Family Secrets | FULL EPISODE | The FBI Files

ten days before the holidays in a small pennsylvania town a new mother is excited by her baby's first christmas but when they disappear without a trace the holiday turns tragic [Music] investigators suspect her husband is somehow responsible but with little evidence they called on the fbi to find the answers before time ran out for the missing mother and child [Applause] [Music] [Music] a woman and her infant son vanish the husband is frantic the clues are scarce but hopes linger even as the hours and days tick by without a word was she on the run or the victim of foul play i'm jim calstrom former head of the fbi's new york office it was an investigation filled with blind alleys and dead ends in order to go forward we had to revisit the past [Music] candace aqua pennsylvania one hour north of philadelphia a quiet blue-collar town a safe place to raise a family by december 15 1994 the town was preparing for the holiday season [Music] the house at 740 front street was already decorated [Music] inside 26 year old joanne katrina happily married and a new mother was especially excited about the holidays it would be the first christmas for her four-month-old son alex [Music] joanne and her mother-in-law veronica planned to spend the day at a nearby mall now joanne called to say that alex was dressed and ready they'd be right over joanne wanted to find the perfect gift for her husband andy they'd been married less than two years [Music] and though they didn't have a lot of money joanne had been saving for the holiday before joanne had met andy she'd had some bad relationships her first husband was abusive the marriage had ended in divorce but she was happy now her husband andy katrina came home a little after six o'clock that evening he was self-employed as a contractor and sometimes worked long hours before he'd met joanne andy had been a confirmed bachelor but it seemed that finding this kind and beautiful woman had changed his life usually joanne and alex were waiting for him when he came home but not tonight that didn't seem to worry andy after all it was christmas time and the mall traffic would be heavy [Music] he saw that joanne had left some chicken to defrost [Music] he settled in to relax and wait for his family an hour went by then another still andy didn't seem concerned he watched tv and drank another beer at 8 pm andy finally decided to check on his wife [Music] his first call was to his mother veronica hi mom he's enjoying i knew joanne had planned to shop with her well it's uh but now his mother said joanne had never come by no no no [Music] answered her phone calls well no no she didn't that's why i'm calling you because i haven't seen her and heard from her yet no what'd you guys do veronica was worried she said she and her husband andrew senior would be right over while he waited for his parents andy checked the house to see if anything was amiss in the basement he found the door leading outside open the door he and joanne never used the lock had been pried away from the door frame [Music] and he immediately called the police two officers from the katasaka police department responded by then andy's parents had arrived and he told police the events of the day the shopping trip that never happened the apparent disappearance of joanne their little alex taking this year he claimed they had been abducted and officers agreed that was a possibility but it was also possible that joanne had left on her own and taken her child with her well uh yeah or maybe andy had somehow been involved veronica described her phone call with joanne and the subsequent calls that went unanswered and waited and she never showed here you up see this andy now showed police the padlock that had been broken off the basement door but the officers were not convinced it was related to the missing mother and child that night andy stayed home by the phone while his father searched the surrounding area for joanne and alex [Music] at three in the morning andrew senior had found something and brought his son to see it what is this joanne's tan toyota was backed into a spot in the parking lot of mccarty's tavern what is this down the street from the catcher next home [Music] inside were joanne's keys and her small canister of mace again andy called katasaka police this time police suspected foul play but the local force lacked the resources and experience needed to lead the investigation so they contacted pennsylvania state troopers for assistance with the possibility of an abduction major robert woods looked to the most likely suspect joanne's husband andy catranek there was a lot of looking into the family life and looking at what andrew did on that particular day and and those sorts of things you know one of the things that you're always forced to do in these types of investigations is look at family members state police arrived at andy's house the next morning [Music] you see that right there andy told them that overnight he had noticed something else a cut phone line in the basement crime scene down here one of two separate phone lines in the house the one cut serviced the cordless phone while the other serviced the kitchen phone it appeared to investigators that whoever cut the line knew where to look and which one to cut state police evidence technicians also found a partial boot print on the basement floor and tool marks on the door frame where the padlock was pried off stairs as crime scene technicians checked the house they found nothing to remove suspicion from andy in the master bedroom there was no indication joanne had packed for a long trip andy confirmed that his wife's clothes all seemed to be in the closet and the couple's suitcases were under the bed where he said they always kept them technicians found no blood or other signs of foul play they dusted for fingerprints around the room's entry points but found only andes and joanne's in the baby's room there were also no signs that little alex had been taken on a long trip and no indication of a struggle or robbery at the state police barracks garage evidence technicians processed joanne's car they hoped something left behind could lead them closer to the missing mother and child [Music] on the headrest of the driver's seat they found six dirty blonde hairs one was partially smeared with a dark red substance maybe blood but nothing immediately pointed to joanne and alex's whereabouts as lead investigator trooper bob egan was suspicious of the way the car had been found there were a couple things that led andy katrina to believe that his wife did not back that car and number one is that she never used that parking lot uh to park her vehicle they had a parking lot in the back of their house and number two she never backed the car in when she parked into a parking space she always pulled in front of the vehicle first she was very bad at backing up three days had passed since andy's wife and son disappeared his parents posted flyers throughout his neighborhood and in katasaka's shopping district have you seen this woman anywhere joanne and alex might have visited [Music] with still no word from joanne or a kidnapper troopers delved further into andy's background [Music] he found him anxious when he spoke of his former days as a semi-pro boxer in las vegas he was good with his fists and earned his living as an instructor when he first moved to pennsylvania now a private contractor and he barely made enough to pay the bills a wife a house and a baby strained the new father's resources troopers asked to see his financial records including insurance documents bank statements and phone records i got some checks he told them that his wife had only minimal life insurance i know you wanted i probably wouldn't want phone records on the day she disappeared with his son and he said he had been with his father building a room addition for a client who lived a few miles from his home troopers were not satisfied they suspected he may have still been hiding something they demanded that andy take a polygraph test right now do you know where your wife is located no i don't [Music] the first test showed that andy had not been deceptive regarding his family's disappearance but investigators needed to be sure so they tested him again no i didn't the results were conclusive no andy was telling the truth about his missing wife and baby investigators cleared the husband as a suspect no i'm not by now joanne and alex had been missing for four days and investigators still had no solid leads whether it had been a desertion or an abduction it was possible the woman and child had crossed state lines on december 19 1994 state police called on the fbi for help special agent dave rope from the fbi's allentown office joined the effort we began our investigation by identifying locating and interviewing virtually all of the relatives virtually all of the friends former work colleagues anybody and everybody who was either related to or acquainted with uh andy joanne and alex open coffee yes thank you local state and federal agencies funneled their resources into the search for the missing woman and child six days before christmas it seemed as if they had vanished without a trace joanne caterneck a 26 year old mother and her four-month-old son alex had mysteriously disappeared from their katasakwa pennsylvania home her husband andy had been cleared of suspicion [Music] now investigators traveled across pennsylvania state lines to question joanne's ex-husband who lived and worked in new jersey mike jack had married joanne in 1991. they were divorced just a few months later amidst allegations that jack was abusive maybe joanne had decided to rekindle the relationship or perhaps your ex had come to win her back but investigators found jack had a solid alibi for the date of joann's disappearance agents also pursued people from andy's past including his ex-girlfriend pat rohrer december 14th anything wrong an fbi agent interviewed rohrer at her home in north carolina oh sure yeah i found she too had a solid alibi for the day joanne and alex had vanished i'll tell you what i really appreciate that man okay back in katasaku investigators returned to mccarty's tavern where joanne's car had been found the day she had disappeared maybe someone had noticed her or whoever had parked the car troopers and agents eventually interviewed everyone who had been at the bar but no one had seen a thing you working last thursday night yes investigators also canvassed the katrinak neighborhood one neighbor directed them to a handyman who rented a room down the street he'd done repair work in several local homes [Music] he seemed a promising suspect he admitted to police he had some run-ins with the law but swore he had no knowledge of joanne and alex's disappearance he agreed to come in for further questioning [Music] investigators learned the handyman lived in a lean-to by a river near the catranax house during the summer months the state police k9 team searched the shelter for any evidence that joanne and alex had been there [Music] they found nothing and the handyman was cleared another dead end for frustrated investigators precious times slipped away as community concern grew man state police major robert wurtz helped establish hotlines to elicit the public's help there was uh obviously a lot of concerns in in the in the community as to what occurred so we had a command post set up here at the barracks with a number of telephone lines coming into the command post those phone numbers were given to the public and we in fact did get information from the public reports of sightings poured in one resident reported seeing joanne with an unidentified man near railroad tracks behind the catranax home [Music] she was carrying a baby and seemed frightened by the man pulling her further into the brush against her will in response fbi agents and state police immediately conducted a massive line search of a four-mile stretch near the railroad tracks the search continued through the night they scanned the area inch by inch as choppers circled overhead but again investigators found nothing trooper joe kosovar now co-lead investigator with his partner bob egan recalls that reports of sightings continued they saw her along the railroad tracks they saw her on an airplane they saw her in a convenience store with the baby but none of them checked out they were false leads and apparently people who they saw and thought they saw were two different people christmas path and spring began with still no word of joanne and alex [Music] then on april 9th a farmer was tilling his field in heidelberg township 15 miles northwest of kawasaku [Music] he saw what looked like a pile of clothes at the field's edge when he walked over to investigate he encountered a horrifying sight human remains four months after the disappearance of joanne caterneck and her infant son alex a farmer found the decaying bodies of a mother and child at the edge of his pennsylvania field the fbi and troopers arrived immediately dental records would later confirm what they already suspected the bodies were alex and joanne catchiness joanne lay on her back a diaper bag still on her shoulder she had been shot once in the head and beaten about the face alex was face down on his mother's stomach dressed in the blue snow suit he'd worn on his ill-fated trip to meet his grandmother the bodies were 50 feet past the end of a trail that ran through the woods nearby crime scene technicians found a baby bottle under rattle to trooper bob egan the location of the items was significant you could see items that had had fallen to the ground almost in a sequence as as as if an assault started and joanne was walking or running away from the assault and she was dropping items along the way it appeared the killer had driven up to the end of the trail and from there had forced joanne to walk the remaining 50 feet evidence technicians would spend 15 hours searching the area but they found no shell casings fingerprints footprints or murder weapons [Music] in the hopes that the forest debris might yield answers they collected leaves and dirt from beneath the bodies and sent them to the police lab for closer examination [Music] for major robert wurtz and the others who've worked the case for months the finality of this brutal murder evoked a barrage of emotions when the bodies were found there was a period of time there when it was uh very difficult for the uh for the officers that were assigned to this investigation took it very personally and it was hard because i think they were holding out hope that you know she was going to be found alive with the mysterious disappearance officially deemed a homicide the case remained under state jurisdiction but the fbi never stopped actively assisting well linda dave wrote here the fact that somebody would abduct a new mother and a four-month-old infant everybody can identify with them and once you become aware of that you want to be part of the investigation [Music] an autopsy revealed that joanne had been shot once with a 22 caliber bullet and beaten 19 times with a blunt object the fact that there had been two modes of attack was a telling clue for trooper joe kosovar based on the absence of empty shell casings and the fact that the victim had received one shot and numerous blows to the head led me to believe that the gun malfunctioned the medical examiner was unable to determine exactly how baby alex was killed whether he had been suffocated or left to die of exposure police continued to analyze the physical evidence found at the crime scene to help build the case they brought in prosecutor mike mcintyre of the lehigh county district attorney's office we found two more hairs that first match the six hairs found on that headrest in collar and lens but the hairs would have to be examined forensically to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they matched a pennsylvania state police forensic scientist conducted the lab analysis the results confirmed what investigators had suspected the hairs belonged to the same person and the substance on one of them was determined to be human blood containing dna consistent with joanne's but to whom did the hairs belong [Music] tests quickly ruled out the catranex and several of joanne's friends who had access to the car [Music] pennsylvania state police were baffled [Music] again they turned to the fbi for help the fbi sent a behavioral profile from washington d.c a profiler can help narrow the search for suspects by detailing the type of person responsible for a crime through that person's behavioral characteristics profilers study a variety of crime related information including case reports geography timing and the victims habits then they revisit the crime scenes to read the locations for clues to the killer's behavior [Music] investigators first took the profiler to the place the bodies were found he would look for anything that might reveal the killer's signature the area was so far from the abduction site the profiler was convinced the killer had been here before [Music] the profiler also hypothesized the killer had been male because the attack had been so brutal the abduction had taken place in broad daylight which offered another hint the killer would be someone comfortable being seen in the small town of karasawa and someone who perhaps knew the family's habits and the layout of the house [Music] by fleshing out this portrait of the killer the profiler gave investigators new direction in a frustrating case [Music] but troopers needed a name that fit the profile to find that name troopers drove andy around heidelberg township close to where the bodies were found they hoped to prompt his memory of someone who knew this rural area they asked if joanne had ever visited here there a friend or a family member who lived nearby [Music] and he could think of no one disappointed investigators returned to state police headquarters then just as andy was about to leave he remembered something he did know someone who knew heidelberg township and also his home in karasawa his ex-girlfriend pat rohrer had once managed this table in auburn no and with that he told me that he couldn't tell me the exact place but what it was called because he couldn't remember the name but he could give me directions on how to get there so i told him i said well tell me as he started to tell me the directions of how to get to where patty roar was avoiding a horse and taking care of horses well i knew he was taking me right to the area where joanne and the baby were found we used to go together pat rohrer and andy had lived together briefly in pennsylvania he told investigators he once visited her at the stable but they'd broken up in 1989 and she had moved back to north carolina it's all right then in the spring of 1991 before andy met joann rora had visited him unexpectedly after a fight with her most recent boyfriend and he was sympathetic he let roars stay for a few days though their relationship remained purely a friendship then she returned to north carolina uh fresno road not long after that andy met joanne we lived together for a while as he now told state troopers it was love at first sight they were married soon after in the spring of 1993. they agreed they wanted children and less than a year later joanne was pregnant hey sweetie hi baby alex was born in august of 1994. that you think is so adorable yeah you know what i think it's now andy told investigators about something that had happened three days before his wife and son disappeared i will on december 12th joanne answered a phone call it was pat rohrer joanne told rora that andy was married now and that they had a baby she told rora not to call again please don't then joanne hung up on her though andy knew pat had a temper he dismissed the idea that she might seek revenge then the investigation took an unexpected turn the second mother and child were found brutally murdered the pair who resembled joanne and alex were discovered in a retail store dressing room in nearby collegeville pennsylvania investigators now wondered if a serial killer was on the loose preying on mothers and children in pennsylvania while investigating the homicide of joanne and alex catranek pennsylvania state police responded to another double murder in a retail store just 45 miles away the victims were a second young mother and her baby [Music] the least feared a serial killer was on the prowl [Music] they quickly arrested the suspect the store owner's son [Music] while he confessed to this killing he had an airtight alibi from the day joanne and alex were slain now police turned their attention to andy katrina's ex-girlfriend pat rohrer here we got a couple things to run down aurora was a long shot a brunette instead of a blonde and a woman though the profiler believed the murderer was male but she was familiar with both the abduction and murder sites then trooper joe kosovar recalled that he'd worked on a case that was strangely similar he phoned special agent dave rowe trooper joe kosovar recollected that he had investigated a homicide some years earlier where the cause of death was blunt force blows to the head the assailant was determined to be a woman while one two three four blows by an adult male would produce the same damage that a woman might have to strike fifteen twenty twenty-five blows to accomplish joanne catcher naked sustained 19 blows but could a woman have killed her and her infant as well [Music] in may of 1995 six months after the murders troopers bob egan and joe kosovar traveled to north carolina the fbi had helped coordinate a meeting with the lexington county sheriff's office together authorities from the two states would interview pat rohr at her attorney's office rohrer's mother was also there when you exercise the horses aurora expanded upon her original alibis on december 15th the day of the crime she said she'd visited a local tanning salon that evening she'd taken her regular thursday night dance lesson at the cowboys nightlife bar rora admitted she'd worked at the stable in heidelberg township but said she hadn't been back to pennsylvania since she visited andy after the fight with her boyfriend she also swore she'd never owned a gun lieutenant tony roberson of the lexington county sheriff's department helped agents and troopers investigate her statements the first thing that they wanted to do was uh discredit her alibis to find out whether they could be corroborated whether they could be found to be invalid excuse me ma'am investigators visited the tanning silver and aurora claimed to have used on the day of the murders detective prosecutor mike mcintyre remembers this alibi quickly proved false the owner of the tanning slide mr simmerson said hey you know what something's wrong here because we were closed on that particular day that pat rohrer says she was in getting a tan because that's my husband's birthday and we were over at the shopping mart in some city about 50 miles away and i remember that and i hear i have a receipt from for you from the shopping mall to show that we were there at the cowboys nightlife the dance instructor knew rohrer as a regular we're investigating a murder up in pennsylvania and we understand that the club sign-in sheet showed she'd been there the thursday before december 15 and the thursday after but not on the 15th investigators secured rohrer's phone records they showed she'd used the phone every day of december 1994 except from the 12th through the 15th despite her alibis aurora could not prove she'd been in north carolina on the day of the killings more incriminating still her police record revealed a history of violence she has violent tendencies has had them in the past she was charged in a neighboring county in forsyth county of getting into a fight over a man at a bar and she was arrested that night but investigators were still missing one key piece of evidence the murder weapon aurora continued to deny she'd ever owned a gun but investigators kept digging at a north carolina stable they found one of her ex-boyfriends walter blaylock he distinctly remembered that roarer had bought a handgun for 50 at a yard sale one time it was a 22 caliber jennings which they had used for target shooting in rohrer's backyard the last time he had seen it was during an intense argument [Music] please now blaylock told super egan the gun had a curious flaw he went on to describe the handgun as uh being a junky piece of junk type of handgun that often after the first time you shot it it jammed not allowing you to fire a second shot now this fed into the theory why somebody would be shot once and then beaten about the head the fbi helped coordinate interstate efforts to secure a probable cause warrant to search rohrer's north carolina home for the murder weapon they arrived with the warrant on july 24 1995. despite a thorough search they didn't find the gun but they did find numerous spent 22 caliber shell casings in the backyard state police detective detective coaster only when police told royal that they knew she owned a hammock but she insisted blaylock had taken it with him when he'd moved out about a month before the murders no no i have not why did you buy the gun i told you the case against roaring was growing but it was built on circumstantial evidence because he wanted this gun and strangely the only physical evidence the hairs from the car and the murder site didn't seem to fit the hairs were dirty blonde rora's hair was brown [Music] trooper joe kosovar wondered if it could have been died at the time of the killing he learned that shortly before the murders rohrer had ridden in a rodeo competition and won kosovar contacted the event organizers hoping they'd taken a photo of her his inquiry paid off [Music] they sent him the photo as he'd guessed aurora's hair was dirty blonde the photograph was given to our crime lab personnel and they compared the color of the photograph of the hair with the color of the hairs that were found in the vehicle and decided that they should further investigate those hairs detectives obtained a warrant to collect blood and hair samples from pat rora if evidence analysts could match her hair to those from joanne's car on the murder site the troopers could make their arrests but they would need to rely on a test so new that it would take more than a year for the test to be approved until then the prime suspect of the double murder would remain free after an investigation that had lasted almost a year detectives had a strong suspect in the double murder of joanne caterneck and her infant son alex with a search warrant they obtained blood and hair samples from pat rohrer the former girlfriend of joanne's husband andy rohrer was now pregnant with the child of her current boyfriend forensic scientists would attempt to match her hair samples with hair found at the crime scenes [Music] pennsylvania state police lab determined rora's hairs were microscopically consistent with the recovered hairs but investigators needed more proof a match at the cellular level they extracted rora's dna sequence from her blood samples and attempted to compare it with the dna and hairs from the crime scenes [Music] but there was a problem making a match joseph desino unit chief of the dna analysis unit 2 at the fbi lab explains when hairs are found at a crime scene they're normally naturally shed hairs that don't have much tissue upon the root and if they don't have much tissue upon the root there's very very little dna contained in those hairs and therefore our experience has shown us that nuclear dna analysis will fail in this case only one of the hairs found at the crime scene contained enough skin tissue necessary for nuclear dna analysis but there was a great risk to conduct the test examiners would have to destroy that sample if the test was inconclusive there was no way to repeat the process they needed a way to test the other hairs that held no skin tissue a possible solution lay in a new process being pioneered by the fbi lab in washington dc mitochondrial dna testing [Music] this was brand new to my knowledge this was the first forensics laboratory in the united states to bring this new analysis online because the test was so new it would take more than a year to be certain the results could be scientifically reliable mitochondrial dna testing uses the dna contained in the cell's mitochondria or organelles since there is more mitochondrial dna than nuclear dna and hair cells it is easier for examiners to retrieve the mitochondrial dna with five hair samples to test examiners could repeat the test and obtain more reliable results with mitochondrial dna analysis we're over 90 successful obtaining dna from hairs that are naturally shed hairs without root and we're we only need about one inch of hair in order to obtain a result generally speaking to attempt a mitochondrial dna match first the dna sequence in a hair cell's mitochondria is isolated then its sequence is plotted and compared to the suspect's known dna sequence in this case taken from pat rohrer's blood cells both dna sequences matched forensic scientist joseph dezino explains what that meant if a hair from a crime scene is found to have the same mitochondrial dna type as a blood sample from a suspect our reports state that that suspect cannot be excluded as a source of that hair from the crime scene therefore patricia roar could not be excluded as a source of these hairs however without nuclear dna confirmation the result was not absolutely conclusive now scientists examined the hair sample with skin for a nuclear dna match it corroborated the mitochondrial match there was no question that patricia aurora had left those hairs behind it was a pivotal moment in the case in the early morning of june 24 1997 investigators arrived at rora's home with an arrest warrant for your arrest yes deputy go with him a female detective followed roarer upstairs to keep an eye on her as she dressed herself and her 18 month old daughter it seemed a routine safety precaution but it yielded some of the most damaging evidence in the case during the time that pat was trying to settle her baby down and get dressed the female detective suzanne pearson was present in the bedroom and it was at this time that she overheard a conversation that pat rohrer had with her baby pat's baby's name is nicole and what the detective overheard was pat rohr saying to nicole uh nicole if i would have known i was going to get caught i would have never brought you into this world it was something that suzanne pearson the detective documented as soon as possible and this was very damaging than three years after the murder of joanne caterneck and her baby pat was finally under arrest she was flown to pennsylvania to face murder charges preparing for trial prosecutors pieced together the terrifying events of joanne and alex katrina's last day on december 15 1994 pat rohrer had broken into the basement of the caternet's home knowing andy was out and joanne was alone with alex joanne had no idea rory was downstairs as she called her mother-in-law and packed up baby alex for a shopping trip right from the basement aurora heard every word joanne said all right i'll see you in a bit bye and she remembered the house from a visit with andy three years earlier she knew where to look for the two phone lines and which one to cut so joanne couldn't call for help joanne carried alex outside still unaware that pat was in the house aurora heard joanne leave and went outside to catch up with her joanne didn't see roars sneak up behind her carrying a 22 caliber jennings [Music] jumped into the back seat with the baby and forced joanne to drive joanne must have been terrified as she drove with laura's gun at her head afraid for herself and more so for her helpless four-month-old baby laura directed joanne to an obscure horse trail in heidelberg township okay okay further into the woods joanne and her tara dropped alex's rattle and then his bottle rora fired once but then her gun jammed and she began bludgeoning joanne she may have suffocated baby alex or simply left him to die slowly of exposure to the december elements then rohrer parked the car at mccarty's tavern and fled from pennsylvania prosecutors built an airtight case using evidence investigators had meticulously collected it was a concerted effort by many and law enforcement unwilling to let this woman and child perish in silence as investigators we have a responsibility and that responsibility is to be the voice of the victim is to gather the information and speak for the victims that can no longer speak close six [Music] the jury found pat rora guilty of two counts of kidnapping and two of first-degree murder she was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole legally the case was closed and for the town of karasawa the mystery was solved if not for the advanced forensic technology of the fbi this brutal double murderer might still be free [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The FBI Files

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Keywords: FBI, FBI Files, FBI Documentary, Documentary, Crime, Crime Documentary, Crime Patrol, True Crime, True crime daily, Unsolved, Crime Stories, Crime Documentaries Full Episodes, Full Episode, unsolved true crime, fbi files full episodes, we got him, mystery, solved, investigation, police, criminal, prison, jail

Id: HcCxptyngSA

Length: 50min 20sec (3020 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020