[audio logo] The victim's own sock
was used to strangle her. TRENT SPROLES: As she tighten
her grip on something, the sock is pulling. It's getting tighter tighter. She was clenching her fist. Her skin cells and cells
are being rubbed off onto the fabric of the sock. And it's embedded in the fabric. BRENDA SMITH: DNA is
pretty hardy material. And it's going to-- and it's
going to last a lengthy period of time. TRENT SPROLES: DNA is
a fascinating thing. It never goes away. [audio logo] NARRATOR: Deep in the Mojave
Desert, Route 14 Ramble South, into the one-stoplight town
of Rosamond, California, here, every face is familiar. And everyone knows Tana Woolley,
a 20-year old beauty queen, A student, and quintessential
girl next door. On a Wednesday morning,
Tana's mother, Helen, takes a call about her daughter. It was between, I
think, 9:30 and 10:00. And her boss, Patty
April, called me and said that Tana had not come to work. NARRATOR: Helen Woolley is a
mother who knows her daughter and knows even as she
hangs up the phone, that something is very wrong. Helen gets into her car and
heads over to Tana's apartment. When I pulled up,
her car was there. I opened the door. And the first thing
I saw was her. And I didn't go any further. NARRATOR: Tana Woolley's body
hangs over the side of her bed. She is naked from
the waist down, has one blue sock on
her foot, and the other wrapped around her neck. Detectives bagged the
victim's clothes and bedding and send the body
to the local morgue. There, the cause of
death is officially determined to be strangulation. Semen is recovered,
confirming initial suspicions of a sexual assault. In 1978,
however, nothing further can be done with the
forensic evidence. Meanwhile, a father
waits for someone to explain to him what
happened to his daughter. Do you have any
idea who it is? And when they're saying no, we
don't, then you are wondering, well, where are you going
to go with this if there's no witnesses, there's
no real suspects? All you're looking for
is to find the guy that would do something like this. NARRATOR: Days slipped by. And the small town of
Rosamond speculates about who might want Tana Woolley dead. Meanwhile, a family
buries their daughter and waits for an answer. Two weeks after their
daughter's murder, the Woolley family believes
the investigation has already gone sideways. Kern County detectives
are stretched thin. And leads are as dry
as the desert air. The detective that
came to the house was just so overloaded that
we felt like it was never going to go anywhere. We didn't feel
that he was going to be able to put all of
this effort into Tana's case. So that's why I told Helen,
we need to get some help here. [audio logo] NARRATOR: Help comes in the
form of a private eye named Lew McNatt who promises the
Woolley family he will take a second look at their
daughter's murder. McNatt starts with a visit
to Tana Woolley's apartment complex. I started from each
of the apartments interviewing the people who
resided at the apartments, attempting to find
out if they heard anything in the first place;
if they did, what they heard. And then did one
further and tell me what they've seen prior
to the time of the murder. NARRATOR: 30 apartments in
all, McNatt knocks on each door and chats up the residents. The private
investigator is looking for someone who stands out-- a loner, perhaps, who
had the opportunity to stalk Tana Woolley, pick
his moment, make his move. Several residents finger
one person in particular-- a neighbor named Larry Hazlett. The 31-year-old is known in
the complex as the local creep. Even better for
McNatt, Larry Hazlett lives in apartment number
5, just 10 feet away from Tana Woolley's
bedroom window. LEW MCNATT: His front
door faced the other way from her apartment. But the window was right
there was a big window. So he could sit there
and watch by the hour. And he has a lot of
time to spend and look. You see?
That's the bad part. And since she was such a
beautiful girl, this to him was probably a pinnacle for him. And so I think that's why
he watched her so much. NARRATOR: McNatt's theory
gained some traction when Tana's
boyfriend, Ricky Rush discloses that Tana had
expressed some concerns about the man in
apartment number 5. She had mentioned
to Rick, you know, that this guy would
be staring at her. And she felt kind of uneasy. Tana was very concerned
because they watched her all the time when she took the
garbage out, when she went out of the apartment. Anywhere she went, there was
always somebody watching her. So she became quite concerned. NARRATOR: The pieces
are beginning to fit, the theory of murder
sharpening into focus. It is a theory that begins
at home with a young woman and ends with her neighbor
just a few doors away. LEW MCNATT: It was like
a funnel situation. We have all these people
here talking and giving me bits of information. And as it funnels down,
somebody comes out down here to the bottom of the funnel. And it happened to be him. NARRATOR: Five months
after Tana Woolley's death, Larry Hazlett slips
quietly out of town, out of the reach of police, and
out of the reach of Lew McNatt. I developed a lot of people
who gave me information during my period of
time of investigation. And so I asked them. You know, I go
around and say, well, have you seen Hazlett now? When was the last
time you saw him? Or maybe two weeks
ago, maybe a month ago. And the synopsis was that
he just wasn't there. He was gone. And once he's gone,
there's nothing else to do. NARRATOR: The
private investigator feels he has identified
Tana Woolley's killer but is powerless to
do anything about it. It's always frustrating when
you can't pin down especially a murder and especially
if somebody you thought a great deal of. It's difficult. NARRATOR: The worst
part of McNatt's job, trying to explain the
hard truth of things to the victim's family. He told us, you know, from
about the fifth or sixth day who it was-- or he was
pretty sure who it was. But there was no evidence. They could not get
any evidence of him. NARRATOR: In time,
the investigation into Tana Woolley's
murder finds its way into the cold files, her
death forgotten by all, save a precious few. I never lost hope. There was times when
I'd think, oh, my gosh, it's not going anywhere. But I always felt like someday-- I just knew someday it would. As long as everybody believes
that there is hope, you know, then you can press on. If we had anybody
that was negative, then it would probably
have discouraged all of us. But we never got to that point. NARRATOR: For the
Woolley family, the wait is a long one,
more than 20 years, until a new generation of
detectives opens up an old file and finds the clue
that everyone missed. I think that's when
the light bulb came on, eureka moment, this is my guy. At least, he's as good as
any that I got right now. NARRATOR: In the fall
of 1978, Tana Woolley is found raped and
strangled with her own sock inside her apartment. The killer leaves semen
behind but no other clues as to his identity. Tana Woolley's family hires
a private investigator named Lew McNatt who suspects
a neighbor named Larry Hazlett. With no hard evidence
and no witnesses, however, the case goes cold. For 20 years, Helen
and Bill Woolley wait for police
to reopen the case and find their
daughter's killer. Helen would call I know
on the average once a month and talk to either one of the
detectives, or they'd stop by. The problem that we had
is there was a turnover of detectives on this case. So each new detective
that was given the case would have to start
off from square one. [audio logo] NARRATOR: In 1999, the torch
is passed to a new generation. And Tana's sister Taryn
begins to call police. Like her parents, Taryn
is polite but insistent that detectives
take up Tana's case and begin to work it again. I didn't feel like
that they should have to go through this all
over again being the parents. So I took it. I just said, I have to do this. Every month, I'll call
until they tell me there's-- you know, we can do no more. NARRATOR: For three
months, Taryn calls. Until finally, she gets a
sergeant named Chris Speer on the other end of the line. The investigator promises to
take a look into Tana's file. I look through it. And, unfortunately, the
1970s, the documentation about how an investigator
got from point A to point B wasn't as thorough
as we currently do. So there were some scraps of
information in the case file that, you know, I considered
clues or potential clues left to me by the
prior investigator. NARRATOR: Among the
pieces of evidence is a request for fingerprints
from a man named Larry Hazlett, the same Larry Hazlett
developed as a suspect by the Woolley family's private
investigator 20 years earlier. Speer is not sure why the
original investigators wanted Hazlett's prints and
decides to run a background check. What he gets back is a
20-year rap sheet, including four arrests for rape. I think that was when
the light bulb came on, the eureka moment,
this is my guy. Or at least, he's as good
as any that I got right now. NARRATOR: Hazlett is a
registered sex offender living in Sacramento. Speer pulls his
address and heads into the city for a
sit-down with his suspect. [audio logo] Larry Hazlett lives a quiet
life on a quiet street, his neighbors never suspecting
Hazlett is also a convicted sex offender. On October 5, Sergeant Speer
knocks on Hazlett's front door armed with a search
warrant for his DNA. He voluntarily surrendered
the samples and just said, here you go. Didn't know her. I'll be glad to help
you in the future. Goodbye. NARRATOR: Speer can only
assume one of two things. Either Larry Hazlett
is entirely innocent. Or he has gotten away with
so much crime in his life that he thinks he
can't be caught. It's worked 20 years ago. Be somewhat cooperative
and just deny it, and they'll leave me alone
for another 20 years. NARRATOR: Speer returns to
Bakersfield with samples in hand, hopeful
science can tell him if Larry Hazlett is an
ex-con gone straight or a rapist and a killer. [audio logo] In 2000, DNA
analyst Brenda Smith sifts through evidence
more than 20 years old. She begins with semen pulled
from Tana Woolley's body. Unfortunately, it's too
degraded for DNA testing. Smith then turns to bags
of clothing and bedding collected at the crime scene. Using an alternate light
source, Smith scans the items for stains that might
indicate bodily fluids. I found some small
circular stains, kind of yellowish-looking
stains towards the top of the bedspread. I did screen portions of
a couple of those areas. And they did screen
positive for semen. I just kind of got excited
and had a gut feeling about those stains from
the very beginning. NARRATOR: Smith
isolates the stains, extracts a genetic profile,
and compares it to the DNA signature of Larry Hazlett. BRENDA SMITH: It ended
up matching Hazlett. I've never been
more excited on-- probably on any
of the other cases that I've looked at in the
time that I've been doing DNA. I-- you know, I think I almost
hyperventilated on that one. [laughs] NARRATOR: The match is as good
as it gets with an occurrence frequency of 1 in 126 billion. Smith puts a call in to
Kern County Homicide. The Tana Woolley case is in
play with a suspect waiting to be arrested. Detectives Joe Hicks
and Scott Jelletich are given the job of
arresting and interrogating Larry Hazlett. Despite the DNA
match, the two quickly realize the case against
Hazlett is far from certain. SCOTT JELLETICH: We were
concerned that a defense of his could be his claim
that it was consensual. And that was why his semen
would be on her bedspread. Our intent to obtain a
statement from him is to-- for court purposes, lock him
in to what it-- what does he have to say happened there. Whatever he could
possibly use as a defense later in a court
trial, we wanted to establish at that interview. NARRATOR: At a
little after 2:00 PM, the detectives slowed to a stop
in front of Hazlett's home. Once again, Hazlett appears
eager to talk and to cooperate. Detectives sit down
at his kitchen table, cue up the tape
recorder, and begin to ask about Tana
Woolley's rape and murder. NARRATOR: The detectives
have what they came for-- a statement from Hazlett
they can prove to be a lie. Hicks then takes the next step-- confronting Hazlett
with the DNA match. My first reaction-- Mr. Hazlett's
quite a large man-- was that I wanted to calm him
down and get him set back down at the table because I didn't
want to have some altercation inside of his house. NARRATOR: Hazlett is
arrested and charged with first-degree murder. At the same time, a mother gets
the call she has been waiting 24 years to receive. It was really ironic. I was at the cemetery. And when I got the call, I
was just putting the flowers. And I just told her all the
little angels could dance-- [laughs] --dance in
heaven, you know? NARRATOR: Helen Woolley
believes the nightmare has come to an end. Turns out, she is
wrong as Larry Hazlett enters a plea of innocent. And prosecutors realize that
despite their DNA match, there is still a very
large hole in their case. In the fall of
1978, Tana Woolley was found raped and murdered
inside her apartment. 24 years later, bodily fluids
are discovered on bedsheets found at the crime scene. And a DNA profile is developed. That profile is then matched
to Tana Woolley's next door neighbor, a convicted sex
offender named Larry Hazlett. NARRATOR: Hazlett claims
the DNA evidence against him is a plant. An arrest warrant is issued,
and a date set for trial. [audio logo] Here's my chance. NARRATOR: Ed Jagels has been
prosecuting cases for almost three decades. In December of 2002, he
takes up the Hazlett case and immediately
identifies a problem. Defendant could claim that he
had an affair with the victim, which they were keeping
quiet for various reasons, and that he had
certainly seen her. But the last time he'd
seen her, she was fine, and he had no idea what
happened subsequently. NARRATOR: Jagels feels he needs
more evidence before proceeding to trial. He enlists the help of
investigator Trent Sproles. Together, the two start digging
into Larry Hazlett's past. There's an unbelievably
lucky serial rapist. We found four instances in which
he had committed rape, three of them prior to this
incident and one subsequent. He got out of every one of them. You had to
actually go back 1-- 31 years and retrace where
they moved, where they lived, what their names were. One was married four
different times. So I had four prior names. NARRATOR: Over a
period of months, Trent Sproles tracks
each of the women. None of them had
ever met each other. Each, however, tells the same
story about Larry Hazlett. TRENT SPROLES: He would
come across very polite, very friendly. And then when he
had them alone, he was like a Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde effect. One of the women he
bit so severely she still has the scars
on her to show. NARRATOR: All four of the
women had reported the attack at the time it happened and
never got their day in court. Three decades later,
they are, at first, reluctant to come forward. Well, most of them, at first,
didn't want to discuss it, which I understood. But once they understood
the severity of the case and that this man had
actually murdered someone, a young female, then there is
some guilt involved, where they thought if they would have
continued with their case back 30-some years ago and
prosecuted this man, then maybe this young
woman may not have died. NARRATOR: All four
finally agreed to testify. Each will provide details
that will paint Larry Hazlett as a serial rapist. Ed Jagels, however, isn't done. In preparing for trial, he has
paid a visit to the Kern County Forensic Lab to talk about
a young girl's blue sock. [audio logo] DNA analyst Brenda Smith knows
the Tana Woolley case well. She has already isolated bodily
fluid stains on the victim's bedspread and linked
them to Larry Hazlett. Now, Ed Jagels asks her
to examine the sock used to strangle the victim. Because it was a
ligature, it would have had to have
been held pretty tightly and for a little
bit of a lengthy time. There was at least a
potential that some skin cells from the individual's hands
could have slipped off onto the sock. NARRATOR: Using a
single-edged razor, Smith scrapes the
topmost layer of material off Tana Woolley's sock. The bits of fuzz are then placed
into a test tube and tested. Small amounts of human DNA
are determined to be present. Smith isolates the
genetic strands and develops a partial profile. I was pretty excited that
I got anything off the sock, you know, at all. I just-- I-- you know, it's
50/50 proposition in my mind. NARRATOR: The partial profile is
consistent with Larry Hazlett, not a full genetic
match, but enough to undermine any contention
that Hazlett's DNA also found on the victim's
bedsheet was the result of a consensual
sexual relationship. With the addition of this
piece of evidence, which was the DNA extracted
from the ligature from the actual sock that
was used to strangle her, that story wouldn't
hold any water anymore. [audio logo] NARRATOR: On June 10, Ed Jagels
presents his case to a jury. After a week of
testimony and an hour and a half of deliberation,
the panel returns a verdict. Larry Hazlett is found
guilty of murder. A month later, he is sentenced. MAN 1: Do you hereby determine
that the penalty shall be death? MAN 2: Yes. NARRATOR: Helen Woolley watches
as the man who raped and killed her daughter is taken away
to await his own death by lethal injection. HELEN WOOLLEY: I just wanted to
tell him what he robbed me of. I probably would have said
he was a monster, you know? And just his cockiness when he
left court just irritated me. You know, he just gave us that
look through his shoulders at us, like, are you happy now? And yeah, we were very happy. NARRATOR: While no death
sentence will bring Tana back, the Woolley family take some
comfort in knowing their phone calls kept this case alive,
and that persistence sometimes has its own rewards. It's one of those things that
we hope that other people that are watching your program will
realize that whatever they do, they can't give up. They need to keep pressing
the law enforcement, which my family did. And it paid off. I-- and I knew down deep in
my heart that justice would prevail. [audio logo] JIM MCGINN: As he was
getting out of the car, he gives the van a
very hard eyeball. You don't want to just run
out and arrest the person because you want to know
what their background is. Told Sergeant Guido bend down
like she was tying her shoe, pick up that cigarette butt. KEVIN MCCARTHY: This is a person
that is never going to accept responsibility for what
he did and deserves, as far as I'm concerned,
absolutely no mercy. [audio logo] NARRATOR: Winter in Oceanside
New York, darkness comes early. The moon, cold, and the
city streets mostly empty. At around 6:30 PM, a patrol
car is taking the corner at Lawson Boulevard when
its radio crackles to life. DISPATCHER: [inaudible] NARRATOR: A dead body
discovered by a family member inside a local home. Officers Ed Carter
and Otto Kohlmier hit the flashers and roll to
3412 Ocean Harbor Drive, home of 41-year-old Susan Eigen. What we saw was one hysterical
person, another woman off to-- you know, in the kitchen
kind of out of it and a man that was fairly calm
for the situation who told us that someone was dead upstairs. OTTO KOHLMIER: It
was Susan Eigen laying in the doorway between
the bedroom and the hall. She was in a fetal position. She had a look like
a collar made out of a belt around her neck. NARRATOR: Police walk
across the hallway and into the master
bedroom, where they discover Susan's son, 17-year-old
Richard, also dead. ED CARTER: It was down to a
three-step type entranceway up to the master bed. And he was bound by the
wrists to the railing. And he was suffocated
and strangled. He had wires around his neck
and plastic bag over his head. And the bag was
covered by a gray coat. NARRATOR: Kohlmier and
Carter secure the house and call in backup. Detective Herb Daub arrives
and begins to work the scene. HERB DAUB: One of the
bedrooms, we found blood on one of the beds. Of course, she was found in a
hallway outside the bedroom. And then, of course, there
was a scene in the bedroom. So there was activity in at
least three different places. NARRATOR: Blood splatter
is collected off a bedsheet near Susan Eigen's body. Forensics also
collects hair strands from the bandanna used to
strangle Susan Eigen. One latent print is lifted off the
plastic bag used to suffocate Richard Eigen. And a single
unknown print is lifted off a bank receipt found
in Susan Eigen's purse. The evidence is tagged and
sent downtown for processing. Meanwhile, detectives take
note of the overall condition of the house, specifically
several dresser drawers pulled open and a
pocketbook upturned. It appears to have
been a burglary gone bad. That was probably
our first theory. NARRATOR: Detectives speculate
the intruder encountered Susan Eigen inside the house. And a simple burglary turned
into rape then murder. As for 17-year-old
Richard, detectives believe he came home
at the wrong time, thereby sealing his fate. My theory is that he walked
in while his mother was being beaten, raped, or
attacked or whatever. And may be screaming,
maybe he's yelling, put a bag over his
head to quiet him. Now, the kid's still yelling. Or he could see his
face through the bag. He put the coat over top of
him to muffle the sounds. And then he went
back and did whatever he had to do with Mrs. Eigen
and, eventually, murdering her. NARRATOR: The theory
plays pretty well. Now, detectives need some
facts to make it stand up. They begin with a
trip to the crime lab where evidence from the scene
is getting a careful once-over. [audio logo] In 1984, DNA is
nothing but a theory. The heavy lifting of
criminal forensics most often done inside
the fingerprint division. In August, Detective Charlie
Costello is given latent lifts from the Eigen crime scene-- one from the bag tied over
Richard Eigen's head and one from the bank receipt pulled
out of Susan Eigen's purse. Police believe that the
prints belong to their killer. CHARLIE COSTELLO: The
best print of the three was the print on
the bank receipt. It was-- you could see pattern
area in the print on the bank receipt. Whereas the other two prints
that we had on the case, there was very
little pattern area that could visually be seen. NARRATOR: Costello
initially runs the prints through the Automated
Fingerprint Identification System or AFIS but fails
to come up with a match. Detectives then begin
to collect prints from locals with a
history of burglary, hoping they might get lucky. And we started looking
into burglary patterns in the neighborhood, people that
had been involved in the police and the general area. Our hope early on was that the
fingerprint evidence would lead us to a particular person. Any prints that I saw on
my-- that came across my desk on other cases I was working
on, if it had a similar pattern to the print that I knew
was on the Eigen case, I would compare the Eigen
print against that case. NARRATOR: Month after month,
Nassau County detectives bring in possible
suspect prints. Month after month, Charlie
Costello pulls out his glass, takes a look, and
shakes his head no. Almost a year after the Eigens
were first found murdered, homicide is running
out of prints to run. And the investigation goes cold. It was certainly my hope
and everyone else's hope at that time, because the other
leads had sort of gone cold, that somehow, we'd be able to
identify the individual that committed those crimes. I was going to do
everything I could to identify the individual
that kill those people. [audio logo] NARRATOR: Almost two
decades have passed, and Charlie Costello is still at
it, working with a fingerprint pattern he now has memorized,
still hoping to find its match. On January 22, 2002, Costello
runs the print another time through AFIS. This time, he registers a hit. I got the return back. It was chilling because I knew
right then and there I had him. NARRATOR: Costello
matches the Eigen lift to prints submitted on a
school bus driver application. The applicant's name-- Louis Telese. Costello gets on the phone
to homicide and cold case detective, Jim McGinn. JIM MCGINN: I had just finished
reviewing the entire case. And we were going to try and
form a game plan when Detective Costello came to us with
the fingerprint hit. And naturally, that sent
us in a specific direction. NARRATOR: Louis Telese is
42 years old with a record for drug possession. Cold case detectives are
interested but not yet ready to move on their suspect. Instead, they decide to
find out a little bit more about the would-be bus driver. They set up a stakeout in an
unmarked van outside his house and are in place
less than an hour when the operation
begins to go sideways. He then comes out of
the house walking his dog. Unbeknownst to us, he had
called the police on us. NARRATOR: In 1984,
Susan Eigen and her son Richard were murdered inside
their Nassau County home. 18 years later, prints
from the crime scene have been matched to a bus
driver application submitted by a man named Louis Telese. For cold case detectives,
the print match is good news but
not nearly enough to support a case for murder. When you get a
fingerprint in, you don't want to just run out and
arrest the person because you want to know what
their background is. Is there any
reasonable explanation for his prints to be there? NARRATOR: McGinn orders
bedsheets stained with blood and found at the crime scene
pulled from the storage and sends them to the
Forensic Evidence Bureau. The investigators hope new
technology might provide a second forensic
link to their suspect. [audio logo] In a darkened corner of the
Forensic Evidence Bureau, Detective Kevin McCarthy
examines bedsheets from the Eigen crime scene. At first blush,
the sheet appears to be of little
evidentiary value, containing only the blood of
murder victim Susan Eigen. McCarthy, however, views
the sheet literally in a different light. Using an ultraviolet
beam, McCarthy identifies what appear
to be bodily fluid stains invisible to the human eye. McCarthy isolates a sample
and runs chemical tests to see what it is. KEVIN MCCARTHY:
There was definitely urine staining on the bedding. And in this instance,
the urine staining might have-- also have
seminal fluid in it. NARRATOR: The analyst is able
to extract a partial DNA profile from the stain. Cold case detectives are
anxious to compare it against their suspect. But first, they need to
get a sample of his DNA. To do that, investigators
decide to go undercover. [audio logo] On March 15, 2002,
Detective Jim McGinn sits in the back of an unmarked
van, just a few doors down from the home of Louis Telese. Parked a surveillance
van several houses down the block here so that
the back of the van was facing Louis Telese's house. McGinn is trying to get a handle
on Telese's daily routine, hoping, eventually,
to recover a discarded sample of the suspect's DNA. Police makes his
first appearance at 7:00 AM, almost immediately
McGinn senses a problem. JIM MCGINN: And as
he was getting out of the car, he gives
the van a very-- what we call a
very hard eyeball. He then comes out of the
house walking his dog. Unbeknownst to us, he had
called the police on us. NARRATOR: The squad
car that shows up knows nothing about the
undercover surveillance and stops directly
in front of the van. JIM MCGINN: We were sitting
in the back of the van just holding our breath, hoping
that the police would notice that there's somebody in
the van because we knew Louis Telese was on the street. And if we had come out and
talk to the local cops, it would have kind
of blown everything. NARRATOR: Eventually,
the patrol car leaves. McGinn, however,
is forced to pull the plug on his undercover
operation after a single day. The team, however, does
pick up one valuable piece of information. The major thing that
we learned about him was that he was a smoker. That was the one
thing that we know. So we always felt if we needed
a DNA sample, that maybe somehow we'd be able to get a
cigarette butt from him. NARRATOR: Two weeks after
the aborted surveillance, Louis Telese again changes the
dynamics of the investigation. The suspect puts his
home up for sale, sparking fears he might
be ready to flee the area. If cold case detectives are
going to get a DNA sample, they need to move quickly. [audio logo] Detective Tony Graziano works
undercover for the Nassau County Police Department. On May 10, he is given the job
of obtaining a covert sample of Louis Telese's DNA. We devised a plan where I
would go to Louis Telese's home with Detective Sergeant Lucy
Guido posing as my wife. And we would be prospective
purchasers of the home. NARRATOR: At 11:00 AM, Graziano
and Guido begin a walk-through of Telese's home. Graziano immediately works on
building a rapport with Telese. TONY GRAZIANO: I knew I
was going to approach him like Tony from
the Bronx is going to be Louis from Brooklyn. And basically, I knew
I connected with him. We were talking like
two, you know, city guys. We were fast buddies. NARRATOR: Graziano walks
through the house with Telese and out onto the street. There, the suspect lights up and
eventually drops his cigarette butt to the ground. Graziano's partner, Lucy Guido
moves in to collect the sample. They were both on the street. And I was back on the driveway. And when I saw Telese walk
back towards the lawn, Detective Graziano pretty
much gave me, like, the sign, come over by me. Told Sergeant Guido to bend
down like she was tying her shoe and pick up that cigarette butt
because I had seen Louis take it from his hand, throw
it directly to the ground. So I had the continuity
that that's directly evidence from him. NARRATOR: Guido hands the
butt to Graziano, who slips it into an evidence bag. The couple says
goodbye to Louis Telese and heads directly to
the police crime lab. Saliva and epithelial
cells from the filter are isolated and
stripped of their DNA. The profilers then compared
against DNA found at the Eigen crime scene. As cold case
detectives suspected, Louis Telese is a match. On June 5, 2002, Nassau County
detectives arrest Louis Telese and take him downtown
for questioning. [audio logo] Inside an interview room,
Detective Jim McGinn questions Louis Telese about
the Eigen double homicide. At first, Telese claims he
doesn't know the Eigen family. Then McGinn tells him about
the forensic evidence. Each time that we confronted
him with that, you know, his head would go down. You could see he was thinking. He was trying to come
up with some kind of reasonable explanation as
to how this physical evidence could be in the house. NARRATOR: Telese grasps at the
only straw available to him-- an admission that, yes,
he knew Susan Eigen, and that the two had a
sexual relationship, which would explain away his
DNA inside the house. While they don't buy his
story, cold case detectives are concerned that
a courts might. They do, however, have
one last evidentiary card. If played correctly, it
should leave Louis Telese with no wiggle
room when he tries to make his case before a jury. [audio logo] On July 3, 2002, DNA
analyst Terry Melton takes custody of two
strands of hair collected from a bandanna used to strangle
Susan Eigen 18 years earlier. Melton is able to extract
a profile from the samples provided and compares
it to Louis Telese's genetic signature. We had hairs from
several known individuals, including Louis Telese, who
was the suspect in the case. And what we found was
that one of the hairs matched the type
of Louis Telese. NARRATOR: For cold
case detectives, it is the final piece they
have been looking for. The case against
Telese is handed over to the Nassau County DA and
put on the docket for trial. [audio logo] On February 23rd of 2004,
20 years after the murder of Susan Eigen and
her son Richard, Louis Telese's trial begins. Prosecutor Robert Biancavilla
presents fingerprint and DNA evidence, tying Louis Telese
to the double homicide. Just as important, Biancavilla
paints a picture of Telese and the death he fashioned
for Susan and Richard Eigen. He thought nothing about the
manner in which he strangled and killed Susan. He thought nothing about
taking a plastic bag and tying it in a knot over
the head of a 17-year-old boy and then strapping
him to a banister and essentially watching
him suffocate to death. All right, this is a
person that is never going to accept responsibility
for what he did and deserves, as far as I'm concerned,
absolutely no mercy. NARRATOR: A jury agrees,
finding Louis Telese guilty of both murders
and sentencing him to two consecutive
terms of 25 to life. From the fingerprint examiner
who spent years searching for the right set of prints
to the homicide detectives who assembled the forensic case
piece by painstaking piece, Louis Telese's conviction helps
with the memories of a mother and son who died
in their own home within a few feet of each other
and without being shown a shred of mercy by their killer. Everybody involved,
every detective involved with this
case remembered details that you just don't
remember on most cases. And it was the severity
of this crime that really had a very deep impact on
everyone that knew about it. I don't think there's
any better satisfaction than solving a case that's
been open for 18 years. You know, it's a
fantastic feeling. [audio logo]
