# 5 Solved True Crime Mysteries

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 12 Nov 2025, 39 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO9952723615.mp3

Join me as we discuss 5 disturbing true crime cases you need to know. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 lazy chill zone, lazy chill true crime, asmr true crime, true crime for sleep, true crime, unsolved mysteries, cold cases, missing persons, murder investigations, serial killers, criminal profiling, forensic evidence, DNA breakthroughs, crime documentaries, historical crimes, criminal psychology, court trials, wrongful convictions, criminal justice system, police investigations, crime scene analysis, infamous criminals, mysterious disappearances, solved cold cases, forensic science, true crime podcast, shocking murders, unexplained deaths, notorious cases, crime history, criminal conspiracies, real crime stories, dark history, homicide cases, unsolved murders, criminal investigations, crime suspects, forensic breakthroughs, chilling true crime, mysterious deaths, high profile cases, true crime analysis, strange disappearances, criminal justice

## Transcript

[0:00] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here with the usual reminder to like
[0:03] and subscribe and hit the notification bell and turn on
[0:06] all those notifications. Also, leave a comment below
[0:09] saying where you're listening from for that sweet algorithmic
[0:12] boost. For nearly a decade, the fate of
[0:17] 19 year old aspiring model Kara Nichols remained A haunting
[0:20] mystery. In October 2012, she vanished
[0:25] during a trip from Colorado Springs to Denver for a modeling
[0:28] job, and her family endured years of uncertainty, clinging
[0:33] to hope while fearing the worst. The investigation into Kara's
[0:37] disappearance spanned multiple law enforcement teams and
[0:42] countless leads, ultimately culminating in a shocking
[0:46] discovery that finally revealed the truth.
[0:50] This is the story of what happened to Kara, how the case
[0:53] was solved, and the relentless pursuit of justice that brought
[0:56] answers to light. On October 9th, 2012, Kara
[1:03] Nichols left her home in El Paso County, Colorado, telling
[1:06] friends she was heading to Denver for a photo shoot.
[1:10] For her, this represented a potential break for her budding
[1:13] modeling career. Denver's larger modeling scene
[1:16] promised more opportunities for the ambitious 19 year old.
[1:20] Kara spent part of that day with another young woman and stayed
[1:24] active on social media until that evening, when all
[1:27] communication from her abruptly ceased.
[1:31] When she failed to return home or answer her phone, her family
[1:34] grew alarmed. Kara even left behind her purse
[1:38] and other personal belongings, suggesting she intended to come
[1:41] back shortly. Her father soon reported her
[1:44] missing, and police immediately suspected foul play.
[1:49] Investigators worried that Kara's modelling aspirations
[1:52] might have led her into a trap set by predators posing as
[1:55] talent scouts. The search for Kara kicked off
[2:01] with Flyers, pleas on social media and community volunteer
[2:05] efforts, but authorities focused on concrete clues. 1 early lead
[2:10] pointed to a local man named Joel Hollendorfer, the person
[2:14] Kara had been on the phone with shortly before she vanished.
[2:18] Hollandorfer admitted he planned to meet Kara that night, but he
[2:22] denied any knowledge of her disappearance.
[2:25] Detectives also learned that two women had been seen with Kara on
[2:28] the day she went missing, and they were sought as potential
[2:32] witnesses who might shed light on her last hours.
[2:36] Despite these leads and many tips over the ensuing months,
[2:39] the trail ultimately went cold. Some feared she had been
[2:44] ensnared by an underground network that exploits young
[2:46] models for illicit work. This was a chilling theory that
[2:50] couldn't be proven without evidence, but it seemed
[2:54] unfortunately plausible. Over the next several years,
[2:58] investigators chased every lead they could.
[3:01] The case eventually consumed thousands of hours of
[3:04] investigative work, dozens of search warrants, and inquiries
[3:09] that stretched across the United States and even Europe.
[3:13] But ultimately, the truth in Kara's case wasn't to be found
[3:17] on some far away shore. The truth lay much closer to
[3:20] home. In 2014, investigators brought
[3:26] cadaver dogs to the Hollendorfer family's rural property after
[3:30] cell phone data pointed them there.
[3:33] The dogs alerted to a specific spot, but Joel's mother
[3:37] explained that a horse was buried in that exact place, so
[3:41] no excavation was done. It was a devastating close call.
[3:46] Unknown to the search team at the time, Kara's grave was
[3:50] likely just a few feet away, concealed beneath that horse's
[3:54] remains. And just to be clear, there was
[3:58] a horse buried there. But as it would turn out, this
[4:01] horse corpse was a clever ruse by a sick individual with little
[4:06] regard for any form of life. It wasn't until early 2022 that
[4:13] the case finally saw a breakthrough.
[4:16] In February of that year, a reexamination of the cold case
[4:20] LED investigators to an unexpected witness with crucial
[4:24] information. This witness was Joel
[4:26] Hollandorfer's ex-wife, and she came forward to reveal that
[4:30] around 2014, Joel had privately confessed, she said that he
[4:36] admitted to causing a young woman's death and hiding the
[4:39] body on his parents property. According to her, Joel claimed
[4:44] he had hired Kara as an escort and accidentally strangled her,
[4:48] then buried her in an old horse grave on the family farm.
[4:52] Armed with this tip, authorities quietly arrested Holland Orfer
[4:56] on an unrelated charge to keep him in custody while they
[4:59] prepared a new search of the property.
[5:04] When investigators returned to the farm, they immediately
[5:07] zeroed in on the same area that had raised suspicion in 2014.
[5:12] Hollendorfer continued to insist that nothing unusual was buried
[5:16] there, but when agents cross checked with his mother, she
[5:19] confirmed that was indeed the horse grave with probable cause.
[5:24] Bolstered by the ex wife's testimony and the contradictory
[5:27] statements, detectives obtained a warrant and began to dig on
[5:32] February 3rd, 2022. About 3 feet beneath the
[5:37] surface, they found black plastic bags sealed with duct
[5:40] tape containing human remains. Within days, forensic tests
[5:45] confirmed the heartbreaking truth.
[5:48] The remains were those of Kara Nichols.
[5:51] After nearly 10 years, the mystery of Kara's disappearance
[5:54] had finally been solved, and Joel Hollendorfer was promptly
[5:58] charged in connection with her death.
[6:02] With Kara's body finally recovered, prosecutors moved
[6:06] swiftly to hold Hollendorfer accountable.
[6:09] He was charged with first degree slaying and tampering with
[6:11] evidence. The coroner's autopsy report
[6:14] confirmed that Kara's cause of death was asphyxia due to
[6:18] strangulation, a finding that matched the scenario described
[6:22] by the ex wife's account. In mid 2023, the case went to
[6:27] trial. A jury ultimately found Holland
[6:31] or for guilty of causing her unlawful death, not the top
[6:35] charge that authorities originally sought.
[6:38] Hollandorfer's private confession had laid the
[6:41] groundwork for his defense, and his team stuck to that story.
[6:46] In essence, the prosecution was unable to prove beyond a
[6:50] reasonable doubt that he had willfully caused her demise.
[6:56] In August 2023, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison, the
[7:00] maximum allowed for the offense. Kara's family was dismayed by
[7:05] what they saw as a lenient outcome.
[7:08] They felt that the lesser conviction and 24 year sentence
[7:11] didn't adequately reflect the severity of the crime or the
[7:15] value of Kara's life. Still, her loved ones found some
[7:20] solace in knowing the truth and seeing Holland Orfer behind
[7:24] bars. 15 year old Sierra Lamar left her home in Morgan Hill, CA
[7:33] to catch the school bus early on March 16th, 2012.
[7:39] She never made it to class that day and by nightfall an ordinary
[7:43] spring morning had transformed into every parent's worst
[7:46] nightmare. The bright, spirited cheerleader
[7:49] had seemingly vanished without a trace.
[7:51] Sierra's disappearance set off a massive search effort and a
[7:55] years long quest for justice that gripped her community.
[7:59] It would take a combination of dogged persistence and cutting
[8:02] edge DNA forensics to unravel what happened to Sierra.
[8:08] Sierra's mother only realized something was wrong when the
[8:11] school called to report that Sierra never arrived at class, a
[8:15] notice that came only after the school day ended.
[8:18] This delay later prompted the school district to change its
[8:21] policy and notify parents of absences much earlier.
[8:26] Disturbingly, by the time Sierra was reported missing that
[8:29] afternoon, significant valuable hours were already lost.
[8:34] News of the mysterious disappearance spread quickly.
[8:38] Sierra's case made national headlines, and thousands of
[8:42] volunteers from Morgan Hill and beyond joined the effort to find
[8:46] the missing 15 year old. Search teams scoured rural
[8:50] areas, combing through fields on foot and even diving into local
[8:55] reservoirs for any sign of her. Within days, investigators
[9:00] uncovered several crucial clues. Sierra's smartphone was found
[9:04] discarded on the roadside the day after she went missing, not
[9:08] far from her route to the bus stop.
[9:10] Like most people, Sierra was rarely without her phone, so
[9:14] this discovery was an immediate red flag to investigators.
[9:19] Further, her purse was discovered a few miles from
[9:22] home, containing her neatly folded shirt, pants, and
[9:26] undergarments. Finding these personal items
[9:29] abandoned strongly suggested foul play, since it was highly
[9:33] unlikely that she would have dumped her own purse even if she
[9:36] left voluntarily. But perhaps most disturbingly of
[9:40] all, forensic tests on Sierra's clothing revealed an unknown
[9:44] male genetic profile lifted from a biological sample.
[9:49] Investigators also noted that tracking dogs lost Sierra's
[9:53] scent at the end of her driveway, as if she'd been
[9:56] picked up by a vehicle near her home.
[9:59] These early clues left little doubt that Sierra had been
[10:02] abducted. The priority now was to figure
[10:05] out who was responsible. The unknown DNA from Sierra's
[10:11] clothing turned out to be the key.
[10:14] When the profile was run through a criminal database, it matched
[10:18] 21 year old Antolin Garcia Torres.
[10:21] He was a local Safeway employee whose DNA had been collected in
[10:25] a prior felony assault case. This young father to be had no
[10:29] known connection to Sierra, which made the DNA hit all the
[10:33] more surprising. When he was interviewed, he
[10:36] denied all connection to her and the police played along.
[10:42] By late March 2012, detectives quietly placed Garcia under 24
[10:47] hour surveillance, hoping he might lead them to Sierra or
[10:51] reveal further evidence. They soon learned that a red
[10:55] Volkswagen Jetta had been spotted in Sierra's neighborhood
[10:59] on the morning she vanished, and Garcia happened to own that same
[11:03] type of car. On April 7th, the cops dropped
[11:07] the facade that they had given up on him as a suspect and
[11:10] seized his Jetta for examination and conducted a search of his
[11:14] home. Security camera footage showed
[11:17] Garcia driving off in his Jetta about 15 minutes before Sierra
[11:21] headed for her bus stop that morning.
[11:24] In addition, forensic analysts found traces of Sierra's
[11:28] presence in the car. Her DNA turned up on an interior
[11:32] door handle, and a strand of her hair was discovered in the
[11:35] trunk. This was, of course, quite odd
[11:39] given that, according to Garcia, he had no knowledge of her.
[11:44] On May 21st, 2012 / 2 months after Sierra disappeared,
[11:49] authorities decided to act Santa Clara County deputies arrested
[11:54] Garcia at the Morgan Hill Safeway where he worked.
[11:57] Fearing he might harm someone else if left on the streets,
[12:01] police charged him with Sierra's kidnapping.
[12:05] During the course of the investigation, it was also
[12:07] discovered that he had attempted to kidnap three other women in
[12:10] 2009, and he was charged with those offenses as well.
[12:16] At a news conference following the arrest, Sierra's mother,
[12:19] Marlene, pleaded with the suspect to reveal anything he
[12:22] knew, begging him to tell them where her daughter was.
[12:27] Investigators, meanwhile, characterized the crime as a
[12:30] random stranger abduction. They voiced confidence that they
[12:35] had enough hard evidence to prosecute Garcia, even without
[12:38] finding Sierra herself. Garcia pleaded not guilty, and
[12:44] the case took years to wind through the legal system.
[12:48] A grand jury indictment in 2014 finally pushed the stalled case
[12:53] toward trial, and prosecutors announced they would seek the
[12:56] big DP given the circumstances. Sierra's family and volunteers
[13:02] continued organizing searches, but by 2015, three years after
[13:07] she vanished, they had exhausted all leads and held their last
[13:11] organized search for her. The trial began in early 2017,
[13:18] five years after Sierra's disappearance.
[13:22] Over several months, jurors heard extensive testimony and
[13:25] evidence. Because Sierra's body was still
[13:29] missing, prosecutors faced the challenge of proving she had
[13:32] been slain without a body as evidence.
[13:36] Prosecutors presented the forensic links tying Garcia to
[13:39] the crime, including the DNA on Sierra's discarded clothing and
[13:44] the strands of her hair in his trunk.
[13:47] This was juxtaposed with the statements he had given where he
[13:50] stated that he had never met her and had no knowledge of her.
[13:54] Further, the location where the hair was found in the trunk
[13:59] further supported the idea that this was a violent stranger
[14:02] abduction case with fatal consequences.
[14:07] To bolster their case, they also introduced evidence of Garcia's
[14:11] past attacks on women. The jury learned that in 2009,
[14:16] multiple women had been accosted in Safeway parking lots around
[14:20] Morgan Hill. In one incident, a victim fought
[14:24] off a man who tried to subdue her with a Taser.
[14:27] The attacker fled, but a fingerprint on that weapon later
[14:31] matched Garcia. This pattern of prior attempted
[14:35] abductions painted him as a predator who had escalated to
[14:38] targeting Sierra. The defense, in contrast,
[14:43] claimed the evidence was circumstantial.
[14:46] Garcia's attorney suggested the DNA findings could have resulted
[14:49] from lab contamination rather than anything else.
[14:54] They emphasized that without a body, no one could be absolutely
[14:58] certain what happened to Sierra. They even implied that she might
[15:02] still be alive and could have left home willingly.
[15:06] Despite these arguments, the circumstantial evidence and DNA
[15:10] were persuasive. In May 2017, the jury returned a
[15:17] verdict finding Garcia guilty on all counts.
[15:21] He was convicted of abducting and slaying Sierra Lamar, as
[15:25] well as the attempted kidnappings of the three other
[15:27] women from the Safeway incidents.
[15:30] It was an unusual case in that no body had been recovered, yet
[15:34] the evidence of foul play was strong enough to secure a
[15:37] conviction. During a separate penalty phase.
[15:41] The jury had to decide between giving him the DP and life in
[15:44] prison, and in the end they chose to spare him.
[15:49] In June 2017, they recommended a sentence of life in prison
[15:54] without the possibility of parole, which the judge formally
[15:58] imposed soon after. At the sentencing, Sierra's
[16:02] family addressed the court with emotional impact statements.
[16:07] They directly implored Garcia to tell them what he did with
[16:10] Sierra and where to find her remains.
[16:13] Sierra's father asked the convicted man how he would feel
[16:16] if one of his own daughters were the victim.
[16:20] Garcia offered no response, providing no information that
[16:23] could give the family the closure they desperately sought.
[16:29] Years later, Sierra Lamar's fate remains a painful mystery for
[16:33] her loved ones. Garcia continues to insist he is
[16:36] innocent, even writing a letter to a reporter proclaiming he
[16:40] didn't harm Sierra. To this day, he has never
[16:44] revealed any new details. Tragically, Sierra's body has
[16:49] never been found, leaving her family without the closure of a
[16:52] proper goodbye. Wildwood, NJ was packed with
[16:59] holiday revellers on Memorial Day weekend in 1990, including
[17:04] 20 year old college student Susan Nagersmith from Carmel,
[17:07] NY. Then tragedy struck when Susan's
[17:10] body was found behind a local restaurant the very next day.
[17:14] She was partially clothed and clearly the victim of a violent
[17:18] attack. To her family's shock and
[17:21] outrage, authorities initially declared her death an accident,
[17:25] despite obvious signs of foul play.
[17:28] It would take over 3 decades and major advances in DNA technology
[17:34] to finally uncover the truth of what happened to Susan that
[17:37] night. Disturbingly, though, that truth
[17:41] would turn out to be a very cold comfort.
[17:45] Susan Nagersmith travelled to Wildwood with friends to
[17:48] celebrate Memorial Day weekend in May 1990.
[17:52] At some point, during a night of partying, she became separated
[17:56] from her group. A witness later recalled that
[17:59] Susan had become extremely intoxicated at a party and that
[18:03] he tried to escort her back to her motel.
[18:06] She wandered off and he eventually left her near the
[18:09] area where she was later found. On May 27th, 1990, Susan's body
[18:16] was discovered behind a Wildwood restaurant in an alley.
[18:20] An autopsy confirmed that Susan had been indecently assaulted,
[18:23] and her blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal
[18:27] limit for intoxication. In other words, she was brutally
[18:31] attacked while incredibly vulnerable.
[18:36] Despite the evidence of a crime, local authorities inexplicably
[18:39] ruled Susan's death accidental. In the initial investigation,
[18:45] Susan's relatives suspected that officials were covering up the
[18:48] crime to protect Wildwoods tourist friendly reputation.
[18:53] The Nagersmith family pressed law enforcement for years to
[18:56] treat Susan's case as the slaying it truly was.
[19:00] After persistent advocacy, officials finally reclassified
[19:04] the case about three years later.
[19:07] Unfortunately, by that time much critical evidence had grown cold
[19:11] and no suspects were identified. In the early 1990's, the
[19:16] investigation stalled, leaving Susan's case to languish as an
[19:20] infamous cold case in the community.
[19:25] One piece of evidence preserved from 1990 would eventually crack
[19:28] the case DNA from an unknown male recovered from Susan's
[19:33] body. For years, this DNA profile
[19:36] didn't match anyone in criminal databases.
[19:39] By 2015, investigators openly said they had the perpetrator's
[19:43] DNA and were waiting for a hit, even uploading the profile to
[19:48] international databases to widen the search.
[19:52] That hit finally came thanks to genetic genealogy, a cutting
[19:56] edge technique that emerged in the late 2000s.
[19:59] This innovative approach pointed to a New Jersey man named Jerry
[20:03] Rosado as a likely match for the mysterious DNA.
[20:07] Detectives obtained a direct DNA sample from Rosado in May 2021
[20:13] to confirm the findings, and it was a definitive match to the
[20:16] biologic found on Susan. After 31 years, the
[20:20] investigation finally had a named suspect linked by hard
[20:25] evidence. Jerry Rosato, 62 years old and
[20:30] from Millville, NJ, hadn't previously been on anyone's
[20:33] radar in Susan's case. Once his DNA connection was
[20:37] confirmed, investigators worked quickly to strengthen their
[20:40] case. They reinterviewed the witness
[20:43] who had seen Susan on the night she died in early 2022.
[20:49] That witness reiterated that Susan was extremely drunk and
[20:52] last seen in the vicinity of where her body was found,
[20:56] effectively helpless due to intoxication.
[21:00] This corroborating testimony helped establish the
[21:03] circumstances of the crime. On April 8th, 2022, authorities
[21:08] arrested Jerry Rosado and charged him with essay, accusing
[21:13] him of taking advantage of Susan while she was incapacitated by
[21:16] alcohol. The charge carried a potential
[21:19] prison sentence of five to 10 years.
[21:22] Notably, no other charge was filed at that time, as
[21:26] investigators lacked enough evidence to prove who directly
[21:29] caused Susan's death in that alley.
[21:32] Still, the arrest was hailed as a long overdue breakthrough.
[21:37] But then things started going off the rails on a legal
[21:40] technicality, of all things. Identifying A suspect was a huge
[21:46] step, but holding him accountable proved complicated.
[21:51] The allegations against Rosado occurred so long ago that legal
[21:54] time limits became a major obstacle.
[21:57] In 1990, New Jersey had a five year statute of limitations on
[22:01] SA cases. Although the state removed that
[22:04] limit in 1996, the change wasn't retroactive, and by 1995, the
[22:12] window to prosecute Susan's assault had already closed.
[22:17] Authorities argued that statutes of limitation were meant to
[22:20] protect suspects from faded memories and lost evidence, not
[22:24] to let a perpetrator escape a late DNA revelation.
[22:28] Rosado's defense lawyers quickly moved to dismiss the charge,
[22:31] citing the expired statute of limitations.
[22:35] In March 2023, an appellate court agreed and ordered the
[22:40] case against Rosado dismissed as time barred.
[22:45] He had spent 11 months in jail awaiting trial, but now he was
[22:49] released due to this technicality.
[22:53] Prosecutors appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court, but in
[22:56] December 2023, the High Court unanimously upheld the dismissal
[23:03] because of the legal time bar. Jerry Rosato ultimately faced no
[23:07] trial or punishment for the assault on Susan Nagersmith.
[23:10] Prosecutors had considered a further charge related to her
[23:13] slaying, but without new evidence or a confession, they
[23:17] decided not to file at this time.
[23:24] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here. Just taking a moment to plug my
[23:27] Patreon and the YouTube membership.
[23:29] It's a great way to take your support to the next level and
[23:33] the best part is you can do it for as little as a buck a month.
[23:41] Laura Kempton was a 23 year old student at the Portsmouth Beauty
[23:45] School who worked at a local gift shop and an ice cream
[23:48] parlor. Friends knew her as an outgoing,
[23:51] free spirited young woman with a big personality who enjoyed the
[23:54] city's night life. On the night of September 27th,
[23:59] 1981, Laura went out dancing with friends.
[24:03] She returned home shortly after midnight, saying goodnight to a
[24:07] friend on her doorstep and went inside alone.
[24:11] That was the last time she was seen alive.
[24:16] It was a quiet Monday morning in Portsmouth, NH when a routine
[24:20] police visit turned into a nightmare.
[24:23] On September 28th, 1981, an officer arrived at Laura
[24:28] Kempton's apartment to serve a court summons for unpaid parking
[24:31] tickets. Instead, he found the front door
[24:35] damaged in a jar and Laura's lifeless body inside.
[24:40] She had been subject to an indecent assault and brutally
[24:44] slain, a shocking act of violence that shattered the
[24:47] coastal city's sense of safety. At the scene, the cops found
[24:53] signs of a break and enter and a violent struggle.
[24:56] The weapon used to bludgeon Laura was likely a wine bottle,
[24:59] which lay nearby. They also found a discarded
[25:03] cigarette butt on the floor, which hinted that the
[25:05] perpetrator had lingered at the scene since Laura didn't smoke.
[25:11] These items would later prove crucial in identifying the
[25:14] depraved perpetrator. News of the horrific crime
[25:19] spread quickly around Portsmouth, and police vowed to
[25:22] find the attacker. Portsmouth police launched an
[25:26] intensive investigation, deploying numerous detectives to
[25:30] work the case. They interviewed Laura's
[25:32] friends, neighbors and Co workers to reconstruct her final
[25:36] hours. Investigators discovered that an
[25:39] envelope of cash Laura kept in her apartment was missing after
[25:42] the crime, suggesting the perp may have robbed her during the
[25:46] attack. Crucially, forensic evidence was
[25:49] also collected, including biological samples, the
[25:53] cigarette butt and the wine bottle, which years later
[25:56] yielded the DNA profile of a male suspect.
[26:00] However, in 1981, DNA technology was in its infancy and didn't
[26:05] yet have a direct forensic usage, and at any rate, there
[26:08] was no database to match that profile to a name.
[26:12] Despite extensive effort, no suspect was identified at the
[26:16] time. Every lead and person of
[26:18] interest ultimately yielded nothing, and as the months
[26:22] turned into years, Laura's case went cold.
[26:27] Over 40 years after the crime investigators finally got the
[26:31] break they needed in 2022, Portsmouth police and state
[26:35] forensic experts decided to apply forensic genetic genealogy
[26:39] to the Kempton case. The unknown DNA profile from the
[26:43] crime scene was uploaded to a public genealogy database, where
[26:48] it produced matches to distant relatives of the potential
[26:51] suspect by building out a family tree from those genetic hits.
[26:56] Detectives homed in on one name, Ronnie James Lee, in mid 2023.
[27:03] Additional DNA testing confirmed that Ronnie James Lee's DNA
[27:07] exactly matched the crime scene evidence definitively
[27:10] identifying him as the perpetrator.
[27:15] Ronnie James Lee was 21 years old at the time of Laura's
[27:18] slaying and lived in Portsmouth with no known personal
[27:22] connection to her. This lack of any link to the
[27:25] victim helps explain why he was never on the cops radar.
[27:29] Lee had served in the Army and later worked as a security guard
[27:32] in town, but he also had a hidden history of violence.
[27:36] In the early 1980s, he was linked to a string of burglaries
[27:41] and pleaded guilty to several break insurance around
[27:43] Portsmouth. Then, in 1987, he was convicted
[27:47] of a home invasion in which he conducted an indecent assault
[27:51] against a woman. This pattern of burglary and
[27:55] illicit violence fit the profile of Laura's case, suggesting he
[27:59] may have broken in looking for valuables and then attacked
[28:03] Laura when he found her at home. However, Ronnie Lee would never
[28:09] face justice. In 2005, he died at age 45 from
[28:13] a substance overdose. Of course, with the suspect
[28:16] deceased, no arrest could be made.
[28:19] Authorities announced that if Lee were still alive, he would
[28:22] have been charged in her slaying, and in July 2023 the
[28:27] case was officially closed. It was a warm afternoon in
[28:34] Honolulu on January 7th, 1972. Inside a small Waikiki apt, 19
[28:41] year old Nancy Anderson's roommate awoke from a nap to the
[28:45] sound of running water. She groggily stepped into
[28:49] Nancy's bedroom and stumbled upon a nightmare.
[28:53] Nancy lay lifeless on the floor, blood everywhere.
[28:57] In shock. The roommate ran for help and
[28:59] called police, thinking in the moment she might have done this
[29:02] herself. This wasn't to say that Nancy
[29:05] had expressed any such desire, but that the roommate simply
[29:09] found the idea of such an attack completely inconceivable.
[29:14] But officers quickly realized this was a brutal attack.
[29:19] Nancy Anderson had moved to Hawaii just a few months before
[29:23] her slaying, looking for adventure.
[29:26] She was fresh out of high school in Michigan and ready to start
[29:29] her life. She saved up money from waitress
[29:32] jobs and set off to find herself in paradise.
[29:36] By the fall of 1971, Nancy was settling into island life and
[29:41] she shared a Waikiki apartment with a roommate and worked at a
[29:45] local McDonald's, making new friends along the way.
[29:49] Nancy was known as a kind hearted and trusting young
[29:52] woman, the sort of person who saw the good in everyone.
[29:57] For a teenager from the mainland, Hawaii seemed like the
[30:00] perfect place to figure out her future.
[30:05] Nancy's family was, of course, worried about having their
[30:08] daughter so far away. And less than three months after
[30:11] Nancy arrived, her family's worst fears came true.
[30:17] The call home informing them of Nancy's death came on January
[30:20] 8th, 1972, the same day her siblings were attending a
[30:25] memorial for their late father. The entire Anderson family,
[30:30] Nancy was one of ten children, was devastated beyond belief.
[30:36] Honolulu Police launched an intensive investigation.
[30:40] They learned that earlier on the day of the attack, 2 door to
[30:43] door knife salesman had knocked at Nancy's apartment hoping to
[30:47] sell kitchen knives. Detectives tracked down these
[30:51] salesman. Both young men cooperated fully.
[30:54] They even volunteered fingerprints and took polygraph
[30:57] tests passing them. It appeared they had nothing to
[31:01] do with the crime, despite what appeared to be an odd
[31:04] coincidence at the time. Investigators also interviewed a
[31:10] man Nancy had dated a few times and even the apartment buildings
[31:14] manager. All of them had alibis or lack
[31:17] of evidence tying them to the scene.
[31:20] Every obvious lead turned into a dead end.
[31:25] Police did have one critical piece of evidence.
[31:28] In the bathroom, they found a bloody towel that didn't belong
[31:30] to Nancy. It suggested the perpetrator
[31:33] might have cut himself during the frenzied attack, leaving
[31:37] behind his own blood. This was the only biological
[31:40] material from the attacker found at the scene.
[31:44] Unfortunately, in 1972, there was no DNA testing available to
[31:49] identify the attacker from that blood.
[31:52] Detectives could do little with it at the time except preserve
[31:55] it and hope that one day technology might catch up.
[32:00] Decades later, when DNA profiling became standard, the
[32:04] sample from the towel was entered into national databases,
[32:07] but it never produced a hit. But back to 1971, with no weapon
[32:13] recovered, no eyewitnesses and no prime suspect and all
[32:17] suspects ruled out, the case began to stall out in a big way.
[32:25] After exhausting their leads, the Honolulu Police Department
[32:28] gradually had to move on to other cases.
[32:31] Nancy's slaying, once a high priority investigation, went
[32:36] unsolved. Months turned into years, then
[32:39] into decades. The file on Nancy Anderson's
[32:43] case gathered dust and eventually became the oldest
[32:46] cold case in Hawaii's history. Nancy's mother, Thelma, kept
[32:53] hoping for a break in the case until the end of her life.
[32:57] She passed away in 2001 at age 75, having never seen her
[33:01] daughter's perpetrator clapped in cuffs.
[33:04] Nancy's siblings, however, refused to let her story be
[33:07] forgotten. They persisted, periodically
[33:10] checking in with law enforcement and even petitioning the police
[33:14] to reopen the investigation. Little did they know that the
[33:18] breakthrough would finally come from a cutting edge technique
[33:21] that wasn't even imagined back in the 1970s.
[33:26] Fast forward to 2019, nearly 50 years after Nancy's tragic
[33:31] demise. Her younger brother, Jack
[33:34] Anderson had been following news of an astonishing new crime
[33:37] solving tool, genetic genealogy. This technique had recently been
[33:42] used to unmask the original Night Stalker.
[33:45] If it could catch a long, elusive perpetrator in
[33:48] California, Jack thought, why not try it on Nancy's case that
[33:53] year, he approached CC Moore, a renowned forensic genealogist,
[33:58] and Moore immediately agreed to help the Anderson family.
[34:03] Using advanced laboratory techniques, Adna profile of the
[34:07] unknown attacker emerged. Then came the detective work.
[34:11] Moore uploaded this profile to public genealogy websites where
[34:15] people share their DNA data in hopes of finding relatives.
[34:20] Bit by bit, More reverse engineered a family tree from
[34:24] those relatives. She combed through records,
[34:27] looking at how the DNA matches might be related and which
[34:31] ancestral lines converged. From there, More began zeroing
[34:36] in on a potential suspect by considering age, gender and
[34:39] location. Then a major break came.
[34:46] By 2021, Moore and the Honolulu Police Department had narrowed
[34:50] their focus to a single name. The DNA trail and the family
[34:54] tree pointed to Tudor Chirilla, a man who had lived in the same
[34:58] area as Nancy back in the early 1970s.
[35:03] In 1972, Chirilla was a 27 year old graduate teaching assistant
[35:09] at the University of Hawaii, residing in Waikiki, not far
[35:14] from Nancy's place. It was a location tie that made
[35:17] sense and the genealogical evidence was compelling.
[35:22] It indicated that Tudor Chirilla's family line was
[35:24] linked to the DNA from the crime scene.
[35:27] Investigators soon discovered more about their new suspect.
[35:33] Tudor Chirila had left Hawaii not long after Nancy's slaying
[35:37] and built a life on the mainland.
[35:39] In fact, he eventually became a prominent attorney in Nevada,
[35:43] even serving as a deputy state attorney general in the late
[35:47] 1970s. Outwardly, he was a successful,
[35:51] well educated man who once ran for a spot on the Nevada Supreme
[35:54] Court. But there were darker rumors in
[35:58] his past. In 1995, Chirilla had been
[36:02] arrested on accusations of kidnapping and attempting to
[36:05] indecently assault an ex-girlfriend.
[36:08] Though that case was dropped and never went to trial, he managed
[36:12] to avoid a criminal record all those years, which explained why
[36:16] his DNA never popped up in law enforcement databases.
[36:20] Now, at age 77, this former lawyer was living a quiet
[36:25] retired life in Reno, NV, likely unaware that the walls were
[36:29] closing in on a 5 decade old case.
[36:35] The pieces were in place, but police needed ironclad
[36:38] confirmation that Tudor churila was the source of the DNA
[36:41] evidence. Genetic genealogy can strongly
[36:44] point to a suspect, but in court, nothing beats a direct
[36:48] DNA match. To obtain that, Honolulu
[36:52] detectives got an ingenious assist from the suspect's own
[36:55] family. They reached out to Chirilla's
[36:58] adult son, John, who was living in California and apparently
[37:02] didn't have the best relationship with dear old Pop.
[37:06] In March 2022, the son willingly provided adna sample to
[37:11] authorities. The results were the smoking gun
[37:14] investigators hoped for. John's DNA showed that he was
[37:18] the biological child of whoever left the blood at Nancy
[37:22] Anderson's crime scene. In other words, the perpetrator
[37:25] was indeed John's father, Tudor Chirilla.
[37:29] This evidence was enough to move in on the suspect.
[37:33] In September 2022, Reno police, in coordination with Honolulu
[37:38] authorities, served a search warrant at Tudor Chirilla's
[37:41] apartment in Nevada. They collected a swab of his DNA
[37:45] for direct comparison to the crime scene evidence.
[37:49] Just two days after police took his DNA sample, the 77 year old
[37:53] attempted to end it all on his own terms.
[37:56] He survived and was subsequently arrested, being forced to face
[38:01] justice. However, on Christmas Day 2023,
[38:07] before a trial could ever take place, 78 year old Tudor
[38:11] Chirilla died at a hospital while in custody.
[38:16] The official cause was sepsis from an infection exacerbated by
[38:20] his declining health. In the days prior, he had
[38:24] refused food, water and medication, almost as if he had
[38:29] resigned himself to his fate. With his death, Tudor Chirilla
[38:35] took to the grave any personal secrets or motives that might
[38:39] explain why he did what he did to Nancy Anderson.
[38:43] Even without a formal conviction, the resolution of
[38:46] the case brought immense solace to the Anderson family.
[38:50] After 52 years of pain and uncertainty, they finally knew
[38:54] who was responsible for Nancy's death.
[38:57] Chirilla's demise while behind bars was its own form of
[39:01] justice, since he was denied the right to die a free man or
[39:05] perish on his own terms.

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