Daughter Suspects Father Is Murderous Imposter | The New Detectives | Real Responders

a woman has been murdered police are sure of that but nothing else is what it appears to be investigators must sort out who's the victim and who's the killer a father's greeting cards are no cause for joy when his daughter suspects he's not the man he pretends to be to find the truth detectives follow a paper trail through a maze of lies a bundled murder and a twist of fate tip investigators off to a killer's elaborate scheme but to win a conviction they'll need his cooperation taking a life some killers take the phrase literally after the kill they assume their victims lives concealing their crime and hiding within their new stolen [Music] identity [Music] [Music] home to more than a million people detroit is michigan's largest and toughest city and like most metropolitan areas its size it sees its share of crime on may 4 1994 betty cole arrived at the detroit police department to report her 32 year old sister annie missing she said that annie had left to run a quick errand with her boyfriend moe jones several hours earlier but hadn't returned jones was allegedly involved in drugs and betty was worried that something bad had happened to her sister but police policy requires at least 24 hours before a missing person's investigation can be opened [Music] though upset she returned home hopeful that her sister would soon turn up [Music] the following morning an anonymous 9-1-1 call brought police to an abandoned warehouse when they arrived betty cole and members of her family were waiting outside betty had also received an anonymous call from a man who claimed that her sister annie was inside officers made their way into the [Music] building at the end of a corridor they found the lifeless body of a young woman she had been shot three times in the head police returned outside and asked betty to identify the body when she saw the victim she broke down she confirmed that it was her sister annie cole forensics technicians began processing the scene near the body they collected three spent small caliber shells [Music] they also found a purse nearby but it contained no cash credit cards or any form of identification the bullets recovered from the victim were sent to the detroit forensic services lab [Music] there sergeant paul hartzell analyzed the slugs and the recovered shell casings using a digital micrometer [Music] the micrometer is a tool that we can use to help us determine caliber of a bullet or to help us determine a probable make of a particular bullet this is done by mounting the bullet either with the with the base up so we can measure the the diameter of the bullet to help us determine caliber or we can actually measure the lands and grooves on the bullet to help us determine a probable make of a weapon that may have fired that bullet each brand of gun creates its own characteristic pattern on a slug and every individual firearm leaves unique marks on a bullet like the gun's fingerprint analysis of the markings on the three slugs recovered from the victim led examiners to conclude that it was one gun a 22 caliber smith and wesson that had been used to commit the murder indicating a lone trigger man sergeant patrick henahan of the detroit police department began his investigation by looking for the last person reported to have been with annie cole her boyfriend mo jones we weren't able to develop any information on amo jones we searched you know department arrest records narcotics bureau records things of that nature we weren't able to come up with anything while the search for the mysterious mo jones was underway investigators tried to learn as much as they could about annie cole [Music] the victim's fingerprints recovered from the crime scene were entered into the police database containing fingerprint records after an extensive search the database turned up no matches [Music] annie cole had apparently stayed out of trouble until this terrible day unable to locate the victim's boyfriend detective hanahan relied on betty cole for information but after a few days it seemed she had disappeared i made another attempt after the weekend to contact her and it was almost as if she had fallen off the face of the earth all of a sudden pat why don't you take a look at this with no clear leads in sight he enlisted the aid of homicide detective monica childs [Music] her initial investigation revealed some troubling inconsistencies though the victim's prints were not on file with the police department a records check revealed an extensive felony record under the name of annie cole in fact a warrant was currently out for her arrest on a probation violation [Music] trying to resolve the conflicting information examiners compared the prints recovered at the crime scene with those contained in annie kohl's criminal records they didn't match annie cole and the victim found at the warehouse were not the same person and though there were several people named annie cole living in the detroit metropolitan area the victim and the known criminal shared a common address [Music] looking for answers police went to the funeral home where the victim's body was being kept there the director stated that betty cole had been in four days earlier to request a speedy cremation for her sister betty had stressed that there wasn't to be a service the cremation was scheduled for the following day for detective monica childs the arrangements made no sense due to the age of the victim and me being an african-american i know culturally we have a service okay if there's nobody we have a memorial service even if the person is cremated there's a service and pat and i talked about it he said that doesn't sound right that sounds a little odd i said that is very unusual here's some of the crime scene investigators strongest clue in this unusual case lay in a casket that was about to be incinerated they obtained a court order to postpone the cremation to sort things out police needed to find betty cole the woman who claimed to be the victim's sister at the address betty had given as her own investigators were met by a man named james shaver he said he was annie cole's brother he stated it was impossible that annie had been murdered a week ago he had just seen her the day before leaving on a trip to mississippi [Music] and he had never heard of betty cole he agreed to accompany police to the funeral home to try to identify the body [Music] shaver viewed the body with a total lack of recognition [Music] this woman whoever she was was not his sister annie if anyone could identify the nameless victim found in the warehouse it was the fictitious betty cole who was nowhere to be found for investigators it was clear that she was deeply involved in this deadly charade detroit police struggled to make sense of a bizarre murder investigation forensic evidence proved that the young female victim thought to be annie cole was misidentified and the woman who had id'd her was now missing hoping to give a name to the victim found shot to death in the warehouse police scoured recent missing persons reports one matched their victim quinetta and roy spruell had reported their 28 year old niece stella missing on may 4th the day before the body was found stella's co-workers had called the spools looking for her the employees said that when stella left for lunch that day she was going to meet someone though she never said who she seemed upbeat but when stella failed to return they began to worry the day after stella's disappearance a department store clerk called the spruls looking for their niece stella had just applied for a credit card and the store needed to verify some information on her application the spruels couldn't imagine that stella would just take off without a word stella's proved from what we learned from the family was a religious young lady a loyal friend just an all-around good person police asked the spruels to view the body found at the warehouse which had since been returned to the medical examiner's office the victim was their niece stella spruhl now police had to figure out who had murdered her and why detectives contacted the department store where stella had allegedly filled out the credit card application [Music] a surveillance camera had captured the [Music] transaction detectives recognized the woman in the video and it wasn't stella sprule [Music] it was the person who had identified herself as betty cole the victim's sister at the crime scene now she was on tape impersonating stella and though investigators were convinced that the woman in the video was the real annie cole they still had to determine how she was connected to stella sprule hoping to find an answer they went to stella's workplace employees there recognized the woman from the tape her name they said was annie cole she used to work there with stella and the two were friends [Music] for investigators there was little doubt that annie cole was behind the murder of stella spruell now they needed proof police turned to annie cole's family for help annie's brother and one of her daughters were brought in for questioning police believed they might be able to identify the male voice on the anonymous 9-1-1 call that brought police to the warehouse where the victim's body was discovered james shaver didn't recognize the voice but annie cole's daughter believed she did while listening to the copy of the 911 tape the one daughter said well that's my cousin leander annie cole's 17-year-old nephew leander foster was brought in for questioning recognized him as being with the fictitious betty cole at the warehouse when the body was discovered [Music] foster who had no criminal record broke down under questionnaire [Music] he admitted that annie had promised him and his best friend five thousand dollars each to kill stella spruill [Music] the day before the murder annie arranged to meet stella at a mall parking lot leander and his partner were nearby getting a look at their intended victim so i mean she she showed us where she hangs out the next day when stella arrived on her lunch hour to meet annie again leander foster and his friend were waiting [Music] they abducted her at gunpoint forced her inside the car and took her to the abandoned warehouse there foster said he shot her three times with a 22 caliber smith and wesson that annie had given him for the job they cleaned out her purse and gave stella's id to annie the next day after annie cole filed the false missing persons report leander called the police to report the body this is all annie's idea so he didn't know what happened to the murder weapons on may 11 1994 a week after stella screwell was murdered annie cole was tracked down at a relative's house in indianola mississippi she was arrested and taken back to detroit for questioning but police had already pieced together the motive behind annie cole's deadly scheme annie cole was probably a consummate con person she was aware of outstanding warrants for her arrest and made a calculated decision that she didn't want to go back to prison based on her interviews with co-defendants and witnesses she set in place a plan to assume another person's identity [Music] and disappear into the sunset if you will and live happily ever after to fake her own death and he needed a real victim but she had no one in mind to invite her to a makeup demonstration [Music] annie declined but realized in that instant who her victim was going to be trusting hard-working stella school [Music] annie cole was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison meander foster also received a life sentence the other accomplice pled guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 15 years in prison some people kill to purify their reputations [Music] others are motivated by pure greed bonner county idaho lies nestled between washington state to the west and montana to the east but in 1994 it found itself in the middle of a mystery in late february shelley kepley arrived at the bonner county sheriff's office and everything seemed to be in order she had flown in from reno nevada to check on her father paul gruber who lived in the area she suspected that something was terribly wrong [Music] shelley said she'd last seen her father a month earlier when he'd come to reno for the holidays at age 54 he was independently wealthy as a result of good investments and had recently retired from teaching school he'd been living in idaho for about six months and seemed happy there [Music] but over the past month or so shelley and her son had received several greeting cards and cash gifts from her father but the signature on the cards didn't really look like his writing and her repeated phone calls to him went unanswered [Music] if he had gone on a trip he would have told her his plans believing that someone may be impersonating her dad shelley didn't know where else to turn investigators forwarded the documents to the idaho department of law enforcement crime lab [Music] there examiners compared gruber's known writing samples with the signatures on the greeting cards but there wasn't enough to work with and examiners could not exclude paul gruber as the person who signed the cards [Music] though police had no evidence of foul play they agreed to look into the matter under the circumstances shelley had been given power of attorney over her father's estate she gave police permission to search his property lieutenant harvey thompson went to gruber's house to look around [Music] shelley had told him that her father kept his financial records and an inventory of his possessions in a locked box hidden in the crawl space [Music] lieutenant thompson went there to recover it there was an inventory in it there were titles to vehicles in it there was a little bit of jewelry in it and insurance papers with the inventory now in hand investigators made their way through the house plastic sheets covering the furniture suggested that gruber had gone away for an extended period of time [Music] it soon became apparent that several items on the list were nowhere to be found and they were not the type of things one packs simply to go on a trip i found out about guns being missing i found out a computer equipment that should have been there was gone a gun safe was gone just a lot of stuff was gone it seems shelly kepley's concerns about her missing father were well founded [Music] and though there was no physical evidence to support it police were now starting to believe that harm had come to paul gruber [Music] police in bonner county idaho continued searching for clues in the mysterious disappearance of 54 year old paul gruber [Music] and though no one had heard from him in some time his accounts were still active while scouring financial records obtained from gruber's bank lieutenant thompson found something suspicious paul gruber had been paying someone else's mortgage and from what police had learned that seemed completely out of character from talking to shelly kepley mr gruber's daughter mr gruber didn't pay other people's mortgages he didn't loan other people his vehicles you know what's mister grubers pretty well stays mr grubers daryl kewell the man whose mortgage was being paid for by gruber was brought in for questioning he told police he was a general contractor who had done extensive work at gruber's house he said he was starting a new home security business and other ventures that paul gruber had decided to invest in come rather than investing cash however gruber had agreed to make payments to kul's mortgage company to investigators that arrangement didn't sound like something shelley kepley's father would agree to [Music] to be certain they were talking about the same person police showed cuel a photograph of paul gruber but kewl didn't recognize him that wasn't the man he knew someone else it seemed was trying to pass himself off as paul gruber investigators asked him to describe the man who hired him to a police sketch artist if police would have any hope of finding the missing paul gruber they would first have to identify the imposter [Music] sir armed with the sketch police canvassed gruber's neighborhood [Music] and no one had seen gruber for some time as the race to put a name to the face in the sketch intensified investigators got a break the manager of the local post office had heard of the disappearance and informed police that paul gruber's mail was still being picked up from his p.o box yeah sure listen do me a favor he turned over a tape from a security camera that was located near gruber's box the video revealed three men at different times in the vicinity of gruber's p.o box one of them partially obscured and in profile looked familiar one of the males that was at mr gruber's box during the period of time appeared to be that of daryl kill suddenly the investigation's best witness was becoming the prime suspect [Music] though the image on the video was not conclusive it was enough for investigators to obtain a warrant to search cule's property [Music] inside his home they found a variety of tools electronic equipment and other items that were similar to those missing from paul gruber's residence daryl kuhl insisted that things belong to him but detectives discovered that some of the items had serial numbers matching the inventory from gruber's safe though police suspected kewl had killed gruber and then assumed his identity in order to cash in on his victim's wealth they found nothing to support a murder charge i had enough probable cause to arrest him for maybe theft and possibly forgery but we didn't have a body i couldn't prove that anything had actually happened to mr gruber feeling something may have been overlooked lieutenant thompson ordered another search of gruber's home one of the investigators had found a strange depression in the crawl space and the excavation team began digging beneath the house they kept at it for hours but with no luck then about two feet down they were overcome by the unmistakable smell of a decomposing body police in northern idaho were getting closer to solving the mysterious disappearance of 54 year old paul gruber digging in the crawl space of gruber's home police believe they had finally found him we went under the house and about two and a half feet down found a uh white plastic trash bag took it out and found several pairs of glasses and glass case in it also a distinct odor of a deteriorating body 17 months after being reported missing by his daughter paul gruber's body was found wrapped in an air mattress and buried beneath his own house he had been shot six times police theorized that paul gruber had been killed in order to clear the way for someone to steal his identity and access his wealth investigators believe that someone was daryl kewl now they had to prove it and the best way to do that was to physically link him to the scheme to steal gruber's identity the greeting cards that gruber's daughter received allegedly from her father were sent to the lab for dna analysis examiners removed the stamps from the envelopes hoping to find dna from the person who mailed them but according to carla finnis of the idaho department of law enforcement crime lab finding usable dna samples on the back of a stamp was a long shot when you're talking about a stamp or an envelope the cellular material comes from cells that have been sloughed off into the saliva from the cheeks and the tongue of the individual who licks the stamper envelope one can imagine that that's considerably less dna than one would find in a normal blood sample still examiners were able to isolate and extract a single minute trace of saliva the sample was enough for a dna profile to be developed now they needed a source of comparison despite his protestations of innocence daryl kewl was arrested for suspicion of murdering paul gruber once in custody police wasted no time obtaining a blood sample the evidence was sent back to the crime lab examiners generated a dna profile of daryl kewl the results were then compared to the profile generated from the step the conclusion was indisputable darrell cuell had licked those steps police had made their case from what investigators could determine had a history of shady business schemes he saw his employer the wealthy retired paul gruber as an easy mark but gruber must have seen through the scams refusing to be taken in kewl then came up with another plan to get to his money he would become paul gruber darrell cuell was found guilty of first degree murder grand theft and forgery he received 25 years for murder and 25 years for theft a daughter's diligence made it hard for kewl to maintain his charade [Music] but some predators rely on the vulnerability and isolation of their victims to work their schemes on august 15 1997 state police were dispatched to the home of 56 year old thomas wayne jones in milford delaware [Music] when jones home care nurse arrived for work she found traces of blood on the floor the house had been ransacked valuable coins and several financial records appeared to be missing her employer who was confined to a wheelchair was nowhere to be found outside police combed the grounds for any clues to jones's whereabouts [Music] one of the officers followed faint tire tracks that disappeared into a field they let him 500 yards from the house and directly to the body of thomas wayne jones he had been shot in the back of the neck but was still alive emergency personnel rushed to the scene [Applause] the wealthy entrepreneur was in critical condition but still conscious he managed to tell police the identity of his attacker a longtime friend named george calamaris jones said that after being shot calamaris placed him in a white pickup truck and dumped him in the field a warrant was issued for calamaris arrest records indicated that calamaris was living across the delaware border in silver spring maryland there officers from the montgomery county police department were asked to bring in the suspect in the shooting of thomas wayne jones but when police went to pick calamaris up he wasn't home calamaris wife noreen stated that she had not heard from her husband in a few days but she agreed to contact the police if and when she heard from him police were skeptical that calamaris wife would actually turn him in but a few hours later montgomery county detective terry ryan received a call calamaris notified the police once she was contacted by george calamaris he was living in a wooded area essentially on the lamb close to the home and he contacted her in an effort to get some money and clothing mrs calamares told police that her husband was on his way to a nearby convenience store to buy supplies when he exited the store police he was transported to the maryland detention center and booked for the attempted murder of thomas wayne jones calamaris admitted he was friends with jones having recently returned to the area after living in north carolina calamaris had gone to visit jones that morning he strongly denied any knowledge of the attack [Music] though investigators suspected that calamaris was lying they had no obvious motive and no hard evidence linking him to the crime believing calamaris truck used to transport the victim into the field would yield valuable clues police spent the next few months trying to track it down but its whereabouts remained unknown then they got a tip an anonymous caller told police that the pickup truck could be found at a machine shop in nearby dickerson maryland owned by one of calamaris friends [Music] but when they arrived investigators saw no sign of the truck the shop owner denied any knowledge of the vehicle though he admitted he was friends with george calamaris the lead appeared to be a waste of time until a bundle of mail caught the detective's eye the name on the letters for a striking similarity to the name of the shooting victim in delaware several pieces of mail from a bank in north carolina addressed to a person named gary wayne thomas we knew that this similarity in names our delaware victim thomas wayne jones was probably more than a coincidence in fact we at the point we expected it was probably uh some alias that calamaris had contrived from the the jones case the shop owner claimed that he didn't know who gary wayne thomas was said thomas's mail arrived there and george calamaris picked it up and now that calamaris was in prison awaiting extradition to delaware his wife collected it unsure if this clue was related to the shooting of thomas wayne jones in delaware montgomery county detective joe mandano contacted the north carolina bank to see if there really was a client by the name of gary wayne thomas they said yes there was and i said well can you describe them to me and i fully expected them to describe the way george calamaris looks and they describe somebody completely different and i asked when is the last time you saw gary wayne thomas and the bank said well come to think of it probably 1996 the middle of 96. and this was over a year later according to bank records gary wayne thomas was worth millions and no one had seen him in over a year [Music] as police struggled to figure out the connection word came in that thomas wayne jones died as a result of his injuries from the shooting attack [Music] now police shifted their focus to building a murder case against their suspect george calamaris [Music] while police struggled to link george calamaris to the murder of thomas wayne jones in delaware their investigation uncovered a strange clue [Music] calamaris was receiving mail from a bank in north carolina for a man named gary wayne thomas unsure who this person was or how he was connected to george calamaris authorities contacted police in north carolina detective ricky best of the greenville police department was asked to pursue the lead they were asking me to check at a certain location here in greenville to try to locate gary wayne thomas that they had they were investigating a murder case themselves and they wanted to find out if garroway thomas existed detective best began by speaking to the manager of the bank where the letters to gary wayne thomas originated she confirmed that thomas was indeed a real person and he was living off the interest of a trust fund worth more than a million dollars his account was still active and money was being withdrawn regularly but over the past year he communicated solely through letters and rare phone calls [Music] looking for answers greenville police contacted thomas's family his father confirmed that he had set up the trust fund for his son he said gary was a troubled young man who battled drug and alcohol dependency [Music] worried about his son's well-being he instructed the family attorney to draw up the trust he hoped the fund would limit the amount of money gary could access to purchase drugs and alcohol but the arrangement had caused friction and mr thomas had little contact with gary after that in fact he hadn't heard from his son in over a year [Music] the information put investigators no closer to establishing the connection between gary wayne thomas and george calamares they needed to find thomas hoping to track him down police contacted the apartment manager of his last known address she said that gary wayne thomas disappeared sometime around june or the first part of july of 1996 that she thought it to be odd because he left all of his belongings there in the apartment but one of gary's friends she referred to him as george calamaris told her that gary was away in maryland police had established that george calamaris and gary wayne thomas had lived in the same apartment complex in north carolina and were friends now the wealthy gary wayne thomas was missing the information was passed on to the maryland detectives police now feared that gary wayne thomas had met the same fate as thomas wayne jones in delaware that he had been murdered in an attempt to get it his money but they had no proof that anything had actually happened to gary wayne thomas in fact money was still being withdrawn from thomas's account through a bank in silver spring maryland but it couldn't be calamaris making the withdrawals he was in prison well we asked the bank to please keep the account open don't close it allow the withdrawals to continue so we could start tracing them and when we did that we immediately from the codes from the transaction codes we could find at whitbank the money was being withdrawn for from maryland obtain the bank film and the first film we obtained the person i'm paying the money was noreen calamaris george's wife [Music] who had been cooperative since early in the investigation was arrested for bank fraud and money laundering a subsequent search of the calamaris home uncovered gary wayne thomas's atm card and some unmailed letters allegedly signed by him asking his bank to increase his monthly allowance noreen told police that after her husband was arrested their friend at the machine shop started bringing over thomas's mail it included bank statements the atm card and blank checks she said that her husband told her that thomas had given them permission to use the items noreen hadn't seen or heard from thomas since she left north carolina with george calamaris several months earlier the information prompted investigators to search calamaris's jail cell [Music] several typewritten letters ready to be mailed to the bank in north carolina signed gary wayne thomas were confiscated because the u.s mail was being used to perpetuate the crimes the evidence was forwarded to the u.s postal inspection service crime lab in new york [Music] there forensic sciences manager john schatz compared handwriting from the documents found in calamaris house and jail cell against known samples of gary wayne thomas we know that we never write exactly the same way if we have writings that is exactly the same it's usually an indication that it is a trace forgery or another type of uh photocopy that has been reproduced and the document has been altered but in many cases what we do is we compare the the idiosyncratic movement we make a comparison of the similar motions and dissimilar motions and then we become a determination if they're written by the same author besides the shape and slant of the letters analysts also look for the pressure on the page and places where a forger paused to consciously form his letters a certain way these pen lifts can be a tip-off to a forgery when we made those comparisons we were able to determine that mr calamaris was the author of the gary thomas signatures on the typewritten letters unable to dodge the evidence calamaris knew his run was over to avoid the death penalty he confessed to his crimes he told investigators that he had been friends with gary wayne thomas but soon became jealous of his wealth [Music] he plotted to kill him and take over his life or at least his trust fund in july 1996 calamaris offered to show thomas some marijuana plants he said he was growing in a field near the apartments [Music] but when they drove out there calamari shot thomas dead he left him in the woods then later returned to scatter the remains so they would never be found the crime went undetected for almost three years [Music] financially it had worked out well for calamaris but it wasn't enough soon after returning to maryland he began devising another scheme he would kill his friend thomas wayne jones assume his identity and cash in on his victim's wealth [Music] the plan backfired however when jones lived long enough to identify his attacker [Music] for his crimes george calamaris received 395 years for the federal crime of bank fraud life in prison for the murder of thomas wayne jones and 45 years for the murder of gary wayne thomas noreen calamaris received six months of house arrest for money laundering and mail fraud for some murderers taking a life is not enough they want to become their victims the result is an ongoing deception that's difficult to maintain each day increases the chances that a killer will be exposed hiding behind a stolen identity

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 417,579

Keywords: police documentary, the new detectives, forensic science, investigation, detectives, police investigation, cold cases, criminals, crimes, true detectives, sherlock holmes, real crimes, real detectives, private detective, Murder, Forensics, california, oregon

Id: Y5rpVWPelJ0

Length: 51min 23sec (3083 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 05 2021