# Unhinged Solved Cold Cases | 207

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 19 Apr 2026, 1 h 07 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO2840929948.mp3

Join me as I discuss some truly unhinged solved cold cases. Don't forget to hit the follow button and turn on notifications and let me know what other cases you'd like to see me cover in the comments. Episode 207 of the true crime podcast btw. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: ❤️ 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 unsolved mysteries, true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, disturbing cases, true crime analysis, hidden clues, infamous crimes, real crime stories, forensic evidence, solved cases, solved true crime

## Transcript

[0:00] Just days before Christmas in 1990, two 25 year old Christie
[0:04] MARAC was getting ready to start her day as a teacher at a
[0:08] Lancaster County, Pennsylvania elementary school.
[0:12] She had carefully wrapped Christmas presents for her
[0:14] students and was about to leave her apartment, but she never
[0:18] made it to work that day. When Christie didn't show up for
[0:22] class on the morning of December 21st, 1992, her concerned
[0:27] principal drove to her home. There, he found a nightmare
[0:31] scene. Christie's front door was a jar,
[0:35] and she lay on her living room floor amid signs of a brutal
[0:38] struggle. The Christmas gifts she'd
[0:41] prepared for her students were scattered around her, a
[0:44] heartbreaking detail that underscored the cruelty of the
[0:47] crime. Little did anyone know at the
[0:50] time that the perpetrator of this vile act would be someone
[0:53] who was routinely LED into elementary schools for decades.
[1:00] On that December morning, she left home wearing her winter
[1:02] coat and gloves, apparently headed to school, when an
[1:06] attacker forced their way in and overpowered her.
[1:10] The assault was shockingly swift and brazen, occurring roughly
[1:14] between 7:00 and 7:20 that morning, just a few minutes
[1:18] after Christie's roommate left for work.
[1:21] Police concluded the attacker struck in that narrow window and
[1:24] may have been watching Christie and knew her routine.
[1:27] They theorized that he was in essence stalking her and had a
[1:31] number of data points on her so he could orchestrate this brutal
[1:34] crime. Despite the violence of the
[1:39] crime, the perpetrator left surprisingly little forensic
[1:42] evidence beyond the usual biological material associated
[1:46] with an indecent assault. This profile was entered into
[1:49] the newly formed national database, but in the early
[1:53] 1990s, those systems were extremely limited, and it
[1:56] produced no match. Meanwhile, detectives explored
[2:00] every potential lead. Christie's personal life was
[2:04] scrutinized. She had recently broken off a
[2:07] relationship with an older man about 20 years her senior, known
[2:11] by the nickname Dagger. However, Dagger was soon cleared
[2:18] and he had an airtight alibi hundreds of miles away at the
[2:21] time of the attack and even volunteered Adna Sample.
[2:26] Despite his somewhat dark moniker, he was as helpful as he
[2:29] could possibly be, and he was fully cleared.
[2:33] Investigators also looked into other possibilities, even
[2:37] questioning the school principal who had found her.
[2:41] His intense personal concern about the situation was
[2:43] apparently viewed as suspicious by the investigators, which I
[2:47] find a bit unusual. But hey, I'm not a cop.
[2:51] Personally, if I found one of my employees dead, you're damn
[2:55] right I'd be intensely concerned about what happened to him or
[2:58] her. The principal appeared to have a
[3:01] valid alibi, having gotten to school early that morning, but
[3:05] the cop still had him submit ADNA test and he was eventually
[3:09] completely cleared. And I know some of you are going
[3:12] to accuse me of Monday morning quarterbacking in the comments,
[3:16] but genetic tests were an arduous and expensive process in
[3:20] 92. Seems like a questionable use of
[3:24] investigative resources to me, to say the least.
[3:29] Witnesses recalled seeing a mysterious white car near
[3:33] Christie's home that morning, but at the time, it wasn't
[3:36] enough to identify a suspect. With each suspect eliminated and
[3:40] every tip ending in a dead end, frustration grew.
[3:45] Months turned into years with no arrest, and eventually the case
[3:49] went cold. A breakthrough finally came more
[3:54] than 25 years later, thanks to persistence and a revolutionary
[3:58] DNA technique. In 2015, Lancaster County's
[4:03] District Attorney's office took a fresh look at Christie's case
[4:06] and assigned a new prosecutor. This new prosecutor had been
[4:11] interested in her case since she was in high school when it
[4:14] happened 25 years previous. She poured over the old case
[4:18] files for months, determined to finally crack the mystery.
[4:23] Detectives re examined every piece of evidence that had sat
[4:26] dormant. They decided to enlist outside
[4:29] help from Parabon Nanolabs, a company specializing in cutting
[4:33] edge DNA analysis. Using the preserved DNA sample
[4:37] from the crime scene, Parabon performed a process called DNA
[4:41] phenotyping. This process predicts the
[4:44] physical traits of the unknown subject from his genetic code.
[4:48] However, no definitive suspect emerged from this effort.
[4:53] And yeah, you heard me. I just said unknown subject like
[4:56] I'm on Criminal Minds here or something.
[5:01] In early 2018, Parabon analysts uploaded the DNA profile of the
[5:06] perpetrator to a public database, and it produced hits
[5:10] on several distant relatives of the unknown perpetrator.
[5:13] If you're a regular viewer of any of my channels, you already
[5:17] know this little process is called forensic genetic
[5:19] genealogy. By methodically building family
[5:23] trees from these matches, the genealogists zeroed in on one
[5:27] name that had never come up in the investigation.
[5:31] This was Raymond Roe. But this guy who had caused a
[5:35] disturbing cold case, was somewhat ironically better known
[5:39] to his fans as DJ Freeze. Roe was a well known local disc
[5:46] jockey, A seemingly unlikely suspect who had been hiding in
[5:50] plain sight in the community. And you won't believe where he
[5:53] was when the cops got the evidence to clap him in cuffs,
[5:57] but I'll come to that very shortly.
[6:00] In 1992 he was 24 years old and lived a few miles from
[6:06] Christie's home. He had no prior connection to
[6:10] the case and was never on investigators radar before, but
[6:14] the genetic genealogy research suggested that Roe's family tree
[6:18] intersected with the DNA from the crime scene, making him a
[6:21] strong viable suspect. In fact, detectives later
[6:25] revealed that one of Roe's relatives, his half sister, had
[6:29] uploaded her DNA to a genealogy database.
[6:33] Presumably she wanted to know if she could authentically wear
[6:36] that Kiss Me I'm Irish shirt on Saint Patty's Day or drink
[6:41] deeply from a beer Stein. Police discreetly trailed Roe to
[6:46] obtain a definitive DNA sample without tipping him off.
[6:50] In a weird twist, on May 31st, 2018, undercover investigators
[6:56] watched Roe as he worked as a DJ at an elementary school event
[7:00] and managed to collect items he discarded. 2 of these items were
[7:04] a water bottle and some chewed up gum.
[7:07] The forensic lab tested these items and found that Roe's DNA
[7:10] profile matched perfectly with the DNA recovered from Christie
[7:14] Marac's body. On June 25th, 2018, nearly 26
[7:21] years after Christie's slaying, police arrested 49 year old
[7:25] Raymond Roe at his Lancaster home and charged him with the
[7:28] crime. The news of an arrest after so
[7:31] many years stunned the community.
[7:34] Roe had spent decades building a life as a popular local
[7:37] entertainer who was even trusted to put on shows for kids.
[7:42] To those who knew him, it was shocking that this familiar
[7:45] figure, a husband and father by then, could be accused of such a
[7:51] heinous act. Roe initially denied any
[7:54] involvement, but the weight of the evidence was overwhelming.
[7:58] As investigators dug deeper, they found more clues linking
[8:02] Roe to the crime. Back in 1992, Roe drove a white
[8:06] Toyota sedan, which matched the description of the unknown car
[8:11] seen by witnesses near Christie's home on the morning
[8:14] of the ACT. He also lived about four miles
[8:17] from Mirac's residence, and the route between his home and
[8:21] workplace at the time likely took him right past her
[8:24] neighborhood. Facing overwhelming evidence,
[8:29] Roe chose to avoid a trial. In January 2019, 27 years after
[8:36] the crime. He agreed to plead guilty in the
[8:38] first degree and in exchange, the state agreed not to give him
[8:43] the big DP. He offered a brief apology to
[8:47] Christie's family, saying he could not imagine what pain he
[8:50] had caused them. Roe, who was 50 years old at the
[8:54] time of his plea, stood before a judge to receive his sentence.
[9:01] Roe was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility
[9:04] of parole, plus an additional 60 to 120 years for the indecent
[9:10] assault and related charges. This ensured that he will spend
[9:14] the rest of his life, plus maybe a couple more lives behind bars.
[9:20] For Christie's family, the courtroom hearing was a mix of
[9:22] sorrow and relief. Christie's brother, Vince MARAC,
[9:27] spoke in court about how the attack had shattered their
[9:30] family's sense of security and destroyed their joy for the
[9:33] holidays permanently. He mentioned Christmas, this
[9:37] time of family togetherness, would only ever be a time of
[9:41] mourning and sorrow for his family.
[9:46] One lingering mystery remains. And that's why Roe committed
[9:50] this horrific crime. He never provided any motive or
[9:53] explanation, and prosecutors were unsure whether Roe had
[9:57] known Christie or if she was chosen at random.
[10:02] This lack of answers has haunted Christie's family and friends,
[10:06] who may never learn what drove him to take her life personally.
[10:11] Given the tight window of time in which he pulled off this
[10:13] crime, I subscribe to the theory that he was stalking Christie.
[10:18] Of course, ultimately, this still doesn't answer the
[10:21] question of why Christie was chosen for stalking to begin
[10:24] with, since they don't appear to have known each other Now, I bet
[10:30] you think that this is where the case ends, but you'd be wrong.
[10:35] Even after conviction, where Roe fully admitted to what he did,
[10:39] he tried to change his story. In 2021, he attempted to
[10:44] withdraw his guilty plea, suddenly claiming he was
[10:47] innocent and that someone else eliminated Christie after he
[10:50] left. In essence, he's now claiming
[10:54] that he had a consensual relationship with Christie,
[10:57] which, given what he openly admitted in court to doing to
[10:59] her, is absolutely disgusting. He even sought new DNA testing
[11:06] on Christie's clothing, but a judge rejected this request,
[11:10] calling Rose revised account. Unbelievable, given the
[11:13] evidence. But again, there's still more to
[11:16] the story. And in August 2025, the
[11:19] Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the lower court's
[11:22] decision. Because of this decision, there
[11:25] will now be additional forensic testing on Christie's clothing.
[11:28] And this ongoing saga continues. Despite the ongoing appeals,
[11:35] this former DJ remains frozen for the rest of his life in
[11:38] prison. In May 1998, a foul odor in a
[11:46] San Francisco apartment building led to a chilling discovery.
[11:50] Police entered a unit in the city's Diamond Heights
[11:53] neighborhood on May 20th and found the decomposing body of 36
[11:57] year old Lisa Valdez on the floor.
[12:00] Just four days earlier, Lisa had been alive and well, hosting a
[12:05] small dinner gathering at her home for family and friends.
[12:09] Now she was dead, stabbed more than 20 times in a brutal
[12:12] attack, and her assailant had vanished without a trace.
[12:19] Lisa Valdez was a 36 year old software analyst living in San
[12:23] Francisco's Diamond Heights District.
[12:26] She was known as a vibrant, outgoing person who loved to
[12:30] dance and cherished her friends and family.
[12:33] Friends described Lisa as energetic and fiercely loyal,
[12:37] the type who would do anything for those she loved.
[12:40] By all accounts, Lisa had a bright future ahead of her, a
[12:44] future that would be tragically cut short in the spring of 1998.
[12:51] The scene inside Lisa's apartment revealed the horrific
[12:53] violence of the crime. Her body was found lying on the
[12:57] bedroom floor in a state of advance decomposition, with her
[13:01] legs sprawled and her shirt pulled up over her head.
[13:04] She had been stabbed 21 times in the upper body and face, and her
[13:09] hands bore defensive wounds, clear evidence that Lisa fought
[13:13] desperately for her life. Blood was splattered across her
[13:17] bedding, indicating a frenzied struggle, and tellingly, Lisa's
[13:22] long hair had been cut off. Investigators believe the
[13:26] attacker took those shorn locks as a twisted trophy, perhaps to
[13:30] relive the disgusting act in the future.
[13:33] Because of the body's condition, authorities couldn't determine
[13:37] if Lisa had been indecently assaulted.
[13:40] However, as you're about to see, the assailant lingered perhaps
[13:44] for a very significant period of time.
[13:47] So ultimately, they assumed this was one of the motivations for
[13:50] the crime. San Francisco police work to
[13:55] piece together what happened during Lisa's final hours.
[13:59] The last confirmed sighting of her was on May 16th, 1998, when
[14:04] she hosted a dinner party at her condo for her mother and a few
[14:08] guests. Everything seemed normal as her
[14:11] mother left around midnight. Shortly after, at about 1:30 AM
[14:16] on May 17th, a neighbor heard a loud thud and the sound of
[14:20] someone running down the stairs. That same weekend, Lisa failed
[14:25] to show up for a dance class she regularly attended, an early
[14:29] sign that something was wrong. Disturbingly, Lisa's housekeeper
[14:35] unwittingly walked into the aftermath of the slaying on May
[14:38] 18th, letting herself in as usual, the housekeeper very
[14:43] briefly saw Lisa lying on the floor and even heard a man's
[14:47] voice inside the apartment. Thinking she had stumbled upon a
[14:52] private moment between Lisa and a boyfriend, she quickly left.
[14:57] She wouldn't realize until later she had likely just come face to
[15:00] face with the perp while her employer lay dead.
[15:05] When the odor of decomposition grew strong two days later, the
[15:08] building manager investigated and called police, leading to
[15:12] the grim discovery of Lisa's body.
[15:17] Detectives found a few clues at the crime scene, but they raised
[15:21] as many questions as answers. A pair of partial fingerprints
[15:25] was recovered from the underside of Lisa's toilet seat, and two
[15:28] used bandages were floating in the toilet bowl.
[15:32] These odd items hinted that the perp might have cut himself
[15:35] during the attack and attempted some cleanup before fleeing.
[15:39] Investigators also collected blood evidence that didn't
[15:42] belong to Lisa. These droplets on a pillow and
[15:46] door frame pointed to an unknown male suspect who may have been
[15:49] injured in the struggle. Forensic experts extracted adna
[15:53] profile from this blood, hoping for a match in the database.
[15:57] But in the late 1990s, DNA testing was limited and CODIS,
[16:02] the national database of offenders, existed, but only in
[16:07] a very limited form. With no database hits.
[16:12] Investigators turned to Lisa's circle of acquaintances and did
[16:15] some good old fashioned detective work.
[16:18] They interviewed friends, neighbors, Co workers and recent
[16:23] romantic prospects. Basically anyone who might have
[16:26] had a reason to harm her. One colleague who had a crush on
[16:30] Lisa and another man she had planned to first date with were
[16:34] both considered early on, but each offered their DNA and were
[16:38] cleared quickly. By the one year anniversary of
[16:42] Lisa's death, the trail had gone cold, and slowly but surely,
[16:47] Lisa's case slipped into the archives of the cold case files.
[16:54] In 2011, thirteen years after the senseless act, a
[16:58] breakthrough finally came. One crime lab supervisor, Pam
[17:03] Hofsass, had never forgotten Lisa's case, and she had kept
[17:06] testing the evidence, hoping that new technology might one
[17:10] day yield a match. Her persistence paid off in
[17:14] September 2011 when a fresh DNA search yielded A stunning
[17:18] result. The DNA from the crime scene
[17:21] matched a profile in the now much more robust national
[17:25] database, giving investigators a name.
[17:29] The genetic evidence identified Anthony Quinn Hughes, a 52 year
[17:33] old man living in San Francisco, as the responsible party.
[17:37] Hughes had never been on the original suspect list, though he
[17:41] was an old acquaintance of Lisa's from years past.
[17:46] At last, detectives knew who had done this to Lisa, but the
[17:50] question of why remained an unresolved mystery.
[17:54] Interestingly, Hughes had managed to avoid detection for
[17:57] over a decade, even though during those years he was
[18:00] arrested for other crimes like burglary and theft.
[18:04] However, despite these felony arrests, these crimes never led
[18:08] to his genetic information being taken and entered into CODIS.
[18:13] It would actually all change with an extremely minor arrest.
[18:17] Hughes was involved in a shoplifting incident and the
[18:20] authorities took ADNA sample. I don't know what he got caught
[18:24] stealing, but I like to imagine it was something absurd and
[18:28] pointless. Maybe a shopping cart full of
[18:31] Ding Dongs and Ho Hos. Armed with this genetic
[18:36] evidence, officers moved quickly to clap him in cuffs.
[18:40] They soon spotted Hughes on a city street and according to
[18:43] reports, he even brazenly jaywalked in front of them,
[18:47] giving police an easy chance to swoop in.
[18:49] On September 10th, 2011, after 13 long years, the suspected
[18:56] perpetrator was finally in custody.
[18:59] News of the arrest brought instant and immense relief to
[19:02] Lisa's family and her sister-in-law.
[19:04] Janet expressed gratitude that the suspect was off the streets
[19:08] and couldn't hurt anyone else. Once Hughes was in custody,
[19:14] detectives hoped to get answers about what happened to Lisa.
[19:18] They began a careful interrogation, at first
[19:21] pretending to ask about local burglaries to keep Hughes
[19:24] relaxed. But as soon as investigators
[19:27] mentioned Lisa's name, Hughes became agitated.
[19:31] He claimed he hadn't seen Lisa in many years and denied any
[19:35] role in her death. Pressed further, he admitted he
[19:39] had known Lisa. They had dated briefly as
[19:42] teenagers, but he insisted he hadn't been in contact with her
[19:45] since the 1980s. Crucially, he advised that he
[19:49] had never set foot in her apartment.
[19:52] Hughes had caught his foot in a judicial bear trap since he
[19:56] could no longer claim any innocent reason for being with
[19:58] Lisa in 1998. Interestingly, detectives knew
[20:05] there were no signs of forced entry at the condo, meaning Lisa
[20:09] had likely let whoever did it in.
[20:11] This implies she knew and trusted the person at her door,
[20:15] at least to some degree. When confronted with the
[20:20] forensic evidence, Hughes reacted in a completely
[20:23] unexpected way. He suddenly asked the officers
[20:26] for a pen and paper, as if to write down a statement.
[20:30] Little did the cops know, Hughes was about to confess in the most
[20:34] dramatic way possible. Once he had the pen in his hand,
[20:38] he got to work on his confession by literally repeatedly stuffing
[20:42] it through his neck. Stunned detectives tackled him
[20:47] and wrestled the pen away before this act of elimination was
[20:50] complete. Once he recovered, he was
[20:53] formally charged with Lisa Valdez's slaying.
[20:59] Despite being caught, Hughes offered no real explanation for
[21:02] his actions. Investigators theorized he may
[21:06] have come to Lisa's home expecting a romantic encounter
[21:09] and when rejected, exploded in rage.
[21:12] Yet Hughes never actually formally confessed or clarified
[21:15] his motive, leaving the true trigger for his violence known
[21:19] only to him. Hughes's case took several years
[21:25] to reach trial. In the four years between his
[21:28] 2011 arrest in the courtroom proceedings, there were delays
[21:32] for a mental competency evaluation and other pretrial
[21:35] steps. In late 2015, Anthony Hughes
[21:39] finally stood trial. Prosecutors presented the DNA
[21:43] and fingerprint evidence, a timeline of Lisa's final night,
[21:47] and the story of Hughes's past connection to her.
[21:50] In January 2016, the jury found Hughes guilty as charged.
[21:56] While they initially returned a first degree verdict, the judge
[22:00] reduced it to 2nd degree at sentencing and Hughes received a
[22:04] term of 16 years to life in prison.
[22:07] Hughes continued to protest his innocence at sentencing,
[22:11] insisting he had been wrongly convicted.
[22:16] Interestingly, Hughes appealed the conviction, arguing that the
[22:19] 13 year delay in charging him violated his right to a fair
[22:23] trial. I'm going to give you a second
[22:25] to guess how that little legal argument panned out.
[22:30] In 2018, however, a California Court of Appeal unanimously
[22:35] upheld the verdict, ruling that the delay was justified by the
[22:38] new DNA evidence linking him to the crime.
[22:42] As of now, Hughes continues to receive free lodging courtesy of
[22:45] the state, though unfortunately it appears that he'll be a free
[22:49] man in short order. A pregnant young woman vanished
[22:55] from Indianapolis around Thanksgiving 1984, leaving
[22:59] behind a small son and an anxious family.
[23:03] Six weeks later, a Turkey hunter discovered the bound and
[23:07] strangled body of a red haired woman off Interstate 75 near
[23:10] Jellico, TN. The victim had been wrapped in a
[23:14] blanket with duct tape and dumped over a guardrail, and she
[23:18] had no identification for more than three decades.
[23:22] She would remain the Campbell County Jane Doe, one of several
[23:25] female victims with reddish hair found along southern highways in
[23:29] the early 1980s. This mystery persisted until
[23:34] advances in DNA technology and a renewed push by investigators
[23:39] finally unravelled the secrets behind the tragedy of Tina
[23:42] Farmer. Friends last saw Tina on
[23:47] Thanksgiving Day 1984, and family members reported her
[23:51] missing not long afterward. Her sister later contacted
[23:55] Indianapolis police again in 1992, emphasizing that the
[24:00] family still had no answers. It's unclear what actual steps
[24:04] were taken to investigate her disappearance at that time.
[24:08] Although there were rumors that she might have left town
[24:11] voluntarily or gotten involved in illicit work, nothing
[24:15] concrete surfaced. Tina was arrested in 1983,
[24:20] though none of the sources indicate what this arrest was
[24:23] for. She was fingerprinted as part of
[24:25] this process. However, given that there was
[24:29] speculation that she was involved in adult work, it's
[24:33] been speculated that this arrest may have been related to that.
[24:37] Notably, unbeknownst to her relatives, Tina was also about
[24:41] two months pregnant when she disappeared.
[24:47] On January 1st, 1985, a passerby noticed a body lying below a
[24:52] guardrail near Jellico on Interstate 75 in Campbell
[24:55] County, Tennessee. The victim was partially
[24:59] undressed, bound with strips of a T-shirt and gagged, and a
[25:03] blanket with duct tape was wrapped around her.
[25:06] The autopsy determined she had been strangled and had been dead
[25:10] for several days. Authorities couldn't match her
[25:13] to any missing person report, so they classified her as an
[25:17] unidentified victim and retained her fingerprints and a few items
[25:22] of evidence. The case soon became associated
[25:25] with several similar slayings in the region.
[25:29] Between 1978 and 1985, the bodies of at least six women
[25:34] with red or reddish hair were found along interstates in
[25:38] Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas and West Virginia.
[25:43] Many were strangled and dumped with blankets or a variety of
[25:46] other makeshift coverings, and there began to be whispers of a
[25:50] serial predator on the loose. Media outlets dubbed these
[25:54] events the Redhead Slayings and a multi state task force formed
[25:58] in 1985 to share information and look for links.
[26:03] At the time, investigators speculated that a long haul
[26:06] trucker could be targeting vulnerable women along highways.
[26:11] However, forensic science in the mid 1980s relied largely on
[26:16] blood typing and limited fingerprint databases, leaving
[26:20] authorities with few concrete leads.
[26:23] As months turned into years, the Campbell County Jane Doe case
[26:27] went cold. While the Jane Doe case
[26:32] languished, another disturbing incident offered a glimpse into
[26:36] the perpetrator's possible identity.
[26:38] However, the technology at the time just wasn't there yet, even
[26:42] if investigators suspected something more was at play.
[26:47] In March 1985, A Knoxville dancer known as Tasha met a
[26:52] truck driver named Jerry Leon Johns at a club.
[26:56] The appropriately named Johns offered to pay her for more
[26:59] action and drove her to a motel. And yeah, seriously, if this
[27:04] isn't nominative determinism at work, I don't know what is.
[27:09] When she tried to leave, he forced her into her car, tied
[27:13] her hands and feet with strips of her T-shirt, gagged her and
[27:17] drove West on Interstate 40. He told her he was going to
[27:21] eliminate her and became angry when he discovered she dyed her
[27:24] hair rather than being a natural redhead.
[27:26] After parking in a wooded area, John's wrapped a strip of cloth
[27:30] around her neck and strangled her until she lost
[27:33] consciousness. She was dumped into a drainage
[27:37] basin and was left there with John's, presumably believing
[27:41] that he had just taken a life. Miraculously, she survived,
[27:48] crawled to the highway and flagged down a helpful trucker
[27:52] who saved her life. Her description enabled police
[27:56] to quickly arrest Johns, who had also stolen Tasha's vehicle.
[28:00] Johns would be convicted in 1987, and the authorities
[28:04] speculated that based on his conduct, this wasn't his first
[28:08] rodeo. But they couldn't prove
[28:10] anything. In 2016, the Tennessee Bureau of
[28:16] Investigation resubmitted the blanket and clothing found with
[28:20] the Jane Doe for modern testing. This time, analysts detected a
[28:25] biological find that couldn't previously be seen and developed
[28:29] a genetic profile. If you've been following this
[28:32] story up until this point, you may have guessed that Jerry
[28:36] Johns was the man who would be the match.
[28:39] The breakthrough meant that Johns had been with the victim
[28:42] and was likely the one who had slain her.
[28:46] However, the victim was still a Jane Doe, and it wouldn't be for
[28:50] another two years that the identity of Tina McKinney Farmer
[28:55] and the Campbell County Jane Doe were linked up.
[28:59] An intrepid TBI detective ended up searching through the records
[29:03] and finding that Tina's case linked with the Campbell County
[29:06] Jane Doe in a lot of ways. Fortunately, Tina was arrested
[29:11] in 1983, so her fingerprints were on record and the
[29:15] fingerprints of the Jane Doe had been taken intact.
[29:18] This was absolute confirmation that the Campbell Doe was Tina.
[29:24] Armed with the DNA match and the victim's identity, TBI
[29:28] investigators presented their findings to a Campbell County
[29:31] grand jury in late 2019. The panel concluded that Jerry
[29:37] Johns would have been indicted for a first degree charge if he
[29:40] were still alive. For better or for worse, Johns
[29:44] had perished in prison in 2015 at age 67 and will never face
[29:50] justice for his actions. Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here
[29:57] reminding you to take a moment to subscribe and hit the
[30:00] notification bell and also turn on all notifications.
[30:04] Also, don't forget to hit that hype button and hype this video
[30:07] up since it allows the video to be more visible both to new
[30:11] viewers and to subscribers who haven't hit the bell.
[30:18] The discovery of thousands of human bone fragments strewn
[30:21] across an Indiana State in the mid 1990s sounded like something
[30:25] out of a horror movie, yet it was reality for the families of
[30:29] several missing men. Among those fragments were the
[30:33] remains of Daniel Halloran, a 22 year old father from Colorado.
[30:39] Halloran vanished in 1993 without a missing person report
[30:44] and became one of the victims attributed to an Indiana
[30:46] property owner named Herb Baumeister.
[30:50] For decades, the bones collected from the property sat
[30:53] unidentified while families waited for answers.
[30:57] Only in 2025 did new forensic techniques allow Halloran's
[31:01] loved ones to finally learn what happened to him.
[31:06] Daniel Halloran was born on May 10th, 1972 and grew up primarily
[31:11] in Colorado. As a young adult, he worked odd
[31:14] jobs and traveled back and forth between Colorado and Indiana.
[31:18] According to his daughter, Coral, he had a tumultuous
[31:22] relationship with her mother, and by 1993, the couple's
[31:26] relationship had deteriorated. That year, when Coral was almost
[31:32] two years old, Halloran returned to Indiana and he never came
[31:36] back, and within a short time, his communication stopped
[31:39] entirely. Because he lived somewhat
[31:42] itinerantly and had few bills or records, his disappearance
[31:46] wasn't reported to authorities at the time.
[31:50] Coral's mother hired private investigators and even reached
[31:53] out to social services, but there were no matches in missing
[31:57] person databases. For Coral, the lack of
[32:01] information led to conflicting emotions, and she wondered if
[32:05] her father had abandoned her family or if something more
[32:08] sinister had happened. Her aunt eventually suggested
[32:13] contacting the coroner's office, since it became clear that Danny
[32:17] had simply dropped off the face of the earth.
[32:19] But that, too, led to nothing. At the time when Halloran
[32:25] vanished, local news in Indiana had begun to focus on a series
[32:29] of disappearances among gay men in their 20s and early 30s.
[32:34] Investigators suspected that a predator was targeting men at
[32:37] bars in Indianapolis, strangling them and dumping their bodies.
[32:42] Suspicion eventually fell on an outwardly successful businessman
[32:46] named Herb Baumeister. Baumeister owned a chain of
[32:50] thrift stores and lived on an 18 acre estate called Fox Hollow
[32:54] Farm in Westfield, IN. In August 1995, police received
[32:59] a call from a man who claimed that someone named Brian Smart
[33:03] had taken him to a house with an indoor pool and attempted to
[33:07] strangle him with a hose. The man escaped, but another
[33:11] victim later identified his attacker as Baumeister.
[33:15] Detectives went to his wife and asked for permission to search
[33:18] Fox Hollow Farm, a request which she granted.
[33:22] Her son had previously found what appeared to be human
[33:25] remains on the property, but Baumeister played it off like it
[33:29] was no big deal. Clearly Herb's wife harbored
[33:32] significant suspicions, though, so when the police came
[33:35] knocking, she wanted answers, too.
[33:40] What investigators found shocked them.
[33:43] Scattered across the wooded property were more than 10,000
[33:46] bones and bone fragments. The remains belong to at least
[33:51] 11 people, though many bones were charred and crushed, making
[33:55] identification difficult. Some victims were only partial
[33:59] skeletons, and bone fragments showed evidence of burning.
[34:04] Because many of the missing men frequented gay bars,
[34:07] investigators theorized that Baumeister targeted gay or
[34:11] bisexual men, luring them to his estate under the pretense of
[34:15] good times. With the evidence mounting,
[34:19] authorities issued a warrant for Baumeister's arrest.
[34:22] Instead of surrendering, he fled to Canada and went deep into a
[34:26] provincial park in Ontario, where he finally ended his
[34:30] disturbing spree. In his note, he talked about
[34:34] failing businesses and marriage troubles, but didn't confess to
[34:37] anything. Daniel Halloran wasn't openly
[34:41] gay and didn't fit the stereotypes investigators
[34:44] initially associated with Baumeister's victims.
[34:48] He may have frequented bars or social circles that overlapped
[34:51] with Baumeister's hunting grounds.
[34:54] Halloran was described by friends as adventurous and
[34:57] sometimes impulsive, and after moving back to Indiana in 1993,
[35:02] he was seen around Indianapolis's nightlife scene.
[35:07] Investigators believe that sometime after March 1994, he
[35:11] encountered Baumeister and accepted an invitation to Fox
[35:14] Hollow Farm. Some believe he may have been
[35:17] lured there with the promise of illicit substances rather than
[35:21] for other forms of action. Once there, Baumeister
[35:25] eliminated him, though the reasons for this remain a
[35:28] mystery. Much like all of his crimes for
[35:32] decades, Halloran's remains would be catalogued but
[35:36] ultimately unidentified. One obstacle to identifying
[35:41] Halloran's remains was that both of his parents and his brother
[35:45] were deceased. However, investigators
[35:49] discovered that his mother's DNA had been collected after she
[35:52] perished from an overdose. The authorities extracted Adna
[35:57] profile from bone fragments recovered at Fox Hollow Farm and
[36:01] compared it with the sample from Halloran's mother, Coral
[36:05] Halloran. Daniel's daughter would end up
[36:07] providing her own sample to confirm the match with absolute
[36:10] certainty. For Coral Halloran, learning the
[36:16] fate of her father brought mixed emotions.
[36:19] Growing up, she wrestled with uncertainty, at times thinking
[36:23] her father might have chosen to disappear.
[36:26] Coral went on record saying that she felt a combination of grief
[36:30] and relief upon finding out the fate of her father.
[36:33] However, she was, of course, sickened to learn how Baumeister
[36:37] eliminated him on Fox Hollow Farm.
[36:41] As of 2025, three DNA profiles from Fox Hollow Farm remain
[36:46] unmatched. Hamilton County authorities
[36:49] continue to work with private companies, state labs and the
[36:53] University of Indianapolis to identify those individuals.
[36:58] Ultimately, but for advances in forensic technology, Daniel
[37:02] Halloran's disappearance would have likely remained an unsolved
[37:06] mystery for all time. Halloran vanished in 1993 and,
[37:12] like many of Herb Baumeister's suspected victims, left behind
[37:16] no missing person report or paper trail.
[37:23] The mystery began on an ordinary June day in 2014 when highway
[37:28] workers along a rural Rd. near Geneva, Wisconsin, spotted 2
[37:32] weathered suitcases abandoned near a guardrail.
[37:36] When they inspected one of them to see if it contained trash,
[37:39] they discovered something far more chilling decomposing human
[37:44] remains. They immediately alerted the
[37:47] authorities and didn't dare investigate any further.
[37:50] The second suitcase dragged from the ditch by deputies held
[37:53] another body. The gruesome scene immediately
[37:56] drew national attention and investigators began piercing
[38:00] together how the victims ended up folded inside luggage and
[38:04] left beside a highway. The search for answers would
[38:08] span states, draw in forensic specialists and reveal a crime
[38:12] committed by a man who once wore a police badge.
[38:18] Jenny Gamez was born in the early 1990s and grew up mostly
[38:22] in the Oregon foster care system.
[38:25] Accounts from her foster family describe her as an optimistic
[38:29] young woman trying to build a stable life despite A turbulent
[38:33] childhood. In August 2012, she left the
[38:37] home of her foster father in Cottage Grove, OR, telling
[38:41] relatives she was going to visit friends.
[38:44] She was 19 at the time and starting to navigate adulthood,
[38:48] so her foster family didn't immediately report her missing.
[38:52] She had been somewhat estranged from them for a while, so her
[38:56] disappearance didn't initially trigger alarm, and there was no
[39:00] missing person case for investigators to consult.
[39:04] It would take almost two years for authorities to determine
[39:07] what happened after she left Oregon, in part because her
[39:10] remains were severely decomposed when discovered.
[39:14] During this time, her uncanny forensic reconstruction would go
[39:18] viral across the Internet and traditional media outlets,
[39:22] leading to substantially more attention than usual on her
[39:25] case. Jenny's path tragically crossed
[39:30] with that of Steven Zoellick, a former Wisconsin police officer.
[39:35] Zoellick had resigned from the police force years earlier after
[39:39] allegations that he harassed and stalked women while on duty.
[39:43] He continued to frequent websites under aliases such as
[39:46] Mr. Handcuffs, trolling for women interested in extremely
[39:50] rough activity. Investigators later learned that
[39:53] Jenny interacted with Zoellick on one of these sites and agreed
[39:57] to meet him in person. In late 2012, Jenny flew from
[40:02] Oregon to Wisconsin, and Zoellick met her at the
[40:05] Milwaukee airport and drove her to a hotel in Kenosha County,
[40:10] according to the criminal complaint.
[40:12] The two spent several days together engaging in what I will
[40:15] euphemistically call a choking game on the last day.
[40:19] Zoellick later claimed he lost control and instead of seeking
[40:23] help, he placed her body in a suitcase.
[40:28] For months, he stored the suitcase first in his
[40:31] refrigerator and later in the trunk of his car while he
[40:34] continued to work as a security guard.
[40:37] Zoellick's pattern of meeting women on websites would repeat,
[40:41] and in November 2013 he lured 37 year old Laura Simonson, a
[40:46] mother of seven, from Minnesota to a hotel in Rochester.
[40:51] He claims that he again lost control during a quote UN quote
[40:54] choking game and then accidentally slew her as well.
[40:58] In June 2014, he drove to rural Walworth County and dumped both
[41:03] suitcases off the side of the road, believing nobody would
[41:07] find them. Notably, the forensic
[41:12] reconstruction of Jenny, which ended up going viral for its
[41:16] supposed poor quality, ended up being the thing that would give
[41:19] her back her name. Since Jenny's reconstruction was
[41:23] seen by so many people, people who knew her and knew she was
[41:27] missing saw her exaggerated facial features and knew it was
[41:33] her from their dental records provided the final key to
[41:37] unlocking Jenny's identity, and investigators received dental
[41:41] information from her dentist. They compared it to the remains
[41:46] and the match confirmed the victim was the missing 19 year
[41:49] old from Oregon. With the victims identified,
[41:54] investigators trace their last communications.
[41:57] Laura Simonson's missing person case had pointed to a man she
[42:00] planned to meet at a motel. Some of her friends were aware
[42:04] that the man she was going to meet went by the online handle
[42:07] Mr. Handcuffs, which gave investigators an evidentiary
[42:11] thread to tug on. Detectives subpoenaed records
[42:14] from quote UN quote dating websites and found that the same
[42:19] username had contacted Jenny and Laura.
[42:22] The information provided eventually led to Stephen
[42:25] Zoellick's West Allis apartment. Police obtained a search warrant
[42:29] and immediately arrested him on 2 counts of hiding a corpse.
[42:34] During his interrogation, he claimed the deaths of the women
[42:37] were accidental, but the physical evidence contradicted
[42:40] these claims. Zoellick had already purchased
[42:43] materials to hide the bodies, including suitcases and
[42:47] padlocks, and had taken steps to keep the bodies hidden for
[42:51] months. Prosecutors argued that his
[42:54] behavior suggested premeditation rather than panic.
[42:59] The legal proceedings lasted several years and spanned 2
[43:02] states. In Wisconsin, Zoellick initially
[43:06] faced a first degree intentional slaying charge, which carries A
[43:10] mandatory life sentence. He eventually reached a plea
[43:13] agreement with prosecutors. In January 2016, he pleaded
[43:19] guilty to a reduced count of first degree reckless slaying
[43:23] and an additional charge of hiding a corpse.
[43:27] During the plea hearing, he again claimed he and Jenny
[43:30] consensually engaged in everything and it was all just a
[43:34] big accident that happened twice.
[43:37] The judge sentenced Zoellick to 35 years in prison for Jenny's
[43:40] slaying and five years for concealing her corpse, and from
[43:44] there he was shipped off to Minnesota to face further
[43:47] justice. In Minnesota, Zelik pleaded
[43:52] guilty in 2017 to a second degree count in Laura Simonson's
[43:56] case. A judge there imposed a 25 year
[44:00] sentence, and for some reason the Minnesota sentence will run
[44:04] concurrently with the Wisconsin term.
[44:09] Notably, Zelik has attempted to appeal his convictions, arguing
[44:12] that he had ineffective counsel, though as of yet, this hasn't
[44:17] gone anywhere and this former cop remains locked up as of now.
[44:22] I would hope that the authorities are going back
[44:24] through his records from his time as a cop and seeing if he
[44:27] was involved in any unusual incidents during his tenure.
[44:33] In early December 1991, the Austin suburbs were bustling
[44:37] with holiday shoppers. Families crowded strip malls and
[44:40] couples enjoyed nights out. Hidden beneath this festive
[44:44] veneer. A small frozen yogurt shop in
[44:47] North Austin prepared to close for the evening. 2 teenage
[44:50] employees, 17 year old Jennifer Harbison and her friend Eliza
[44:55] Thomas, were tidying up while Jennifer's 15 year old sister
[44:59] Sarah waited for a ride. 13 year old Amy Ayers, another friend,
[45:05] was there too. None of them would make it home,
[45:08] and when firefighters responded to a blaze at the I Can't
[45:12] Believe It's Yogurt shop, they discovered a scene that would
[45:15] traumatize the city for decades. This incident at this Austin
[45:19] yogurt shop would go on to be one of the nation's most
[45:22] haunting unsolved mysteries until it was recently solved.
[45:27] But despite its recent status update, a pressing question
[45:31] remains, and the authorities continue to search for a second
[45:34] perpetrator. The evening of December 6th,
[45:39] 1991 began like many others, for the Harbison sisters.
[45:43] Jennifer and Eliza were wrapping up their shift when Sarah
[45:46] arrived, accompanied by her friend Amy.
[45:50] Witnesses later reported seeing men hanging around the strip
[45:53] mall, and a man was observed entering the shop just before
[45:57] closing shortly before midnight. A passing patrol officer noticed
[46:02] smoke, and when firefighters arrived, they encountered heavy
[46:06] flames and a pungent odor. Firefighters knew what that
[46:10] smell meant, though the full horror of what had happened was
[46:14] not yet known. As the smoke cleared, they made
[46:18] a gruesome discovery. 4 bodies clustered in the back storage
[46:22] area. Investigators determined that
[46:25] the girls had been bound with pieces of their own clothing,
[46:28] gagged with cloth, subject to illicit assault, and shot in the
[46:33] head with at least two different weapons.
[46:36] Their bodies had been doused with a flammable liquid and set
[46:39] alight. Austin police quickly launched
[46:44] an extensive investigation. Dozens of detectives canvassed
[46:48] the area, interviewed hundreds of potential witnesses, and
[46:52] gathered physical evidence, including two sets of shell
[46:55] casings. Unfortunately, the fire and
[46:58] sprinklers had destroyed much of the evidence.
[47:01] DNA technology was in its infancy, and investigators
[47:05] didn't have the tools that would later become standard.
[47:11] Frustration grew as leads stalled, and in the weeks
[47:14] following the attacks, police released composite sketches of
[47:17] two men seen near the yogurt shop.
[47:20] Tips poured in, leading investigators to interview a
[47:23] wide range of individuals, from Drifters to disgruntled
[47:27] employees. Among those arrested was a 16
[47:31] year old named Maurice Pierce, who was found carrying a weapon
[47:34] at a mall two days after the attack.
[47:38] Ballistic tests eventually showed this weapon hadn't been
[47:41] used in the Commission of the crime.
[47:44] However, Pierce told police he and three friends, Michael
[47:48] Scott, Robert Springsteen and Forrest Welborn, were all
[47:53] involved. Over the next few years, these
[47:57] four men, then teenagers, became the focus of the case.
[48:04] The investigation suffered from tunnel vision and controversial
[48:07] techniques, and in retrospect, the techniques appear to have
[48:11] been designed to get a confession rather than the
[48:13] truth. Detectives interrogated the
[48:16] suspects repeatedly, sometimes for hours, without lawyers
[48:21] present. Michael Scott and Robert
[48:24] Springsteen eventually confessed, implicating each
[48:27] other and describing details that some investigators believed
[48:31] only the perpetrators would know.
[48:34] Critics argued the confessions were coerced and Springsteen had
[48:38] developmental difficulties and Scott had been threatened by
[48:42] detectives with the big state sponsor DP.
[48:47] In 1999, a new investigative team revived the case and all
[48:52] four men were arrested. Prosecutors charged Scott and
[48:56] Springsteen with a capital offense, while Pearson Welborn
[48:59] faced lesser charges. Springsteen was convicted in
[49:03] 2001 and Scott in 2002, each sentenced to life in prison.
[49:10] From the outset, the convictions were controversial, and defense
[49:15] attorneys argued that the confessions were inconsistent.
[49:19] They also argued that they contradicted physical evidence
[49:22] and were obtained under duress. Further, there was no DNA
[49:27] linking the men to the crime, and the weapons used in the
[49:31] crime were never recovered from this group.
[49:36] In 2006 and 2007, appellate courts reverse Springsteen's and
[49:41] Scott's convictions, citing improper use of Co defendants
[49:44] confessions. However, the authorities were
[49:48] still free to bring the case against them again given the
[49:51] decision on appeal. Further DNA testing revealed
[49:55] that none of the four men were involved in the indecent
[49:58] assaults that took place on the victims.
[50:01] While this didn't necessarily mean they weren't involved and
[50:05] there could have been an unknown 5th man, this made the
[50:08] confessions even less logically coherent.
[50:12] Prosecutors ultimately acknowledge they no longer had
[50:15] enough evidence and dropped the charges.
[50:17] In 2009, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen walked free
[50:22] after spending nearly a decade in prison.
[50:25] Maurice Pierce, who maintained his innocence, was eliminated by
[50:28] an Austin police officer during an unrelated altercation in
[50:31] 2010, putting an end to any questions about his role.
[50:36] Forrest Welborn was never tried for his alleged role in the
[50:40] attack on the girls at the yogurt shop, despite having been
[50:43] initially charged in relation to the events.
[50:48] With the functional exoneration of the original suspects, the
[50:52] case returned to square 1. Investigators continued to
[50:56] pursue leads, but the trail grew cold and in 2017, the Austin
[51:02] cops established A-Team to get justice for the slain girls.
[51:06] However, the initial hit from this case wouldn't be from
[51:09] genetic genealogy as some might have suspected, but rather from
[51:14] a shell casing retrieved from the scene.
[51:17] And Full disclosure here, when I had someone in the comments tell
[51:20] me that this case had been solved, I immediately thought it
[51:24] was going to solely be due to forensic genetic genealogy.
[51:29] In July 2025, Detective Daniel Jackson resubmitted the casing
[51:34] to the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network.
[51:38] Advances in 3D scanning and an expanded database allowed Nibbon
[51:42] to find matches that earlier tests missed.
[51:45] When Jackson's request returned to hit, it linked the Austin
[51:49] casing to an unsolved 1998 double slaying in rural
[51:52] Kentucky. Importantly, that slaying also
[51:56] involved in illicit assault, and there was biological evidence
[52:00] left behind that irrefutably tied the perpetrator to the
[52:04] scene. The Kentucky case involved a
[52:07] very similar weapon, further raising the possibility that the
[52:10] same weapon had been used in Austin.
[52:15] The nib and hit was a pivotal moment, and Austin cold case
[52:18] detectives reached out to Kentucky investigators and
[52:21] shared the DNA profile they had. The two jurisdictions shared
[52:26] what they had, and the two profiles matched.
[52:29] In August 2025, a South Carolina state lab located a matching
[52:35] genetic profile in an unsolved 1990s slaying.
[52:40] The match pointed to Robert Eugene Brashers, a serial
[52:43] predator who had been identified through forensic genealogy in
[52:47] 2018. Brashers had reserved his final
[52:51] bullet for himself, and he voluntarily ended his own spree
[52:55] in 1999, leaving behind a trail of unsolved crimes.
[53:00] Interestingly, the ballistic testing on the weapon Brashers
[53:04] used in that last act would later be confirmed to be the one
[53:08] he had used to take some of the victims lives at the yogurt
[53:11] shop. On September 29th, 2025, Austin
[53:16] police held a press conference to announce that they had
[53:19] finally solved the yogurt shop case.
[53:24] Robert Eugene Brashers was born in 1956 and spent much of his
[53:28] life drifting across the American South.
[53:31] He had a history of violence, indecent assaults, and burglary
[53:36] and was known for his extreme violence.
[53:39] In 1985, he shot his neighbor during a dispute in Alabama, and
[53:43] later he was linked to several unsolved slayings.
[53:47] As of right now, he is confirmed to have slain at least 7 people
[53:51] and is believed to be responsible for many other
[53:54] crimes as well. In January 1999, Brashers was
[54:01] arrested in Missouri for unlawful possession of a weapon
[54:04] and was suspected of kidnapping. He was released on bond and
[54:08] fled, but the US Marshals successfully tracked him to a
[54:12] motel in Kennett, MO. It was there during a last
[54:16] stand, that he chose to give himself the DP in that hotel
[54:19] room. Although investigators have
[54:24] identified Robert Brasher's as the main perpetrator, questions
[54:28] remain. Police have hinted that at least
[54:30] two men committed the crime because two different weapons
[54:34] were used and witnesses reported seeing more than one man near
[54:37] the shop. Brashers may have worked with an
[54:41] accomplice who remains unknown. Some believe that Brashers met
[54:44] the accomplice in the months before the crime.
[54:47] He had previously been stopped by Border Patrol near Del Rio,
[54:50] TX, just two days after the attacks while travelling with an
[54:54] unidentified male. The man's identity has never
[54:58] been confirmed, and it's unclear if there was adna profile from
[55:01] the man recovered from the scene.
[55:06] Another question revolves around why Brashers targeted the yogurt
[55:09] shop. Unlike his other crimes, which
[55:13] involved break insurance at private homes, the yogurt shop
[55:16] was a high risk public space. Some speculate that Brashers and
[55:21] his accomplice intended to rob the shop and then encountered
[55:24] the girls. Others think that the girls were
[55:27] the primary targets, perhaps after being stalked.
[55:31] Brashers has a history of disturbing and illicit violence
[55:34] even outside of this, so it's possible that he may have linked
[55:38] up with another serial predator. Further, the speculation that
[55:44] there may have been more than one offender is supported by
[55:47] logistic considerations. Controlling 4 victims, binding
[55:52] them and carrying out the horrible acts would have been
[55:56] significantly more difficult for a single person than for two
[56:00] men. Personally, I don't find this
[56:03] point to be all that compelling, and I suspect 4 teenage girls
[56:08] who are confronted by 1 armed man wouldn't be fighting back in
[56:12] any meaningful way. In fact, I suspect this would
[56:16] likely be the case even if these were 4 unarmed, burly adult
[56:20] males. The full or partial resolution
[56:24] of the yogurt shop slayings illustrates just how far
[56:27] forensic technology has come in the last few decades.
[56:31] Had this crime taken place today, the perpetrator or
[56:34] perpetrators would have been clapped in cuffs within months,
[56:38] given the power of these testing techniques.
[56:41] But perhaps more poignantly, it's unlikely that the four
[56:44] innocent victims would have ever met this end at all.
[56:48] Brashers likely wouldn't have been given the opportunity to
[56:51] start his crime spree if he lived in the era of ultra modern
[56:54] forensic techniques. Anyway, it looks like there's
[56:58] still some significant work to be done on this case by
[57:01] investigators. While it hasn't yet been
[57:04] confirmed that a second perpetrator exists, I hope to
[57:07] have an update on this case shortly.
[57:13] On a humid July day in 1998, the piece of Strasbourg, Virginia
[57:18] was shattered by a crime that would haunt the Shenandoah
[57:20] Valley for decades. A young mother was stabbed in
[57:24] her apartment and her ten week old daughter vanished without a
[57:28] trace in 2025. The alleged perpetrator, Daniel
[57:33] Pompell, would be arrested. But despite this arrest, one
[57:38] massive question remains outstanding.
[57:42] On July 27th, 1998, 20 year old Selena Joe Dalton failed to show
[57:48] up for her shift at a local fast food restaurant.
[57:51] Worried, one of her Co workers went to her second floor
[57:54] apartment on S Charles St. in Strasbourg.
[57:57] The friend knew something was wrong when she saw Dalton's
[58:00] black convertible parked outside with the top down.
[58:04] Inside, she discovered Dalton's body on the living room couch.
[58:07] She had been stabbed repeatedly while sleeping and appeared to
[58:11] have been deceased for hours. Dalton's ten week old daughter,
[58:16] Allison was nowhere to be found and several baby bottles were
[58:20] missing. Investigators arrived quickly,
[58:24] launching a search for the infant and collecting evidence
[58:27] in what was now both a slaying and a suspected abduction.
[58:33] The medical examiner determined that Selena had been stabbed
[58:36] five times based on the condition of the body.
[58:40] Investigators estimated that she had perished between 9:15 and
[58:44] 10:30 that morning, a relatively narrow window for the crime to
[58:48] have occurred. Neighbors later told police they
[58:51] had not heard screams, but one person reported seeing a man
[58:55] placing a baby into the passenger side of a truck around
[58:58] 9:00. Another witness recalled hearing
[59:02] a disturbance that morning and seeing a man leaving the
[59:05] apartment with a bundle under his arm.
[59:08] This witness wasn't quite sure what the bundle was and couldn't
[59:12] say if it was a baby or just a jacket.
[59:17] At the time of her death, Selena Dalton was in the process of
[59:21] getting paternal DNA tests to establish her boyfriend, Daniel
[59:25] Pompell, as Allison's father. She was also pursuing child
[59:29] support payments against him. Pompell acknowledged visiting
[59:33] Selena that morning, and he claimed he knocked on the door
[59:36] and left when no one answered. He maintained that he had
[59:40] nothing to do with the attack or the disappearance.
[59:43] Early searches of his home yielded no evidence, and sources
[59:46] report that he was cooperative at the time.
[59:51] Selena's mother, who suddenly found herself raising her
[59:53] daughter's other child and caring for Selena's memory, was
[59:57] not content to sit idly by. In 2000, she filed A wrongful
[1:00:02] death lawsuit against Pompell seeking $1.5 million in damages.
[1:00:07] The purpose wasn't the money, but rather she hoped the civil
[1:00:11] action would unearth new information or force Pompell to
[1:00:15] answer questions publicly. However, without hard evidence
[1:00:19] linking him to the crime, the suit was dismissed for lack of
[1:00:23] proof before it even got to the discovery stage where he could
[1:00:27] be questioned. Family and friends remained
[1:00:30] convinced of Pompell's involvement, but there was
[1:00:33] little more they could do. In the years that followed, the
[1:00:37] Dalton case faded from the headlines, and the case went
[1:00:40] cold In 2017, investigators expressed hope that modern DNA
[1:00:48] techniques would uncover new leads.
[1:00:50] However, the technology just wasn't there at that point.
[1:00:54] Investigators carefully preserved evidence from the
[1:00:56] crime scene, including a red mechanics rag found near
[1:01:00] Selena's body. At the time, they believed the
[1:01:03] rag may have been used to muffle her screams.
[1:01:06] In 2025, as part of a renewed cold case initiative supported
[1:01:11] by the Virginia Attorney General's Office and federal
[1:01:14] grants, police obtained a search warrant for Pompell's DNA.
[1:01:19] Pompell had refused to voluntarily provide ADNA sample
[1:01:23] when investigators approached him a few years earlier.
[1:01:27] After executing the warrant, forensic analysts compared his
[1:01:30] DNA with the biological material found on the RAG.
[1:01:35] Court documents allege that the RAG contained both Selena's DNA
[1:01:38] and Pompels DNA, supporting the theory that it was used during
[1:01:42] the Commission of the crime. On September 27th, 2025, the
[1:01:50] Virginia State Police announced the arrest of 56 year old Daniel
[1:01:54] Pompell on a charge of first degree slaying.
[1:01:58] He was taken into custody in Culpeper County where he lived.
[1:02:02] According to court documents, the arrest was based primarily
[1:02:05] on the DNA link between Pompell and the red rag.
[1:02:09] Court documents suggest the rag was identical to red mechanics
[1:02:13] rags found in Pompell's home, and that his biological evidence
[1:02:17] was all over the rag. Notably, despite his apparent
[1:02:22] cooperation in the investigation back in the 90's, the
[1:02:26] authorities have gone on the record saying that he never
[1:02:28] asked about his missing daughter.
[1:02:31] Many have interpreted this as cause for significant concern
[1:02:34] about her whereabouts. But for reasons that I'm about
[1:02:37] to get into, I think there's a glimmer of hope here.
[1:02:44] While the arrest marked a major development, many questions
[1:02:47] remain. Most importantly, Allison Dalton
[1:02:50] has not been found, and if she is still alive, she would be 27
[1:02:55] years old today. Age progression images released
[1:02:59] in 2017 show a young woman with brown hair and eyes reflecting
[1:03:05] the baby's features. Investigators continue to work
[1:03:09] under the assumption that the person who ended the life of her
[1:03:13] mom also abducted Allison. Since Pompell's arrest is for
[1:03:18] the slaying only, the abduction remains an open case.
[1:03:23] Genetic genealogy has the potential to be the tool that
[1:03:27] finally sheds light on what happened to Allison.
[1:03:30] While traditional DNA comparisons rely on direct
[1:03:33] matches to known individuals, genetic genealogy takes the
[1:03:37] process a step further by building family trees from
[1:03:41] partial genetic links. If investigators can recover a
[1:03:45] viable DNA sample from any item connected to Allison, it could
[1:03:49] be cross referenced against vast genealogical databases.
[1:03:53] In this case, if Allison survived, it's almost certain
[1:03:56] that she was abandoned somewhere where she could be found and be
[1:04:00] subsequently adopted. Adoption complicates genetic
[1:04:04] genealogy because it often severs the paper trail between
[1:04:07] biological and legal families. Records may be sealed, altered,
[1:04:12] or inaccessible, making it harder to connect DNA matches to
[1:04:16] the correct lineage. As such, this approach would
[1:04:19] likely require her own DNA to be present in a database, since
[1:04:23] nobody who matches to her will know who she is.
[1:04:29] One reason I speculate that Allison could still be alive is
[1:04:33] the lack of any remains ever being found despite extensive
[1:04:37] searches. Infants can be hidden or
[1:04:39] relocated much more easily than older children.
[1:04:43] If she was taken by someone like for instance her father,
[1:04:46] potentially she may have been subsequently passed off and
[1:04:51] grown up without ever realizing her true origins.
[1:04:55] There have been numerous cases where stolen infants survive
[1:04:58] into adulthood under assumed identities, living what appeared
[1:05:03] to be ordinary lives. For instance, there's a practice
[1:05:07] going back to the Middle Ages known as a baby box, where
[1:05:10] churches will offer a place to leave a baby anonymously.
[1:05:15] This is generally believed to be to keep the babies from being
[1:05:17] abandoned and succumbing to exposure.
[1:05:21] But first, let's discuss the motive for a second, because I
[1:05:24] also think this bolsters the possibility that Allison is
[1:05:27] alive. Police have suggested that
[1:05:32] financial pressure may have played a role as Selena sought
[1:05:35] child support and Pompell expressed frustration at the
[1:05:38] prospect of paying. It's also possible that the
[1:05:42] attack stemmed from a confrontation over the paternity
[1:05:45] test. If Pompell did it by abandoning
[1:05:49] Allison somewhere safe, he wouldn't have had to pay the
[1:05:52] support he so despised further. Yet, whoever took the baby also
[1:05:58] took baby bottles along with him, which indicates that the
[1:06:02] person in question intended to keep the infant alive.
[1:06:07] Notably, he could have sold the baby through a black market baby
[1:06:10] ring as well. At present, Pompell continues to
[1:06:16] maintain his innocence and await trial.
[1:06:18] If Pompell did it, and if Allison is still alive, it would
[1:06:22] appear that he has substantial leverage to cut a deal to solve
[1:06:26] her case as well.

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