# Solved Cold Cases With Dark Twists That Will Disturb You | 181

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 18 Feb 2026, 25 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO7787718490.mp3

Join me for 3 chilling solved cold cases, and don't forget to follow and hit the notification bell. Episode 181 of the true crime podcast btw. 👇 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 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

## Transcript

[0:00] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here with another episode of my
[0:02] series where we explore and analyze solved cold cases.
[0:06] Before we continue, remember to hit the like and subscribe
[0:09] buttons and to Ding that notification bell and turn on
[0:13] all notifications. On a quiet Sunday afternoon in
[0:18] the summer of 2016, a young woman stepped out of her
[0:22] mother's home in Princeton, MA. She had planned to go for a walk
[0:27] along the wooded roads she'd known since childhood, but she
[0:30] never came back. Vanessa Marcotte, a 27 year old
[0:34] Google account manager living in New York City, was slain that
[0:38] day. What followed was an 8 month
[0:41] investigation, a painstaking manhunt, and a legal resolution
[0:46] that brought some measure of justice.
[0:51] Vanessa Marcotte was born on June 17th, 1989 in Leominster,
[0:56] MA, the only child of John and Rosanna Marcotte.
[1:01] She grew up in the Worcester County area, attended the
[1:04] Bancroft School in Worcester, and graduated with honors from
[1:08] Boston University in 2011. After college, Marcotte built
[1:14] her career in digital marketing, working at Wordstream, a Boston
[1:19] based online advertising startup, and then at Vistaprint.
[1:24] In January 2015, she landed what her family described as her
[1:28] dream job, an account manager position at Google's New York
[1:33] City office. Colleagues remembered her as
[1:36] warm and enthusiastic, known for her volunteer work and love of
[1:40] Boston sports. Outside the office, Marcotte
[1:44] devoted time to charitable causes, volunteering at food
[1:47] banks, tutoring high school students and supporting Boston
[1:51] Children's Hospital. Though she'd made her home in
[1:55] New York, Marcotte maintained deep ties to Massachusetts.
[2:00] She regularly visited her mother and aunt in Princeton, a quiet,
[2:04] small rural town of fewer than 4000 residents in Worcester
[2:08] County. It was a place that felt safe,
[2:12] where people walked the wooded roads without a second thought.
[2:16] That sense of security would be shattered on August 7th, 2016.
[2:23] On that Sunday afternoon. Marcotte left her mother's house
[2:26] on Brook Station Road sometime around one that afternoon.
[2:30] She was planning to walk before catching a commuter bus back to
[2:33] New York later that evening. According to witnesses, she
[2:37] stopped at the Mountainside Market on Hubbardston Road for a
[2:40] drink and was last seen alive walking while talking on her
[2:43] cell phone around 1:15. Another witness reported seeing
[2:48] a vehicle following Marcotte on the road, turning around and
[2:52] then following her again. When several hours passed and
[2:56] Marcotte hadn't returned, her family called the police.
[3:00] Authorities launched an immediate search.
[3:03] At approximately 8:15 that evening, search teams with dogs
[3:07] discovered her body in a heavily wooded area off the road less
[3:12] than half a mile from her mother's house.
[3:15] Officials immediately classified the case as a slaying.
[3:18] Marcotte's body was unclothed and she had burns to her face,
[3:23] hands and feet. An autopsy determined that the
[3:28] cause of death was strangulation.
[3:30] She had also suffered blunt force trauma to her head,
[3:34] including a fractured nose, as well as crushing injuries to her
[3:37] throat. Her clothing, cell phone and
[3:41] earbuds were missing and were never recovered, with the
[3:45] authorities believing that these had been taken as some sort of
[3:48] sick trophy by the attacker. Authorities determined that
[3:52] Marcotte had fought back fiercely.
[3:54] Cell phone data showed her phone was either shut off or disabled
[3:58] at 2:11 in the afternoon. Investigators believe that was
[4:02] likely close to the exact time of her death.
[4:06] In the days following the attack, investigators opened a
[4:09] 24 hour tip line and were flooded with more than 1300 tips
[4:14] from the public. Early on, authorities stated
[4:18] that Marcotte's attacker was a male who would likely have had
[4:22] scratches, cuts and bruises on his face and arms.
[4:27] They didn't believe Marcotte knew the perpetrator, suspecting
[4:30] instead a completely random attack.
[4:34] By November 2016, investigators released a crucial detail.
[4:39] They were seeking information about a dark colored SUV seen
[4:43] parked on the road at the time and location of the killing.
[4:47] In February 2017, the Worcester County District Attorney
[4:52] revealed that DNA recovered from Marcotte's hands had been
[4:55] analyzed and a suspect profile created.
[5:00] Based on the evidence and witness descriptions,
[5:02] authorities identified the suspect as a Hispanic male in
[5:06] his late 20s to early 30s. He was believed to be of average
[5:10] height with an athletic build and short hair or a shaved head
[5:14] who either owned or had access to a dark colored SUV.
[5:19] The critical brake came through an extremely lucky brake
[5:22] combined with a very observant police officer.
[5:25] A trooper with the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit
[5:29] spotted a driver in Worcester who matched the suspects
[5:32] description. He was also driving a dark SUV
[5:37] consistent with the vehicle that witnesses from the day of the
[5:40] attack had uniformly reported. The trooper wrote the license
[5:46] plate number on his hand and followed up the next day by
[5:49] visiting the driver's home. That driver was Angelo Colon
[5:54] Ortiz, a 31 year old Worcester man Colon Ortiz provided Adna
[6:00] sample which matched the DNA found on Marcotte's hands.
[6:05] He was arrested on April 14th, 2017 and arraigned 4 days later
[6:10] at Leominster District Court with bail set at $10 million.
[6:16] Angelo Colon Ortiz had been born in Puerto Rico and moved to
[6:20] Worcester only about a year before the attack.
[6:23] He had no prior criminal record, was married with three children,
[6:28] and worked as a delivery driver for a third party contractor
[6:32] that provided trucking services for FedEx.
[6:36] That job made him familiar with Princeton and the surrounding
[6:39] towns. Cell phone records confirmed he
[6:42] was in the area on the afternoon Vanessa was killed.
[6:46] Despite having no criminal history, accounts from people
[6:50] who knew Colon Ortiz painted a troubling picture.
[6:53] Neighbors in Worcester described him as someone who frequently
[6:56] made vulgar and inappropriate comments to people in the
[6:59] neighborhood. He also worked under the
[7:02] assumption that Spanish is a very rare language that no one
[7:05] else speaks. Colleagues reported that he
[7:08] would make disturbing comments in Spanish to them on the job,
[7:12] and that they would report him and pretend they weren't
[7:15] proficient in the language. Despite this, he kept working,
[7:20] and it seems like he was widely known to be something of a
[7:22] ticking time bomb. Angelo's defense lawyers must
[7:27] have realized that there was no chance of success on a
[7:30] substantive factual basis going to trial, so they threw their
[7:33] Hail Mary pass. Colin Ortiz's defense team
[7:37] challenged the DNA evidence, arguing that a language barrier
[7:42] had prevented him from understanding his rights when he
[7:45] provided the sample. His attorneys claim police
[7:48] didn't send a trooper with adequate Spanish skills and
[7:52] failed to properly translate a consent form.
[7:55] In January 2022, a judge denied the motion to suppress the
[8:00] genetic evidence, allowing the case to proceed.
[8:04] Notably, Angelo was proficient enough to maintain employment in
[8:08] an English language setting, which shows you how little
[8:11] chance of success they had on this.
[8:15] On October 26th, 2022, more than six years after Vanessa
[8:19] Marcotte's death, Angelo appeared in Worcester Superior
[8:23] Court and pleaded guilty to all charges.
[8:27] The plea deal had been requested by the Marcotte family, who
[8:30] wanted to spare themselves the ordeal of a trial.
[8:34] Under the terms of the plea deal, he won't be eligible for
[8:37] parole until he's 81 years old. In the fall of 1987, Boise, ID
[8:48] was still, in many ways, a small town.
[8:50] Violent crime wasn't something most residents worried about,
[8:54] and the community along Vista Ave. knew its neighbors well.
[8:59] Among the most familiar faces in the Vista Village Shopping
[9:01] center was 65 year old Joyce Casper, owner of Casper's Vista
[9:06] Hallmark and Gift Shop. She'd been a fixture in the area
[9:10] for years, running what had originally been a drugstore with
[9:13] a soda fountain where local kids would stop in after school.
[9:18] Joyce was also well known for her tireless work ethic.
[9:21] She routinely stayed late at her shop, tidying and organizing
[9:25] after the doors closed at 9 each evening.
[9:28] It was a habit that made her predictable and tragically,
[9:32] deeply vulnerable to predators. In the weeks leading up to
[9:37] October 13th, 1987, something disturbing happened.
[9:42] Joyce reported to the Boise Police Department that a young
[9:45] man, whom she described as being in his early 20s, had attempted
[9:49] to assault her in the parking lot behind her store.
[9:53] Joyce didn't go down easily. She slapped the man across the
[9:57] face and he backed off just enough for her to get into her
[10:00] vehicle and drive away. Police investigated but couldn't
[10:05] identify the attacker and the incident remained unresolved.
[10:10] Then came the early morning hours of October 13th.
[10:14] A passerby discovered Joyce's body inside her car near the
[10:18] intersection of Day Drive and Robert St.
[10:21] This was just a few 100 feet from her shop and close to a set
[10:25] of railroad tracks. Local news reported that the
[10:28] attack left the community stunned and without a suspect in
[10:32] custody. Fear spread extremely quickly.
[10:36] What followed was one of the most painstaking investigations
[10:39] in Boise Police Department history.
[10:42] Detectives from the Violent Crimes Unit and Special Victims
[10:45] Unit threw themselves into the case, ultimately investigating
[10:50] and eliminating approximately 150 suspects.
[10:54] They traveled to other states, worked overtime, and lost sleep,
[10:59] but despite their efforts, there was little movement in the case.
[11:03] DNA testing was in its infancy in the late 1980s and wasn't yet
[11:08] viable for forensic purposes, complicating matters even
[11:12] further. Further, there were no security
[11:15] cameras, no witnesses, and little physical evidence beyond
[11:19] biological material collected at the scene.
[11:23] Given the forensic technology at the time, the case ended up
[11:27] going cold, though the lead detective continued to advocate
[11:30] for new forensic techniques to be applied even after retiring.
[11:36] The case was formerly reactivated in 2005, and in 2017
[11:42] two new detectives began working on it full time.
[11:45] Using new forensic technology, they sent DNA collected from the
[11:50] original crime scene to a private forensics lab that could
[11:53] generate a physical profile from genetic material.
[11:57] The results indicated the suspect was a male of Latino
[12:00] descent, possibly of Puerto Rican or Colombian origin, with
[12:05] brown or Hazel eyes and dark hair.
[12:08] A computer generated composite was released to the public in
[12:11] October 2017, but it didn't produce leads.
[12:16] In 2019, the police again turned to a new technology, retaining A
[12:22] genetic genealogy company to attempt to identify a suspect.
[12:27] By the spring of 2023, the investigation had narrowed to a
[12:31] specific family in the Treasure Valley area.
[12:35] Detectives flew to Southern California to obtain DNA samples
[12:39] from the two sons of a man named Frank Rodriguez.
[12:43] Those samples were analyzed by the Idaho State Police forensic
[12:46] lab, and they confirmed a genetic match to the crime scene
[12:50] evidence. Frank Rodriguez had moved to
[12:54] Idaho from Massachusetts as a teenager and was living just a
[12:58] few blocks from Joyce's shop at the time of the attack.
[13:01] He would have been around 17 years old in October 1987,
[13:05] loosely fitting the age range and physical description Joyce
[13:09] had given police after the earlier assault attempt.
[13:12] Investigators came to believe that Rodriguez was likely the
[13:15] same man who tried to attack Joyce weeks before her death.
[13:20] They believed that it may have been an act of retaliation after
[13:24] she fought him off in the previous attack.
[13:27] Police described Frank as severely mentally ill with what
[13:30] they characterized as a rage component.
[13:33] His Idaho criminal record included a 1995 aggravated
[13:37] battery conviction, amongst other charges.
[13:42] Unfortunately, though, Rodriguez would never face justice for the
[13:46] horrific crime against Joyce. In 2007.
[13:51] For reasons which aren't fully understood, Rodriguez decided to
[13:54] pull the curtains on his life, taking his secrets with him to
[13:58] the grave. Investigators also noted that
[14:01] given the nature of the crime, they found it difficult to
[14:05] believe this was Rodriguez's only serious offense.
[14:09] Law enforcement agencies across the country began reviewing
[14:12] unsolved cases for possible connections, but as of yet,
[14:17] there have been no other cases identified.
[14:21] For the Casper family, they'd finally reached the end of a
[14:24] story they'd been waiting decades to finish.
[14:27] But it was bittersweet since the man responsible would never be
[14:30] held accountable. Still, as one of her surviving
[14:34] children put it, knowing for certain what happened brought a
[14:37] sense of relief that had eluded them for most of their adult
[14:41] lives. Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here
[14:48] with a quick reminder to tap that subscription button if you
[14:51] haven't done so already. Also remember you can always
[14:54] support my channel further with a YouTube membership or by
[14:58] checking out the Patreon. In the early morning hours of
[15:05] October 1st, 1974, a 21 year old man named Daniel Walker pulled
[15:11] his Volkswagen van off Interstate 40, roughly 60 miles
[15:15] West of Needles, CA. He was crossing the Mojave
[15:19] Desert and he'd picked up a hitchhiker earlier that evening
[15:23] near Cajon Pass. The young passenger, 18 year old
[15:27] Ken Robinson, needed a ride to Texas, and Daniel had apparently
[15:32] altered his route out of California to help him get
[15:35] there. It was a simple act of
[15:38] generosity from a man who, by all accounts, was known for
[15:42] exactly that kind of thing. The newspaper headlines that
[15:46] followed his death would note that he was always doing favors
[15:49] for people, and this particular favor would be his last.
[15:54] But if you're expecting this to be the usual story of a Good
[15:57] Samaritan meeting a dark fate at the hands of a hitchhiker, think
[16:01] again. Daniel parked the van along the
[16:06] shoulder of the Interstate so they could both get some sleep.
[16:09] Robinson settled into the back, shielded by Daniel's belongings
[16:13] and gear. At approximately 6:00 in the
[16:16] morning, Daniel was jolted awake by a stranger.
[16:20] Before he could make sense of what was happening, the intruder
[16:24] shot him multiple times. According to the account later
[16:28] pieced together by investigators, Daniel begged for
[16:31] his life during the attack. Robinson, hidden among the cargo
[16:36] in the rear of the van, wasn't noticed by the attacker.
[16:40] He managed to escape after the gunman fled, eventually flagging
[16:44] down a passing motorist and calling for help.
[16:47] First responders transported Daniel to a local hospital, but
[16:51] his injuries were too severe. He died that day, just two weeks
[16:55] shy of his 22nd birthday. The San Bernardino County
[17:01] Sheriff's Department opened an investigation immediately.
[17:04] Robinson provided a description of the suspect and his vehicle,
[17:08] but investigators couldn't develop any meaningful leads.
[17:12] While suspicion was clearly initially on Robinson, he was
[17:15] very quickly cleared of any wrongdoing in the matter.
[17:20] When the police began to investigate, they quickly found
[17:23] that the crime scene didn't fit neatly into a common motive.
[17:28] Daniel's van, keys and money had been ripped from his pants
[17:30] pocket, yet other valuables were left behind.
[17:35] This was a detail that suggested either panic or something more
[17:39] erratic than a straightforward robbery.
[17:42] Despite the eyewitness account and physical evidence, the case
[17:46] went cold. It would stay that way for
[17:48] nearly half a century. Daniel's slaying devastated his
[17:53] family. His younger brother, Doug, was
[17:56] just 15 years old at the time. Doug later recalled that there
[18:00] had been tension between Daniel and their father, which had led
[18:03] to Daniel going out West. Their father, according to Doug,
[18:08] never truly recovered and blamed himself for the chain reaction
[18:13] that would ultimately lead to Daniel's death.
[18:18] For decades, the Walker family adhered to a painful tradition
[18:21] of trying to forget and move on. But despite this, Doug wouldn't
[18:25] give up. In 2010, Doug traveled to the
[18:29] Inland Empire in Southern California and retraced his
[18:33] brother's final steps. Cold case detectives pulled
[18:37] Daniel's file at that time, but they couldn't make any headway.
[18:42] It wasn't until much later that Doug channeled his decades of
[18:46] grief and research into a book titled Daniel, My Brother,
[18:50] Mystery in the Mojave. Interestingly, the book was
[18:55] co-authored with Ken Robinson, the hitchhiker who'd survived
[18:59] that night. The two men had stayed in
[19:01] contact over the years and bonded over the shared desire to
[19:05] see justice done for Daniel, a fact that I personally find
[19:09] heart warming in an otherwise very dark case.
[19:13] The book was published in October 2023, nearly 49 years to
[19:18] the month after Daniel's death. And then, just like that,
[19:22] something happened. On November 15th, 2023, just
[19:28] weeks after Doug's book was published, the San Bernardino
[19:31] County Sheriff's Department Cold Case Team reopened the
[19:34] investigation. Detectives obtained new
[19:37] information and identified a suspect, Thomas Creech, a 73
[19:42] year old serial predator who was currently incarcerated in Idaho.
[19:47] Thomas Creech was a name that sent shock waves through the
[19:50] Walker family and the true crime world, since he's potentially
[19:54] one of the most prolific predators in history.
[19:57] Born in Dayton, OH in 1950, Creech grew up in an unstable
[20:02] household marked by domestic conflict that ended in his
[20:06] parents divorce. He ran away from home as a
[20:09] teenager and became a drifter, and by the time he was in his
[20:13] mid 20s, he'd compiled A staggering record of violence
[20:16] across multiple states. He'd been convicted of five
[20:20] slayings in Idaho, Oregon and California.
[20:23] Beyond those convictions, authorities believed strong
[20:27] evidence linked him to at least six additional victims at
[20:31] various points. Creech himself had claimed
[20:34] responsibility for as many as 42 killings, though he later
[20:38] revised that number downward to 26.
[20:42] Unfortunately, as with many of these predators, they seem to
[20:45] think a higher victim count is some sort of badge of honor.
[20:49] Many of his confessions included outlandish claims involving
[20:53] occult rituals and contracts for a motorcycle gang.
[20:58] This made it difficult for investigators to separate fact
[21:01] from fabrication, though they do believe there's at least a
[21:04] kernel of truth to his additional confessions.
[21:08] What connected Creech to Daniel Walker were what the San
[21:12] Bernardino County Sheriff's Department described as details
[21:16] from statements Creech had made to law enforcement.
[21:19] Working in collaboration with the ADA County District
[21:22] Attorney's Office in Idaho, cold case detectives were able to
[21:26] corroborate those details against the known facts of the
[21:29] case. The timing of the identification
[21:32] was notable because it came just days before an Idaho parole
[21:36] board was set to consider whether to commute Creech's
[21:39] death sentence to life in prison.
[21:43] Ada County prosecutors characterized the Walker case as
[21:46] further proof of Creech's unrepentant brutality.
[21:51] Creech's defense team pushed back hard on the allegations.
[21:55] His public defender called the case against him extraordinarily
[21:58] thin, but this wasn't at a trial.
[22:02] Rather, this was a clemency hearing in an attempt to stop
[22:05] his execution. The attorney argued that it
[22:09] relied entirely on unspecified details that Creech had
[22:12] supposedly provided long ago, and that we're only now being
[22:16] used against him. The defense pointed out that law
[22:20] enforcement had tried to link Creech to Daniel's slaying as
[22:23] far back as 1975, and they'd never been able to make the
[22:27] connection stick. The clemency hearing itself
[22:31] became a spectacle. The Idaho Commission of Pardons
[22:34] and Parole deadlocked 3 to 3 on whether to grant Creech relief.
[22:39] Under the rules of the state, this meant that his death
[22:42] sentence stood. Governor Brad Little declined to
[22:46] intervene, and the warrant was signed, with Creech's execution
[22:49] scheduled for February 28th, 2024.
[22:55] But on that day, in a remarkable turn, the execution failed
[23:00] despite the best efforts of those involved.
[23:04] Medical staff spent nearly an hour attempting to establish an
[23:07] intravenous line, trying 8 different locations on Creech's
[23:11] arms, hands and legs. But his veins collapsed each
[23:16] time the execution was called off, and Creech was returned to
[23:21] his cell. A second date was set for
[23:24] November 13th, 2024, but a federal judge granted a stay
[23:29] just one week before allowing time for Creech's legal
[23:33] challenges to proceed. His attorneys argued that a
[23:37] second attempt would constitute cruel and unusual punishment,
[23:41] and that the botched first attempt had left him with post
[23:44] traumatic stress disorder. Idaho's prison system
[23:48] subsequently suspended all executions while it retrofitted
[23:52] its chamber to accommodate alternative methods, including a
[23:56] firing squad. As of late 2025, Creech remains
[24:01] on death row at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution,
[24:05] his legal battles ongoing, his fate unresolved.
[24:11] Daniel Walker's story is, at its core, about the terrible
[24:15] randomness of violence and the unimaginable burden it leaves
[24:18] behind. The identification of Thomas
[24:21] Creech as the suspected perpetrator brought a measure of
[24:25] resolution, but it didn't bring closure in any neat or
[24:30] satisfying sense. Creech has never been formally
[24:34] charged with Daniel's slaying, and given his existing sentence
[24:38] and the legal complexities surrounding his case, it's
[24:42] unclear whether he ever will be. Further, some have noted that
[24:46] the publicly known evidence to connect him to the slaying is
[24:49] rather flimsy. Given that there will likely
[24:52] never be a trial in this matter, it's unclear if we will ever
[24:55] know why the authorities are so certain that Creech is the
[24:58] perpetrator. Personally, it's very hard for
[25:02] me to consider this case fully solved based on the evidence we
[25:05] currently have. That said, it looks like we've
[25:08] reached the end of the line in terms of the official
[25:10] investigation, and this conclusion, though not fully
[25:14] certain, will likely be the resolution to the case.
[25:19] Given how prolific Creech's crimes were, I do also have to
[25:23] question if he himself even fully remembers if he took
[25:26] Daniel's life.

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