made me think that Bucky Brooks is involved in everything that I've seen and heard it leads back to them I called the police department and tell them what's going on the cops came they come in the house and wanted to know what clothes that Jessica had on that night she come up missing and it was a pink pair of shorts [Music] we searched all the fields on Bucky's property it's born his garage everything when we were searching the barns Bucky he just was acting strange the cadaver dogs picked up a consent in Bucky's fire pit [Music] they had two pairs of Jersey gloves the Jersey gloves had decomposed body smell on them but they wouldn't arrest monkey Brooks that kind of pissed me off you know I was mad about it the Sheriff's Office was not moving at a pace at the dishen family thought that they should have so Mike Edition then called the FBI and said I need your help the FBI said the only time that we can come in here is if the sheriff department invited us or if one of the parents I said well I'm Mike dish and I'm Jessica's Dad I'm invite you know when fbis arrived I looked at the Bullitt County Sheriff department and I said look all you little Keystone Cops can go back to Shepherdsville now I got the big dogs here they'd be out looked at Jessica's room and they took some of her stuff and checked for fingerprints thank you the FBI said well we need to take Jessica's car I said take it you know I said anything in here you need to take you take because I've got nothing to hide the FBI has called into helicopters they flew over to the pond and they hovered over the Ponder fair you know then they bring guys in and they walked upon you know make sure Jessica wasn't putting that pond [Music] the FBI started doing all the evidence collection to search everything search was done on the Brooks Farm [Music] they showed me a picture that they found in the barn it was Jessica it became very difficult for anyone involved in the investigation to just dismiss Bucky Brooks as a suspect Bucky Brooks appeared to be the prime suspect but we still didn't know where Jessica Edition was [Music] Jessica Don Dishon that's her full name I was 17 when I had Jessica it's a long day yeah I was in labor like 12 hours when she was a little girl I used to take her hunting I used to put her up on my shoulders and take her back in the woods and go hunting with her you know and we had we had a good time [Music] friend of mine Karen Hobbs is her name she was coming from Mount Washington in her vehicle she cut through the river bottoms Chapman glance over and and there set something up against a tree and she went and called the police she says that she thinks she's found a body the FBI forensic team arrived on the scene the body was decomposed it was completely unrecognizable part of her limb was gone some of her fingers it was terrible I mean my God we had a murderer a killer in the neighborhood once the body had been found the FBI forensic team had arrived on the scene [Music] it appeared to be the body of Jessica dishen [Music] then right at Dusty dark I've seen Paul parsley come down the road with his lights on pulls up gets out comes up and he says we felt Jessica [Music] well is he alive he said no she's dead then Edna jumped up and said now I want you to tell me she's a damn Runaway we try to tell y'all she did not run away I told him I said no I can't I said I can't go see Jessica like it I got there and feeling my knees couldn't really tell it was her from her face that I seen her butterfly tattoo on her side and I knew that was her [Music] and I was just devastated the medical examiner makes a determination of the cause of death was strangulation [Music] and I've told her brothers about me and Chris Jessica wouldn't be back yet she was dead they start crying and they took it hard they told us that she had a broken jaw some of her fingers were cut off she was alive for three days she wasn't killed from day one I was thinking for those three days knowing that she didn't have food she didn't have water I wanted everybody to know that Sheriff's Department they're not even doing their job right we're in a small Department I only had two detectives they was working it ever day and night you see this little girl growing up excuse me it's bad [Music] the FBI interviewed lucky Brooks Bucky was caught in several untruths Bucky landed himself right in the middle of this investigation when he told the police that he had seen Jessica walking down the road that morning that she came up missing when the FBI did a follow-up he said well there's no way I could have seen Jessica because I was still having sex with my wife and Irene tested what gives information to the FBI we didn't have sex that morning his statements repeatedly were proven to be inaccurate and false they don't take no rocket scientists figure this out Bucky Brooks got something to do with it [Music] the FBI did a polygraph exam the polygraph test result although inadmissible in a courtroom is a tool that prosecutors use to make decisions about a particular case he filed a polygraph FBI hand over all the information to the Commonwealth attorney's office and there is a grand jury indictment brought against Bucky Brooks he earned the indictment and he earned his way in front of a jury in the courtroom reality kicks in when you finally see him face to face you don't know how mad I wanted to kill him Bucky Brooks was charged with murder and was facing the death penalty the first day of the trial the media was all there I was feeling very confident that day my bucket came through the room my heart just was racing really high things started well for the prosecution we asked him what he would say if Jessica's body was found and his fingerprints were found on the body and he responded quotes if you find my fingerprints I'll have to admit it the defense wanted to prove that the entire investigation was handled very very bad the body parts were left out to rot of course the top and red letters it says keep frozen and here it says keep frozen keep frozen was it ever kept Frozen no sense fence calls uh James Colton James Coulter had a bad reputation in the town he was running drugs the defense attorneys thought that he could be responsible for the death of Jessica Edition did you see Jessica Edition the day before she disappeared yeah I seen her four about four hours four in the afternoon Thursday and how did you know her that was pretty much her drug dealer you know I mean I'm ashamed of that now but that's how we was acquainted but the Sheriff's Office basically just says it could be nobody else other than Bucky Brooks he was the last one seen her alive detective Charlie Mann was hounded on the witness stand repeatedly why did you charge my client why did you do this why did you do that he finally just belts out he failed a polygraph I think the issued Tony Jack the whole premise behind a polygraph exam is to get a confession that's it only that confession is a municipal in court as long as the word polygraph never comes up in your testimony the Court ruled that there was a mistrial and the trial itself stopped it's over the jury is dismissed everyone leaves the courtroom and stand up and tell me really wasn't much we could do it's up to the Commonwealth whether or not they are going to bring charges against that man again a mistrial does not mean the defendant is not guilty Bucky Brooks could be tried again if they found more evidence [Music] [Music] good feels good yep they never tried to find nothing else on Bucky or nothing you know that was it because it's a waiting game we're still waiting you know when is it ever gonna someone gonna be arrested it was like no one ever had any plan of charging anybody with this crime I didn't get Justice for Jessica the Commonwealth Attorney turns the evidence back over to the family and goes here you go you can have it all which is pretty indicative that Bucky's never going to get charged anymore and neither is anybody else the Jessica dition case just goes cold [Music] with Bucky's case declared a mistrial edition's Last Hope For Justice disappears leaving Edna and Mike alone to deal with their anger and their grief went to our room just about every day and looked at her pictures and told her that I loved her and knows that we're not giving up on her and kind of made me feel better knowing that so have some type of contact with their I didn't change that room since yes you could come up just foreign people tell me a lot of times when somebody loses a family it pulls them apart you know just one thing after another [Music] Kim told me she wanted a divorce I said okay I couldn't take it anymore I lost my kid I lost my wife too you know we still don't talk [Music] the Sheriff's Office wanted to hire me to look at their old murder cases and that was my passion Jessica dishon's case because of the enormity of that case became diverse being the new person makes the case doubly hard it's not just being the new person either it was a woman there was many people probably intimidated by me but I really didn't care I was there to do a job foreign when I started the investigation I had such little paper information there in the Sheriff's Office mostly it was just Loosely paper thrown in boxes napkins sticky notes no phone numbers of individuals that they had interviewed no birth dates no addresses no nothing soon after that I went to Mike dition's home and sat down and met with Mike and bubby just to tell them that I was going to reopen the case she's a very nice lady I think she knew what she was doing you know better than some of these Hicks that we had out here in Jessica's Room Bobby points me to the closet and he turns around and he hands me a pink with flowers hat boxing inside there was her shoe her billfold her cell phone all the evidence that was left in the car got left with it and brought it back to the office and re-entered it in dividends during the time that Bucky was on trial they had also hired private investigators to assist in the defense case so I was wanting to know all the information that they had gained so I've borrowed a box truck and I went to the defense attorney's office and obtained all of the boxes with the case File information from The Trial of Bucky Brooks and hauled them all back to the Sheriff's Office the defense had a true investigation going a lot better than I think the prosecution did digging through the files lo and behold but what do I find [Music] new information regarding Bucky Brooks it was an enormous break and Jessica Edition murder case [Music] I found Bucky's mental evaluation it stated that he and an IQ of 61. Bucky Brooks never should have been given a polygraph exam with that law of IQ there's no way they can understand the questions let alone understand how they're answering I wasn't 100 sure if Bucky was innocent but if Bucky didn't do it I needed to prove who did right away it was very clear that the defense believed that there were suspects other than Bucky Brooks the defense had a lot of circumstantial evidence involving the drug dealing James Coulter during the trial against Bucky Brooks Coulter became important to the defense this is called the alternate perpetrator theory that Coulter had committed the crime of kidnapping a murder however because of the mistrial the defense never presented a case but no one thought to follow up after the trial culture was in jail so I go down pay him a visit the morning that Jessica disappeared he told me he was in a hotel with a female and did not check out until sometime the next day I asked him if he had seen anybody that morning and he said the maintenance guy had came by I went to the hotel but the hotel of course did not have any records back that far at all [Music] as I'm leaving I find out the same maintenance guy he was still working there he had seen the trial and he remembers it James caulder and his girlfriend he clearly remembered that they'd checked out around noon that verified The Alibi after all that time there was not one single piece of evidence to point in a direction of anyone I felt just a deep sadness will we ever saw that I get a call from a detective that I used to work with who had some information regarding an addition case yeah the presently informant had told him he knew who killed Jessica Edition I had sunk apprehensions because informants were shaky at best but I knew that maybe we were on to something [Music] the informant at the penitentiary had told me about an inmate who was placed in the same cell with him both of them had been charged for having sexual relations with children and the inmate said he had committed the murder against Jessica dishen yeah in your best recollection tell me what you remembered the suspect telling you in regards to the Jessica Edition murder he stated that he had Jessica for a couple of days [Music] and then he took her life the reason he did a mutilation to her he was trying to make it look like some drug dealers or a cartel done that to her that particular inmate had no independent knowledge of the facts that he was relating to detective hunt other than to have listened to someone who was present when she was killed why was he pissed off again she was having a relationship with a boy her own age someone that she had found that she liked she kept calling your boy little bastard and a little and calling her names and that's when he told me who killed Jessica Edition [Music] I had a conversation with an inmate he says that he knows who killed Jessica Edition and that's when he told me Jessica's uncle Stanley Edition Community work Stanley Edition was Mike's brother on the first morning of the search when they got within a mile of where the body was Stanley became physically ill thank you he stated that he almost had his brother down by the body at one point I told you to just quit looking for her just quit looking for her the informant said Stanley had tortured her in a barn that was close by to where the body was dumped and it was some location of where the kids used to party at he stated that some of her personal belongings is under a tree that's fallen in that area [Music] found one piece of physical evidence to be able to cooperate all this information so we go down to the river bottoms and start digging and it rains and it rains and we keep digging and we keep looking and we keep digging Bubby Jessica's brother stays to help me [Music] I've done Doug at least 175 Halls down here and after about six or seven hours we're all soaking wet we decided let's just forget it let's tear down the crib we are never going to find the shoe Bobby and I get in the car so as Bobby and I are driving he goes that's where all they used to go par yet [Music] and I stopped dead in the middle row because clearly there was a building and a barn there we walk in the first building it's dark half of the roof is missing so that was only part of the light that we had and I see a piece of material sticking out from mud and sand all kinds of junk just thrown on top of it so I start pulling it out and I said that looks strangely like your sister's comforter that's on her bed I said what are the chances of the same pattern we drive as fast as we can with the sheet in the car directly back to his house because her room hasn't changed since the murder pulled the comforter back pull the blanket back guess what's not there the fitted sheet nothing but the mattress it was note that it wasn't an oh my God moment you know I think they inform it was telling the truth I feel sure now that Stanley Edition had murdered his niece [Music] Stanley Edition had been raping and sodomizing Jessica Edition for years foreign the morning that she came up missing Stanley went to the dishens we knew what time Mike and Edna would leave for work he knew what time that Chris and Bubby were going to be getting on the school bus an argument ensued [Music] Jessica had a new boyfriend Jessica apparently was threatening Stanley if he didn't leave her alone then she was going to tell the boyfriend everything that he had done to her when she was a little girl thank you Stanley lost his mind because he knew that Mike dishum would kill him he knocked her out he had broke her jaw [Music] and he got her to a barn kept for three days and tortured [Music] and that's when he strangled her foreign devastated how could someone that you know that's lived with you and you've taken care of how could they do that hunt told me she said you know I'm going to indict you brother I said well if he done it I went to death penalty Lynn hunt began to talk to the family members about Stanley we've discovered more victims through the investigation one victim that we met with I said did something happen between you and Stanley Edition and she stood up and just passed out he had started raping her on the time she was six years old with threats of violence threats of guns it ended up being a total of three other family members he was not only on the hook for murdering kidnapping but for multiple counts of rape with several different victims it would have been very difficult for victims to have to get up there and tell a courtroom full of strangers that Stanley Edition raped them for that reason we chose to just take the plea deal and be done Mike and Edna now have the truth of what happened to Jessica but detectives find a final piece of information that will haunt the additions forever [Music] when I went through the defense files [Music] I pull out the seventh box and inside the box was a letter from a second informant 2002. the letter said I am an inmate and I was in the cell with Stanley Edition where he admitted he killed his niece and he dumped the body in the rubber bottoms he not only confessed but he had done it back in 2002. it's disgusting to think that it had been there for so long the Commonwealth and the Sheriff's Office all had a copy of this letter and basically they didn't do anything with it the shocking thing about this case was not that Family Edition had murdered his niece the shocking thing about this case was that they knew this back in 2002 when they had Bucky Brooks on trial and nobody did a thing about it [Music] I didn't believe it he was my brother I gave him a home I fed him got him a job it's hatred you know what I'm saying somebody taking your 17 year old kid and killing her and raping her sitting in prison is not Justice I have to work every day to pay taxes for him to be able to stay in prison after what he did to my my Jessica that's not Justice Stanley be 70 some years old when he gets out and I'll be waiting for him I can't even describe the pain that we went through even not only takes my breath away I don't think I could have felt worse if somebody would have ripped my chest open with their bare hands and pulled my heart out while I was still beating it I don't think it would have hurt that bad Pam was in a hurry to live life she couldn't wait to get out there into the world and make her mark when you're dealing with a case that's going on and on Unsolved every day it drains you because you can't take your mind off of it you just feel like how can it keep going on like that and nothing happened no suspects [Music] foreign fall day in the picturesque town of Prescott Arizona 19 year old Prescott resident Pamela Pitts owns her father Paul [Music] Pam wanted to know what I was doing and I told her I was working and she said well I want to talk to you about something I said well why don't we have dinner at Murphy's restaurant here in Prescott bam lives at a small house on Lincoln Street with two roommates she'd moved in just three months ago but over dinner with her father she admits she's already having second thoughts she says we're behind on a rant and she goes I'm tired of it and I want to know if it would be okay with you if I moved back home and I told her absolutely I didn't want you moving out to begin with I said um when do you want to do this she said well I'm going to come to the house on Saturday and do laundry so we finished having dinner and she left and that was the last time I saw Pam alive [Music] Pam was born June 25th 1969 at K.I Sawyer Air Force Base in the Upper Peninsula Michigan where I was stationed with the 410th bomb wing being the first time Dad was great I loved being a dad and Pam was a happy baby she was very active she was very loving and fun and friendly and she was a real joy in my life real joy in my life she loved to swim she liked riding her bike she liked getting out in the woods hanging out with friends and hanging out with their brothers and sisters Pamela was the oldest of the four of us Pam was about two years older than I am Stacy is my younger sister and then Paul Jr is the youngest very much outgoing she was part of a group of friends that that liked CB radios and her handle was dark angel [Music] Pam Was Not Afraid of the Limelight it was more of the reserved shy quiet one she always looked out for me she was she was a pretty good big sister by 1988 Ben's Mom and Dad separate the children stay with Paul while their mom Carol moves to Casa Grande two hours south pem quit school her junior year she's working at a local sandwich shop but she stays connected with her high school friends she was a very active teenager she was in a hurry to live life she couldn't wait to get out there into the world and make her mark bam wanted her independence in June of 1988. she moves in with her best friend Shelley norgard I said I'm I'm opposed to that you've got your own room here at home you got your own private entrance but she did anyway I was kind of upset about that be honest with you they realized they weren't able to afford the rent fully so then they had a third roommate Jeremy Anderson who had moved in with them from what I remember the three of them got along pretty well [Music] Saturday Pam did not show up to do laundry and at the time I thought well you know they're kids I mean as a parent you just kind of roll with that then later that evening I'd get a call from Shelley she says Pam took off and I don't know where she's at she goes is she at your house and I said no I haven't seen her she was supposed to be here today and she says well well I'm worried about her you know in the 80s we didn't have cell phones like we do today so it was a little harder to stay in touch we weren't super concerned because Pam liked to go hang out with friends and do stuff I said maybe she's decided to stay at a different friend's house for the night or something she has to work on Monday so we'll find out what's going on then foreign and I called the place where she works and I asked her boss I said is Pam there he goes no she didn't show up for work so at that point they called the police department I went to Pam's house with a sergeant by the name of Bill Hobbs and or it was answered by Shelly norgaard research and his room and community area which would be like a living room yes they found Pam's purse or driver's license medicine all her personal effects were still there Bill Hobbs and myself sat down at the kitchen table with Shelley and asked her if she knew anything and she said that she believed Pam had gone out partying she wasn't really worried of anything happening to her and she said that they had a joint checking account to to pay the rent and Shelley deposited her portion of it and then Pam Pitt said emptied the account and wasn't paying the rent and so she was a little upset about that I didn't have really anything to say that her words were really that unusual I was rooming with somebody and they stole my money took to pay the rent I'd probably be very upset too as police looked for Pam bald Pitts against his own search for his daughter he starts at the high school in 1988 I was the assistant principal at Prescott High School my responsibility was student services in May of 2013 I started working for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office as a Cold Case Investigator well I only met Pam once she was very respectful to me I remember that phone call from her father wanting to know if anyone at the school had seen her and a couple days later I remember reading in the Prescott Courier that she was a missing person it was very stressful while Pam was missing obviously we were in school my dad was still trying to work and looking for my sister my parents were separated we were in survival mode hoping that ham would walk through the door I believe a gentleman and his wife were out at Gordo's pit Gordo's pit is in a wooded area was a place that a lot of the local kids would go to party and so this one person is sifting through some refuse and he sees a human foot sticking out there was a big pile of garbage bags Bannon Lane on top of the pile was an unknown body that had been totally consumed by fire melted into the wrist bones was what appeared to be a bracelet and you could make out just a couple of letters of dark and a couple of letters of angel on that Archangel Pam's CB Handel about the only way they were able to really prove that it was Pam was through dental records the search for Pamela Pitts is over a hunt for her killer begins it was horrific somebody had to be a very evil person and very angry to have done this to another human being [Music] the police came to my house and they said that they had found Pam's body and that it was an apparent homicide and that her body was burned Beyond recognition police cordon off the area located seven miles Northwest of town and start to process the scene there was a lot of trash around her and on her the injuries to her body were gruesome the sheer brutality of what happened to her was the most striking thing the body was burned so bad that they couldn't get it in the body bag without it falling apart but it was taken to the medical examiner's office where the autopsy was performed he noted there were fractures in the skull that he said were caused by heat but no obvious cause of death could be determined at autopsy during the autopsy the me identified heat killed fly larvae so we suspected that Pam had been killed and stored somewhere and then deposited on the garbage pile and burned two local law enforcement agencies the Yavapai Sheriff's Office and the Prescott police form a Joint Task Force to track down Pam's killer basically they started going to the high school and interviewing people they literally conducted hundreds of interviews of people in this case since I was the assistant principal when law enforcement came to the high school they interviewed the students in my office they learned from a couple individuals that Pam had been seen the night of the 16th at Gordo's pit and a big party law enforcement did speak to an individual that told them about a incident after the party that night wherein pan was killed in a ritual what you know about the Family Fitness is all joking around saying that he had to kill some girl saying that he finally made his first sacrifice to Satan and all this stuff everybody seemed to go by a nickname this kid named half track came up as having told people that he took Pam up into the woods he said that he took a little ice pick he stuck it in her jugular vein and he bled her for a little while and then he set her on fire but half track himself never gave this information to law enforcement and none of this was ever corroborated by law enforcement everybody was talking about the occult they call it the satanic Panic of the 80s 1988 was just past the peak of the satanic moral panic in the United States the rumors were that there were satanic Cults that existed secretively within communities and we're engaging in criminal Behavior even rape and homicide police in Mexico arrested another suspected member of a satanic cult of drug smugglers they're blamed for the ritual killing of 15 people at a Mexican Ranch authorities say as many as 30 teenagers may have been involved in the satanic cult a young mother was trying to burn the devil out of her son by putting him in an oven the satanic threat was everywhere everyone and everything during that period of time in the Pitts case I think the unusual method of homicide and discovery of the body probably lent itself to satanic interpretations and satanic rumors I think the police have to do due diligence in looking at claims remembering during that period of time that there's still a lot of cultural discourse about satanic Cults and Satanism the rumor in the news was ham might have been involved in that sort of thing and I can tell you that was not true that's the power of emotion the power of fear the power of moral outrage eclipsing anything that's factual detectives discard the Satanic ritual angle and turn to Pam's housemates Shelley and Jeremy they want to know where the two were on September 16th the last day anyone saw Pam alive Jeremy's Alibi was that he was at a football game that night and that was kind of a significant event and then he hung out with a couple guys Shelley said that on the night of the 16th she got off work she went and picked up her boyfriend Ray who were you with the night of research Kings Ray Don John and Terry I don't know their last names did you go party in that night no I went and met done at about eight o'clock at Jack In The Box we went over to Terry and John's and we watched RoboCop and she said that they got done around 2 30 or so in the morning sure you didn't take Pam out to the pits I'm positive so the police focused on that talking to Ray clerks to see if Shelley was telling the truth and they corroborated what she had said detectives asked Ray to take a polygraph he agrees and passes [Music] just as detectives move on from Pam's roommates a new possible suspect emerges it's been rumored Melinda Perry did pick fights with people so there was a party at Garner Pitts and it was rumored that she was at this party there was a person who said that at the party on the 16th Melinda and Pam had gotten into a physical confrontation two and after after having a fix and and they started to fight and during the fight animal got thrown on the ground she just keep their head like a bit four or five times she got on and she was bleeding and she fell back down how is she bleeding through the head yeah some of them theorized that Melinda Perry killed her to finish the fight and then once that had happened that she had thrown her body on the Fire I never actually saw Melinda fight anybody so I don't know if that was true but um it's it's possible it's all you can think about is my poor kid and what kind of horror she went through but you just want to find out who did it was all I could think about day and night [Music] oh investigators have a new lead in the murder of Pamela Pitts Melinda Perry had a reputation as being kind of a troublemaker that was the indication that I was getting from the police department they really went after Melinda Perry as the primary suspect police bring Perry in for questioning they asked where she was the night Pam was murdered and whether she and Pam fought okay like two months it's like every time I go out there cowgirls start stopping up to me and we've had witnessed it on Friday night I'd say it's a lie because I was advocates tell us about the fight you got into with him I didn't get enough I've never been in a fight with him I didn't tell anybody I did people it's very close to you told us that you get in the fight with her nope I sure did not to get to the bottom of all the conflicting stories and Perry's denials detectives asked the Yavapai County attorney to convene a grand jury they've heard enough times that Melinda Perry was responsible for Pam's death that they were going to compel Witnesses to tell the truth under oath so they started this investigative grand jury they interviewed Melinda Perry and then they interviewed several other subjects to get to the truth of Pam's killing [Music] Melinda tells the grand jury exactly what she told police that she had nothing to do with Pam's murder Melinda had an alibi and a pretty strong one and it was those guys that were musicians that played in some of the local establishments in Prescott Friday night get a party at the American Motel I can show you Scott and Jeff we left their camera and we went to the hotel from their jam room maybe you've got the flight with Pam I not remember no I sure do not I always prefer fights four months after Melinda takes the stand the grand jury reaches a shocking conclusion the investigative grand jury ended up indicting Melinda Perry for perjury essentially because she didn't confess to killing Pam and made no progress in getting any further into the investigation as to what happened to Pam Melinda sticks to her story that on the night of the 16th she was partying at a motel with her friends in a band the grand jury talked to some of her people and they said the same thing so they sent one of the patrolmen to the American Motel to see if this person signed his name on The Ledger and sure enough his name was there on December 20th 1989 Melinda Perry is sentenced to 41 days in jail for contempt of court and failure to pay funds but the three counts of perjury are dropped in October 1990. we were focused on what was going to come out of the grand jury in 89. I actually thought that that would be what broke this case open and it just it fizzled out [Music] and they wouldn't even talk about what was in the Grand Street because it was sealed with no new leads to fuel the investigation like the dying Embers of the fire that consumed her the case of this dark Angel's fiery demise grows cold [Music] I mean they were pretty good about periodically updating me for a while you know and then as time went on I wasn't hearing much of anything I never forget you think about her constantly yet this case with all its strange twists I was about to take another odd turn [Music] there were some Embry-Riddle students exploring a mine out Iron Springs Road found a body in a vertical mine shaft and reported it to law enforcement positively identified as Ray Clerks he had been shot in the head Ray was the boyfriend of Pam's roommate Shelly norgaard to me if you think that's a coincidence there's something wrong with you you know [Music] Elise had been searching for Pam Pitts killer for two and a half years the case is getting colder by the day but the grisly discovery of Shelley norgard's boyfriend Ray clerks in a mine shaft outside Prescott reignites the case Rey's family knew he was missing early May Ray clerks was a major Alibi for Shelley in the Pam Pitts case so that started a chain of events to follow this chain of events investigators rewind two years [Music] it's spring 22 year old student pilot Ray clerks and Shelley norgard are moving in together after a year of dating Ray like flying since I've known him and slowly volunteers fly Ray and Shelly they both like automobiles working on cars he was pretty laid back he had a sense of humor we spent most of our time in the garage working on airplanes and things like that so that stuff he took very seriously every time I see a plane fly overhead I think a ray foreign s an aviation degree and looks for work in California she was looking around the John Wayne Airport perceiving get some kind of job instructing in order to be qualified to meet the minimums for the airlines but he cut his trip in Orange County short and also he had an urgency that he needed to return back to Prescott Arizona he says he's moving back to Orange County so I'm going to go pack up my things and I'll be back couple weeks went by we haven't heard from Ray so my oldest brother Benny started making phone calls to Shelly Shelley told them that he had gotten a job flying a plane to Mexico and had left really early in the morning okay well have him call us a couple days later hey did you have Ray call us well he's not here he's doing this he's flying an airplane over here I mean this dragged on for weeks and we felt that he was always getting the runaround [Music] concerned about Rey Renard and his brother Ben called the authorities in Prescott I don't remember who the sheriff was because what'd your brother look like why would you be asking us that well we pulled a body out of a mine shaft that's been there for a while I think you two need to come down to Prescott as soon as you can so we packed up that day and we were on the road to Prescott as we start talking to the police officers I've started to get more and more nervous about it I said well we we can't show you the body because it's very Decay but we can show you what he was wearing I was yeah that's that's his stuff I was just numb police begin their investigation by matching tire tracks found at the mine entrance to a pickup recently Borrowed by none other than Shelly norgaard Shelley was interviewed at the time of her interview in the house they found blood and at a certain point they walked up to her car and could immediately smell I think they documented it as the smell of death they found blood in the trunk of her car they ended up being you know the same type as rays detectives holds who find a nine millimeter Luger revolver under the front seat so they actually had some physical evidence to charge shelling Shelley pleads not guilty to the first degree murder of Ray Clerks she denied that she had anything to do with his disappearance or murder she continued with the story that he had gotten a job flying to Mexico this flight nor guards not guilty plea the evidence is stacking up against her a ballistics analysis chose Shelley's gun is the same caliber as the weapon used to kill Ray Clerks it wasn't until they started collecting enough evidence where it became clear that Shelley had done it that she finally admitted to doing it [Music] finally after two years of claiming she was innocent norgaard reverses course and admits she murdered Ray Clerks actually sentencing her attorney had prepared a statement as to what had occurred a large part of it was that Ray was moving he was leaving the relationship which enraged Shelley they were out stargazing and Rey was laying on top of the car and Shelly and her fit of rage and grabbed the gun that was on the floorboard of her car and shot him in the head story about killing Rey is believable the the facts and circumstances around it I don't believe it I believe she killed Rey in the apartment and then Rey's body was in the trunk of that car and sat out there until Shelley was able to borrow a four-wheel drive truck go to her car remove Rey's body put it in the truck drive it up the mountain to that mine shaft your guard is sentenced to 20 years with no parole she's given credit for the two years she has already served a waiting trial her release date would be in 2011. Michelle's conviction in Rey's death now paints Shelley in a whole different light she was a very young cute blonde girl who was kind of small and it's hard to see somebody like that as a killer fast forward and now suddenly she is a convicted killer so obviously now she looks like more of a suspect and Pam's disappearance and death than she did in 1988. [Music] Shelley was in prison for 20 years during that 20-year period we had detectives they kept touching base with me periodically they kept trying to see if they could make some sense out of things or find any new leads any new evidence that they could use and of course as the years went by they've got other things to do and it kind of gets put on the back burner and in the meantime you're kind of in limbo over it [Music] 42 year old Shelly norgaard completes her sentence she moves to Nevada marries and hopes to forget her past but the Yavapai Sheriff's newly appointed Lieutenant Boltz is not about to let that happen the first time I became aware of the Pam Pitts Cold Case I realized the sheer volume of information that had been gathered in the the early stages of that case and came to a conclusion it was untenable to have somebody work on that cold case and then current cases so it was in 2011 that I got the Pamela Pitts case I immediately had a connection to this case because I identified with Pam as someone I would have known in high school and had this happen to one of my friends I I would have been devastated and so I felt like the personal conviction compulsion to do what I could to to solve this case we had concluded interviews with other people who we thought might have been responsible for Pam's murder and so we were really left with Shelly norgaard there had to be something we missed so from day one that was it what did we miss what do we have that will provide us the clue we need to solve this case full cases the older they are typically the more material is generated in that case so just the organization of all the photographs the thousands of pages of reports that's one problem finding your Witnesses was another issue finding the law enforcement officers that were involved is another problem especially in this case 30 years later it would take him five years but detective Dart eventually finds a new angle in this old case all penal institutions in the United States pretty much all of them record phone calls between inmates and the outside so we called down to Arizona DOC and ask for any recordings that they had of Shelley before I even came into our investigations Bureau they collected 90 some phone calls there was a series of phone calls between Shelley and her father where there was tension insofar as her dad was concerned that she was going to be arrested immediately upon leaving the jail hi hi what's going on he kept making reference to that night referring to the night Pam went missing well that's what I've been thinking for 20 years but then I don't know exactly you've never told me what what actually happened I'm kind of up in the air again and she comes back I had a huge moment and then the line goes completely silent it was very evident from that particular phone call that she I wouldn't say confess to the murder but admitted her involvement in the murder that was a giant aha moment that actually led me to go to the county attorney's office and seek an indictment I got a phone call from detective dark and he said tomorrow we are going to Reno Nevada area and he says we're going to arrest Shelley nordart I can feel the emotions right now again to be able to tell Paul that I was arresting the person responsible for his daughter's death that was my huge satisfying moment I thought it was a miracle I think was probably one of the best moments of my life [Music] hello Miss snorder yes put on the seat I'd like to talk to you about 1988 am I under arrest you are under arrest for murder of family pets [Music] we have thought that Shelly killed Pam so I was excited that they had arrested her I was in tears I was amazed that after 30 years maybe we would get some justice [Music] Shelly norgaard now known as Shelley Harmon stands charged with the first degree murder of Pamela Pitts but prosecutors have a warning for the Pitt's family the county attorney's office told us don't get your hopes up be prepared for a long long legal battle you know my answer to that is I've waited 30 years I can I can see this to the end anytime we take a case to court especially a murder case but the defense is going to make a lot of motions they're going to ask for a lot of hearings they're trying to get all of that evidence precluded and then you don't have a case at all Shelley's attorney tries to take away the prosecutions most effective weapon the defense attorney wanted any information regarding the rate Clerk's case to be kept out of the trial he didn't want anybody to know that she had been convicted of his murder and spent 20 years in prison he argued just because she killed one person doesn't mean she killed another and he moved that that be struck and kept out of the trial there are numerous similarities between the two cases in both cases they were roommates they were sharing bank accounts in both cases there was evidence of the body having been stored before it was discovered we knew that if we won that hearing it was going to make convicting Shelley and Cam's murder much easier the judge makes his decision it's a setback for prosecutors the judge would not allow any of that information to come into the trial which was a huge blow to our case anybody who's done felony cases knows about rule 404 B and that is a rule of law that the courts use to evaluate whether or not a prior bad act can come into the current trial typically in my experience most prior bad acts don't come into the current trial that really worried me because that was the absolute key to tying Shelley to Ham's murder the old adage in prosecutions is that the longer a case gets dragged out the better it gets for the defendant the Pitts family weigh their options we got together with a prosecutor I had a trial date set and we said okay if we went to trial today what are the chances that we're going to get a conviction all it would take was for one juror to say no I don't believe she's guilty and she would have walked free as if it never happened what we decided on as a family and I've taken a lot of criticism for this is that we would offer her a plea deal or if she confessed to the crime and gave us the details of what happened and why that she would be released on time served it was more important to get the confession and the conviction behind Shelley's name than it was for the time so we offered to plead you and surprisingly she agreed to it thank you [Music] and so we went into court and she stood up and she said I murdered Pam Pitts Shelly was up was really upset with Pam about her moving out because she couldn't afford to pay the rent on her own and she didn't have anywhere to go so Shelley was out looking for Pam and she knew that she goes to Corrido pits for parties and so when she found Pam she confronted her they got into a fight she just you know lost it she said I punched her and knocked her down and got on top of her and I just kept punching and punching and punching until she stopped breathing and then she heard voices coming and she realized Pam wasn't moving and she left that was Shelley's final story that's all we got I don't feel that what Shelley stated in her Alex [Music] she didn't have to say what happened afterwards so we're led to believe that Shelly just left Pam's body out there and that somebody else came along and burned it and you know desecrated her body I mean it doesn't add up she gave no other details and we were not allowed to ask any questions so the legal handcuffs I felt were put on us of course if it were up to me she'd be in prison for the rest of her life but we don't live in a perfect world she's a two-time convicted murderer and my advice to her husband is sleep with one eye open [Music] we got Justice for Pam and so we have to be satisfied with that [Music] I've always got her in the back of my mind and I think about her every single day but I also think that she would want us to be happy and have productive lives you don't want to ever forget your loved ones but you also have to find a way to live with it because we have a life to live and you just live it better and live it for them okay come on buddy [Music] Sherry was a great mom as a family we never missed birthday parties holidays nothing I was fully expecting to see her with the kids at my son's birthday but when I didn't hear from her at all I felt like something bad could have happened it just it didn't feel right just the not knowing you know not knowing if she's okay well it was really hard it was hard for all of us it took a toll I just would hope she would reach out but I had faith I would be able to find her anything I could do I was always looking for something anything [Music] [Music] it's a peaceful spring morning and sleepy rural Pennsylvania when the phone rings at the Huntington County District Attorney's Office it's a detective from a nearby town he needs his search warrant and he needs it now the detective from the Altoona Police Department believed that the body was buried in Huntington County when the detective explained things to me and said this was from 1999 there was no question about it this was not someone who ran away this was a homicide case there's a body we believe to be buried on this 150 acre parcel of land in Huntington County Warriors Mark Township so it was obviously something we wanted to get right on right away [Music] maybe there could be a body here and you know it's going to be in this general area you have to find the body the mystery dates back over 13 years [Music] [Music] Shelly and Sherry with the kids they always had big parties we were always all together whenever those kids had a birthday though [Music] Our Father Shelly Sherry myself and them younger brother Sean [Music] on this occasion the whole family gathers at the home of Richard's sister Shelly Nagel the family and friends were coming over my youngest son at the time we were celebrating his birthday I was leading everybody out to the back patio where we were gonna have his party I was fully expecting to see if Sherry with the kids Kelly and Richard's sister Sherry recently separated from her husband Aaron Sherry and their kids have been living with Aaron's parents someone rang the doorbell and there stood Aaron Sherry's husband Ken ladies with my nieces and nephew I was confused a little bit I assumed it would have been Sherry bringing the children to the party it was definitely out of character for Sherry to miss one of the kids whether it been Shelley's children or her own my dad and I asked Aaron where Sherry's at and Aaron sent now and then Ken said something like I can't believe she left the kids why would she leave the kids and him and my dad had some words back and forth and then Aaron and his dad laughed [Music] just the mere fact of not hearing from her not even a phone call to say you know I'm sorry I didn't make it that had me worried [Music] we were raised by a single parent our dad we were abandoned by our mother dad was doing his best to make sure we all had everything we needed we had wonderful memories going through adolescence Sherry was shy and timid but very loving and caring so sweet so kind she's always the one to put a smile on your face she was always happy never really never seen her down [Music] Sherry and Aaron met at the local school that's where we all used to like hang out she was 14. he was 17. my father wasn't very happy to say the least she got pregnant at 15. Sherry did she stayed in school and she did eventually graduate [Music] and I know once she had her babies her kids were her life her children were her world during that time Aaron drove truck so he was gone for at least a week at a time the young couple's marriage becomes increasingly tense the problem was Sherry was still in love with Aaron at the time by the age of 21 Sherry had three young children she enjoyed that very much but I'm sure it was stressful having three young babies running around the fact that Aaron was never home to be part of the family I think that's what added the stress to their relationship [Music] after being together for seven years Sherry finally separates from Aaron but she can't afford her own place she moves in temporarily with her husband's parents the ladies that was very uncomfortable for her she started working for a temp agency to save money to get out from underneath the ladies after she moved in with the ladies she began dating she started dating a gentleman named Ryan Aaron caught her in this new boyfriend talking in the alley it caused a big argument foreign only a few weeks later when Sherry misses her nephew's birthday party her sister Shelley just can't shake a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach my mind didn't want to believe it but I don't know it just it didn't feel right dad ended up calling up the deletes to find out you know where Sherry's at the ladies had told my father that Sherry had ran off to Maine with her boyfriend never said who was automatically assumed these the Ryan we didn't have a phone number we didn't have an address we didn't know who he was maybe he did something to her we didn't know that's what was a little worrisome [Music] my dad made the decision to go to the police the police said well she's an adult and she can leave on her own if she wants the police in Altoona had no reason to believe that she was in danger or that a crime had been committed their belief was simply that she had decided to leave and have no contact with her family excuse me but uh there was nothing more important to that girl than her children Sherry would have never left her children due to the simple fact that she was abandoned by her mother and she would never put her children through that her kids were her world in my heart in my mind I knew something bad had happened [Music] in 1999 after Sherry went missing the Altoona Police Department didn't seem like they wanted to do a whole lot the police were hesitant to file a missing person's report there were some questions regarding what actually led to her disappearance was it a voluntary disappearance the Altoona Police Department did a report saying this girl's missing her family doesn't know where she's at they believe she's in Maine officers interview Sherry's father-in-law Kenneth Leedy the last known person to see Sherry all the information was that Sherry got up to leave for work on a Friday morning her father-in-law kennel lady dropped her off where she worked and that was the last time anyone had seen Sherry Lee weeks later there's still no sign of Sherry Levy with no evidence of Foul Play investigators believe that she left town by choice despite the fact that neither her children nor her family have heard from her whenever Sherry first went missing maybe there was a possibility that she left for a while but my problem was as the time went on and she didn't contact my father she didn't contact her children she didn't contact anybody I didn't believe she'd be coming home I was around my nieces and nephews all the time our kids played together after her disappearance that that came to an end children were raised by their father and their grandfather and grandmother and as far as I know the ladies LED them children to believe that their mother was an alcoholic and ran off with another man and that's why she wasn't around my dad was in contact with the police department on a regular basis as always they they had no answers they haven't you know seen or heard of her nothing I feel like he kind of like lost hope as far as getting any help from law enforcement whenever the police kind of gave up hope on the whole deal I kind of did as well [Music] by 2000 with no fresh leads police insist that there's nothing to investigate and the case goes cold but Sherry's family remains deeply suspicious I have a feeling Aaron lady or Ken lady hurt my sister and that's the reason she's no longer around you took a toll on all of us just the not knowing you know not knowing if she's okay it hurt all of us it's been five long traumatic years since Sherry's children and loved ones have seen her the Lost weighs especially heavily for her father our dad was definitely heartbroken over the whole ordeal I think he felt like he let her down like he wasn't there for her the last time I was at the hospital with him he said have you heard from Sherry [Music] I did promise him that I'm gonna find her I'm gonna bring her home [Music] he was real happy but he passed away two days later [Music] I had faith that I would be able to find her [Music] Sherry had been missing for 11 years when the social media came along and I just thought well I'll just make her a page and see if that helps at all the Facebook page is what started everything one of the messages I'd received was from Aaron's ex-girlfriend she claimed that my nephew said that his mother was buried on ladies property up in Warriors more underneath an outhouse foreign for someone to say something like that kind of hit me like a ton of bricks I have to tell the police this because this was something we never even heard of they were just kind of matter of fact I thought it was a big deal but they didn't seem to be frustrated by the lackluster response from the Altoona police Shelley keeps up her own drugged search she decides to track down Ryan shot his boyfriend from the time she disappeared [Music] I started searching on a couple social medias I eventually came across him through I believe it was his wife's page but I reached out to him and asked him if he remembered Sherry I didn't want to scare him off he reached back out to me and said he did remember her and the last time he saw her was when Aaron confronted him by Aaron's parents house Sherry had asked Ryan to leave that was the last time saw her [Music] when I found Ryan that's what started the investigation process into Sherry's disappearance [Music] Ryan tells Shelley that her sister did not go to Maine with him back in 1999. it's a crucial detail that Altoona police never dug up in all these years and it's just what they needed to heat this case up reaching out to Ryan was the reason that she had credibility as far as the Altoona Police Department was concerned the original story that Sherry ran off with this guy seemed to be false that raised a lot of eyebrows with the Altoona detectives and why they moved forward so Shelley really gets the credit there the Altoona Police Department decide to start investigating This Cold Case again 12 years later when they were at my door I was happy to see them accepting the Cherry was likely the victim of a crime investigators in Altoona spend the next few months gathering information from Sherry and Shelley's family and Sherry's in-laws the ladies I finally get to talk to them for the first time about my sister being missing they're also talking to Aaron Jerry's husband the first person of interest is the spouse Aaron Leedy was absolutely a person of interest and the fact that he believes she was cheating on him would have led to him possibly heavy motive to kill her police focused their attention on Aaron Leedy could he be behind his wife's disappearance just as Shelley thought from this start it seemed as if Aaron was attempting to cooperate with law enforcement the entire time but they still had suspicions regarding Aaron Altoona didn't think Nate could rule out anybody in the lady family at that point the whole family would have been of interest you don't know there could have been a plot there could have been more than one person involved it takes almost a year but Altoona detectives figure out where Sherry may be the alternative detective thought that the remains of Sherry lady were in Huntington County because the Lighty family had a farm that they used as a hunting camp in Huntington County [Music] and he suspected someone being involved from the family [Music] initially Ken Lighty had indicated to the Altoona Police Department that we could go on to the property [Music] owner's father kind of leading Conte contact the detective from APD and said no you're not coming on my property without a search warrant and that flagged us is to why that situation had changed so suddenly foreign police wanted to get on that property and they told me we had dogs coming cadaver dogs and we're going to search the property all we need to do now is to get a search warrant signed by a judge we knew if we could get on that property we would at least have a fighting chance to find Sherry we just didn't have enough to get a search warrant we're pretty much the dead end I mean 13 years later there's there's no bloody sidewalk to look at there's no ball bat to go pick up we didn't have anything [Music] detectives didn't even have Sherry's body or any clue where it might be hidden so they devise a plan to arrange a conversation between Aaron litty and his father Kenneth one they could listen in on District Attorney's annik had the idea of why don't we do a consensual phone call what do we have to lose under the wiretap law in Pennsylvania if one person agrees to make a phone call to the other they can consent to be recorded as long as it's authorized by the district attorney Aaron at the time knew he was still a suspect maybe we could find out through Aaron what Kenneth knew in an effort to clear his own name Aaron agrees to help investigators Target his father Aaron agreed to call his father to see if Kenneth would talk about the case [Music] Aaron was very nervous I think part of Aaron was always afraid of his father we talked about a script so to speak to get his dad to talk about the case look Dad I'm a suspect here too what do you know what aren't you telling me the documents were completed recording devices were set up on the phone we made the call from the state police barracks investigation room we thought we only had one chance to find out what happened on that day that Sherry disappeared 13 years ago foreign [Music] stayed in the room with Aaron we listened from outside the room to Aaron make the call to his father police record Aaron's covert conversation with his father Kenneth but Kenneth Dodges his son's questions there were actually two phone calls the first phone call Aaron's speaking to his father who's not being cooperative he's getting agitated over there he said I can't talk here I have to go somewhere else Mr Kenneth Levy was the last person to have had physical contact with Sherry Lee when she went missing we knew Sherry was uncomfortable around Ken Leedy because he was really touchy feely he would touch her hair was just some really odd behavior foreign it was kind of creepy that your daughter-in-law I heard plenty of creepy stories of Ken peeking Undercovers when he thinks Sherry was sleeping creepy actions for an older man to a younger woman we have parents calls father back the second time during that second phone call cast again as agitated doesn't really want to answer her questions Aaron was upset on the phone his dad was upset on the phone and out of the blue Kenneth said I did it it was the most stunning moment of my legal career he had just confessed to a homicide that happened 13 years ago the the feeling was gut wrenching we just had this guy tell us he killed somebody 13 years ago and nobody ever knew she was dead and at that point everything changed he qualified it by saying it was an accident no one in that room or that Barracks or anyone that was working that case believed that it was an accident the call continues Aaron continues to question him about it and ask you know where is she Ken says she's on the farm defense row on the floor Kenneth indicated that he had buried her in a rock pile or words to that effect all we need to do now is to get a search warrant and just simply find the rock pile that's what I sent Troopers and the detectives up to Altoona to interview Canada his residence that evening [Music] remains completely unaware that his conversation with his son had been recorded earlier in the day he didn't know what we had if he was Seated on the couch they questioned him about Sherry's disappearance the demeanor was defiant one of the detectives told Mr Leedy look you're coming with us you're going to the state police barracks for further questioning at this point Mr Leedy leaped from the couch and starts to run he had indicated that his intentions were to run upstairs where he had a gun and he was going to kill himself he assaulted police officer knocked the police officer to the ground Pennsylvania state trooper there's a slight scuffle they tackle him into residence he was handcuffed placed on the ground outside of the residence and Mr Leedy was placed in the Blair County Prison with aggravated assault charges against the Troopers and the detective but Kenneth remains silent refusing to cooperate in any way and investigators know that the tape phone confession won't be enough to make a murder charge stick we got the search warrant that evening and we knew we couldn't search until the next morning and it was a sleepless night for me there was just this anticipation that we are going to find Sherry and we're going to get Justice for this family we first stepped foot on the property shortly after 8 A.M everyone had high hopes that we were going to find this missing lady in Fairly short order but we were looking for a rock pile and there were Rock piles everywhere we were looking on a piece of property that had 150 acres and multiple places to bury a body we weren't just going to search this property like we would search a house in a drug case showed us the fentro he thought his father was talking about during the phone call multiple fence rows pretty much lined the property in different intervals Ken lady he had a hunting stand there the sense was that should be the starting point we had been in contact with the Pennsylvania State Police K-9 unit and we had a cadaver dog because the body had been in the ground for so many years the scent would travel and it could be 200 yards away you could dig and dig and dig but you still may not find the body we realized pretty quickly this wasn't going anywhere the search dragged on that day with little results it's a Dawning task to try to figure out where is she and there was a resolve by everybody that we're not leaving this ground until we find her [Music] we were emotionally charged up we are going to find Sherry and we're going to bring her home after being missing for 13 long years Sherry leite he may soon be found as police continue their search for her body on her father-in-law's property I think we've contacted Dr Dennis dirkmat from the Mercyhurst University for his forensic anthropology team to come and collect evidence for us the Pennsylvania State Police were looking for a set of human remains I brought along my team from Mercyhurst to conduct a full-scale excavation I did get the impression that Neath and the Pennsylvania State Police were determined to find her without a body detectives face an uphill struggle making the murder charge stick unless they can track down Sherry's remains Kenneth leave he could Escape Justice eventually there were between 50 and 100 people on the property searching from early morning until dusk sneeze's up there he's working his butt off to find me my answers and and I'm very grateful unfortunately we weren't having any success as the week progressed hope diminished and doubt started to set in we started to become defeated at this point foreign with no sign of a breakthrough Pennsylvania State Police have no choice they have to call off the search after we searched the property for the the first week decision was made by myself and my superiors that it was time for us to pull off the property [Music] the next idea really the last straw was to go to Kenneth and his attorneys and make a deal if you take us to Sherry's body we would be willing to make a plea deal to third degree murder as opposed to first-degree murder I agree with his decision it wasn't made lightly the maximum penalty at the time on third degree murder was its sentence of 7 to 14 years I was very angry I didn't understand why they had to make a deal with him and without asking the family first how we felt does he deserve a deal no the man don't he took somebody's life foreign the plea deal Kenneth Leakey finally tells detectives the horrific truth about Sherry's last moments I'm going to read to you from the transcribe statement of Mr Kenneth Leedy as we were heading out the front porch I said to her are you coming home to be a mother this weekend or are you going to continue to be a bar you just simply kind of turned and said well you and I said you and I gave her a shove the shove it was forceful it was forceful and she hit her head right side of her head on my truck I believe the mirror and fell face first on the left side of her head onto the sidewalk according to him he panicked and decided he was getting rid of the body so he drove from Altoona to Warriors Mark to his property Ken had to show the Pennsylvania State Police where Sherry was on the property [Music] my Troopers went to the Blair County Prison picked up Mr Leedy transported him to this property the feeling that I had seeing him there was really anger [Music] Mr Leedy and I began walking around the area of this old fence row he pointed out two locations I remember saying okay Ken tell me which one I should start looking at he was handcuffed he raised his hand and pointed and said I would start there I started throwing rocks off the pile a void appeared as I leaned forward on the Rocks I was on all fours and I could look down in the hole there's a bone in that hole we knew we had found a Sherry Lane for years Sherry had been on that ground for years Ken Lighty walked past her grave site honey for years that family had been on that property Kenneth was saying it was an accident we didn't have any forensics to show that it was a homicide [Music] and now we can do the autopsy and the forensic exam to get answers to see who's telling the truth [Music] now that cheryliti's remains have been found forensic experts focus on determining the precise medical cause of her tragic death foreign as we were Excavating we could see that both legs were folded up basically almost to the chin even the best contortionist couldn't do that that told us that maybe the body was somewhere else somebody had noticed a smell then he had gathered up the remains and then buried her Dr brookmestine carefully secured cherries remains to be transported back to Mercy University that the laboratory the process would be a review of every bone surface that we have to see if there's any evidence of trauma the right side of the face showed significant fracturing showed more damage and probably was a point of impact this side was also damaged but probably because it was either against the ground or against a wall or something like that and so you have a significant Force here and then created many fractures here many fractures here that ran through the through the skull her skull was crushed there was no question about that [Music] it was blunt force trauma you can imagine almost anything hitting with a baseball bat maybe or a pipe the trauma was so extensive that would have led to her death [Music] detectives put more pressure on Kenneth Levy to explain how he committed his heinous crime Kenneth viewed the pictures of the remains he then remembered something but he didn't know what being in his hands towards Sherry a conclusion can be drawn and he's remembering where he struck her with some object he never was able to tell us or never wanted to tell us what that object was [Music] Kenneth was finally sentenced to 7 to 14 years the 66 year old Kenneth Leedy was brought into the courtroom with hands cuffed and legs Shackled during the formal sentencing sister of his victim spoke directly to the convicted killer okay my my family has been through living hell these past 14 years not knowing what happened to Sherry we knew she would have never left her young children not only did this monster take away their mother but he lied to them for all these years blaming Sherry knowing all along he killed my sister he has no conscience no soul and I lost a sister but they lost a mother Sherry's most basic right her right to life was cruelly and unjustly taken from her I told him I thought what he did is inexcusable but he put those children through is unimaginable [Music] when we finally got her home we did have a memorial service for her and um she was then buried with our father [Music] I felt like we were finally all together again by 2020 nfliti has served seven years making him eligible for parole outraging Sherry's surviving family who are still grieving 21 years after her murder every year we have to worry because he's up for parole it's just not fair for him to be able to get out and live a normal life after taking a life when Kenneth lady came up for his first parole Hearing in 2020 I did speak in front of the parole board I did start a petition the first hearing I think I had over 2000 and the second hearing I had over seven thousand [Music] I would hope that one day I would be able to sit with all three of them her children and just answer any questions that they have about their mother [Music] I miss Sherry a lot and I know that she's she's finally at rest and [Music] didn't I know she's with our dad thank you foreign

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Id: 1zzBl9jr600

Length: 172min 28sec (10348 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 18 2023