# 2.5 Hours of Chilling SOLVED Cold Cases | True Crime Compilation

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 11 Feb 2026, 2 h 29 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO9221440043.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:00] When Teresa Skow failed to show up for her nursing shift on
[0:03] October 27th, 1986, her mother went to check on her and
[0:08] uncovered a nightmare. Teresa, a 29 year old nurse and
[0:12] mother, was found brutally slain in her Lakeland, FL home.
[0:17] The violent crime shocked the community and devastated
[0:20] Teresa's family. Yet, despite an intensive
[0:23] investigation, the perpetrator remained unidentified for 37
[0:28] years. The question of who ended the
[0:30] life of Teresa went unanswered until modern DNA technology
[0:35] finally revealed the truth. A newly licensed registered
[0:41] nurse and single mom, Teresa had an 8 year old son who was the
[0:45] center of her world. She was known for her
[0:48] compassionate and giving nature. Those who knew her described her
[0:53] as warm hearted and dedicated to caring for others.
[0:57] Tragically, it was in her own home that this young woman's
[1:00] life was violently cut short. On October 27th, 1986, Teresa
[1:08] returned to her Lakeland duplex after finishing a night shift at
[1:12] the hospital. She spoke by phone with her
[1:14] mother, Betty, around 2:30 PM to ask if Betty could pick up her
[1:19] son from school later that day. That was the last time anyone
[1:24] heard from Teresa. When Teresa failed to show up
[1:27] for her 7:00 PM nursing shift that evening, her family grew
[1:31] worried. The hospital alerted her mother
[1:34] that Teresa hadn't arrived for work, so Betty drove to her
[1:37] daughter's home to check on her. By 8 or 9, the house was dark
[1:41] and silent, and no one answered the door.
[1:45] The front door was locked, so Betty used a credit card to pry
[1:48] it open and let herself in. Inside, she discovered a
[1:54] horrific scene. Teresa lay on the living room
[1:57] floor in a pool of blood, brutally stabbed to death.
[2:01] Her throat had been slashed so severely that it nearly severed
[2:05] her head, and the wounds on her hands and arms showed she had
[2:09] fought desperately against her attacker.
[2:12] Detectives determined that the attack was motivated by the
[2:15] perpetrators desire to indecently assault Teresa.
[2:19] However, he wasn't able to complete the act, likely due to
[2:23] Teresa putting up a much more serious fight than he
[2:25] anticipated. Unfortunately, outside, a heavy
[2:32] rainstorm blew through that night, potentially washing away
[2:35] any footprints or other traces the perpetrator left around the
[2:38] house. Police canvassed the
[2:40] neighborhood and questioned everyone living nearby, hoping
[2:43] for a lead. Teresa's sisters later recalled
[2:46] that she had mentioned a creepy neighbor who once showed up at
[2:49] her door with a hastily potted flower and gave her an uneasy
[2:53] feeling. However, she hadn't known the
[2:56] man's name, so that hint never led to anything concrete at the
[3:00] time. Sheriff's detectives launched an
[3:05] investigation but quickly hit a wall.
[3:07] They interviewed Teresa's friends, ex boyfriends,
[3:10] relatives and neighbors, but no evidence linked anyone to the
[3:14] crime. One of the neighbors questioned
[3:17] was 33 year old Donald Douglas who lived directly behind
[3:21] Teresa's home. Douglas answered all their
[3:24] questions calmly and had no visible injuries from any
[3:28] struggle, so he wasn't considered a suspect and was
[3:32] quickly eliminated from contention.
[3:35] What nobody knew at this time was that Douglas was that creepy
[3:38] neighbor who had awkwardly presented a flower to Teresa.
[3:43] With no eyewitnesses and no weapon found, the investigators
[3:47] had little to go on beyond the physical evidence.
[3:52] Crucially, forensic technicians had collected the drops of blood
[3:55] that weren't Teresa's and preserved them as evidence.
[3:59] In the late 1980s, DNA profiling was new and not widely
[4:04] available, but detectives hoped that someday this blood would
[4:08] lead to the perpetrator. Years later, as DNA technology
[4:13] advanced, the sample was entered into the FB is database of DNA
[4:17] profiles. No match was found.
[4:20] The DNA didn't match any profile in the system.
[4:24] That meant the person who left that blood, presumably the perp,
[4:28] had never been arrested and therefore wasn't in the
[4:31] database. Eventually, investigators
[4:34] accepted that, barring some unforeseen breakthrough, the
[4:37] perpetrator would likely walk free for the remainder of his
[4:40] days. In 2022, decades after the trail
[4:46] had gone cold, investigators took a fresh approach using
[4:50] forensic genetic genealogy. The Polk County Sheriff's Office
[4:55] teamed with Othram, a private lab specializing in forensic
[4:59] genetic genealogy for cold cases.
[5:02] Othram's analysis of the unknown blood identified distant
[5:06] relatives of the suspect through genealogical databases.
[5:13] One surprising discovery in this DNA family tree was a hidden
[5:17] branch and out of wedlock child born in the 1940s.
[5:21] That few in the family knew about this long ago secret meant
[5:25] the suspect had distant kin in the database that wouldn't have
[5:29] been obvious from his immediate family.
[5:32] Tracing that lineage eventually LED investigators to a family
[5:36] who had lived right behind Teresa's house in 1986.
[5:40] All signs pointed to one man in that family, Teresa's former
[5:44] neighbor Donald Douglas. Nearly 37 years after Teresa's
[5:51] death, detectives finally had the evidence to name the
[5:54] perpetrator once and for all. They obtained ADNA sample from
[5:58] one of Donald Douglas's adult children and confirmed that the
[6:01] blood from the crime scene belonged to Douglas.
[6:05] The mild mannered neighbor, who had escaped suspicion in 1986
[6:09] was unmasked as the perpetrator after all these years.
[6:14] Unfortunately, Douglas could never be brought to justice.
[6:18] He had died of natural causes in 2008 at the age of 54, so he was
[6:23] never charged. The sheriff announced that the
[6:26] case was solved and said Douglas likely became violently enraged
[6:30] when Teresa spurned his advances.
[6:33] In hindsight, the creepy neighbor Teresa once spoke of
[6:37] was indeed Donald Douglas, who had so adeptly fooled
[6:40] investigators by pretending to be meek and mild.
[6:45] Teresa's mother, now 84 years old, said she was grateful to
[6:50] have lived to see the perpetrator identified.
[6:53] Her sisters acknowledge that the discovery couldn't erase their
[6:56] grief. But at least they have answers
[6:59] and no longer have to wonder who committed this horrific act.
[7:06] On a cold February night in 1987, a small Michigan community
[7:10] was shaken by a crime so brutal that it would haunt
[7:14] investigators for decades. 30 year old Roxanne Wood was found
[7:19] slain in her own kitchen, her throat slashed.
[7:23] For 35 years, the question of who did this to Roxanne remained
[7:27] unanswered, a chilling whodunit that many feared would never be
[7:32] solved. The case seemed unsolvable,
[7:35] stalled by bygone forensic limits and dead end leads.
[7:39] Yet against all odds, a tiny fragment of DNA eventually
[7:44] cracked the case and unmasked the cruel perpetrator.
[7:49] This is the story of Roxanne Wood, the decades long quest for
[7:53] justice, and the extraordinary forensic breakthrough that
[7:57] finally brought a killer to justice.
[8:02] Born and raised in Niles, MI, Roxanne graduated high school in
[8:06] the 1970s and married her high school sweetheart, Terry Wood
[8:11] soon after. By 1987, Roxanne was in her
[8:15] early 30s, enjoying life's simple pleasures.
[8:20] Friends and family described her as fun loving and generous, the
[8:24] kind of person who made everyone feel like her best friend.
[8:28] She loved tending to her rose bushes in the garden and was
[8:31] known for sharing homemade family recipes with neighbors.
[8:36] On weekends, Roxanne and Terry often spent time with friends.
[8:40] One of her favorite songs was Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive,
[8:44] a fitting anthem for a spirited woman who embraced life.
[8:48] And normally I wouldn't have included this last little fact,
[8:52] but that exact song came on my rotation about 15 minutes after
[8:57] reading that. February 19th, 1987 began like
[9:04] any other day for Roxanne and Terry Wood, but it ended an
[9:08] unimaginable tragedy. That evening, the couple went
[9:12] out for dinner and then headed to their local bowling alley for
[9:15] a league night with friends. Since they had driven in
[9:18] separate cars, Roxanne left the bowling alley alone a bit
[9:22] earlier than Terry, planning to head home and get some rest.
[9:27] Sometime after Roxanne arrived home, horror struck In the early
[9:32] morning hours of February 20th. Terry walked through the door of
[9:36] their house, only to stumble upon a blood chilling scene.
[9:42] He saw Roxanne's lifeless body was sprawled on the kitchen
[9:45] floor, and it was evident that she had been there for some
[9:48] time. He frantically called 911 and
[9:52] conveyed the gruesome reality of the scene to the dispatchers.
[9:58] When police and medics arrived, it was evident that Roxanne had
[10:02] been brutally attacked. Investigators later determined
[10:06] that she had been incidentally assaulted before her throat was
[10:09] cut. The crime scene offered only a
[10:12] handful of clues. A broken frying pan was found
[10:15] nearby, suggesting it might have been used to bludgeon Roxanne
[10:19] during a struggle. Further, an empty slot in a
[10:24] kitchen knife block hinted that the weapon came from her own
[10:27] home. Notably, as the cops secured the
[10:30] house, a bloody kitchen knife was later discovered stashed in
[10:34] the freezer. Detectives also collected A
[10:37] biological sample from Roxanne's body and noticed a smear of
[10:41] blood on the outside of the back door, possibly left by the
[10:45] perpetrator as he fled. There were no obvious signs of
[10:50] forced entry into the house, raising the eerie possibility
[10:54] that Roxanne may have unwittingly let the man in or
[10:57] that he entered through an unlocked door.
[11:01] The violence visited upon Roxanne and the supposed safety
[11:04] of her home was shocking, and the quiet neighborhood was
[11:08] immediately on edge knowing a predator was at large.
[11:11] Or at least they would have been if they didn't all seem to
[11:14] believe that Terry Wood was responsible for this brutal act
[11:17] of violence. In cases like this,
[11:22] investigators often look first at those closest to the victim,
[11:26] and in Roxanne's case, that was her husband, Terry Wood.
[11:30] From the very start, Terry fell under a cloud of extreme
[11:33] suspicion. He was the one who found
[11:36] Roxanne's body, and with no forced entry, police wondered if
[11:41] the crime could have been an inside job.
[11:44] According to reports, Terry's behavior that night added to
[11:48] investigators doubts. He was said to have become
[11:51] agitated or belligerent with first responders.
[11:55] Further, when brought to the station for routine questioning,
[11:58] he quickly asked for a lawyer. To detectives in 1987, this
[12:04] seemed like potentially guilty behavior, a husband trying to
[12:08] shield himself behind an attorney barely an hour after
[12:11] his wife's slaying. Now, before I go on any further,
[12:18] it's extremely obvious that the cops thought Terry was their
[12:21] man, and they just seemed to have stopped investigating the
[12:24] case after they locked in on him.
[12:27] I'm going to tip my hand a bit here and tell you right now that
[12:30] Terry had absolutely nothing to do with Roxanne's slaying.
[12:34] It seems likely to me that Terry understood that the cops weren't
[12:37] asking him friendly questions in an attempt to actually solve the
[12:42] crime. To them, the crime was solved,
[12:46] Terry did it, and they just needed to break him.
[12:50] Under these circumstances, it makes perfect sense why Terry
[12:53] would want to lawyer up right away and may have been less
[12:57] cooperative than usual. Indeed, one investigator bluntly
[13:03] told Terry that he believed that Terry had done it.
[13:07] Terry adamantly maintained his innocence, and Roxanne's family
[13:11] stood by him. Her younger sister Janet never
[13:14] believed Terry was capable of such a heinous act and insisted
[13:18] the real perp was still out there in the shadows.
[13:22] Nonetheless, with no alternate suspects and scant evidence,
[13:26] Terry remained the primary suspect for decades in many
[13:30] people's eyes. Whispers followed him everywhere
[13:33] he went in town, and according to some reports, both
[13:37] investigators and locals referred to him as Slash.
[13:42] It was a bitter reference to a man they had believed had slain
[13:45] his wife. As time went on and Leeds dried
[13:48] up, it seemed like the real predator had gotten away and an
[13:52] innocent man's reputation was forever marred by the loss of
[13:56] his wife. Despite focusing in on Terry in
[14:02] 1987, police were unable to charge anyone for Roxanne's
[14:06] slaying. The authorities only have one
[14:09] opportunity to take a run at their man, and the evidence just
[14:13] wasn't sufficient to justify attempting to do that to Terry.
[14:18] Aside from the physical evidence at the scene, which in those
[14:22] days could only be analyzed with relatively primitive forensic
[14:25] methods, there were no eyewitnesses and no obvious
[14:29] motive. The case gradually went cold,
[14:33] leaving Roxanne's family in limbo.
[14:36] By the late 1990s, DNA profiling had emerged as a game changing
[14:41] tool in criminal investigations and evidence from Roxanne's case
[14:46] was tested. There was DNA from the unknown
[14:49] offender, but even in the 1990s there was no match in any
[14:54] database and the sample was small and degraded.
[15:01] In 2001, Michigan State Police took a fresh look at the case,
[15:06] hoping new techniques might succeed where earlier efforts
[15:09] failed. Unfortunately, that review also
[15:13] ended without a breakthrough, and Roxanne's file returned to
[15:16] the unsolved case shelves. By 2020 / 33 years had passed
[15:22] since Roxanne's slaying and technology had advanced
[15:25] dramatically. Michigan State Police decided to
[15:29] reopen the cold case once again in 2020 in a last ditch effort
[15:34] to find the attacker. The turning point in this cold
[15:39] case arrived when detectives turned to genetic genealogy.
[15:43] In 2020, investigators sent what remained of the DNA sample from
[15:48] Roxanne's case to identify Enders International, a
[15:52] California-based company specializing in forensic
[15:55] genealogy. This was a long shot.
[15:58] The sample was tiny and degraded, consisting of only a
[16:02] few human cells worth of DNA. In fact, it was the smallest
[16:07] amount of DNA ever attempted for this kind of analysis, roughly
[16:11] 3% of the quantity normally required to build a genetic
[16:15] profile. Based on the tech at the time,
[16:18] they painstakingly process the minute DNA fragments and against
[16:22] the odds they managed to extract enough genetic information to
[16:26] work with. It was a groundbreaking
[16:29] achievement in its own right. For the first time, such a low
[16:33] quantity DNA sample was successfully used to generate a
[16:37] genealogical lead in a criminal case.
[16:42] One name jumped out, Patrick Wayne Gillam, a man who, as fate
[16:47] would have it, lived just across the state line in South Bend,
[16:51] IN, only a few miles from Niles, MI Gillham had never been on the
[16:57] radar back in 1987, but now he was the focus of an intense
[17:01] investigation. Patrick Gillham was 67 years old
[17:08] in 2021, living a quiet life in Indiana.
[17:12] But detectives digging into his past quickly found red flags.
[17:17] Gillham had a criminal history of attacks against women.
[17:21] In fact, back in 1980, he had been arrested for breaking into
[17:25] a woman's home in Indiana and assaulting her in a chillingly
[17:28] similar attack. The victim in that prior case
[17:32] survived the ordeal and testified against him, leading
[17:35] to his conviction for burglary and indecent assault.
[17:39] He was sentenced to 14 years in prison but ended up serving only
[17:43] about 7 years before being released on parole.
[17:49] And yeah, this just makes me shake my head and question
[17:53] what's wrong with our justice system.
[17:55] There's people who've committed non violent offenses who've
[17:59] served less than this guy did for committing one of the worst
[18:02] crimes imaginable. Unfortunately, the next time
[18:06] this predator struck, he would remember a twisted lesson from
[18:10] this crime. Don't leave behind any
[18:13] witnesses. Just a few months after he
[18:18] regained his freedom, Gillum slipped into Michigan and police
[18:21] believe, ended the life of Roxanne Wood.
[18:25] Tragically, he chose to slay Roxanne after assaulting her to
[18:29] ensure she could never identify him and put him behind bars
[18:33] again. Armed with their new suspect,
[18:38] Michigan State Police needed concrete proof to secure an
[18:42] arrest. Genetic genealogy had pointed to
[18:45] this potential perpetrator, but they required a direct DNA
[18:49] sample from him to confirm it was his DNA.
[18:52] At the 1987 crime scene. In May 2021, an undercover
[18:57] surveillance team tailed Patrick Gillum for days, waiting for an
[19:01] opportunity to collect something he touched or discarded.
[19:05] They soon noticed that he was a smoker, which presented the
[19:08] perfect chance a thrown away cigarette could contain his DNA
[19:12] rich saliva. One day, investigators observed
[19:17] Gillham flick a cigarette butt from his truck window and seized
[19:20] it. But that attempt hit a snag when
[19:22] the lab found the DNA on it wasn't a match.
[19:26] Reports indicate that the cop may have picked up the wrong
[19:29] cigarette butt. And since I'm running on a
[19:32] deficit of Simpson's references lately, boy, I really hope
[19:36] someone got fired for that blunder.
[19:41] Undeterred, the team tried again.
[19:43] A state trooper cleverly struck up a conversation with Gillum
[19:47] outside a laundromat, even smoking a cigarette with him to
[19:50] avoid arousing suspicion. He watched closely as Gillum
[19:54] finished his smoke and tossed the butt aside.
[19:58] The moment Gillum walked away, the trooper scooped up the still
[20:01] warm cigarette butt with gloved hands.
[20:04] And this time, the evidence was airtight.
[20:08] Lab results confirmed a perfect DNA match between him and the
[20:12] unknown male DNA from Roxanne's kit, conclusively tying him to
[20:16] the crime scene after 30-4 years.
[20:21] With the DNA match in hand, detectives moved quickly.
[20:25] In July 2021, they invited the perp to a police precinct under
[20:31] the pretense of discussing an old case without immediately
[20:34] letting on that he was the prime suspect.
[20:37] They showed him a photo of Roxanne Wood and asked if he
[20:40] knew her. Gillum casually claimed he did
[20:43] not and soon grew uneasy, eventually saying I got to talk
[20:48] to my lawyer. The cops bided their time a
[20:51] little longer to firm up the case, and on February 17th,
[20:56] 2022, almost exactly 35 years after Roxanne's slaying, police
[21:02] finally arrested Patrick Gillum. Confronted with the DNA
[21:08] evidence, he reportedly professed confusion, at one
[21:11] point telling investigators that he had no idea how his
[21:15] biological material could have got there.
[21:18] Wrong answer, Patrick. Wrong answer.
[21:23] However, in March 2022, rather than go through a lengthy trial,
[21:28] Gillum agreed to a plea deal. He pleaded no contest to 2nd
[21:32] degree slaying, which meant he did not admit guilt in words,
[21:36] but accepted the punishment as if he were guilty.
[21:40] In practical terms, a no contest plea leads to a conviction and
[21:43] sentence just like a guilty plea without the defendant explicitly
[21:47] saying he committed the crime. By taking this deal, he likely
[21:52] avoided a potential life sentence while the prosecution
[21:55] reduced the risk of an adverse finding at trial.
[21:59] After all, the prosecution is required to prove its case
[22:03] beyond a reasonable doubt, and one hiccup on cross examination
[22:07] could have resulted in this guilty man walking free.
[22:13] At his sentencing on April 25th, 2022, Patrick Gillham, then 67
[22:19] years old, was ordered to serve 23 to 50 years in prison for the
[22:23] slaying of Roxanne Wood. Under this sentence, he will not
[22:27] be eligible for release until he serves at least 23 years behind
[22:31] bars, at which point he would be around 90 years old.
[22:36] In all probability, the prison cell will be where he spends the
[22:39] rest of his life. Unfortunately, if he had
[22:42] received a proper punishment for his first major crime, Roxanne
[22:47] would have still been alive. In court.
[22:52] The tearful convict offered a brief apology and said he was
[22:56] quote, UN quote, sorry and praying for forgiveness.
[23:00] But his words rang empty to Roxanne's family.
[23:04] One of Roxanne's brothers coldly remarked that it's common for
[23:07] people like Gillham to, quote, find Jesus only after they've
[23:10] been caught. He questioned why he didn't
[23:13] voluntarily come forward when he had the chance if he was truly
[23:17] so remorseful about this horrific act.
[23:20] The obvious answer, of course, is that he wasn't remorseful for
[23:23] the ACT, but rather the fact that he got caught yet again for
[23:27] committing the same sort of sick offense.
[23:32] Roxanne's case, once deemed unsolvable, became a landmark
[23:36] example of modern forensic science triumphing over time.
[23:40] It showed how persistence, innovative genetics, technology,
[23:45] and old fashioned detective work could unite to solve even the
[23:49] coldest of cases. Roxanne Wood's story is tragic,
[23:53] but it now stands as a testament that justice delayed didn't
[23:57] necessarily have to mean justice denied.
[24:00] It also sent a strong message to people out there who committed
[24:04] heinous offenses in the 1980s or even earlier.
[24:08] It's only a matter of time before you're rotting in a cell.
[24:17] On a warm June morning in 1975, a family out on a fishing trip
[24:21] near the Florida Everglades made a horrifying discovery.
[24:25] Lying side by side along a remote canal bank were the
[24:29] bodies of two teenage girls. They were identified as 14 year
[24:33] olds Darlene Zetterauer and Barbara Schreiber, inseparable
[24:38] best friends from Hollywood, FL, who had vanished just the day
[24:42] before. Witnesses last saw the girls the
[24:45] previous afternoon, happily climbing into a white van on a
[24:49] busy St. in Hollywood, likely hitchhiking as they often did.
[24:54] That ordinary summer outing turned tragic.
[24:58] By the next day, both teens had been subject to the worst form
[25:01] of assault imaginable and then shot.
[25:05] Their brutal slaying shocked the community and baffled
[25:08] investigators. For nearly 50 years, the case
[25:12] remained ice cold, a haunting mystery with no answers, until
[25:16] modern DNA technology and dogged police work finally brought the
[25:21] truth to light. Darlene Zetterrauer and Barbara
[25:26] Schreiber were more like sisters than friends.
[25:29] Both had just finished 8th grade in June 1975 and we're looking
[25:34] forward to starting high school in the fall.
[25:37] That summer, the 14 year old girls spent their days together
[25:41] in Hollywood, a suburban city in Broward County.
[25:45] On June 18th, 1975, the girls set off to celebrate the
[25:50] carefree start of summer vacation.
[25:54] They planned to spend the night at another friend's house, a
[25:57] routine sleepover that should have been perfectly safe.
[26:00] The pair were seen sitting on a bench along Sterling Rd.
[26:04] laughing and talking. A white van pulled up to them,
[26:08] and being typical teens of the era when hitchhiking and
[26:12] accepting rides was not uncommon, they hopped in without
[26:15] hesitation. That was the last time anyone
[26:19] saw Darlene and Barbara alive. When the girls didn't arrive at
[26:25] their friend's house or return home, their families grew
[26:28] concerned. The next morning, concern turned
[26:32] to tragedy. A fisherman and his family
[26:35] navigating a canal at the edge of the Everglades spotted
[26:38] something awful on the muddy bank.
[26:41] It was the two bodies of Darlene and Barbara.
[26:44] The girls. Bright futures had been brutally
[26:46] stolen. In an instant, two families were
[26:49] destroyed and an entire community was gripped with fear.
[26:55] Broward County detectives launched an intensive
[26:58] investigation and unsurprisingly, they threw the
[27:01] full weight of the state into solving this disgusting crime.
[27:05] Dozens of officers, crime scene investigators, and forensic
[27:09] experts poured their efforts into finding who had taken
[27:12] Darlene and Barbara's lives. A friend of the girls later
[27:18] recalled seeing the two get into the van and even remembered
[27:21] being invited along, an offer she declined.
[27:25] This confirmed with certainty that the girls were lured into
[27:28] the vehicle. This eyewitness account
[27:31] confirmed that the girls were likely lured by someone they
[27:34] thought they could trust, but it still didn't reveal the
[27:37] culprit's identity. The Broward Sheriff's Office
[27:41] canvassed the area, appealed for tips and even examined other
[27:45] crimes for connections. Yet the trail soon went cold.
[27:52] At the time, South Florida was in the grip of what the media
[27:55] dubbed the flat tire slayings. This is a string of unsolved
[28:00] attacks on young women in 1975 and 76, many of whose bodies
[28:05] were found near canals. Darlene and Barbara's slayings
[28:08] fit the pattern in some ways, and authorities wondered if a
[28:12] serial predator might be praying on women and girls in the area.
[28:16] The theory was that a predator was cruising local roads,
[28:20] possibly deflating victims tires or offering rides, then
[28:25] attacking and dumping bodies by remote waterways.
[28:28] Fear spread through the community and parents warned
[28:31] their children to be extra cautious.
[28:34] However, no definitive link or suspect emerged at the time.
[28:39] As months turned into years, the case of Darlene and Barbara
[28:43] remained unsolved. Eventually it was filed as a
[28:47] cold case. Evidence stored away leads
[28:51] exhausted and no justice for two innocent teenagers.
[28:57] In 2019, the department established A dedicated cold
[29:01] case unit to re examine unsolved cases like this one.
[29:05] Investigators carefully reviewed the old evidence with fresh
[29:08] eyes. Crucially, the girls clothing
[29:12] from 1975 had been preserved and it held the key to a
[29:16] breakthrough. Technology had advanced
[29:19] dramatically since the 1970s. What was impossible back then
[29:23] was now routine, and the authorities turn to advanced DNA
[29:27] profiling techniques. The cold case team decided to
[29:33] test the evidence using a specialized DNA extraction
[29:36] device called an MVAC, which can collect minute genetic material
[29:40] even from decades old fabric. In 2022, the crime lab
[29:46] scientists applied this new technique on Darlene's blouse,
[29:50] painstakingly vacuuming for any biological traces left by the
[29:54] perp. The work paid off, and from the
[29:57] tiny DNA fragments recovered, analysts developed a full DNA
[30:02] profile of an unknown man. It was a Eureka moment.
[30:06] After nearly 50 years, they finally had a genetic
[30:10] fingerprint of one of the perpetrators.
[30:14] Using criminal DNA databases and genealogical research, the
[30:18] profile was soon matched to a name.
[30:21] Robert Clark Keebler emerged as the prime suspect.
[30:25] Keebler was a convicted felon with a long record of violence,
[30:29] including armed robbery and indecent assaults spanning from
[30:32] California to South Florida. Astonishingly, despite his
[30:37] disturbing rap sheet, he had never been on the radar for the
[30:40] 1975 slayings until the DNA hit connected him to the crime.
[30:46] By the time of this discovery, however, Keebler was beyond the
[30:50] reach of law enforcement. He had died in 2019 of natural
[30:54] causes. Still, this revelation brought a
[30:58] surge of energy to the investigation and a measure of
[31:01] solace that the mystery was at last unraveling.
[31:07] The genetic testing revealed another disturbing twist.
[31:10] Though the cops had always thought there could have been
[31:12] two men involved in the crime, based on the testimony of
[31:16] witnesses, it turned out that they were correct.
[31:22] By 2025, the cops announced that a second suspect had been
[31:25] identified, Larry Stein. Like Keebler, Stein had a
[31:30] history of serious crime, and he was actually an associate of
[31:34] Keebler's during the 1970s. Back in 1975, both men were in
[31:40] their early 20s and already had rap sheets full of violence.
[31:45] Investigators discovered that Stein and Keebler's criminal
[31:48] records included burglaries, assaults, even prior instances
[31:53] of abducting women in Florida and beyond.
[31:56] They were exactly the type of predators who could commit such
[31:59] a heinous act. Tragically, but perhaps
[32:02] thankfully, Stein would also never face justice in a
[32:06] courtroom. He had died in 2005 at the age
[32:10] of 50, his life ending long before the DNA evidence could
[32:14] tie him to this crime. With Keebler and Stein
[32:19] identified as the culprits, the Broward Sheriff's Office finally
[32:23] declared the case solved. Advancements in DNA testing and
[32:27] solid detective work had brought definitive answers in the
[32:31] slayings of Darlene Zetterauer and Barbara Schreiber.
[32:38] Importantly, investigators don't believe that Keebler and Stein
[32:41] were responsible for any of the other flat tire slayings in the
[32:45] area. Despite initial speculation
[32:47] decades ago, those other cases remain officially unsolved and
[32:52] likely unrelated, at least according to the authorities.
[32:56] The 1975 double slaying of Darlene and Barbara appears to
[33:01] have been an isolated, opportunistic crime committed by
[33:04] two individuals who crossed paths with the girls on that
[33:07] fateful day. Detectives suspect the men may
[33:11] have targeted the teens simply because they were there and
[33:15] willing to accept a ride. While the cops couldn't be sure
[33:18] why the crime was committed, the primary motive seemed to be the
[33:22] Commission of an indecent assault.
[33:24] The slayings were simply a way for these two sick men to cover
[33:28] up their messed up crimes. Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here
[33:35] with a quick reminder to like, subscribe and share this video
[33:38] and also hit that notification bell.
[33:41] Anyway, let's get back to business.
[33:46] For over 3 decades, a mystery haunted the city of Garden
[33:49] Grove, CA. On a quiet night in May 1987, 23
[33:55] year old Shannon Lloyd was found brutally slain in the house
[33:59] where she rented a room. The discovery of her lifeless
[34:03] body, evidence of a violent struggle and a life cut short,
[34:08] sent shock waves through the community and left police
[34:11] puzzled and desperate for answers.
[34:14] Who would do this to a young mother in her own home?
[34:17] And would the perpetrator ever be brought to justice?
[34:21] Those questions lingered for decades until a remarkable
[34:25] breakthrough in forensic science finally cracked the case wide
[34:28] open. Shannon was a mother to a young
[34:33] son and had a steady boyfriend who often visited her.
[34:37] She lived in a rented room on Donna Lane in Garden Grove, an
[34:41] Orange County suburb where she was striving to build a good
[34:44] life for herself and her kid. By all accounts, Shannon was a
[34:48] devoted mother who was just trying her best, making the
[34:52] violent end to her life all the more heartbreaking.
[34:57] Late on May 21st, 1987, the unthinkable happened.
[35:02] Shannon's roommate, a 70 year old man who shared the house,
[35:06] found her slain shortly before midnight.
[35:09] Panic ensued as he rushed to a neighbor's home to call the
[35:12] police and report the horror he had discovered.
[35:17] When officers arrived, they found a grim scene.
[35:21] Shannon had been indecently assaulted and strangled to death
[35:24] in her own room. There were no obvious signs of
[35:27] forced entry and nothing of value appeared to be missing,
[35:31] which immediately deepened the mystery.
[35:35] It seemed that Shannon had either willingly let her
[35:37] perpetrator into the house, or perhaps knew the person who did
[35:41] this to her. Crucially, in 1987, forensic DNA
[35:46] analysis was still in its infancy, so investigators didn't
[35:50] have today's powerful genetic tools at their disposal.
[35:54] With limited technology and no eyewitnesses, they had to rely
[35:58] on traditional detective work, which unfortunately yielded no
[36:02] answers at the time. Detectives work tirelessly in
[36:07] the aftermath of the ACT. They canvassed the neighborhood
[36:10] and interviewed everyone who knew Shannon, from her boyfriend
[36:14] to local acquaintances. Neighbors told police that while
[36:18] Shannon was mostly friendly and kind, there had been occasional
[36:21] visitors who raised eyebrows. One neighbor mentioned that some
[36:26] rough looking men would occasionally stop by.
[36:29] On a few occasions, police had even been called to the house
[36:32] prior to the attack, though the reasons for those visits
[36:35] remained unclear, at least to the public.
[36:39] All of these details gave investigators leads to chase,
[36:43] but none led to an immediate suspect.
[36:47] Despite the thorough investigation, the case
[36:49] frustratingly remained unsolved. Within a short time, it went
[36:54] cold. A terrifying predator was on the
[36:56] loose and no one knew who he was or if he would strike again.
[37:04] Then in 1989, another tragedy struck in Orange County that
[37:09] would later prove to be connected.
[37:11] On February 19th, 1989, the body of 27 year old Renee Cuevas was
[37:18] discovered along a road near the now closed El Toro Marine Corps
[37:22] Air Station in Irvine. Renee had been slain under
[37:25] strikingly similar circumstances.
[37:28] Like Shannon's case, Renee's also went unsolved, but
[37:32] investigators took note of the eerie resemblance between the
[37:35] two crimes. It wasn't until 2003 that a
[37:40] crucial clue finally linked the two slayings.
[37:44] Forensic scientists at the Orange County Crime Lab re
[37:48] examined DNA evidence from both crime scenes and made a
[37:51] startling discovery. The DNA profile from Shannon
[37:55] Lloyd's perpetrator matched the person who had slain Renee.
[37:59] In other words, the same unknown man had committed both crimes.
[38:04] This revelation meant a serial predator had been at large in
[38:09] Orange County since the late 1980s, responsible for taking
[38:13] two young women's lives. Armed with this knowledge,
[38:17] authorities finally had a trail to follow, but the perp's
[38:21] identity was still a mystery. The DNA profile was uploaded to
[38:26] the national Criminal Database, but it didn't match any known
[38:29] offender at the time. The case remained cold, but
[38:34] investigators were now more determined than ever, knowing
[38:37] that solving either woman's slaying would solve both.
[38:43] By the late 2010's, a revolutionary investigative tool
[38:47] emerged in forensic science, genetic genealogy.
[38:52] This technique gained national fame in 2018 for helping
[38:56] identify the original Night Stalker, proving that even
[38:59] decades old DNA could lead to a name by tracing family trees.
[39:04] In 202134 years after Shannon's life was taken, Orange County's
[39:10] Investigative Genealogy Unit turned its attention to the DNA
[39:14] from her case. Using advanced DNA analysis and
[39:18] family tree mapping, they identified a possible suspect,
[39:22] Reuben Smith. The name meant nothing to the
[39:27] original detectives, but it was about to unravel the whole
[39:31] mystery. Smith had lived in Orange County
[39:34] in the 1980s, not far from where the slayings occurred, before
[39:38] eventually moving to Nevada. Digging into his past,
[39:43] detectives discovered he had a history of violence.
[39:47] In July 1998, more than a decade after Shannon's slaying, Ruben
[39:52] Smith was arrested in Las Vegas for attempting to end the life
[39:55] of a woman after an indecent assault.
[39:58] That victim heroically fought off her attacker and survived.
[40:03] Later recalling the evil she sensed in him and how she knew
[40:07] she had to fight for her life. Although Smith was charged for
[40:11] that 1998 attack, the case never went to trial.
[40:16] The charges were eventually dismissed and he walked free.
[40:21] However, during that arrest, Las Vegas authorities collected ADNA
[40:25] sample from Smith, a sample that would turn out to be the key to
[40:29] solving Shannon's case. And as expected, this would of
[40:33] course crack Renee's case open as well.
[40:36] While it never ended up in any databases, it was stored by the
[40:39] Las Vegas cops. Once Smith's name surfaced
[40:44] through genetic genealogy, investigators pulled his 1998
[40:49] DNA sample from storage and compared it to the DNA from the
[40:52] crime scenes. It was a perfect match,
[40:55] conclusively tying Reuben Smith to both slayings.
[40:59] The mystery of who ended the life of Shannon Lloyd was
[41:02] solved. It was the same man who had
[41:05] eluded justice all those years while leaving a trail of
[41:08] violence from Orange County to Las Vegas.
[41:13] Reuben Smith would never face a jury for his crimes, and given
[41:17] the platform we're on, let's just say that he carried out the
[41:20] penalty for a capital offense on himself in July 1999.
[41:25] His grim end meant he escaped justice before anyone realized
[41:29] the full enormity of what he had done.
[41:32] For the families of Shannon Lloyd and Renee Cuevas, learning
[41:36] the identity was a bittersweet revelation.
[41:39] On one hand, they finally knew who was responsible and that he
[41:43] could never hurt anyone else. On the other, Smith's death
[41:48] meant there would be no criminal trial, no opportunity to see him
[41:52] held accountable in court. Still, the resolution brought a
[41:58] measure of closure that had been denied for so long.
[42:02] Shannon's brother expressed gratitude for the detectives and
[42:05] forensic experts who never gave up on his sister's case, and he
[42:09] took comfort that the truth was finally known.
[42:13] Likewise, Renee Cuevas relatives thanked law enforcement for
[42:17] their persistence and said that knowing the perpetrator's name
[42:20] brought some peace to their family.
[42:23] Investigators have also begun looking into the possibility
[42:26] that Smith had other victims during his years in California
[42:30] and Nevada, an open question they continue to pursue.
[42:35] Right now, though, no other crimes have been confirmed,
[42:39] though the authorities have confirmed they are investigating
[42:42] him as a potential serial perpetrator.
[42:47] That said, I find it difficult to believe that Reuben Smith
[42:50] struck twice in the late 80s, then attempted to do the same
[42:54] thing in 1998 with no attacks in between.
[42:58] Generally, these sorts of predators are emboldened when
[43:02] they get away with it to the level that Smith did.
[43:05] Notably, he wasn't even a suspect in the case of Shannon
[43:08] or Renee, and had never been interviewed or taken in for
[43:11] questioning further. It's somewhat suspicious that he
[43:17] took the approach that he did in 1999, unless he thought there
[43:21] was credible evidence out there that could turn up further
[43:24] victims. Crystal Rogers was a 35 year old
[43:30] mother of five from Bardstown, KY who vanished under mysterious
[43:35] circumstances in 2015. Her disappearance on 1/4 of July
[43:40] weekend shocked her tight knit community and sparked a years
[43:44] long quest for answers. Rodger's car was found abandoned
[43:48] on the side of the Bluegrass Pkwy with a flat tire, the
[43:52] engine still running, and her purse and cell phone left
[43:55] inside. This eerie discovery turned a
[43:58] missing person case into a chilling mystery, one that would
[44:02] haunt the town of Bardstown for nearly a decade.
[44:07] Crystal Rogers grew up in the small town of Bardstown, known
[44:11] as the Bourbon Capital of the World.
[44:14] At 35 years old, Crystal was a devoted mother of five children.
[44:19] She lived with her long time boyfriend, Brooks Huck and their
[44:22] two year old son, along with her other children from previous
[44:26] relationships. Friends and family described
[44:30] Crystal as a caring, attentive mom who would never disappear on
[44:34] her own accord. Crystal's close knit family
[44:37] immediately knew something was wrong when they couldn't reach
[44:40] her over the 2015 Independence Day weekend.
[44:44] Her sister noted that Brooks's explanations for Crystal's
[44:47] absence didn't add up, reflecting the family's early
[44:50] suspicions. Crystal was officially reported
[44:54] missing by her mother on July 5th, 2015, after two agonizing
[44:59] days with no contact. That same day, a family member
[45:05] discovered Crystal's maroon Chevrolet Impala along the
[45:08] Bluegrass Pkwy with a flat tire. The keys were still in the
[45:12] ignition and her belongings, including her purse and phone,
[45:16] were found inside the car, a sign that this was no simple
[45:20] roadside mishap to her loved ones.
[45:23] These details were terrifying. Crystal would never have
[45:27] willingly left her car under those conditions, let alone
[45:31] without telling anyone. The last known sighting of
[45:36] Crystal Rogers was on the evening of July 3rd, 2015.
[45:41] According to her boyfriend, Brooks Huck, they spent that
[45:44] rainy night at his family's farm for what was supposed to be a
[45:47] special date. Huck later told police that
[45:51] around midnight they returned home and Crystal was up playing
[45:54] games on her phone when he went to bed.
[45:57] He claimed that when he awoke the next morning, Crystal was
[46:00] gone and so was her car. At first, Brooks said he wasn't
[46:05] alarmed, suggesting Crystal might have gone to stay at a
[46:08] cousin's house for the night, something he implied she had
[46:11] done before. But as the hours passed on July
[46:14] 4th, with no word from her, Crystal's family became
[46:18] increasingly frantic. By July 5th, they involved law
[46:22] enforcement and the missing person investigation began in
[46:26] earnest. The discovery of Crystal's car
[46:31] that afternoon transformed the case.
[46:33] It was found near mile marker 14 on the Bluegrass Pkwy, a
[46:38] desolate stretch of Hwy. just outside Bardstown.
[46:41] The car had a flat tire which appeared to have forced it to
[46:45] the roadside, and it was still unlocked with the keys in place.
[46:49] Inside were all the signs of an interrupted life.
[46:52] Her cell phone, handbag and other personal items sat
[46:57] untouched. There were no obvious
[46:59] indications of a struggle at the scene, but the situation looked
[47:03] undeniably suspicious. The abandoned car with a flat
[47:07] tire seemed staged to look like a simple breakdown.
[47:11] Friends and family insisted Crystal would have called for
[47:14] help if she had a flat not wandered off into the night from
[47:19] the very start. Foul play was strongly suspected
[47:22] in Crystal's disappearance. Right away, suspicion turned
[47:29] toward Crystal's boyfriend, Brooks Huck, who was the last
[47:32] person known to see her alive. In fact, Brooks was the one
[47:37] person who didn't join the massive volunteer searches that
[47:40] the family and community organized in the days after
[47:44] Crystal went missing. Crystal's family found Brooks
[47:48] demeanor and actions odd as her sister Brooke Ballard noted,
[47:52] quote, he has not offered once to search or help or do anything
[47:57] for the family. On July 8th, 2015, just five
[48:03] days after Crystal vanished, Nelson County Sheriff's
[48:07] investigators brought Brooks in for questioning.
[48:10] During that interview, a dramatic incident occurred.
[48:14] Brooks's brother, Nick Huck, who was then an officer with the
[48:17] Bardstown Police Department, called Brooks's cell phone in
[48:21] the middle of the interview. Despite being a cop himself, he
[48:25] allegedly warned his brother not to speak with the police.
[48:29] This interference immediately raised eyebrows, and
[48:32] investigators suspected that Nick was trying to help his
[48:35] brother thwart the investigation.
[48:40] As the probe continued, more red flags emerged.
[48:43] Brooks Huck agreed to take a polygraph test, but the results
[48:47] came back inconclusive. While polygraph tests themselves
[48:51] can't actually reveal if someone isn't telling the truth, they
[48:54] are an investigative tool. If someone engages in known
[48:58] deceptive tactics while taking one, it's generally not a good
[49:01] sign as to their innocence. Meanwhile, Nick Huck also
[49:07] underwent an FBI administered lie detector test regarding his
[49:11] knowledge of the case. He failed that polygraph as
[49:14] well, again by showing signs of deception done to trick the test
[49:18] administrator. By October 2015, Nick Huck was
[49:23] fired from the Bardstown Police Department for interfering with
[49:27] the investigation and violating department policies.
[49:32] No charges were ever brought against Nick, but his actions
[49:35] early on fueled widespread speculation of a cover up within
[49:39] the Huck family. Investigators scoured the Huck
[49:44] family's properties for clues. One lead involved Brooks's
[49:48] grandmother, Anna Whitesides, and a car she owned.
[49:52] Whitesides sold her white Buick shortly after Rogers went
[49:55] missing, raising suspicions it might have been used to dispose
[49:59] of Crystal's body. She invoked her Fifth Amendment
[50:03] right and refused to testify about the car, leaving that lead
[50:06] unresolved. Detectives eventually searched
[50:12] the vehicle and related properties for any trace
[50:14] evidence, but if they found anything significant, it was
[50:18] never disclosed to the public. This was one of many frustrating
[50:22] dead ends Bardstown authorities encountered as they chased leads
[50:26] in the early years of the case. While leads came and went,
[50:32] Crystal's family, the Ballards, refused to give up.
[50:36] Her parents, Tommy and Sherri Ballard, became outspoken
[50:40] advocates for finding Crystal and keeping her story alive.
[50:45] In the months after Crystal's disappearance, the Ballards
[50:48] organized volunteer search parties and plastered the area
[50:51] with Flyers. They even erected a sign along
[50:55] the Bluegrass Pkwy near the spot where her car was found,
[50:59] pleading for information. They were convinced that Brooks
[51:02] Huck was responsible and were frustrated by the lack of an
[51:06] arrest. Tragically, the family's
[51:10] nightmare deepened when Crystal's father, Tommy was
[51:13] killed in an unsolved shooting the following year.
[51:19] On the morning of November 19th, 2016, sixteen months after
[51:24] Crystal vanished, 54 year old Tommy Ballard was shot and
[51:28] killed on his own property while preparing for a hunting trip.
[51:32] His 12 year old grandson was also present with him at the
[51:35] time. Tommy had been looking through
[51:37] his rifle's scope when a single bullet struck his chest.
[51:41] Police quickly ruled out any possibility that the grandson
[51:44] could have fired the shot and they confirmed Tommy's own gun
[51:48] had never been discharged. The angle of the shot suggested
[51:52] an unknown sniper. To this day, Tommy Ballard's
[51:56] slaying remains unsolved and many in Bardstown believe it is
[52:00] no coincidence. Prosecutors have hinted the
[52:04] cases are linked. In fact, during Huck's trial,
[52:07] they revealed they're waiting on test results from a gun that
[52:10] might have been used to eliminate Tommy Ballard.
[52:15] In 2020, the FBI took over the Rogers investigation and
[52:19] executed fresh searches in Bardstown, hoping to find what
[52:23] local authorities couldn't. Agents dug for evidence in
[52:27] August 2020 and again in August 2021, even excavating A
[52:33] subdivision where Brooks Huck had built houses after Crystal's
[52:37] disappearance. The FBI revealed that an item of
[52:40] interest was recovered during the 2021 search, though they
[52:44] didn't disclose details. By 2022 and 2023, whispers of
[52:52] progress grew louder. Investigators quietly re
[52:55] interviewed witnesses and applied advanced analysis to
[52:59] cell phone records and other digital data.
[53:01] From 2015, with fresh eyes on the case, authorities started to
[53:07] 0 in on a pair of local men, a father and son who had been
[53:12] peripheral figures in the original investigation.
[53:17] Joseph Lawson, then 32, was an acquaintance of Brooks Huck.
[53:22] His father, Stephen Lawson, also had ties to Brooke's circle of
[53:26] friends. Rumors swirled that these two
[53:30] had helped Brooks cover up Crystal's disappearance, but for
[53:33] years, no charges were filed against them either.
[53:38] Finally, a breakthrough came in the fall of 2023.
[53:43] In September 2023, A Nelson County grand jury indicted
[53:48] Joseph Lawson on charges of conspiracy and complicity in
[53:51] tampering with physical evidence.
[53:54] Notably, the indictment did not explicitly name Crystal Rogers
[53:58] as the victim, but the dates and details matched her case.
[54:03] This was the first time anyone had been officially charged in
[54:06] connection with Crystal's disappearance since she went
[54:08] missing. Less than two weeks later, the
[54:14] long-awaited moment arrived. Brooks Huck was arrested on
[54:19] September 27th, 2023. FBI agents and Kentucky State
[54:25] Police took Brooks into custody and charged him with Crystal's
[54:29] slaying and with tampering with physical evidence.
[54:33] He was 41 years old at the time and had been living under a
[54:36] cloud of suspicion for eight years.
[54:39] At Brooke's arraignment, prosecutors revealed a stunning
[54:43] piece of evidence. They had recovered A firearm
[54:46] that Brooke's brother, Nick Huck, sold under a false name.
[54:51] Investigators believed that this could be the weapon used to kill
[54:54] Crystal's father, Tommy Ballard. This revelation linked the two
[55:00] Bardstown mysteries and suggested a broader conspiracy.
[55:05] A judge set Brooks Huck's bond at a staggering $10 million,
[55:09] reflecting the seriousness of the charges and the risk of
[55:12] flight or obstruction if he were released.
[55:18] The dominoes continued to fall, and by December 2023, Stephen
[55:23] Lawson, Joseph's father, was also arrested and indicted on
[55:27] charges of conspiracy. In other words, authorities
[55:31] allege that Steven Lawson helped plan or cover up the ACT,
[55:36] essentially accusing father and son of assisting Brooks Huck in
[55:40] the crime. It was now clear that
[55:43] investigators believed a group of individuals had coordinated
[55:46] to make Crystal Rogers quote, UN quote, disappear and evade
[55:50] justice for years. Even without Crystal's body,
[55:57] prosecutors pressed forward with a compelling circumstantial
[56:00] case. They argued that Huck
[56:03] premeditated the slaying to avoid losing custody of his
[56:06] young son, enlisting Joseph and Steven Lawson to help cover it
[56:11] up. According to the prosecution,
[56:14] the Lawson men helped Huck dispose of evidence and stage
[56:17] Roger's car on the roadside to make it seem she left town on
[56:21] her own. Cell phone data showed Huck lied
[56:24] about his whereabouts that night.
[56:26] Witnesses later testified they overheard the suspects making
[56:30] incriminating statements about, quote, getting rid of Crystal
[56:34] and her car for 9 days in the summer of 2025.
[56:40] A Warren County jury heard testimony from nearly 50
[56:43] witnesses, including Crystal's family members, Huck's employees
[56:47] and various experts. Prosecutors presented evidence
[56:51] ranging from cell phone records and surveillance videos to
[56:55] witness accounts of Huck's and Lawson's incriminating
[56:58] statements. All this evidence was intended
[57:01] to show a pattern of lies and a carefully planned crime.
[57:05] They highlighted how Brooks and those close to him had allegedly
[57:08] obstructed the investigation from day one.
[57:12] They pointed to Nick Huck's interference and Anna
[57:15] Whiteside's silence, indicating A concerted effort at a cover up
[57:19] after the fact. The defense, for its part,
[57:24] emphasized that there was no direct physical evidence linking
[57:28] the accused to a slaying with no body, no crime scene and no
[57:33] weapon. Brooks's attorneys argued that
[57:36] the prosecution's case was built on circumstantial clues and
[57:41] conflicting witness memories. They tried to cast doubt on
[57:45] witnesses and argued that the investigators theories required
[57:49] stacking many unproven assumptions.
[57:52] Despite these efforts, after closing statements, the jury
[57:56] deliberated only about four hours before returning unanimous
[57:59] guilty verdicts on all charges. For both Brooks, Huck and Joseph
[58:03] Lawson, the guilty verdicts marked the end of a decade long
[58:09] saga. Huck, now 43, was convicted of
[58:14] Crystal's slaying and of tampering with physical
[58:16] evidence, while Lawson, 34, was convicted of conspiracy and
[58:22] evidence tampering. The jury swiftly recommended the
[58:27] harshest penalties, life in prison for Huck and 25 years in
[58:32] prison for Lawson. Both men will be formally
[58:35] sentenced in August 2025 and by law, must serve at least 85% of
[58:41] their terms before any possibility of parole.
[58:46] For Crystal's family, the moment was one of bittersweet relief.
[58:50] They wept and embraced in the courtroom, grateful that after
[58:54] 10 long years, someone was finally being held accountable.
[58:59] Crystal's mother, Sherri Ballard, smiled through tears,
[59:02] and her children said they had waited so long for justice.
[59:07] They still have one request of Huck to reveal where Crystal's
[59:10] remains are so that they can lay her to rest properly.
[59:15] Even without that answer yet, the family found comfort knowing
[59:19] Huck and Lawson will be behind bars and unable to hurt anyone
[59:23] else. With the convictions of Brooks,
[59:28] Huck and the Lawson men, the Crystal Rogers case has finally,
[59:32] in one sense, been solved. Nearly a decade of uncertainty
[59:37] and pain for her family has culminated in accountability.
[59:41] Kentucky's attorney general praised the work of the
[59:44] prosecutors and law enforcement and the tenacity of the Rogers
[59:48] family as the reason for this outcome.
[59:51] However, some very important questions still linger and need
[59:55] to be solved before this case is really truly closed out in a
[59:59] very direct sense. The most pressing is the
[1:00:02] location of Crystal Rogers remains.
[1:00:06] Despite extensive searches over the years from cornfields to
[1:00:10] lakes, not a single trace of Crystal has ever been found.
[1:00:16] The hope is that with Brooks Huck now facing life in prison,
[1:00:19] he might eventually be compelled to reveal what he did with
[1:00:22] Crystal's body. I suspect that this won't be
[1:00:28] forthcoming anytime soon, despite the wishes of Crystal's
[1:00:31] family. The reason Huck likely hasn't
[1:00:34] revealed anything is simple. He continues to deny that he
[1:00:38] ever killed her. From the moment Crystal
[1:00:40] disappeared in 2015, he has stuck to the narrative that she
[1:00:45] left on her own or that something unrelated happened to
[1:00:48] her after she left their home. Even during the trial, his
[1:00:53] defense hinged on the idea that there was no direct evidence
[1:00:56] linking him to a slaying. The defense also argued that
[1:01:00] there was no proof that she had even perished.
[1:01:03] That defense strategy, even after a conviction, helped set
[1:01:07] the stage for an appeal. If Huck were to suddenly admit
[1:01:12] involvement and disclose Crystal's location, it wouldn't
[1:01:16] only contradict his long standing claims, it would also
[1:01:20] obliterate any chance of appealing the conviction on the
[1:01:23] basis of innocence. And make no mistake, appeals are
[1:01:27] coming. Huck's legal team has already
[1:01:30] signalled their intent to challenge the verdict.
[1:01:33] Common grounds for appeal could include disputes over the
[1:01:36] admissibility of certain witness testimonies, the reliance on
[1:01:40] circumstantial evidence, or procedural errors during trial.
[1:01:47] For an appellate court to take such challenges seriously, the
[1:01:50] defense needs to maintain the position that their client is
[1:01:53] innocent. Any admission from Huck, verbal
[1:01:57] or otherwise, could ruin that legal strategy.
[1:02:03] Another factor is that he may have had further accomplices
[1:02:06] involved in the disposal of her body, and the location of her
[1:02:10] remains may make this completely evident.
[1:02:13] Revealing the location of the remains could thus result in
[1:02:17] charges being filed against further associates or perhaps
[1:02:21] family members. Given what we know of the
[1:02:24] evidence thus far, it's not hard to speculate on this sort of
[1:02:28] involvement. There's also a more chilling
[1:02:33] possibility that Huck views the location of Crystal's body as
[1:02:37] leverage. Though it's an unthinkable
[1:02:39] notion, some offenders use the knowledge of where a victim is
[1:02:43] buried as a final form of control both over the victim's
[1:02:47] family and the legal system. Another unresolved thread is the
[1:02:53] slaying of Tommy Ballard. During Brooks Huck's trial, the
[1:02:57] prosecutor openly pointed out that Tommy's 2016 death may be
[1:03:02] related to Crystal's case. The recovered gun that may have
[1:03:07] been used to shoot Tommy is now undergoing forensic testing.
[1:03:11] If that firearm is conclusively linked, it could crack open a
[1:03:14] whole new chapter in this saga. Some believe that the same
[1:03:18] individuals who helped Brooks cover up Crystal's slaying might
[1:03:22] have also been involved in silencing her father.
[1:03:26] Law enforcement has not publicly named any suspects in Tommy's
[1:03:30] slaying, but the investigation remains active.
[1:03:35] Given that the FBI is actively investigating the case rather
[1:03:38] than the local Police Department, I have a feeling
[1:03:41] that we may actually see justice in that cold case as well.
[1:03:47] The saga of Crystal Rogers disappearance is a poignant
[1:03:50] reminder that justice can take time, in this case a full
[1:03:53] decade, but persistence can pay off.
[1:03:57] What began as a baffling missing person case on a Kentucky
[1:04:00] highway in 2015 has culminated in a courtroom in 2025.
[1:04:07] This is provided a measure of justice for a young mother whose
[1:04:10] life was cruelly cut short, regardless of how many questions
[1:04:14] and unresolved mysteries continue to circle the case.
[1:04:21] On the evening of July 31st, 2025, inside Florida State
[1:04:26] Prison, 60 year old Edward Zakarzewski lay strapped to a
[1:04:31] Gurney as the clock neared 6:00. He had spent nearly 30 years
[1:04:36] condemned, and now he was about to get the big DP for a crime
[1:04:40] that had shattered his family and horrified his community back
[1:04:44] in 1994. In a final statement,
[1:04:48] Zakarzewski sarcastically thanked Floridians for carrying
[1:04:51] out his execution in a cold and efficient manner, saying he had
[1:04:55] no complaints. The story of Edward Zakarzewski,
[1:04:59] the man who had brutally slain his wife and two young children,
[1:05:02] finally reached its conclusion 31 years after the attacks.
[1:05:09] Edward Zakarzewski the Second was on the surface, an ordinary
[1:05:13] husband and father. Before his deadly crime, he was
[1:05:17] AUS Air Force Sergeant, living with his family in the coastal
[1:05:20] Panhandle town of Mary Esther. Years earlier he had met Sylvia
[1:05:25] while stationed overseas in Korea and the 2 married and
[1:05:30] started a family. His wife was 34 years old and
[1:05:35] they had two children together, Edward Zakarzewski the Third,
[1:05:39] nicknamed Kim, age 7, and Anna, age 5.
[1:05:44] By early 1994, however, the marriage was faltering, and
[1:05:49] Edward even warned a neighbor that he would rather eliminate
[1:05:51] his family than let his wife leave him.
[1:05:57] Sylvia had decided to leave Edward and file for divorce,
[1:06:00] planning to take the children back to her native South Korea.
[1:06:04] On the morning of June 9th, 1994, Edward discovered his
[1:06:08] wife's intentions and became enraged.
[1:06:12] During his lunch break that day, he purchased a machete and also
[1:06:16] gathered A crowbar and rope, hiding these items in the
[1:06:20] family's bathroom in preparation for a violent confrontation that
[1:06:25] evening. He lay in wait for his wife and
[1:06:27] children to return home and resolved to do the unthinkable.
[1:06:34] When Sylvia and the kids returned to their Okaloosa
[1:06:36] County home that night, Edward unleashed unfathomable violence.
[1:06:41] He first attacked his wife in the living room, striking Sylvia
[1:06:45] repeatedly with the crowbar and then strangling her with the
[1:06:48] rope until she was unconscious. With Sylvia incapacitated on the
[1:06:53] floor, Zakarzewski turned his rage to the kids.
[1:06:58] And for your mental sanity, I'm going to leave it at that.
[1:07:04] The outside world wouldn't learn of this atrocity for several
[1:07:06] days. When Zakarzewski failed to
[1:07:09] report for duty, the authorities performed a welfare check.
[1:07:14] What they found was a scene of unfathomable horror.
[1:07:17] They discovered the three bodies stacked in a bathtub in the
[1:07:20] family home. Zakarzewski himself was nowhere
[1:07:24] to be found, and in the immediate aftermath, it wasn't
[1:07:28] clear if he was even still alive.
[1:07:33] Little did investigators know that within hours of committing
[1:07:36] the atrocities, Edward Zakarzewski fled Florida.
[1:07:40] He drove to Orlando and caught a flight to Hawaii's remote
[1:07:43] Molokai Island, hoping to disappear far from the crime
[1:07:47] scene. In Hawaii, he adopted the alias
[1:07:50] Michael Green and found refuge in a secluded religious commune,
[1:07:55] where he did maintenance work in exchange for shelter.
[1:07:58] For about four months, the fugitive lived quietly under the
[1:08:01] radar, trying to pretend his old life did not exist.
[1:08:07] Meanwhile, Florida authorities quickly identified Zakar Zewski
[1:08:11] as the prime suspect and launched a nationwide manhunt.
[1:08:15] His case received a massive burst of publicity in October
[1:08:19] 1994 when the television show Unsolved Mysteries featured the
[1:08:24] Zakar Zewski case on air. At the time, Unsolved Mysteries
[1:08:30] was pulling 10 million viewers an episode in the United States
[1:08:33] and Canada. This meant that if he was still
[1:08:36] alive, it was almost certain that someone close to him had
[1:08:40] seen the episode or knew someone who had.
[1:08:44] And that ended up turning out to be the case here because
[1:08:46] Zakarzewski would be nabbed real quick.
[1:08:51] By chance, the family who had taken him in saw the broadcast
[1:08:54] and realized that their handyman, Michael, was actually
[1:08:57] The Wanted man they had seen. The very next day, October 15th,
[1:09:02] 1994, Edward Zakarzewski walked into a police station in Hilo,
[1:09:08] HI and surrendered to authorities.
[1:09:11] After four months on the run, the man who had slaughtered his
[1:09:15] family was in custody. Zakarzewski was extradited back
[1:09:22] to Florida to face charges related to his heinous crimes.
[1:09:26] While awaiting trial in jail. He even attempted to escape in
[1:09:29] August 1995 by trying to cut through a fence with another
[1:09:33] inmate, but guards foiled the plan.
[1:09:36] Rather than endure a full jury trial, he ultimately chose to
[1:09:40] plead guilty in March 1996 to all three counts.
[1:09:45] This spared him a trial on the question of guilt, but a
[1:09:48] separate hearing was held to determine his punishment.
[1:09:52] Notably, Florida's system to determine whether the guilty
[1:09:55] party is condemned is quite unusual compared to other
[1:09:59] states. In Florida in 1996, a jury would
[1:10:06] have to decide whether someone should get the big DP from the
[1:10:09] state. All 12 jurors must first agree
[1:10:13] the crime qualifies for it, but only 6 out of 12 need to vote
[1:10:17] for death to recommend that sentence.
[1:10:20] If fewer than 7 agree, the person automatically gets life
[1:10:23] without parole. This system is unusual.
[1:10:27] Most states require a unanimous jury for the death penalty.
[1:10:32] Florida's 7 juror rule was the lowest threshold in the country
[1:10:35] at the time, But more on that in a moment.
[1:10:40] Another aspect that's unusual about Florida is the limited
[1:10:44] ability of the judge to intervene.
[1:10:46] In most states, the judge has the authority to overrule the
[1:10:49] jury's recommendation. In Florida, the judge can't
[1:10:53] overrule the jury's decision except to condemn the guilty
[1:10:57] party, making Florida's approach both rare and controversial in
[1:11:02] how it handles capital punishment.
[1:11:06] In the penalty phase, prosecutors emphasized the
[1:11:09] heinous, cruel nature of the attacks and urged him to be
[1:11:12] condemned. Zakarzewski's defense, in
[1:11:15] contrast, pleaded for his life, citing his emotional distress
[1:11:20] and unstable mental state at the time of the attacks.
[1:11:24] He even boldly claimed that he chose a machete because he
[1:11:27] believed it would slay his family quickly and painlessly.
[1:11:31] This was an assertion starkly refuted by the medical
[1:11:34] examiner's testimony on the suffering the victims endured.
[1:11:40] After deliberation, the jury returned to split recommendation
[1:11:44] by a seven to five vote. They recommended condemnation
[1:11:47] for the slaying of Sylvia and his son, but for Anna, the jury
[1:11:51] was deadlocked at 6:00 to 6:00. Under Florida law, this later
[1:11:56] part was treated as a recommendation for life in
[1:11:59] prison on that specific offense only.
[1:12:03] The judge ended up over ruling the six to six deadlock and
[1:12:06] finding that the Zakharzewski patriarch would be condemned on
[1:12:09] all three charges. Notably, the judge cited the
[1:12:13] fact that Anna had to witness her brother being slain with a
[1:12:16] machete and presumably felt extreme terror awaiting what was
[1:12:19] next. The case then entered a long
[1:12:24] appellate journey, as every single capital case does these
[1:12:27] days, even when there's no meaningful question of guilt or
[1:12:30] innocence. Over the next two decades,
[1:12:33] Zakarzewski's convictions and sentences were reviewed multiple
[1:12:37] times, but every court upheld the outcome.
[1:12:41] The Florida Supreme Court affirmed his sentences in 1998,
[1:12:46] and the US Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal in
[1:12:49] 1999. Throughout the 2000s, additional
[1:12:53] state and federal appeals were filed and rejected, leaving the
[1:12:57] sentences in place. By 2016, after 20 years in the
[1:13:02] Gray Bar Hotel, Zakar Zewski had run out of standard appeals and
[1:13:07] was essentially awaiting his call to the chopping block.
[1:13:12] As I mentioned earlier, under current Florida law at least 8
[1:13:16] out of 12 jurors must vote for a death sentence, whereas
[1:13:20] Zakarzewski's fate had been sealed by a seven to five vote.
[1:13:24] In 2017, Florida briefly required unanimous jury
[1:13:28] recommendations, and he sought a new sentencing under that rule.
[1:13:33] However, the state Supreme Court ruled the change was not
[1:13:36] retroactive to older cases like his.
[1:13:39] His lawyers later argued that executing him despite the non
[1:13:42] unanimous jury recommendation would be unconstitutional, but
[1:13:46] the courts disagreed. On July 30th, 2025, the US
[1:13:52] Supreme Court rejected Zakarzewski's last ditch request
[1:13:56] for a stay of execution, removing the final barrier to
[1:13:59] carrying out his sentence. With all legal avenues
[1:14:03] exhausted, the stage was now finally set for Edward
[1:14:06] Zakarzewski's long delayed injection.
[1:14:09] After years of legal wrangling and waiting, Florida Governor
[1:14:14] Ron DeSantis signed the warrant for Edward Zakarzewski on July
[1:14:18] 1st, 2025, scheduling his execution for the end of that
[1:14:22] month. In the weeks beforehand, anti DP
[1:14:26] advocates petitioned for clemency, arguing that executing
[1:14:30] a 60 year old veteran after so many years was unnecessary.
[1:14:35] They also noted that his sentence had only been
[1:14:38] recommended by a narrow jury vote.
[1:14:42] And honestly, to these people, I have a little piece of advice.
[1:14:47] Pick your battles and perhaps don't advocate for the guy who
[1:14:50] admitted to chopping apart his wife and kids.
[1:14:55] By this point, the 60 year old Zakhar Zewski had spent nearly
[1:14:59] half his life awaiting execution.
[1:15:01] And now that final reckoning had arrived.
[1:15:04] Shortly before 6:00 PM that evening, Zakarzewski was
[1:15:08] escorted into the execution chamber at Florida State Prison
[1:15:12] and strapped onto the Gurney. When the curtain was raised, he
[1:15:17] lay under a white sheet up to his chest with IV lines in his
[1:15:21] arms. 14 witnesses, along with several journalists and
[1:15:26] officials looked on from the viewing room.
[1:15:29] All prepared to see the penalty carried out by the state.
[1:15:33] Asked for any last words, Zakarzewski spoke in a calm yet
[1:15:37] defiant tone, expressing 0 remorse for what he had done.
[1:15:42] He sarcastically thanked the people of Florida and the
[1:15:45] government for executing him in an efficient manner.
[1:15:49] And with that, at 6:12 PM on July 31st, 2025, Edward
[1:15:56] Zakarzewski was no more. Anyway, just as a quick
[1:16:02] postscript on this one, this is one of the cases that has just
[1:16:06] absolutely pissed me off the most.
[1:16:08] The fact that this monster didn't even show any remorse in
[1:16:11] his last moments, even for what he did to his own kids, just
[1:16:16] made me absolutely sick. It also really made me question
[1:16:20] the people who were out there campaigning for the life of this
[1:16:23] remorseless perpetrator. I get that some people are
[1:16:27] fundamentally against capital punishment, but the idea that so
[1:16:31] much time and effort would be tossed into someone so
[1:16:33] irredeemable just makes me mad. And honestly, bringing up the
[1:16:39] fact that he was a veteran in an effort to try to win over some
[1:16:42] hearts and minds to his cause was really low as well.
[1:16:47] Basically, it seemed crass and manipulative.
[1:16:50] Or at least that's my take on it.
[1:16:54] It was a cool Friday afternoon on February 19th, 1993 in rural
[1:16:59] Pasco County, Florida. 12 year old Jennifer Odom stepped off
[1:17:04] her yellow school bus around 3, just a few 100 feet from her
[1:17:07] front door. She waved goodbye to her
[1:17:10] friends, slung her book bag over her shoulder, and clutched her
[1:17:14] clarinet case as she began the short walk toward home.
[1:17:18] For Jennifer, an avid school band member, it was a routine
[1:17:22] end to the school day in the close knit community of Saint
[1:17:25] Joseph. This was a place where kids were
[1:17:28] safe to roam their neighborhoods, or so the
[1:17:30] community thought. But in the span of mere moments,
[1:17:34] that ordinary day turned into an unimaginable nightmare.
[1:17:39] By the time evening came, Jennifer Odom had vanished
[1:17:43] without a trace, and the peaceful innocence of that small
[1:17:46] Florida town was permanently shattered.
[1:17:52] When Jennifer failed to arrive home that day, her family
[1:17:55] immediately knew something was wrong.
[1:17:58] The school bus driver remembered dropping her off, and classmates
[1:18:02] recalled seeing Jennifer cheerfully heading on her way.
[1:18:05] Crucially, several children on the bus also independently
[1:18:08] reported an eerie detail that sent chills through
[1:18:12] investigators. They saw a faded blue pickup
[1:18:15] truck that had been spotted crawling slowly along the road,
[1:18:19] following behind Jennifer as she walked.
[1:18:22] That was the last known sighting of the 12 year old, and in a
[1:18:25] span of minutes, somewhere between the bus stop and her
[1:18:29] front door, Jennifer simply disappeared.
[1:18:34] Law enforcement was alerted and an intense search began before
[1:18:38] nightfall. The stillness of the rural
[1:18:41] afternoon gave way to the whir of police helicopters.
[1:18:45] Flashlight beams pierced the dusk as concerned volunteers
[1:18:48] joined deputies in combing the area.
[1:18:51] There was no sign of Jennifer, only the lingering dread that
[1:18:54] someone in that mysterious blue truck had snatched an innocent
[1:18:58] girl in broad daylight. In the days that followed, a
[1:19:04] massive search operation unfolded across Pasco and
[1:19:07] neighboring Hernando County. Thousands of volunteers and law
[1:19:11] enforcement officers scoured roughly 60 square miles of
[1:19:14] terrain. They trudged through Groves,
[1:19:17] fields and wooded areas in hopes of finding any clue to
[1:19:20] Jennifer's whereabouts. Canine units sniffed for a trail
[1:19:25] and mounted. Patrols navigated rough
[1:19:27] Backcountry. The local media closely followed
[1:19:30] every development, broadcasting Jennifer's smiling school photo
[1:19:35] and turning her disappearance into a region wide concern.
[1:19:39] Despite the outpouring of community support, each day
[1:19:42] without answers felt agonizingly long for Jennifer's family and
[1:19:46] neighbors. Hope mingled with fear as
[1:19:50] searchers refused to give up even as nights passed with no
[1:19:54] word. Finally, 6 heartbreaking days
[1:19:59] after she went missing. The search came to a tragic end
[1:20:03] on February 25th, 1993. Two volunteers walking through
[1:20:09] an orange Grove off Powell Rd. in southeastern Hernando County
[1:20:13] made a grim discovery. It was the lifeless body of
[1:20:16] Jennifer, and she had been left in the remote Grove roughly 20
[1:20:21] miles from where she'd been taken.
[1:20:25] I'm going to spare you the details here, but what happened
[1:20:28] was a horror beyond all imagination.
[1:20:32] In those painful moments, a burning resolve was immediately
[1:20:35] born to catch the monster responsible for this and make
[1:20:38] sure he faced the harshest justice Florida has to offer.
[1:20:44] From the very start, detectives had precious few clues to work
[1:20:48] with beyond the circumstances of Jennifer's disappearance.
[1:20:52] The faded blue pickup truck seen shadowing her route was the
[1:20:55] biggest lead. Police immediately publicized
[1:20:59] descriptions of that truck and appealed for anyone who might
[1:21:02] have seen it in the area to come forward.
[1:21:05] Every owner of a similar vehicle in the region became a potential
[1:21:08] suspect. Dozens of tips poured in and
[1:21:12] investigators chased them relentlessly, checking alibis,
[1:21:17] interviewing local residents, and comparing notes with other
[1:21:20] law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, however, the case
[1:21:27] ended up going cold, and investigators turned to Unsolved
[1:21:30] Mysteries to attempt to solve the case.
[1:21:33] Despite her case being prominently featured in a Season
[1:21:36] 6 episode broadcast in 1994, this did little to immediately
[1:21:41] solve her case. As a brief aside, to be clear,
[1:21:46] this isn't a case where Unsolved Mysteries directly led to the
[1:21:49] closure of the case. That said, the fact that it took
[1:21:53] her case from a local Florida story to an international story
[1:21:57] with massive public attention did potentially end up playing a
[1:22:01] factor. When it comes to cold cases, one
[1:22:06] of the biggest factors determining if they will be
[1:22:08] solved or not is how well known they are and how much attention
[1:22:13] the case has on it. Often times this is only
[1:22:16] achieved by the dogged persistence of the family
[1:22:19] constantly following up with investigators.
[1:22:22] But here there was another big boost even beyond that.
[1:22:28] Every time Jennifer's case has been rebroadcast or rewatched
[1:22:32] over the past three decades has been a dividend paid in the
[1:22:35] currency of attention. But anyway, that's enough of me
[1:22:39] ranting about the importance of covering cold cases.
[1:22:44] Two years later, in January 1995, a small development
[1:22:49] rekindled investigators hope in a rural area of western Hernando
[1:22:55] County, about 40 miles from Jennifer's home.
[1:22:59] A couple scavenging for scrap metal stumbled upon 2 weathered
[1:23:03] objects In the brush. They found a school book bag and
[1:23:07] a clarinet case. Astonishingly, these were
[1:23:11] identified as belonging to Jennifer Odom items that had
[1:23:14] been missing since the day she vanished.
[1:23:17] The location of the discarded book bag and instrument case
[1:23:21] suggested the perpetrator had carried them for some distance
[1:23:25] and then tossed them. Unfortunately, while it was
[1:23:29] hoped that this may help crack the case wide open, nothing
[1:23:32] further happened at the time. Unbeknownst to many following
[1:23:38] Jennifer's case, an important clue to her mystery lay in
[1:23:41] another crime that had occurred a year before her abduction in
[1:23:45] January 1992. Just 13 months prior, a 17 year
[1:23:51] old girl in neighboring Pasco County had also been attacked
[1:23:55] shortly after stepping off a school bus.
[1:23:58] In that incident, the teenager was beaten and subject to the
[1:24:02] most disturbing form of assault, but she miraculously fought off
[1:24:06] her attacker and managed to survive.
[1:24:12] The similarities were chilling. A girl walking home from a bus
[1:24:16] stop in the same region attacked in broad daylight even back in
[1:24:22] 1993. Some investigators wondered if
[1:24:25] the predator might have struck before.
[1:24:28] However, at the time, there was no suspect in the 1992 case
[1:24:33] either, and the surviving victim could only offer a limited
[1:24:36] description of her assailant. Detectives collected biological
[1:24:41] evidence from the 1992 crime scene, but at the time, forensic
[1:24:46] technology was rudimentary compared to today.
[1:24:51] By 2015, DNA technology had leapt forward, and cold case
[1:24:56] detectives revisiting the 1992 assault decided to push for
[1:25:00] advanced analysis. This ended up turning up a
[1:25:04] sinister man named Jeffrey Norman Crumb, and as soon as he
[1:25:08] surfaced, the puzzle pieces from years past began clicking into
[1:25:12] place. Crum had lived in the area
[1:25:15] during the early 1990s, and investigators soon learned he
[1:25:20] owned a blue pickup truck back then.
[1:25:22] He was also very familiar with the rural back roads and orange
[1:25:26] Groves where Jennifer had been taken and where her body was
[1:25:29] left. Perhaps most tellingly, the
[1:25:32] modus operandi of the two crimes matched almost exactly, and he
[1:25:36] had a dark and violent history. According to court records
[1:25:40] revealed later, several witnesses recalled Crum bragging
[1:25:44] or hinting that he had slain Jennifer Odom years ago.
[1:25:51] And yeah, I'm not going to let that fact slip by without
[1:25:54] commenting on it. First of all, I've covered a lot
[1:25:57] of slayings where the case was broken because the person who
[1:26:01] did it decided to go brag to everyone about what he had done.
[1:26:07] These cases in the past have invariably involved 2 adult
[1:26:10] males where one claims he got the better of the other.
[1:26:15] I've never run into a case where the perpetrator is out there
[1:26:18] bragging about doing this to a kid.
[1:26:21] And that brings me to my second point.
[1:26:24] Who were these people he was bragging to and why didn't they
[1:26:28] report this to the cops years prior?
[1:26:33] Piece by piece, a mosaic of evidence was being painstakingly
[1:26:37] assembled by law enforcement. With Crum serving two life
[1:26:41] sentences for the 1992 attack, detectives had ample time to
[1:26:45] prepare their best shot possible.
[1:26:48] Also, as you likely already know, the prosecution only gets
[1:26:52] one chance to present their best case due to the double jeopardy
[1:26:56] rule. These facts have dictated the
[1:26:58] glacial pace this case has advanced at over the years.
[1:27:04] On a summer morning nearly 30 years after Jennifer Odom's life
[1:27:08] was cruelly taken, the breakthrough everyone had been
[1:27:11] hoping for finally arrived On July 27th, 2023.
[1:27:17] Geoffrey Crumb, now 61 years old, had been arrested and
[1:27:21] formally charged for the disgusting crimes against
[1:27:24] Jennifer Odom. As mentioned, he was already
[1:27:28] serving life in prison for the other violent crime, and he was
[1:27:32] transferred to the Hernando County Jail to face these new
[1:27:36] charges. As of the publishing of this
[1:27:39] video, this is where he remains still awaiting trial.
[1:27:43] After all these years, prosecutors in Florida made it
[1:27:48] clear that they intend to pursue the most severe punishment for
[1:27:51] this alleged perpetrator. As of today, Geoffrey Crumb
[1:27:55] remains behind bars awaiting trial on the charges for
[1:27:59] Jennifer's slaying and the other horrific acts he committed.
[1:28:03] Through his public defender, Crum has signalled that he will
[1:28:06] plead not guilty and fight the charges, which is his right
[1:28:11] under the law. Jennifer Odom slaying is a story
[1:28:16] about loss, but also about unyielding persistence from her
[1:28:21] family and law enforcement. The case against Crum is
[1:28:25] overwhelming, and it remains to be seen if he will force this
[1:28:29] matter to trial or ultimately plead guilty.
[1:28:33] Unfortunately, given how long it takes to conduct an execution
[1:28:37] and given his age, he may simply force the family through an
[1:28:42] extremely difficult trial. The fact that he will never see
[1:28:46] the light of day again, regardless of the results of
[1:28:49] this case, may also be a factor in his decision making.
[1:28:56] At present, Geoffrey Crumb remains innocent of these
[1:28:59] specific charges against Jennifer until proven guilty in
[1:29:02] a court of law. A scream shattered the calm of a
[1:29:09] February evening in 1988 as 49 year old Gretchen Burford
[1:29:14] staggered from her Toyota Camry, bleeding and desperate for help.
[1:29:19] Moments earlier she had crashed her car on a busy St. in
[1:29:23] Mountain View, CA. This was a last frantic attempt
[1:29:27] to escape a knife wielding attacker who had kidnapped her
[1:29:30] from a bank parking lot. Gretchen collapsed on the
[1:29:34] pavement, crying out that she had been stabbed, while her
[1:29:38] assailant fled into the night. She wouldn't survive the attack.
[1:29:43] The wound to her chest had punctured an artery and despite
[1:29:47] the efforts of good Samaritans and 1st responders, Gretchen
[1:29:51] died from her injuries soon after.
[1:29:54] The perpetrator vanished without taking any money, leaving behind
[1:29:58] only a bloodied kitchen knife and a blue Paisley patterned
[1:30:01] cap. These were the chilling clues to
[1:30:04] a crime that would haunt the community for years before the
[1:30:07] case was blown wide open. Gretchen was a mother of three
[1:30:13] and a passionate advocate for justice in her community.
[1:30:17] After raising her children, Gretchen changed career paths in
[1:30:20] her early 40s by enrolling in law school.
[1:30:24] Determined to make a difference. By 1984, she had established a
[1:30:29] law practice in Palo Alto focusing on criminal defense for
[1:30:34] juveniles and others in need. Colleagues recall that she was
[1:30:38] dedicated to helping underprivileged youth and
[1:30:41] believe deeply in giving second chances to those who might
[1:30:44] otherwise be left behind. Gretchen had also just found new
[1:30:48] happiness in her personal life. Less than two weeks before her
[1:30:52] death, she married her second husband, Wayne Dernitz.
[1:30:57] This hopeful new chapter was cut tragically short by the events
[1:31:00] of that fateful winter evening. On February 26th, 1988, Gretchen
[1:31:08] wrapped up her work day at her Palo Alto law office and began
[1:31:11] her routine drive home. She stopped at a Wells Fargo ATM
[1:31:16] at around 6:30 PM to deposit a check and errand she'd done
[1:31:20] countless times without incident.
[1:31:23] Unbeknownst to her, a predator was watching and waiting.
[1:31:27] Investigators believe that as Gretchen stepped away from her
[1:31:30] car to use the ATM, an unknown man slipped into the back seat
[1:31:34] of her unlocked Toyota Camry. When she returned and sat back
[1:31:39] behind the wheel, the man suddenly emerged and pressed a
[1:31:42] 12 inch knife to her side, instantly turning an ordinary
[1:31:46] evening into a nightmare. Under threat of death, Gretchen
[1:31:51] was forced to drive about 3 miles to another bank location.
[1:31:55] This was another Wells Fargo branch near the San Antonio
[1:31:58] Shopping center in the neighboring city of Mountain
[1:32:01] View. The kidnappers plan was to make
[1:32:04] her withdraw cash from the drive thru bank machine there at
[1:32:08] approximately 7 O 5:00 PM. Gretchen tried twice to withdraw
[1:32:13] money at the second machine, but both transactions were denied
[1:32:17] because the amounts exceeded her account's limit.
[1:32:21] It's suspected that she may have deliberately entered an
[1:32:24] impossibly high amount in hopes of foiling her captors robbery
[1:32:27] attempt. Unfortunately, Gretchen
[1:32:31] underestimated the man's capacity for violence and
[1:32:33] brutality. Frustrated by the failed
[1:32:38] withdrawal, the assailant began struggling with Gretchen inside
[1:32:42] the car. 2 witnesses and a vehicle behind them noticed the
[1:32:46] commotion. They saw a struggle in the Camry
[1:32:49] and even saw the driver's door crack open as Gretchen tried to
[1:32:52] escape, only to be pulled back by her attacker.
[1:32:58] In a split second act of courage and desperation, Gretchen
[1:33:01] slammed her foot on the accelerator.
[1:33:03] The Toyota suddenly surged out of the drive through lane,
[1:33:07] barreled across the parking lot and shot onto the street.
[1:33:11] The car jumped the median and collided with another vehicle,
[1:33:14] finally coming to a crashing halt about 150 yards away.
[1:33:19] This risky crash was exactly what Gretchen had hoped for.
[1:33:23] It attracted immediate attention and forced the attacker's hand.
[1:33:28] As soon as the car stopped, Gretchen, though gravely
[1:33:31] wounded, managed to push the door open and tumble out.
[1:33:36] Bleeding profusely, she cried for help and shouted that she
[1:33:39] had been stabbed. Two young men rushed to her aid
[1:33:43] and caught a glimpse of the tall, muscular assailant as he
[1:33:46] climbed out of the wreck and bolted down a side street,
[1:33:49] dropping his weapon while fleeing.
[1:33:53] Tragically, the single stab wound to Gretchen's chest had
[1:33:56] already done fatal damage. She collapsed to the ground and
[1:34:00] despite the efforts of paramedics, she succumbed to her
[1:34:04] injuries shortly after being rushed to the hospital.
[1:34:07] The brazen slaying of Gretchen Burford shocked the Palo Alto
[1:34:11] and Mountain View communities. This generous and well respected
[1:34:17] attorney had been violently eliminated in a public place at
[1:34:20] dusk, and her attacker had escaped into the night.
[1:34:24] Fear spread that a dangerous predator was on the loose and
[1:34:28] detectives vowed to catch the man responsible.
[1:34:34] The investigation into Gretchen's murder began
[1:34:36] immediately. Police recovered the butcher
[1:34:39] knife the assailant had abandoned, and it was later
[1:34:42] confirmed to be the weapon used to slay Gretchen.
[1:34:45] Another critical clue left at the scene was a blue Paisley cap
[1:34:49] found on the back seat of Gretchen's car.
[1:34:52] Detectives surmised that this distinctive hat had likely been
[1:34:56] worn by the attacker and knocked off in the chaos of the crash.
[1:35:00] They traced the hat to just two stores in the area, but
[1:35:04] unfortunately, that alone wasn't enough to identify a suspect.
[1:35:08] Witnesses worked with police to create composite sketches of the
[1:35:12] perpetrator. He was a tall, athletic black
[1:35:15] male in his 20s, and these sketches were plastered across
[1:35:19] local news outlets and bulletin boards.
[1:35:22] Despite exhaustive efforts, no immediate arrests were made.
[1:35:27] For 17 years, the identity of Gretchen Burford's attacker
[1:35:32] remained a madding mystery. In 2005, however, a fresh look
[1:35:37] by the Santa Clara County Cold Case Unit, combined with major
[1:35:41] advances in DNA forensics finally brought a breakthrough.
[1:35:46] Investigators decided to send the blue Paisley cap for new
[1:35:49] testing. This time, forensic scientists
[1:35:52] successfully extracted a genetic profile from microscopic skin
[1:35:56] cell traces on the hat's inner band.
[1:35:59] When the DNA profile was run through the FB is national
[1:36:03] database, it hit a match. The genetic evidence from the
[1:36:07] hat pointed to a man who was already behind bars, 39 year old
[1:36:12] Tyrone Hamill. In June 2005, Santa Clara County
[1:36:17] officials announced this DNA breakthrough to the public,
[1:36:21] finally ending years of uncertainty and renewing hope
[1:36:24] that justice was within reach. The revelation jolted everyone
[1:36:30] involved in the case, but it also made sense in hindsight.
[1:36:34] Hamel had an extensive history of violence and was serving a
[1:36:38] life sentence in Texas for multiple indecent assaults and
[1:36:42] armed robberies committed in 1988.
[1:36:45] Investigators learned that he had been in California around
[1:36:48] the time of Gretchen's death, having traveled to Menlo Park in
[1:36:52] late February 1988 to attend a family funeral.
[1:36:57] Armed with the DNA match and this background information,
[1:37:01] authorities were finally able to put a name and face to the
[1:37:04] mystery that had haunted them for so long.
[1:37:09] Cold case detectives didn't stop at the DNA hit.
[1:37:13] They also revisited old reports and discovered a telling
[1:37:16] incident that occurred just weeks after Gretchen's slaying.
[1:37:20] Also, just before I go on, it's important to remember that
[1:37:23] prosecutors only get one chance to convict, and in this case,
[1:37:28] the DNA evidence could have had a potential innocent
[1:37:30] explanation. And in the criminal context,
[1:37:34] given that the prosecution has to prove its case beyond a
[1:37:37] reasonable doubt, even a pretty flimsy explanation can result in
[1:37:41] someone being found not guilty. But with that said, let's get
[1:37:45] back to the evidence itself. At a bank parking lot across the
[1:37:51] street from the Mountain View bank machine where Gretchen had
[1:37:54] been attacked, a woman reported that she found a man hiding in
[1:37:58] the back of her car late one night.
[1:38:01] When she screamed and triggered her car's alarm, the man fled,
[1:38:05] dropping a large knife as he vanished into the darkness.
[1:38:09] At the time, that attempted abduction remained unsolved, but
[1:38:14] now investigators realized it was likely Hamill still in the
[1:38:18] area and brazen enough to try striking again.
[1:38:23] Additionally, one of the eyewitnesses from 1988 who had
[1:38:27] seen the perpetrator in Gretchen's car was shown a photo
[1:38:30] lineup and identified Tyrone Hamill as the man he had seen in
[1:38:36] 2007. Further forensic analysis even
[1:38:39] managed to match a latent fingerprint from Gretchen's car
[1:38:42] to Hamill, erasing any remaining doubt about his culpability.
[1:38:48] Once Tyrone Hamill was identified, Santa Clara County
[1:38:52] authorities moved swiftly to bring him to justice.
[1:38:55] An arrest warrant was issued and the process of extraditing
[1:38:59] Hamill from Texas to California began in 2005.
[1:39:04] Given the heinous nature of the crime, prosecutors deliberated
[1:39:07] whether they would attempt to give him the state sponsored DP.
[1:39:13] Ultimately, influenced in part by the wishes and values of
[1:39:16] Gretchen's family, they opted for a different path.
[1:39:20] Gretchen had been a staunch opponent of the DP in her life,
[1:39:24] and her family agreed that a life sentence would be a more
[1:39:27] fitting outcome. In January 2008, nearly 20 years
[1:39:32] after the attack, 41 year old Tyrone Hamill pleaded guilty in
[1:39:37] a California courtroom to the first degree slaying of Gretchen
[1:39:40] Burford. He confessed to the horrific
[1:39:43] crime and offered a tearful apology for his actions, though
[1:39:47] any remorse he expressed rang hollow given his extremely
[1:39:50] disturbing criminal track record.
[1:39:54] A judge sentenced Hamill to life in prison without the
[1:39:56] possibility of parole, the maximum penalty short of getting
[1:40:00] the DP, ensuring that he will spend the rest of his days
[1:40:03] behind bars. The story of Gretchen Burford
[1:40:09] slaying and its ultimate resolution is 1 of heartbreak,
[1:40:13] perseverance and the power of modern forensic science.
[1:40:17] What began as a tragic unsolved mystery in 1988 became a
[1:40:22] testament to the dedication of investigators who refused to
[1:40:26] give up. It's also a reminder to
[1:40:28] investigators to secure all the evidence they can.
[1:40:32] The blue Paisley hat that once seemed to be simply the lost
[1:40:35] property of the perpetrator turned out to be the key to
[1:40:38] cracking the case. Thanks to advances in DNA
[1:40:41] analysis, a quiet suburban community in Virginia was shaken
[1:40:47] by a grisly discovery on April 2nd, 1982.
[1:40:52] Early that morning, the body of a woman wearing nothing but a
[1:40:56] pair of shoes was found on a wooded path just yards from a
[1:41:01] school in the town of Montclair. She had been shot execution
[1:41:06] style with a single bullet to the head, and the way the
[1:41:09] perpetrator discarded the victim so close to homes and a school
[1:41:13] was shockingly brazen. It would take several days
[1:41:16] before the victim could be identified as 43 year old Hilda
[1:41:20] Amelia Roche of Lake Ridge, VA. Hilda Roche was an independent
[1:41:26] woman building a life for herself in Northern Virginia.
[1:41:30] At 43 years old, she was a divorcee with a stable career in
[1:41:35] a civilian job at the Department of the Army in Arlington.
[1:41:39] Friends say Hilda was sociable but careful about whom she
[1:41:42] trusted. By early 1982 she had begun
[1:41:46] venturing out to meet new people, cautiously exploring the
[1:41:49] local social scene. On Friday, March 25th, 1982,
[1:41:57] Hilda went to Rafters, a popular singles bar in Alexandria,
[1:42:01] looking to unwind. That night, she met an
[1:42:04] intriguing man and hit it off with him.
[1:42:07] Hilda was charmed. She later told friends she had
[1:42:10] dinner with this stranger and even went back to his apartment
[1:42:14] that evening. She was impressed by the man's
[1:42:17] suave persona. He seemed to be single,
[1:42:20] attractive and apparently wealthy, even driving an
[1:42:24] expensive car. He claimed to be a government
[1:42:27] contractor from Florida and said he lived at the nearby Oakwood
[1:42:30] Apartments in Alexandria. Oddly, Hilda never revealed this
[1:42:37] mystery man's name to her friends.
[1:42:40] One friend, sensing red flags, warned Hilda not to believe
[1:42:44] everything the man said, cautioning her not to fall for
[1:42:48] his flashy tails. But Hilda was optimistic about
[1:42:52] her new acquaintance, and perhaps thought her friend was a
[1:42:55] bit jealous. She made plans to see him again
[1:42:58] soon, not realizing that this chance meeting was about to lead
[1:43:02] to tragedy. A week after Hilda's night at
[1:43:06] the bar, a terrifying sequence of events unfolded.
[1:43:11] In the early hours of April 2nd, 1982, a passerby came upon a
[1:43:17] horrific scene near an elementary school in Montclair,
[1:43:21] the body of a woman lying on a footpath.
[1:43:25] The victim was completely lacking in clothing except for a
[1:43:29] pair of tennis shoes, and her remains had been dumped
[1:43:32] alarmingly close to nearby homes and the school grounds.
[1:43:36] She had been slain by a single shot to the back of the head,
[1:43:40] and evidence suggested she was subjected to an indecent assault
[1:43:43] as well. It took about 3 days for
[1:43:48] authorities to put a name to the victim.
[1:43:50] When Hilda Roche failed to show up at work, concerned colleagues
[1:43:54] notified police who went to check on her townhouse.
[1:43:58] Inside Hilda's living room, officers found her purse with
[1:44:02] identification, including a military identification card.
[1:44:07] Using that information and fingerprints, they soon
[1:44:10] confirmed that the woman was Hilda Roche.
[1:44:13] Those lost few days before identifying Hilda had set the
[1:44:17] investigation back, but now detectives could begin retracing
[1:44:21] her steps. Evidence in Hilda's home painted
[1:44:26] a chilling picture of what had occurred.
[1:44:29] Her bedroom was in shambles, bed linens tossed, clothes strewn
[1:44:33] around and bits of adhesive tape on the floor.
[1:44:38] It was clear a violent struggle and a disturbing assault had
[1:44:41] taken place there. Crucially, there were no signs
[1:44:45] of forced entry at the townhouse, indicating Hilda had
[1:44:48] willingly let someone inside. This pointed directly to the
[1:44:52] mysterious acquaintance she had recently met.
[1:44:55] Later, residents living near the wooded area where her body was
[1:44:59] found recalled hearing a single shot in the pre dawn hours of
[1:45:03] April 2nd. Though investigators could never
[1:45:07] confirm it, this was likely the exact moment Hilda was slain.
[1:45:14] With evidence suggesting Hilda knew the perpetrator, detectives
[1:45:17] turned their focus to her recent contacts.
[1:45:20] Friends immediately brought up the unknown man from the bar,
[1:45:24] the charming stranger Hilda had met at rafters just days before
[1:45:27] her death. Investigators zeroed in on the
[1:45:31] one concrete detail Hilda had shared about him.
[1:45:35] He lived at the Oakwood Apartments in Alexandria.
[1:45:38] Police combed through tenant records for that large apartment
[1:45:41] complex, reviewing hundreds of files in search of anyone
[1:45:45] matching the description of Hilda's mystery date.
[1:45:48] After this exhaustive effort, they narrowed it down to 32
[1:45:52] possible names of men who fit the profile.
[1:45:58] Even with a suspect list, detectives needed a definitive
[1:46:01] link. They soon learned that on the
[1:46:03] night Hilda met this man, she had lost her wallet at the bar.
[1:46:08] Strangely, despite just meeting, the man had left his phone
[1:46:12] number with the bar's staff so he could be contacted if the
[1:46:16] wallet turned up. Indeed, a few days later, the
[1:46:19] wallet was found and the man retrieved it with the intention
[1:46:22] of returning it to Hilda. Finding this sequence
[1:46:26] suspicious, police turned to an unconventional tool, hypnosis.
[1:46:32] The bar manager who had interacted with the man agreed
[1:46:35] to hypnosis to help recall details she couldn't remember
[1:46:38] consciously. Under hypnosis, she managed to
[1:46:42] recall portions of a phone number that the man had given
[1:46:45] her. Investigators compared that
[1:46:48] fragment of a number against the phone records of the 32
[1:46:51] potential suspects. It was a match.
[1:46:56] One of the numbers roughly corresponded to a 38 year old
[1:46:59] former Oakwood tenant named Gregory Richard Barker.
[1:47:05] Gregory Barker instantly became the prime suspect in Hilda's
[1:47:08] slaying. Detectives discovered he had
[1:47:11] moved out of the Oakwood apartments shortly after the
[1:47:13] slaying and left a forwarding address in Las Vegas.
[1:47:17] By the time police checked Las Vegas, Barker had vanished
[1:47:21] again. They also had solid physical
[1:47:24] evidence. Fingerprints found in Hilda's
[1:47:26] townhouse matched Barker's prints, tying him directly to
[1:47:30] the scene. Based on the evidence,
[1:47:33] authorities suspect that Barker used the lost wallet as a
[1:47:36] pretext to get into Hilda's home.
[1:47:40] He likely came over pretending to return it, then attacked her.
[1:47:44] After overpowering and restraining Hilda, Barker forced
[1:47:48] her into the trunk of his car and drove about 9 miles to the
[1:47:52] wooded area near the school. From there, he is speculated to
[1:47:57] have marched Hilda into the darkness where the unspeakable
[1:48:00] horrors ended up taking place. As the investigation dug into
[1:48:06] Barker's background, they found that much of his persona was a
[1:48:10] lie. He wasn't the wealthy,
[1:48:12] successful individual that he had claimed to be.
[1:48:17] In truth, Barker was a former U.S.
[1:48:19] Army officer with a checkered past and a history of delusional
[1:48:22] thinking. He had served 2 tours in Vietnam
[1:48:26] and rose to the rank of Captain before leaving the service in
[1:48:29] the 70s. Despite his decorated military
[1:48:33] past, Barker's life after the army had veered into deceit and
[1:48:37] crime. He was obsessed with spy novels
[1:48:41] and police suspected, prone to delusions, that he was some kind
[1:48:45] of secret agent on a mission. Investigators also feared that
[1:48:51] Hilda might not have been Barker's only victim.
[1:48:54] The brutality of the crime LED authorities to wonder if Barker
[1:48:58] had slain other women before, and at the time they were able
[1:49:01] to tentatively connect him to other slayings.
[1:49:05] However, in subsequent years, these cases were all resolved
[1:49:10] and he wasn't responsible for any of them, and it's unclear if
[1:49:14] Hilda was his only victim. They also discovered that he was
[1:49:20] wanted in connection with a string of bank robberies in
[1:49:22] Nevada. By 1991, nearly nine years after
[1:49:29] Hilda's slaying, authorities turned to television as a last
[1:49:32] resort to flush out their fugitive.
[1:49:35] Hilda's case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries and America's
[1:49:39] Most Wanted in 1991, putting her case in front of 10s of millions
[1:49:44] of viewers. The move paid off quickly, and a
[1:49:48] viewer in Phoenix, AZ recognized Barker, who was then living
[1:49:52] under the alias Alex Graham and working as a telemarketer.
[1:49:57] On April 25th, 1991, just one day after the Unsolved Mysteries
[1:50:03] broadcast, FBI agents swooped in and arrested Barker at his
[1:50:07] Phoenix office without incident. The man who had eluded justice
[1:50:11] for so long was finally in custody after his capture.
[1:50:18] Barker was first sent to Nevada to face charges for the bank
[1:50:21] robberies. He was convicted on those
[1:50:24] charges in late 1991 and sentenced to 20 years in federal
[1:50:29] prison. Next, he was extradited to
[1:50:33] Virginia to be held accountable for Hilda's slaying.
[1:50:37] Rather than go to trial, Barker opted to plead guilty.
[1:50:40] In May 1992, he agreed to a hefty 110 year prison sentence,
[1:50:46] with fifty of those years suspended.
[1:50:49] This was effectively a 60 year term for his horrific crimes and
[1:50:53] ensured that even at age 45, Barker would spend the rest of
[1:50:57] his life behind bars. On the morning of May 21st,
[1:51:04] 1980, a horrifying discovery shattered the calm in the small
[1:51:08] town of Ayer, Massachusetts. Inside her own home, 48 year old
[1:51:13] Katharina Wright's brow lay dead, brutally stabbed
[1:51:17] approximately 30 times and bludgeoned with a blunt object.
[1:51:22] The viciousness of the attack and the mystery of who could
[1:51:25] have done it cast a long shadow over the community.
[1:51:28] It would take nearly 45 years, a winding journey marked by
[1:51:33] injustice, perseverance and scientific breakthroughs, before
[1:51:37] the truth behind Katharina's slaying would finally come to
[1:51:41] light. Katarina was a hard working wife
[1:51:46] and mother of two who lived with her husband in a trailer home on
[1:51:49] the outskirts of Eyre. Family members described her as
[1:51:53] a loving mother and a proud grandmother.
[1:51:56] On that fateful spring morning, Katharina's husband left for
[1:52:00] work around 7:10 AM, expecting a day like any other.
[1:52:05] By 10:45 AM, Katharina's body was found inside their home, the
[1:52:10] victim of a savagely violent crime.
[1:52:15] Investigators determined that Katharina was slain in the
[1:52:18] narrow window after her husband's departure, likely
[1:52:22] closer to the earlier end of that time frame.
[1:52:25] She had suffered 30 stab wounds, five of which punctured her
[1:52:29] heart, and had also been struck repeatedly while still alive,
[1:52:34] indicating A brutal struggle. There were no obvious signs of
[1:52:38] forced entry, but the inside of the home told a story of chaos
[1:52:43] and violence. Furniture was overturned, blood
[1:52:47] stains were found throughout, and all evidence pointed towards
[1:52:51] a fierce fight. One of the weapons, a bloodied
[1:52:56] kitchen knife, was discovered tossed in a wastebasket.
[1:53:00] Investigators also noted a possible motive.
[1:53:03] Katharina's purse was missing, along with a large sum of cash
[1:53:07] she was known to keep hidden in a linen closet.
[1:53:10] It appeared that robbery might have been the primary factor in
[1:53:13] the attack, adding a layer of cold blooded calculation to the
[1:53:17] ferocity of the crime. Early on, police focused their
[1:53:23] attention on a neighbor named Kenny Waters.
[1:53:26] Kenny lived next door with his girlfriend and worked as a chef
[1:53:29] at a local diner where Katharina was a frequent customer.
[1:53:33] In fact, it was common knowledge among some diner staff and
[1:53:36] locals that Katharina kept significant cash reserves in her
[1:53:40] home since she didn't trust banks.
[1:53:43] This rumor put a target on her back and, in the eyes of
[1:53:47] investigators, made Kenny a person of interest.
[1:53:51] He was familiar with the victim's routine and the layout
[1:53:54] of her home, and he had at least indirect knowledge of her cash
[1:53:57] stash. Police brought Waters in for
[1:54:02] questioning shortly after the attack.
[1:54:04] He had a seemingly solid alibi. He claimed he'd been at work
[1:54:08] until 8:30 AM that morning, then at the local courthouse by 9:00
[1:54:12] AM for an unrelated matter. Co workers and records initially
[1:54:17] backed up his story and officers examined his clothing and body
[1:54:21] on the day of the slaying and found no cuts or blood on him.
[1:54:26] With no physical evidence tying him to the scene, Waters was
[1:54:30] released and the investigation continued without an immediate
[1:54:34] arrest. This wouldn't be the last time
[1:54:37] Kenny would be hearing from the cops.
[1:54:41] For two years, Katharina's slaying went unsolved.
[1:54:45] Then in October 1982, a dramatic twist changed everything.
[1:54:51] A man named Robert Osborne, by then the boyfriend of Kenny's
[1:54:55] ex-girlfriend Brenda, came forward to police.
[1:54:59] He claimed he had information on the attack and implied that
[1:55:02] Kenny was the culprit. By many accounts, Osborne was
[1:55:06] motivated by the reward money associated with the case, though
[1:55:10] this is simply an allegation and nothing was ever proven.
[1:55:17] Brenda Marsh and another former girlfriend, Rosanna Perry, were
[1:55:21] interrogated for hours about their knowledge of the slaying.
[1:55:25] Both initially insisted that Kenny was a good guy who
[1:55:27] wouldn't do anything of the sort.
[1:55:30] However, investigators leaned on them heavily and implied that
[1:55:34] the two women may have actually been involved before, during, or
[1:55:38] after the event. Eventually, under this
[1:55:43] significant pressure, both women changed their stories and told
[1:55:47] investigators what they wanted to hear.
[1:55:50] Brenda said Kenny came home on the morning of May 21st, 1980
[1:55:55] with a long scratch on his face. Rosanna claimed Kenny had made
[1:55:59] remarks about stabbing a woman and stealing her money.
[1:56:03] These statements were the breakthrough authorities had
[1:56:05] been waiting for, or so they thought.
[1:56:11] Fingerprints at the crime scene did not match Waters, but
[1:56:15] despite this, prosecutors now felt they had enough to charge
[1:56:18] Kenny. He was arrested in 1982, and
[1:56:22] after a trial that relied heavily on those shaky witness
[1:56:25] testimonies, Waters was convicted of Katharina's slaying
[1:56:29] in May 1983. Kenny Waters vehemently
[1:56:33] maintained his innocence and one person above all believed him,
[1:56:38] his sister, Betty Ann Waters. In an extraordinary act of
[1:56:43] extreme devotion or pure insanity, Betty Ann, a working
[1:56:48] mom who hadn't completed high school, decided to go ham.
[1:56:52] She put herself through college and then law school solely to
[1:56:55] free her brother. And just to give you some
[1:56:58] context here, this is 7 years combined of study all to write
[1:57:02] this injustice. Over the next 18 years, she
[1:57:08] doggedly pursued justice, working with the Innocence
[1:57:11] Project to re examine the evidence.
[1:57:14] By the late 1990s, DNA testing technology had advanced
[1:57:18] dramatically from what was available.
[1:57:20] In 1980, Betty Ann managed to locate crucial evidence from the
[1:57:26] crime scene that had been preserved, the blood stains
[1:57:29] collected from Katharina's home. In 2000.
[1:57:33] Those samples were tested for DNA and the results were
[1:57:36] unequivocal. The blood was not Kenny's.
[1:57:40] Nearly two decades after his conviction, Kenny Waters was
[1:57:44] officially exonerated and his 1983 conviction was vacated.
[1:57:49] In March 2001, he walked out of prison after spending 18 years
[1:57:54] locked up for a crime he did not commit.
[1:57:59] Tragically, though, there was no happily ever after for Kenny.
[1:58:02] Just six months after his release from prison, he died in
[1:58:06] an accident and never got to see the true resolution to this
[1:58:09] case. After 2001, the slaying of
[1:58:14] Katharina Wright's brow became a cold case, but it was never
[1:58:18] forgotten and a new generation of investigators wanted to right
[1:58:22] the wrongs of this case. That said, for 20 years,
[1:58:27] basically nothing happened on the case until the introduction
[1:58:31] of a little technology called forensic genealogy.
[1:58:37] Detectives partnered with forensic specialists from
[1:58:40] Paraben Nano Labs, a company renowned for genetic genealogy
[1:58:44] work. By reconstructing family trees
[1:58:47] and zeroing in on the overlaps, they identified 2 possible
[1:58:51] suspects, brothers from Massachusetts, both of whom had
[1:58:55] already died. To differentiate between the
[1:58:58] two, police located living family members, a relative of
[1:59:03] each brother, and obtained voluntary DNA samples from them.
[1:59:08] The result was definitive, and the evidence showed it was an
[1:59:11] overwhelming statistical match to the older brother, Joseph Leo
[1:59:15] Boudreaux. In June 2025, the District
[1:59:21] Attorney publicly announced that Boudreaux had been identified
[1:59:24] through DNA as the person responsible for Katharina's
[1:59:27] slaying. Unfortunately, Boudreaux would
[1:59:31] never face trial as he had died in 2004 at age 61, but after
[1:59:37] nearly half a century, the case was officially considered solved
[1:59:41] based upon the blood found in the household.
[1:59:46] Boudreaux was a long time Massachusetts resident who was
[1:59:49] born in 1943. In the 1970s, Boudreaux worked
[1:59:55] in the Framingham area and had a history of violence.
[1:59:58] He was convicted of armed robbery in 1975.
[2:00:02] In 1980, he was 37 years old and had no known personal connection
[2:00:08] to her. Not long after Katerina's
[2:00:11] slaying, Boudreaux moved N to Maine in 1987, where he lived
[2:00:15] out the rest of his life. Despite extensive queries,
[2:00:21] investigators have found no link between Boudreaux and either
[2:00:24] Waters or Osborne. Some have speculated that
[2:00:29] Boudreau may have been a patron of the diner and overheard idle
[2:00:33] chatter about Katharina's habit of storing money at her house.
[2:00:37] Others have speculated that Katarina may have simply
[2:00:40] believed this was what Boudreaux came for and revealed the money
[2:00:44] to him. Under this theory, she was slain
[2:00:47] afterwards to cover up the robbery.
[2:00:52] Whatever the case, the full truth will never be known and
[2:00:55] certain elements of this case will continue to remain an
[2:00:58] unsolved mystery. On a chilly evening in March
[2:01:04] 1974, a quiet Pittsburgh suburb was shaken by a terrible
[2:01:09] discovery. Police found the lifeless body
[2:01:12] of 23 year old Annette Tokars lying in a shallow Creek in
[2:01:16] Hopewell Township. The young woman had been
[2:01:19] forcefully drowned, a brutal end that sent shock waves through
[2:01:23] the community. For Tokarz's family, it was the
[2:01:27] beginning of a nightmare that police now officially claim has
[2:01:31] been solved. And as you may have guessed from
[2:01:34] my phrasing, I'm not entirely convinced.
[2:01:38] But we'll get to that. The tragedy unfolded on March
[2:01:43] 6th, 1974. That night, Annette crossed
[2:01:48] paths with fate in the most devastating way.
[2:01:52] She had been out that evening, and according to one
[2:01:54] acquaintance, she was last seen leaving a local bar with an
[2:01:58] unidentified man. When she didn't return home,
[2:02:03] concern grew quickly. The next morning, police
[2:02:07] officers made a grim discovery in Hopewell Community Park.
[2:02:11] They found Annette's body face down in a shallow Creek within
[2:02:14] the park grounds. Investigators determined that
[2:02:19] she had been forcibly held underwater until she drowned.
[2:02:23] The serene park, normally a spot for picnics and neighborhood
[2:02:27] gatherings, was now a chilling crime scene cordoned off by
[2:02:31] yellow tape. Unfortunately, Annette's family
[2:02:36] learned of her death in the most heartbreaking and impersonal way
[2:02:40] from a television news report. Her mother was watching the
[2:02:44] nightly news when the announcer spoke of an unidentified young
[2:02:47] woman found dead in Hopewell Township.
[2:02:51] Realizing with horror that it might be her missing daughter,
[2:02:55] Annette's mother was soon confronted with the unthinkable
[2:02:58] confirmation. The family's worst fears were
[2:03:01] realized at the morgue when they identified the Jane Doe as
[2:03:05] Annette. In the immediate aftermath of
[2:03:09] the slaying, local law enforcement sprang into action,
[2:03:14] determined to find whoever was responsible.
[2:03:17] Detectives interviewed friends, acquaintances and witnesses who
[2:03:21] had seen Annette in her final hours.
[2:03:24] Early on, one name caught their attention.
[2:03:28] Cornelius McCoy McCoy was a man who knew Annette and had
[2:03:33] reportedly seen her on the night of March 5th, 1974, just hours
[2:03:38] before her body was found. He told police that he last saw
[2:03:42] Annette leaving a bar with another man, which immediately
[2:03:46] made McCoy both a key witness and a potential suspect.
[2:03:50] In fact, for a time, investigators focused on McCoy
[2:03:54] as the prime suspect. Despite their suspicions, police
[2:04:00] in 1974 struggled to build a case against McCoy or anyone
[2:04:04] else. The forensic science of the era
[2:04:07] was primitive by today's standards.
[2:04:10] Investigators had to rely on old fashioned detective work,
[2:04:14] interviews, alibis and circumstantial clues.
[2:04:19] McCoy claimed he was innocent, and indeed, he had told police
[2:04:23] that Annette left with another man, hinting that someone else
[2:04:27] might be responsible. Detectives followed other leads,
[2:04:32] too. They took note of Annette's on
[2:04:35] and off boyfriend, a man named Wilkie Sims, who was interviewed
[2:04:39] at the time. Sims told police he hadn't seen
[2:04:42] Annette in two months and that he had been out of town in West
[2:04:46] Virginia when she was slain. Notably, it appears that this
[2:04:50] alibi wasn't meaningfully checked out at the time, which
[2:04:53] you're going to want to keep in mind for later.
[2:04:58] With no physical evidence to tie anyone to the crime and
[2:05:01] conflicting accounts of Annette's last movements, the
[2:05:04] case hit a wall. The police lacked the proof
[2:05:08] needed to charge McCoy, Sims, or anyone else, and as the months
[2:05:12] went by, the trail grew colder. As 1974 turned into 1975 and
[2:05:20] then into the late 1970s, Annette Tokarz's case languished
[2:05:25] without resolution. The community of Hopewell
[2:05:28] Township was unnerved that the perpetrator hadn't been brought
[2:05:31] to justice, but leads were virtually non existent.
[2:05:36] Annette's family continued to grieve and wonder, keeping her
[2:05:40] memory alive even as the investigation stalled and the
[2:05:44] case officially went cold. The cops continued to believe
[2:05:49] that Cornelius was likely, though not certainly
[2:05:52] responsible, given that he was the last person who had seen
[2:05:55] her. Cornelius passed away around
[2:05:58] 2007, taking any secrets he had with him to the grave.
[2:06:05] With McCoy dead and no new information, it seemed the truth
[2:06:09] of what happened that night in 1974 might never be known.
[2:06:13] But Annette's case was never completely forgotten.
[2:06:17] Her sisters and other loved ones carried the hope that someday
[2:06:20] they might get answers. They held on to the idea that
[2:06:24] Annette's life mattered and that someone out there knew what
[2:06:28] happened. Little did they know it would
[2:06:32] take over 5 decades and a new generation of detective work
[2:06:36] before that hope was apparently realized.
[2:06:39] The stage was set for what has been claimed to be an
[2:06:42] extraordinary breakthrough. However, it would require
[2:06:46] advancements in science and the sheer persistence of a detective
[2:06:50] who refused to let the case stay cold.
[2:06:55] In 2017, a seasoned investigator named Patrick Young came across
[2:07:00] Annette Tokarz's case file while working at the Beaver County
[2:07:03] Detective Bureau. Young, who had been in law
[2:07:07] enforcement since the mid 1990s, had a passion for cold cases and
[2:07:12] a knack for uncovering long buried clues.
[2:07:15] When he learned about Annette's unsolved slaying, he was
[2:07:19] intrigued and moved. Here was a 23 year old woman
[2:07:22] whose life had been brutally cut short and for over 40 years no
[2:07:27] one had answered for the crime. Young made a decision that would
[2:07:31] change everything. He would dedicate himself to
[2:07:34] finding out who ended the life of Annette.
[2:07:39] Chief Detective Young carefully reviewed the old case notes,
[2:07:42] photographs and reports. He noted the names of the people
[2:07:46] involved, including Cornelius McCoy and Walton Sims, and the
[2:07:51] dead ends that earlier detectives had faced.
[2:07:54] One thing in the file stood out to him, a leopard print coat
[2:07:58] that Annette had been wearing on the night of her death.
[2:08:02] That coat had been collected as evidence back in 1974.
[2:08:06] Thanks to careful preservation, it remained intact in the police
[2:08:10] archives. Young wondered if modern
[2:08:13] forensic technology could reveal something that 1970s science
[2:08:17] could not. The original investigators had
[2:08:21] no way to test the coat for DNA. But now, decades later, that was
[2:08:26] about to change. Detective Young sent Annette's
[2:08:31] clothing and other preserved evidence for advanced forensic
[2:08:34] testing. In the lining of that leopard
[2:08:37] print coat, analysts discovered a stain that yielded a small
[2:08:41] quantity of DNA. It was a stunning find.
[2:08:45] And if the Authority's theory is accepted as correct, it's
[2:08:49] essentially A genetic fingerprint left behind by the
[2:08:52] perpetrator. Given the nature of the stain,
[2:08:57] investigators believed it likely came from the perpetrator during
[2:09:00] a violent encounter. This was the first major piece
[2:09:04] of physical evidence in the case.
[2:09:07] However, there was a catch. When the forensic team tried to
[2:09:11] analyze the DNA for identification, they ran into
[2:09:14] limitations. They couldn't extract a full DNA
[2:09:17] profile and thus weren't able to use the CODIS database to search
[2:09:21] for matches. Instead of being discouraged,
[2:09:26] Young took a more manual approach.
[2:09:29] His first thought was to re examine the prime suspect from
[2:09:32] decades earlier. By 2017, McCoy was deceased, but
[2:09:37] Detective Young located some of Mccoy's surviving relatives and
[2:09:41] asked for DNA cheek swabs. If McCoy had been the perp, his
[2:09:46] family members would share some genetic markers with the DNA
[2:09:49] from the crime scene. Mccoy's family members were
[2:09:53] eager to prove his innocence and the results were conclusive.
[2:09:57] There was no match whatsoever. The unknown DNA didn't appear to
[2:10:01] come from McCoy, effectively ruling out the man who had once
[2:10:05] been the prime suspect. By the early twenty 20s,
[2:10:11] investigative genetic genealogy had emerged as a powerful tool
[2:10:15] for solving cold cases. Detective Young decided it was
[2:10:19] time to try what was then still an unconventional approach on
[2:10:23] Annette's case. This genealogical research LED
[2:10:26] Detective Young to several individuals who turned out to be
[2:10:30] relatives of the person who left DNA on Annette's coat.
[2:10:35] Using those genetic leads, Young built out family trees and
[2:10:39] zeroed in on a particular family name that kept appearing Sims.
[2:10:44] This was a familiar name from the original case file.
[2:10:48] In fact, Wilkie Sims, Annette's ex-boyfriend, had been mentioned
[2:10:52] in the 1974 investigation notes. Detective Young now had a strong
[2:10:59] circumstantial case pointing to Sims.
[2:11:02] However, solid proof was needed to conclusively tie the DNA to
[2:11:06] him. There was an immediate
[2:11:09] complication. Sims couldn't be interrogated or
[2:11:12] asked for adna sample because he had died in 2015.
[2:11:17] But even death wouldn't let him escape scrutiny.
[2:11:20] Young found that Sims had children, and one of them could
[2:11:23] potentially provide the key to confirm his guilt.
[2:11:27] In 2023, armed with a court order, the detective obtained
[2:11:31] adna sample from one of Walton Sims's sons.
[2:11:35] Young sent the two samples, one from the crime scene and one
[2:11:39] from the relative, to a laboratory, for analysis.
[2:11:43] The waiting period was tense, but the results were definitive.
[2:11:47] Wilkie Sims had left the genetic material there.
[2:11:51] Beaver County authorities publicly named Walton Sims, the
[2:11:55] former boyfriend who had long been in the case files Shadows,
[2:11:59] as the perpetrator. OK, so if you're a regular
[2:12:04] viewer of any of my channels, I suspect you may already have
[2:12:07] guessed that I was going to add some additional commentary at
[2:12:10] the end of this segment. Personally, I have a lot of
[2:12:13] problems accepting that Wilkie Sims did it, and I suspect this
[2:12:17] wouldn't have been said officially if the man was still
[2:12:20] alive at the time. Although investigators link the
[2:12:26] coat DNA to The Sims family, Wilkie Sims was a documented
[2:12:30] ex-boyfriend of Annette's and everyone accepts this to be
[2:12:33] fact. This offers a straightforward
[2:12:36] and potentially innocent explanation for his genetic
[2:12:39] material to appear on her clothing.
[2:12:42] Normal consensual contact could easily explain how this sort of
[2:12:46] biological material ended up on the coat.
[2:12:51] Further, there's no evidence to indicate that this biological
[2:12:55] material actually came from the night of the attack.
[2:12:58] Wilkie Sims claimed that he was in West Virginia at the time,
[2:13:02] and if the biological evidence was found fresh with evidence of
[2:13:06] an indecent assault, this would be entirely different.
[2:13:11] In that case, I think the evidence would be sufficient to
[2:13:14] say that he was likely the responsible party, but that's
[2:13:18] not the evidence as it's presented to us.
[2:13:23] Crucially, there's nothing whatsoever in the way of
[2:13:25] independent corroboration to make this theory work.
[2:13:29] For example, there's no reliable eyewitness placing Sims with
[2:13:33] Annette that night. Further, yet, there are no other
[2:13:36] forensic links tying him to the scene whatsoever.
[2:13:40] Given those gaps, a jury could reasonably accept innocent
[2:13:44] explanations for the DNA and conclude the evidence doesn't
[2:13:48] eliminate reasonable doubt. However, here, of course, there
[2:13:52] never will be a jury and the evidence will never be subjected
[2:13:56] to the rigors of a trial based on the evidence alone.
[2:14:00] I just simply don't see that there's enough here to stop
[2:14:03] investigating this case. It's very possible that the true
[2:14:08] monster that attacked Annette that night can now rest easily
[2:14:11] knowing the case is fully closed.
[2:14:16] Anyway, this isn't the first time I've seen this sort of weak
[2:14:19] logic applied to cold cases where the supposed perpetrator
[2:14:22] is already deceased. It offers a convenient excuse to
[2:14:26] close out a cold case while placing the blame on someone who
[2:14:29] can no longer say anything to counteract what the authorities
[2:14:33] say. It may give some comfort to the
[2:14:36] families involved, but upon closer examination in a case
[2:14:40] like this, it shouldn't since there would have never been
[2:14:43] enough evidence to convict Sims. In the early 1980s, Roger
[2:14:51] Wheeler spent millions buying a business that he hoped would be
[2:14:54] the basis for his sports empire. What he didn't know is that this
[2:14:58] purchase meant that he had entered into a fatal
[2:15:01] entanglement with the Boston mob and Whitey Bulger, one of the
[2:15:04] most feared gangsters in American history.
[2:15:09] Wheeler was a self-made multimillionaire who came from
[2:15:12] humble beginnings, who had established himself as a well
[2:15:15] known figure in Tulsa, OK. By 1981, the 55 year old father
[2:15:21] of five had built a business empire, notably as the chairman
[2:15:25] of Telex, a communications company that employed thousands
[2:15:29] in the Tulsa area. Wheeler had a reputation as a
[2:15:32] shrewd, confident businessman who thrived on competition and
[2:15:36] always seemed to come out on top.
[2:15:39] Beyond Telex, he had diversified his ventures and a few years
[2:15:43] earlier he made a fateful decision.
[2:15:46] He purchased World High Lye, a Florida based gaming and sports
[2:15:50] entertainment company. At first glance, World High Lye
[2:15:57] might have seemed like an exciting new opportunity.
[2:16:00] High Lye is a fast-paced sport that was popular in parts of
[2:16:04] Florida and New England, drawing crowds who enjoyed betting on
[2:16:07] the games. As the new owner and president,
[2:16:11] Wheeler aimed to legitimize and grow the business and attract
[2:16:15] mainstream audiences to the game.
[2:16:17] However, what he didn't know was that the organization he
[2:16:21] purchased was harboring an extremely dark secret behind the
[2:16:26] scenes. An organized crime group from
[2:16:28] Boston, the Winter Hill Gang, led by the notorious James
[2:16:32] Whitey Bulger, had infiltrated the company.
[2:16:36] They were running a lucrative skimming scheme, siphoning off
[2:16:39] cash from the operations proceeds, particularly from
[2:16:43] parking lot revenues and concessions.
[2:16:46] The scheme was made possible by an inside man, H Paul Rico, a
[2:16:51] former FBI agent who had retired and taken a job as head of
[2:16:55] security for the organization. As a former FBI man, Roger
[2:17:00] Wheeler initially trusted Rico implicitly in what would turn
[2:17:04] out to be a grave mistake right from the start.
[2:17:07] Rico had once cultivated Bulger and other mobsters as informants
[2:17:11] in Boston, and now he was helping them line their pockets
[2:17:15] by stealing from Wheeler's new venture.
[2:17:20] Roger Wheeler wasn't someone to let money slip away unnoticed,
[2:17:24] and within a couple of years of buying World High Lie, he grew
[2:17:28] suspicious. He noticed irregularities in the
[2:17:31] financial records, profits that didn't add up, and cash that
[2:17:35] vanished before it could be reported.
[2:17:39] Wheeler voiced concerns that something wasn't right at the
[2:17:41] company, and he even confided to family that he was considering
[2:17:45] selling the business. Sensing deeper problems, in
[2:17:49] early 1981 he fired several key employees at the company's
[2:17:54] Connecticut and Florida operations, including financial
[2:17:57] officers. Suspecting them of involvement
[2:18:00] in an embezzlement ring. He sent his own son on a
[2:18:04] discreet trip to Florida to inspect the books and the
[2:18:07] computer systems for evidence of theft.
[2:18:11] Wheeler's relentless probing into the company's affairs
[2:18:14] signaled to Rico that the scheme was in jeopardy.
[2:18:18] The Winter Hill Gang ended up catching wind of this and
[2:18:22] decided to eliminate the problem at its source.
[2:18:27] On May 27th, 1981, a sunny Wednesday afternoon in Tulsa,
[2:18:32] Rodger stuck to his routine. Each week he enjoyed a round of
[2:18:37] golf at the exclusive Southern Hills Country Club, where he was
[2:18:40] a prominent member. That day, Wheeler played golf
[2:18:44] with friends, had his usual drink at the clubhouse, and then
[2:18:48] headed to the parking lot to leave.
[2:18:51] He walked to his Cadillac, likely tired from the game, but
[2:18:55] relaxed in the familiar comfort of his club.
[2:18:59] As he sat in the driver's seat, something unexpected and
[2:19:02] horrifying happened. A man approached the car and,
[2:19:06] without any warning or chance for Wheeler to react, raised a
[2:19:10] weapon and fired a single blast at point blank range through the
[2:19:13] window. The bullet struck Roger Wheeler
[2:19:16] between the eyes. Club patrons nearby heard a loud
[2:19:20] crack echo across the lot, but no one immediately investigated
[2:19:24] what was going on. By the time anyone realized what
[2:19:29] happened, the shooter had calmly walked away.
[2:19:33] Within minutes, club staff and friends rushed to Wheeler's
[2:19:36] Cadillac. They found him slumped in the
[2:19:39] front seat, unresponsive. Paramedics and police were
[2:19:42] called, but there was little anyone could do Rodger Wheeler
[2:19:46] died at the scene, the victim of a professional job.
[2:19:52] Tulsa police launched an investigation immediately, but
[2:19:56] they faced A perplexing mystery. Who would want Rodger Wheeler
[2:20:00] dead and why? Initially, detectives looked for
[2:20:04] local enemies or business disputes that might have led to
[2:20:07] this brutal act. Wheeler was powerful and
[2:20:10] straightforward. Perhaps someone held a grudge
[2:20:13] from a business deal gone bad. Yet from the start, signs
[2:20:18] pointed away from the typical motives.
[2:20:21] This was a meticulous, calculated slaying by an unknown
[2:20:24] assailant who appeared to vanish without a trace.
[2:20:28] One of the Tulsa detectives assigned to the case quickly
[2:20:31] sensed this wasn't a simple local crime.
[2:20:34] The method? A single shot between the eyes
[2:20:37] and the lack of obvious personal motive suggested a pro had been
[2:20:41] retained. There were composite sketches
[2:20:45] made from witness descriptions of 2 middle-aged men, one
[2:20:48] believed to be the shooter, the other the driver, but these
[2:20:52] yielded no immediate matches. The two men wore the same
[2:20:56] glasses, the same style of beards, and had their hair done
[2:21:01] in a similar way, suggesting that they may have been members
[2:21:04] of an organized crime syndicate. Detectives learned from
[2:21:10] Wheeler's family and colleagues that he had been worried about
[2:21:13] the Florida operation of his high live business.
[2:21:17] When they dug into this angle, they uncovered evidence of
[2:21:20] skimming at the company's Connecticut venue.
[2:21:23] The fraudsters had skimmed money from parking and concessions in
[2:21:27] a way that pointed to a sophisticated organized fraud in
[2:21:31] the early 1980's. The notion that the Boston mob
[2:21:34] could reach into the heart of Oklahoma seemed far fetched to
[2:21:38] some. Despite these suspicions, the
[2:21:41] case went cold and a cloud of fear and silence hungover anyone
[2:21:45] with knowledge. Potential informants were
[2:21:49] terrified and for good reason. In the months following
[2:21:53] Wheeler's death, other gangland executions hinted at a wider
[2:21:57] issue in the high lie world. One was Brian Halloran, a low
[2:22:04] level Boston criminal who reportedly approached the FBI
[2:22:07] claiming he had information on Wheeler's slaying and that a man
[2:22:11] named John Callahan was involved.
[2:22:14] Halloran was executed on a South Boston waterfront in May 1982,
[2:22:19] alongside an innocent friend who just happened to give him a ride
[2:22:23] that night. The other was John Callahan
[2:22:26] himself, the former president of World High Lie, who had sold the
[2:22:30] business to Roger Wheeler. In August 1982, Callahan's body
[2:22:35] was found stuffed in the trunk of his Cadillac in a Miami
[2:22:39] airport parking garage. It appeared that anyone who knew
[2:22:43] too much about the skimming operation was being
[2:22:45] systematically eliminated, but unsurprisingly, no one seemed
[2:22:51] willing to talk about it anymore.
[2:22:56] As the 1980s progressed, the Roger Wheeler case remained
[2:22:59] unsolved, frustrating his family and the Tulsa police.
[2:23:04] Eventually, Tulsa detectives began to suspect that the very
[2:23:09] people who should have been their allies were hindering the
[2:23:12] investigation. The FBI had jurisdiction over
[2:23:16] Interstate crime and organized crime, and given the emerging
[2:23:20] Boston mob connection, one would expect federal agents to be
[2:23:24] deeply involved in helping Tulsa police.
[2:23:27] However, they were largely kept in the dark about the
[2:23:30] investigation. Unbeknownst to Tulsa detectives
[2:23:33] at the time, this reluctance had a sinister explanation.
[2:23:38] Agents in the FB is Boston office were themselves
[2:23:41] compromised. It later emerged that certain
[2:23:44] Boston FBI agents had extraordinarily close
[2:23:47] relationships with Whitey Bulger.
[2:23:50] Bulger, incredibly, had been acting as an FBI informant since
[2:23:55] the 1970s, feeding agents information on rival gangs while
[2:24:00] he was effectively given license to commit crimes.
[2:24:06] Throughout the investigation, one name kept surfacing, H Paul
[2:24:10] Rico, the former FBI agent turned world high lie security
[2:24:15] chief. By 1982, Tulsa detective
[2:24:19] suspected that Rico might have played a role in Wheeler's
[2:24:22] demise and that the FBI may be compromised.
[2:24:26] That said, at the time, more level headed investigators in
[2:24:30] Tulsa dismissed this as a virtual impossibility.
[2:24:36] As time went on though, those suspicions were bolstered as the
[2:24:40] truth about the Winter Hill gangs infiltration of the FBI
[2:24:44] trickled out. In the late 1990s, John
[2:24:48] Connolly, a Boston FBI agent who was a handler for Bulger, was
[2:24:53] arrested and later convicted of multiple charges related to his
[2:24:57] corruption and protection of Bulger.
[2:25:01] Investigations by the Justice Department exposed that Bulger
[2:25:04] had been shielded for years. This shift finally gave the
[2:25:08] Rodger Wheeler case new momentum after almost 2 decades.
[2:25:12] What had once been dismissed as a crazy theory that Boston
[2:25:16] mobsters ordered a hit done in Tulsa and that FBI insiders
[2:25:20] might have been complicit was proving to be reality.
[2:25:24] And with Bulger on the run since 1995 to avoid an indictment,
[2:25:28] some of his former cronies began to talk, hoping to avoid life or
[2:25:34] the chair. The breakthrough in the Wheeler
[2:25:39] case came as the new Millennium dawned.
[2:25:42] In the late 1990s and 2000, federal prosecutors and
[2:25:46] investigators managed to flip some key Winter Hill Gang
[2:25:49] members. One of them was Johnny
[2:25:52] Mardarano, A feared enforcer who had been part of Bulger's inner
[2:25:56] circle. Martorano had been implicated in
[2:25:59] a string of gangland slayings. Facing the possibility of the
[2:26:03] chair or life behind bars, he agreed to cooperate.
[2:26:08] In a plea deal, Martorano admitted to carrying out over 20
[2:26:12] slayings at the behest of the crew, and one of those was Roger
[2:26:15] Wheeler's. He revealed the chain of events
[2:26:18] behind it all. Whitey Bulger and his closest
[2:26:21] allies were alarmed that Wheeler's investigation was
[2:26:24] getting too close to their skimming operation and decided
[2:26:28] that Wheeler had to be eliminated.
[2:26:31] Mardarano flew to Oklahoma under an alias, and it was Rico who
[2:26:35] helped by providing inside information of the details of
[2:26:39] Wheeler's habits and schedule. On that fateful day at Southern
[2:26:43] Hills, Mardarano lay in wait and executed the plan.
[2:26:48] He then slipped away, returned the rental car and flew out,
[2:26:52] leaving Tulsa authorities baffled.
[2:26:58] In March 2001, nearly 20 years after the slaying, a Tulsa grand
[2:27:03] jury finally indicted all those responsible for the slaying of
[2:27:06] Rodger Wheeler. By that time, two other men
[2:27:10] allegedly central to the crime were already dead.
[2:27:14] By way of refresher, Brian Halloran, the low level Boston
[2:27:19] career criminal, had been snuffed out in 1982 on that
[2:27:23] South Boston shoreline, while John Callahan, the former World
[2:27:28] High Lie president, was stuffed into a trunk in Miami.
[2:27:34] Bulger, the mastermind of the operation, was still a fugitive
[2:27:38] when the indictments came down, and he had slipped away in 1995
[2:27:43] after a tip off about pending charges.
[2:27:47] Another stunning development was the indictment of former agent
[2:27:50] Paul Rico. In 2003, at age 78, Rico was
[2:27:55] arrested and charged with aiding in the slaying of Roger Wheeler.
[2:28:00] Rico maintained his innocence and he would never face trial.
[2:28:04] He died of natural causes in 2004 while in custody awaiting
[2:28:08] proceedings. Notably, Martorano, with 20
[2:28:13] bodies to his name, including Roger Wheeler's, was given only
[2:28:17] a 15 year sentence as part of his plea bargain.
[2:28:22] In June 2011, thirty years after Rodger Wheeler was slain in that
[2:28:27] Tulsa parking lot, news broke that Whitey Bulger had been
[2:28:31] captured. He was arrested in Santa Monica,
[2:28:34] CA where he had been living and hiding with his long time
[2:28:38] girlfriend. Bulger's arrest made headlines
[2:28:41] worldwide. After years of being one of the
[2:28:44] most high profile wanted people in the country, federal
[2:28:48] authorities decided to try all his cases together.
[2:28:51] As is usual in such complex inter jurisdictional matters.
[2:28:56] In 2013, Whitey Bulger went on trial for the slaying of Roger
[2:29:01] Wheeler amongst numerous others. The jury found he had
[2:29:05] participated in Wheeler's slaying and he was sentenced to
[2:29:08] two life terms plus five years, ensuring the 83 year old mobster
[2:29:13] would die in prison. Bulger would go on to meet a
[2:29:17] violent and horrific end behind bars in 2018 at the hands of his
[2:29:21] fellow inmates, his life of crime finally having caught up
[2:29:25] to him in his old age.

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