# 3 Solved Cold Cases You've Gotta Know

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 20 Oct 2025, 23 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO6674039598.mp3

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

## Transcript

[0:00] Late on February 20th, 2010, a frigid winter night in North
[0:04] Carolina, 16 year old Michael Scott Rogers made a frantic
[0:08] phone call to his mother. He was lost, hurt, and
[0:12] terrified, sobbing that he'd been beaten and didn't know
[0:16] where he was. He pleaded for help, crying that
[0:20] they might end his life if he wasn't found soon.
[0:24] Unlike many cases with calls like this, this wasn't a mental
[0:28] breakdown or the result of substance abuse.
[0:32] Michael's words reflected reality completely.
[0:35] His panicked mother, Barbara Leonard, called 911 and raced
[0:40] through the dark, winding rural roads to find him.
[0:43] For Barbara, it was a living nightmare.
[0:46] By the next day, Michael's body would be discovered in a muddy
[0:50] field, shirtless and lifeless, after a night of teenage
[0:54] partying ended in tragedy. This is the story of that tragic
[0:59] February 2010 night and how a supposedly fun gathering went
[1:04] deadly and how investigators uncovered the truth to bring
[1:08] justice for Michael. On February 20th, 2010, Michael,
[1:14] a high school sophomore who had turned 16 just three months
[1:17] earlier, left his home in Brevard, NC.
[1:21] He was going to attend a house party in the nearby community of
[1:24] Horseshoe, as teenagers often do.
[1:27] The host was 19 year old Scott Fischer, who invited friends
[1:31] over while his parents were out of town.
[1:34] According to court records, alcohol flowed freely and some
[1:38] guests used a variety of drugs, creating a wild atmosphere.
[1:43] Michael, just 16 and not used to such chaos, reportedly became
[1:48] belligerent after drinking. Tensions quickly escalated.
[1:53] Importantly, the source on Michael acting belligerently
[1:57] comes from people who were involved in this horrific
[1:59] incident to 1 extent or another, so take that with a grain of
[2:03] salt. He got into a scuffle with 20
[2:06] year old Richard Thomas, leaving Michael injured on the floor.
[2:11] Michael got up, dusted himself off, and prepared to leave.
[2:16] This isn't exactly an uncommon occurrence for a teenager who is
[2:20] unfamiliar with drinking, and of course, that should have been
[2:23] the end of it. But then Scott Fischer, worried
[2:27] that Michael would have called the cops after he left, decided
[2:30] to do something that would fully change the course of the night.
[2:35] Scott, who was on probation and panicking at the thought of
[2:38] police, punched the already injured Michael to the floor and
[2:41] hit him several more times while he was down.
[2:44] Personally, I don't see how this was supposed to reduce the risk
[2:48] of police involvement in any way whatsoever, which leads me to
[2:52] question the entire narrative. What started as a night of fun
[2:56] had exploded into violence, leaving Michael badly injured
[3:00] and bleeding. Many partygoers fled as soon as
[3:03] they realized the police might be coming, leaving only a few
[3:06] people with Michael. Despite his injuries, Michael
[3:11] managed to pull out his cell phone around 11 and call home
[3:14] for help. When his mother answered, she
[3:16] heard her son slurring and begging to be picked up.
[3:20] Minutes later, he called back in tears, saying he was hurt,
[3:24] bleeding and lost, and that he feared the people who beat him
[3:28] might return to finish the job. An arrangement was made for
[3:33] Michael to be picked up at a nearby church on King Rd.
[3:37] Michael's family rushed toward that location, calling 911 on
[3:41] the way. Meanwhile, a concerned neighbor,
[3:45] who happened to be Scott's great uncle Keith, arrived around
[3:48] 11:30 PM to break up the remainder of the party.
[3:52] After hearing the commotion, he found Michael injured and semi
[3:57] conscious on the floor and insisted the others not leave
[4:00] him behind. So Scott and a few others
[4:03] carried Michael outside and loaded him into a silver
[4:06] Volkswagen Passat to drive him to the church meeting point.
[4:11] However, as they drove, Michael suddenly panicked and started
[4:15] swinging at the driver and passengers in a confused rage.
[4:19] Again, I'll emphasize that this is according to court records,
[4:22] and again I'll say that this is based upon the testimony of the
[4:26] people in the vehicle. Instead of calming him, Scott
[4:31] decided to change plans. He directed the driver to a
[4:34] secluded boat ramp by the French Broad River, hoping to avoid the
[4:38] cops on the main Rd. there. They dragged Michael out of the
[4:43] car and left him on the ground without aid.
[4:46] Michael had somehow lost his shirt during the chaos, so he
[4:49] was now out in the 20° cold without any proper protection.
[4:54] And keep this in mind because it's going to matter.
[4:59] Scott and his companions then speed off, abandoning the 16
[5:03] year old alone in the dark. Michael managed one final call
[5:07] to his mother from that remote spot, but he couldn't say
[5:10] exactly where he was. It was too late, and by the time
[5:15] Barbara and the deputies reached the church, Michael was nowhere
[5:19] to be found. They searched the area in vain
[5:22] as Michael disappeared into the freezing night.
[5:27] Authorities soon learned about the party and suspected foul
[5:29] play. At the Fisher House, officers
[5:33] found blood droplets in a bloody towel, confirming Michael had
[5:36] been injured there. Scott's father, Sean Fisher, was
[5:40] contacted by phone and promised to find out from his son what
[5:44] happened. When Sean reached Scott, the
[5:47] young man first claimed he had left Michael at the end of the
[5:50] driveway on King Rd. Police found nothing there and
[5:53] pressed him for more. Scott then suggested Michael
[5:57] might be with a girl named Ashley at an apartment in
[5:59] Brevard. It sounded unlikely, but it was
[6:03] the only lead and what happened next is very bizarre, but it's
[6:07] confirmed by court records. Around 3:00 that morning,
[6:12] officers went to Ashley's apartment and found Scott,
[6:15] Richard Thomas, and others hiding out there.
[6:19] It's unclear why Scott suggested that Michael may be with Ashley,
[6:23] given that's where he was hanging out.
[6:26] Outside was Ashley's silver Passat, stained with blood and
[6:30] missing a taillight. Confronted with this evidence,
[6:34] Scott and Richard admitted they had driven Michael from the
[6:37] party and left him near a bridge by the river after he became
[6:42] aggressive. They claimed Michael walked off
[6:45] into the darkness and they hadn't seen him since.
[6:49] With this information, police focused their search on the
[6:52] remote area by the French Broad River.
[6:55] They discovered shards of a broken taillight and drops of
[6:59] blood at a gravel pull off by a boat ramp, confirming they were
[7:02] in the right spot. Investigators even noticed an
[7:06] oil slick on the ground that matched an oil leak from
[7:09] Ashley's Volkswagen, further tying the vehicle to the scene.
[7:13] Finally, just before 11 on the morning of February 21st, an
[7:18] officer scanning the surroundings spotted Michael's
[7:21] body about 100 yards from the boat access in a muddy field.
[7:26] It appeared Michael had wandered roughly that far from where he'd
[7:29] been left before collapsing in the pasture.
[7:33] He was lying on his back, barefoot and shirtless, and was
[7:36] already deceased. The field was used to pasture
[7:40] pigs, but a guard dog had thankfully kept the animals away
[7:43] from Michael's body. If the pigs had gotten access to
[7:47] his body, it's likely that most of the evidence of the crime
[7:51] would have been destroyed. Given how the only conviction in
[7:55] this case would occur. This guard dog was a confirmed
[7:58] good boy, since without the dog there would be no conviction.
[8:04] I'm also going to take a moment to point out here how unusual it
[8:08] was that Michael's body ended up where it did, given what pigs
[8:12] are known to do to bodies. An autopsy later confirmed that
[8:16] Michael died of hypothermia. Essentially, he froze to death
[8:21] after spending hours injured in the bitter cold.
[8:24] His body bore numerous bruises and scrapes from the beatings,
[8:28] but none of those injuries were fatal on their own.
[8:31] In other words, had he received timely help, he almost certainly
[8:35] would have survived. Toxicology tests also showed
[8:40] Michael had been drinking, though this wasn't directly a
[8:43] factor in his demise. Notably, these tests also proved
[8:48] that he hadn't consumed any other substances that night.
[8:51] Disturbingly, the immediate cause of death was being left
[8:55] exposed to the elements while incapacitated.
[8:59] Faced with the evidence, Scott Fischer eventually confessed to
[9:02] his role. He admitted that after the
[9:04] fight, he and his friends drove Michael out to the country and
[9:08] abandoned him there when he wouldn't calm down.
[9:11] Court documents indicate that he even bragged later to a friend
[9:14] that he had beaten up Michael, though this was before he
[9:17] learned that Michael had perished.
[9:21] Despite this, nearly a year passed with no arrests, but
[9:25] Michael's family never stopped pushing for accountability.
[9:29] In January 2011, a Henderson County grand jury finally
[9:34] indicted Scott Fischer on an involuntary manslaughter charge
[9:38] for Michael's death. The case went to trial in May
[9:42] 2012. Michael's mother testified
[9:45] through tears about his final phone calls, and investigators
[9:49] laid out the grim sequence of events.
[9:52] Somewhat unsurprisingly, the jury convicted Scott of
[9:56] involuntary manslaughter after only a few hours of
[9:59] deliberation. Scott Fischer, then 21, was
[10:04] sentenced to 19 to 23 months in prison for causing Michael's
[10:07] death to the family. It felt like a paltry punishment
[10:12] for the loss of a child, but it was the maximum allowed under
[10:16] the charge. Scott appealed the conviction,
[10:20] but in 2013, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld the
[10:25] verdict, finding no error in his trial.
[10:29] Notably, no one else has ever faced justice for their alleged
[10:33] roles in this crime. On April 26th, 1993, a janitor
[10:42] at the University of Alaska Fairbanks opened a dormitory
[10:46] bathroom door and stumbled upon a horrifying scene.
[10:50] Inside that washroom lay the body of 20 year old Sophie
[10:54] Sergey, a former student who had been visiting campus.
[10:59] Sophie Sergey was a bright young woman from the small Yukon River
[11:03] village of Pitkas Point in western Alaska.
[11:06] She had been studying marine biology on a scholarship, but
[11:09] took a semester off to work back home and save money for
[11:12] orthodontic treatment. In late April 1993, Sophie
[11:17] returned to Fairbanks for an orthodontist appointment and
[11:20] stayed overnight with a friend in Bartlett Hall, a dorm on
[11:24] campus. Just past midnight, Sophie
[11:27] stepped out for a smoke, telling her friend she'd be right back.
[11:32] Tragically, she never returned. The next day, Sophie's body was
[11:37] found in a second floor bathroom of Bartlett Hall, brutally
[11:41] attacked and shot at close range.
[11:44] The brazen slaying had occurred just feet away from where other
[11:47] students slept and showered, a shock that left the campus
[11:51] community terrified and on edge. Investigators interviewed dozens
[11:58] of students, including 18 year old freshman Stephen Downs, who
[12:01] lived upstairs in the dorm. Downs and others denied knowing
[12:05] anything, and no solid leads emerged.
[12:09] Detectives collected DNA evidence from Sophie's body and
[12:13] by 2000 they had a profile of the unknown perpetrator.
[12:18] But it got no hits in CODIS. For years, Alaska State Troopers
[12:23] continued chasing the case. They followed dozens of tips and
[12:27] even collected DNA samples from numerous potential suspects, but
[12:32] none matched the crime scene evidence.
[12:34] In 2010, a cold case detective took a fresh look and re
[12:39] interviewed Downs old roommate. That's when a telling detail
[12:43] emerged. The roommate revealed that back
[12:46] in 1993, Downs kept a gun in their dorm room.
[12:51] Notably, this was the same caliber weapon that had fired
[12:54] the bullet recovered next to Sophie's body.
[12:57] It was a tantalizing clue, but without adna link or confession,
[13:02] it wasn't enough to crack the case.
[13:06] In mid 2018, cold case detectives partnered with a
[13:10] private lab to run Sophie's crime scene DNA through a public
[13:14] genealogy database. Before long, there was a hit.
[13:19] Not an exact match, but a partial match to a woman who
[13:22] turned out to be a second degree relative of the suspect.
[13:26] Further forensic research LED right back to Steve Downs, the
[13:30] same man who had briefly been considered by the initial
[13:33] investigators. Armed with their new lead,
[13:38] Alaska State Troopers and Maine police, where Downs now lived,
[13:42] began surveilling their new prime suspect.
[13:45] He was now 44 years old, and in an extremely disturbing twist,
[13:50] he was working as a nurse in Maine by this time.
[13:53] Investigators approached him and obtained ADNA sample from him
[13:56] via a search warrant in early 2019.
[14:00] The sample was rushed to the lab and the result came back
[14:03] conclusive. Stephen Downs's DNA profile
[14:06] exactly matched the biological material on Sophie's body.
[14:11] On February 15th, 2019, nearly 26 years after Sophie's death,
[14:17] authorities finally moved to make an arrest.
[14:21] With the help of local officers, they took Downs into custody at
[14:25] his workplace in Auburn, ME catching him completely off
[14:28] guard. Downs, for his part, insisted he
[14:33] had nothing to do with the crime.
[14:35] When questioned by police, he admitted he remembered the case,
[14:39] but claimed he didn't know Sophie.
[14:41] Interestingly, this admission that he didn't know Sophie would
[14:45] hamper his future potential defense as to why his biological
[14:49] material was on her body. He then went on to speculate
[14:53] that it was soldiers from a nearby base who likely committed
[14:56] the act in a failed attempt to deflect responsibility.
[15:00] Unsurprisingly, the authorities didn't take his theory too
[15:04] seriously, and within days, Downs was extradited over 4000
[15:09] miles from Maine back to Alaska to face justice.
[15:14] The case finally went to trial in early 2022 in Fairbanks after
[15:19] nearly 3 decades of uncertainty. Nearly 29 years after Sophie's
[15:24] death, a jury found Stephen Downs guilty as charged.
[15:28] In September 2022, Downs was sentenced to 75 years in prison,
[15:34] effectively a life term for the now 47 year old man.
[15:39] The judge noted that Downs had shown a callous disregard for
[15:43] Sophie's life, robbing her of her future and her family of
[15:48] their beloved daughter. For Sophie's family and the
[15:51] Fairbanks community, the verdict brought a very long-awaited
[15:55] sense of relief and closure. Notably, it was also the first
[16:00] case in Alaska where this new forensic technology was used in
[16:04] court, marking A historic milestone.
[16:08] Unfortunately, Alaska also has a much broader problem with
[16:12] violence against indigenous women, and hopefully genetic
[16:16] genealogy can be used to crack more of these cases.
[16:24] Hey everyone, it's Jimmy here reminding you to subscribe and
[16:27] hit the notification bell and turn on all those notifications.
[16:31] Also, if you feel like tossing a ducat in my bucket, check out
[16:35] the membership option by clicking Join or hit the Patreon
[16:39] link in the description. With that said, we've still got
[16:42] more to go, so let's get back to business.
[16:49] In February 1984, the lifeless body of 21 year old Mary Jane
[16:54] Thompson was discovered behind a warehouse along Dallas's Irving
[16:58] Blvd. Yet as years turned into
[17:01] decades, Thompson's attacker remained unidentified and free,
[17:06] and her case went cold. Nearly 38 years later, however,
[17:11] a breakthrough in DNA technology finally put a name and face to
[17:16] the man who had escaped justice for so long.
[17:21] Mary Jane Thompson had moved to Dallas about six months before
[17:24] her death, hoping to launch a modeling career in the big city.
[17:29] She worked 2 jobs, one at a florist shop and another at a
[17:32] local restaurant, to make ends meet while chasing her dreams.
[17:37] Before relocating to Dallas, Thompson had lived in Houston
[17:41] and Los Angeles, where she had also tried to breakthrough in
[17:44] modeling. Friends and family knew her as
[17:47] an ambitious young woman with a bright future.
[17:50] But in the winter of 1984, Mary Jane's ambitions were tragically
[17:55] cut short. On the evening of February 11th,
[18:00] 1984, Thompson was last seen taking a bus to the Trinity
[18:05] Medical Clinic on Industrial Blvd. in Dallas.
[18:09] She had planned to visit the clinic, but when she arrived,
[18:12] she found it closed for the day. What happened next remains a
[18:16] nightmare scenario and Mary Jane never made it back home.
[18:21] Two days later, on February 13th, her body was discovered
[18:26] near out of use railroad tracks behind a warehouse in the city's
[18:29] Stemmons Corridor Industrial Area.
[18:32] She had been brutally attacked, subjected to the most indecent
[18:36] assault, and strangled with her own leg warmers.
[18:41] Dallas police launched an investigation into the young
[18:43] woman's slaying, interviewing witnesses and examining
[18:46] evidence. However, in 1984, forensic
[18:51] science was limited. DNA profiling wasn't yet a
[18:54] standard tool, so detectives had few leads to work with.
[18:59] That said, the authorities had enough forethought to make sure
[19:03] they fully secured the biological evidence they were
[19:05] able to recover for later testing.
[19:08] Despite their efforts, no suspect was identified at the
[19:11] time, and Mary Jane Thompson's case began to go cold.
[19:17] For years, Thompson's family lived with the painful knowledge
[19:20] that this predator was still out there.
[19:23] Investigators never forgot Mary Jane's case, even as it
[19:27] languished without answers. Cold case detectives
[19:30] periodically reviewed the evidence, hoping new information
[19:34] or techniques might crack the mystery.
[19:36] But through the late 1980s and 1990's, the file remained
[19:41] unsolved. In 2009, a quarter century after
[19:45] the slaying, the Dallas Police Department decided to fully
[19:48] reopen the Thompson case and re examine the evidence.
[19:53] By then, DNA analysis had become a powerful investigative tool.
[19:58] Detectives submitted swabs from Mary Jane's 1984 autopsy for
[20:03] modern DNA testing. The lab results revealed A
[20:07] genetic profile belonging to an unknown male suspect, presumably
[20:12] the man who had assaulted and slain her.
[20:14] However, when investigators ran that male profile through law
[20:18] enforcement databases, no match was found.
[20:22] The profile didn't correspond to any convicted offender or known
[20:26] person in the national DNA index.
[20:29] Leaving the suspect's identity a mystery.
[20:32] With no name to go with the DNA and no other strong leads, the
[20:35] case went cold once again. By 2018, advances in DNA
[20:42] technology and investigative techniques LED Dallas
[20:45] authorities to take yet another look at Mary Jane's cold case.
[20:50] They looked into the possibility of using forensic genetic
[20:53] genealogy to crack the case. However, at the time the
[20:57] technology was extremely new. Unfortunately, without the
[21:01] proper resources allocated, no new breakthroughs came at this
[21:05] time. But that would all change
[21:07] shortly. In 2020, the FBI joined the
[21:11] effort, bringing those much needed additional resources to
[21:15] the case and a full genealogical manhunt began.
[21:20] Using this cutting edge approach, investigators in Mary
[21:23] Jane's case finally got the lead they desperately needed.
[21:28] The DNA trail led to a man named Edward Morgan, a Dallas resident
[21:32] who would have been in his early 20s at the time of the 1984
[21:35] slaying. Once Edward Morgan was
[21:39] identified through genealogical sleuthing, detectives moved
[21:42] quickly to confirm their suspicions.
[21:45] In early 2022, they obtained a direct DNA sample from Morgan,
[21:50] reportedly by collecting an item he had discarded and sent it for
[21:54] comparison against the crime scene profile.
[21:57] The results came back as a definitive match, tying 60 year
[22:01] old Edward Morgan's DNA to the DNA found on Mary Jane
[22:05] Thompson's autopsy swabs. It was the evidence
[22:08] investigators needed to finally close the net around a suspect.
[22:14] In February 2022, nearly 38 years to the day after Mary
[22:19] Jane's body was found, police arrested Edward Morgan and
[22:23] charged him in Thompson's case. Morgan, who had lived in Dallas
[22:27] for years, had never even been on the radar of the original
[22:31] investigation. Importantly, Morgan's DNA hadn't
[22:36] ever been in any criminal database, which explains why
[22:39] earlier searches never identified him.

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