a young mother on the verge of a new beginning she always used to talk about her wedding she had everything planned out she was going to be living the life that she's always dreamt of having violently struck down not just homicide but an act of Rage I had no idea why somebody would want to do that police chase a deranged killer down a Sinister path he was a big heroin dealer in Jackson someone burnt the house down through a maze of Twisted theories maybe this was a retaliation that was probably
self-induced you mean suicide yeah until the case takes a mindbending turn he looked at me and said you have it all wrong that person never was on our radar just an epic epic tragedy I was almost in disbelief belief that's just something that was entirely unexpected from the beginning until we try to rule them in or rule them out I don't know that any of us are [Music] safe on Sunday August 10th 2014 in an upper middleclass neighborhood in Jackson Michigan a quiet morning is broken by a death de
sperate phone call our dispatch did receive a 911 call from a panicked individual 911 somebody to my house right now I think she's she's dead Okay has she been sick no there blood everywhere do you know where it's coming from I don't know okay can you tell if she's breathing she's not de oh my God police raced to the home just before 11:00 a.m. where they're greeted by the caller and three young girls he had said that the deceased body was up in a bedroom upstairs there was two bedrooms that we
walked past which were bedrooms where the kids had been sleeping with the three children who live there safely out of the house and the crime scene locked down detectives come upon a Grizzly sight as we enter the bedroom then we do see the body it was slumped down between the bed and the wall and there was quite a bit of blood at that point we see zip ties on her hands and we see what appears to be several stab marks a zip tie was wrapped around each wrist with another loop through it and cut as
though she'd been strapped to the bed and then cut loose we at that point determined we likely had a homicide the police talked to Eric wolf who placed the 911 call he tells them the victim is his fiance 28-year-old Francis Craig he also makes a startling admission he said that he had worked all night so when he came home he after finding at uh franie in the condition she was in he then went downstairs and slept on the recliner chair for whatever reason he did not call 911 until a couple hours
later in the morning francis's two daughters and Eric's little girl were all in the house at the time while Eric slept his 10-year-old child walked into a horrifying scene Eric's daughter Lexi went into the bedroom and clearly could tell that something was a Miss she even touched her and could tell that she was not moving um I think she might even have described her as a little cold Lexi went downstairs and woke up her father and that's when he finally called 911 we all felt that a normal averag
e individual would at the bare minimum make sure their fiance the person they're about to get married to and spend the rest of their life with is okay Eric's decision to walk away from the murder scene is a red flag for investigators and so is his casual demeanor when Eric was interviewed by one of the other detectives at the scene initially the detective said he didn't seem too concerned didn't seem too upset about what had happened detectives plan to grill Eric about his suspicious Behavior bu
t first they need to finish processing the crime scene there was approximately 90 stab wounds and they were in a very aggressive matter it was Overkill not just committing a homicide but an act of Rage where it's over the top the rule of thumb is is on a situation where there's multiple and I'm talking more than a dozen stab wounds it's usually a crime of passion so at that point you typically look at somebody close to the victim investigators sift through the bloody mess for Clues there's no si
gn of a murder weapon but plenty of signs of conflict the crime lab which is the CSI people uh they responded to the scene they were there for multip hours collecting a ton of evidence while the forensics Team Works the scene inside shocked friends and family have gathered outside the house I didn't believe her I thought it was thought I was a lie it's not real it didn't happen I had no idea why so somebody would want to do that Francis was just an amazing person all around Francis and I worked
together we hung out outside of work together we would hang out with our kids investigators learned that Francis had two daughters with an ex-boyfriend the oldest is 5 years old and the youngest is three our boyfriends actually were friends and he brought her to my house one day and that was like the beginning of a beautiful friendship it felt like we've KN known each other for years she's a wonderful amazing mom the best mom that I know she was the best person I've ever met and known in my life
she would do anything for anyone Francis and the father of her children broke up but she still dreamed of getting married she always used to talk about her wedding and everything and at this point she didn't even have a boyfriend she had everything planned out dreams became reality in 2012 when she started dating 29-year-old Eric wolf Eric I was a divorced single father one young child he had primary custody over her 2 years into the relationship Eric and Francis moved in together despite worki
ng two jobs Francis did all she could to make time for her children and Eric's daughter too she was constantly doing things with her girls when she wasn't working even with her stepdaughter she was amazing her days were long but her life was full Eric proposed and the couple bought a house together Francis was very very excited about getting married like every day she was tagging me or on Facebook or like sending me pictures you know she thought she was going to be living the life that she's alw
ays dreamt of having and having that fair D weding but when detectives press Franny's friends they learned that Eric had a dark side they told me that they weren't super fond of her fiance because my daughter spent a lot of time with Francis she was like a second mother to my daughter and my daughter to tell me several times of Eric being kind of like a drill sergeant he seemed real cocky just everything was about him and daughter more so than Francis and her girls I felt in my gut from the mome
nt I found out that something happened to Francis I felt like here had something to do with it I didn't know what I didn't know how I didn't know why I just felt like it was because of him that she's gone police are determined to get to the bottom of Eric's suspicious behavior when we interview him he stated when he saw her her in the condition she was in he did not call 911 and he didn't seem too upset about what had happened at that point he was somebody uh definitely a person of interest in t
he homicide of fry cig coming up Eric's story gets Stranger by the minute I didn't even know if this was you know like self-inflicted accident that's what that's what we need to find out too a tiny clue reveals a big surprise there was DNA found on Franny's zipi and when police find the killer it shocks everyone I remember thinking to myself I'm glad we're sitting down right [Music] now after calling 911 following the brutal murder of his fiance Francis Craig Eric wolf is questioned by police ab
out how he discovered his fiance's body body I came home this morning cuz I worked 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. mhm I went upstairs I checked both the girls' room before going in uh our bedroom okay so you came around to the foot of the bed and kind of looked yes to see where she was at there exactly where I did okay did you see anything on the mattress when you first came in I saw I guess I might have saw uh that streak but it wasn't it didn't J out like blood or anything okay so you saw something th
at just didn't jump out to you this is B Eric did not seem to register surprise anger hurt anything that I think we all normally would want to see from a loved one when somebody is killed I thought maybe she had been drinking or something cuz she was in like almost almost like a funny position on the floor which she doesn't drink hardly ever I knew better than to wake her I know from prior experience whenever I've woken her up she's not a morning person and I get yelled at as the interview creep
ed close to an hour Eric suggests a much darker reason for ignoring his fiance sprawled out on the bedroom floor up until just now maybe since we've been here I thought that if if it wasn't an accident then it was probably self-induced you mean suicide yeah he indicated that he thought maybe she had committed suicide and just did not want to deal with it at that point we found that being very odd in the red flag typically on a suicide uh you'll find one stab wound or one gunshot wound you won't
find multiple stab wounds the prospect of Franny inflicting 90 stab wounds with her hands zip tied sounds Preposterous to the police even if it was physically possible why wouldn't Eric have reacted with alarm so you didn't want to come to grips with it if she had done so right because you don't want you to investigators Eric's shifting story doesn't add up why would a woman everyone described as happy and carefree take her own life and the only reason I say self-induced is just CU of how highr
everything is right before this wedding and it's a lot of stress yeah Eric's strange comments could signal that he's traumatized over the death of his fiance or that he's hiding something determined to mind the truth detectives decide to go right at their Prime Suspect did you no no what no I didn't do this I didn't know anything about it I walked in and I walked out went to sleep got up went back in and reported it that brings me back to questions we just ask you made it at least halfway into t
hat bathroom I did make that and I admit that and I'll admit that in front of whoever needs to hear it but I want to make that perfectly clear that my stance on this is exactly what I said I went in for whatever reason it was I didn't react without forensic evidence to hold him Eric is free to go but investigators vow to keep their eye on him and the deeper they look the more circumstantial evidence starts to build up we did do a pretty thorough background as we always do and one thing we found
out is that Eric did have a little bit of ass Sal of past with prior girlfriends and an ex-wife it seems like he has some violent tendencies one of the strangest facts in this case is that Eric wolf has a father who is serving a life sentence in prison for his own first Gren murder conviction he was convicted on a Cold Case homicide investigation in the 90s and was serving life in prison for murder so that certainly put up a red flag to us was it possible that violent tendencies run in the famil
y even if they did what possible reason would Eric have to want his fiance dead the homicide occurred in August I believe their wedding was planned in September we talked with her parents and her friends they told me that uh Franny had had second thoughts and they were trying to convince her that if she was not prepared to get married um that maybe she should wait and they also said Eric had had second thoughts Eric may have got cold feet didn't want to get married didn't know how to end the rel
ationship while police worked diligently to prove Eric's guilt francis's friends wait and wonder we didn't know what was going on um nobody knew what was going on and what happened um with Francis and how she was murdered um we just knew she was dead behind the scenes police work tirelessly they obtain a search warrant to collect francis's and Eric's Electronics but quickly realized that francis's cell phone is missing we do find the cell phone near Fran's house it had been thrown up against a t
ree and damaged again we're thinking that the cell phone has some pretty valuable information the cellular phone data quite often and can be some of the most compelling evidence we were able to get the phone records and nothing really stuck out as being her uh Franny communicating with anybody that would give a suspicion with no unusual cell phone activity or signs of forced entry on the day of the murder police stay focused on Eric Eric wolf at the time was at work and they investigators went a
nd checked out you know what they could to verify as Alibi police check the company's security cameras they do have one entrance they do have a time card checkin checkout system we're able to verify he was at work or allegedly at work when the incident occurred the problem with the system is there's some other exits that they're not supposed to use but the some of them have cameras but other ones do not was he able to leave his place of employment and get home to commit a murder and have all of
that be undetected Eric was the only person we could figure who would have any reason to want Franny [Music] dead police investigating the homicide of 28y old Francis Craig cannot confirm her fiance's Alibi since not every exit at his workplace had a security camera we couldn't rule out that sometime during the night he left and then came back Eric shaky Alibi and suspicious Behavior at the crime scene doesn't give police enough to arrest him but it does leave them with a drastic course of actio
n if you are operating in a murder inest investigation thinking that man killed his fiance in the home where the children were you are thinking we want to keep the children safe we kept Eric's daughter from him while we tried to figure out what happened to Franny both Eric's and Franny's daughters are removed from Eric's home and put in the custody of family members with pressure mounting detectives need to move fast to prove their Theory or find a more plausible one at that point we try to dete
rmine any communication Franny may have been having with someone other than her fiance Franny had an exboyfriend he no longer lived in the area but he had returned to the area recently and had some level of connection or interaction with [Music] Franny the police press Franny's X could he have committed this heinous crime that young man was a nice young man came from a very very nice family and he did have an alibi where he was at at the time of the incident we were able to verify that alibi so
we were able to eliminate [Music] him if no one in francis's immediate circle wished her harm what about her co-workers did detectives learned that while Francis worked at a retail store she was involved in a frightening incident where training was working there was a couple shoplifters that had stolen some clothing she confronted them the confrontation turned to violence when the mother of the two young shoplifters jumped in attacking Francis the assault left Francis with a severe eye injury as
well as emotional scars the incident at work left Francis really scared nervous cautious the mother of the shoplifters was actually criminally charged for a crime for the assault some type of unarmed robbery she was convicted so there was some concern that maybe this was a retaliation for that situation we did surprise them with a visit they did have aliis on where they would have been at at that uh time that the incident occurred investigators are able to verify those aliis eliminating the wom
en as suspects frustrated detectives are still hoping that DNA from the crime scene will help them find the killer but while they wait for results from the crime lab the people of Jackson attend Franny's funeral their emotions raw from the news of her violent death her Male carrier showed up to her funeral because she left such an impact on that person that's how loved and how missed Francis Craig is this was definitely a shock to the community because we don't have that many homicides I was sca
red I just didn't know what to expect I was afraid to leave the house I was afraid to do anything because we still had no answers as to what happened the overwhelming feeling was the pressure we were under to get this right determined to find Justice for Franny investigators continue to drill down on francis's fiance hoping for an inside look at Eric wolf they bring in one of the couple's former roommates Ryan Marshall was friends with Eric wolf so Eric and Franny welcomed Ryan into their home t
o stay with them his house had caught on fire and she was trying to help a friend out [Music] he lived with them until April of 2014 the homicide happened August of 2014 so he had a pretty good knowledge of the two of them he said everything was good and he actually vouch for Eric saying Eric was a really good guy and a friend for a long time and doesn't feel that Eric would ever do anything to harm [Music] Franny speaking with Ryan doesn't give police new reasons to suspect ER but it doesn't cl
ear him either 3 months in we've pretty much eliminated everybody of Interest anyone close to Franny other than Eric but we don't have enough evidence to present to the prosecutor but then a new piece of information arrives that brings a new suspect into the spotlight there was DNA found on Franny zip time 3 months after Francis Craig's murder the lab results from the crime scene finally arrive and they provide a huge break in the case we're notified through a national index the DNA located on t
he zip ties matched DNA in a database when somebody commits a felony they have to submit to a DNA test somebody's DNA showed up on the zip ties that were used in the homicide we get a name of Cortez Butler who is Cortez Butler police waste no time looking into his criminal record we find out Cortez Butler served approximately 25 years for murder and was currently on parole in the Detroit area but we knew almost nothing else we tried to determine if we could connect Cortez Butler to Franny Craig
to Eric wolf and we came up with nothing we tried to determine if he had family locally and we came up with nothing in fact Cortez Butler appears to have no connection to Jackson whatsoever so we look in our database to see if we have any Cortez Butlers and any police report we've done any place in Jackson County and we find none then it was this mad scramble of well then how do we even tie Cortez Butler to this for all we know he may have worked at Home Depot and his DNA may be on these zip tie
s for a completely innocent reason the investig connected with Cortez's parole officer they got Cortez's phone number a search warrant was prepared and signed for Cortez Butler's phone records we learned that Cortez Butler's phone was in Jackson on the early morning hours of August 10th the actual time of the murder the rest of those phone records almost exclusively placed it in and around the Greater Detroit area never in Jackson but what reason would Butler have to harm Franny Eric remained th
e prime suspect he was the only dude with a motive maybe Eric was not ready to get married and didn't know how to end a relationship so then the thought process was did Eric hire this person to kill Franny the cell phone records also connect Butler to some other Shady characters we were able to identify a Clifford and Rodney mcke as being connected to Cortez Butler Clifford mcke lived in the Detroit area Clifford mcke was in prison for approximately 20 years for murder we found out that Rodney m
cke um he was a big heroin dealer in Jackson um we found out that he had uh committed an arson the arson that Rodney mck perpetrated was against Donna and Ryan Marshall the police are stunned Ryan Marshall is Eric Wolf's friend the one who had been welcomed into Franny and Eric's home after his house burned down but what kind of a connection could Ryan possibly have to a drug dealer like Rodney mcke Ryan Marshall's mother had been a uh heroin dealer for Rodney mcke but after months of dealing fo
r Rodney Ryan's mother decided she wanted out Donna Marshall refused to sell heroin for Rodney M Rodney didn't like to be told no Ryan's mother Donna held her ground but Rodney retaliated Rodney mcke attempted to burn down a house with Ryan Marshall and his mother in [Music] it Ryan witnessed it all he then contact their police what was the connection between Eric wolf Cortez Butler the marshals and a drug dealer from Detroit detectives knew there was only one person who could answer the questio
n and soon they'd have a chance to ask him face to face Cortez Butler was arrested for yet another murder not Franny's murder but another murder in the Greater Detroit area we went down there in Detroit with one sole purpose to gather information from Cortez Butler on what happened to Franny and hopefully be able to explain to us what Eric's role in this whole thing was but Cortez said he wasn't going to uh talk without any kind of a deal it was clear that whatever Cortez was going to say it was
not going to be quote unquote on the [Music] record investigators have DNA evidence and phone records that link convicted killer Cortez Butler to Francis Craig's murder they arranged to talk to him while he's detained for an unrelated homicide but he immediately tries to shut them down Cortez said he wasn't going to talk without any kind of a deal I said no one is giving you any kind of a deal without anyone knowing what you have to say detectives press Butler hard until he finally agrees to ta
lk but only on one condition Cortez very pointedly and specifically asked repeatedly to not have the interview recorded if detectives agree not to record the interview there's a chance Butler's testimony won't stand up in court still with no other leads in the case they decide to roll the dice we were there interviewing Cortez in the first place because we need to find out Eric Wolf's involvement in this and it was Dire that we did so as the children were about to go back with Eric Wolf the whol
e idea for that was to keep these kids safe so the detectives tried to read him his rights he didn't even want to be bothered with the rights I know my rights I think it was bro I know my rights bro Butler wastes no time getting right to the point Cortez looked at me and said you have it all wrong and I said have what all wrong and he at that time let us know that Eric had absolutely nothing to do with this murder he goes I don't know this dude you're talking about know nothing about him just tr
ust me he was not involved in this whatsoever the statement contradicts one of the investigators strong EST leads but the next thing Butler says is even more explosive Cortez identifies himself as the killer I remember thinking to myself I'm glad we're sitting down right now because I was almost in [Music] disbelief if Eric wasn't involved why had this cold blooded Criminal murdered a woman to whom he had no obvious connection it all went back to Rodney mck's arson case Rodney mcke attempted to
burn down a house with Ryan Marshall and his mother in it Ryan Marshall was a key witness in his arson case he made some threats to Ryan that either he not agreed to testify or he was going to be killed Cortez told us that he had been hired by Rodney mck to kill Ryan Marshall first Butler had to find Ryan who was homeless because of the fire so we found out from Cortez Butler that they had bad information they had information that Ryan Marshall was living with uh Francis Craig and Eric wolf Cort
ez Butler entered Francis and Eric's house to kill someone who was no longer there Franny wasn't even the intended target Franny was as innocent of a victim as anybody could ever be when he opened the door he had made the decision that he was killing somebody while he was there he doesn't have to force entry he gets into the house he noticed the bedrooms have some kids in it he walks past them and he goes to Franny Craig's [Music] room when he gets to Franny craiger's room he asks her where Ryan
is she said he's not there Cortez tells Franny not to look at him uh in his words he stated she looked at him so he had to kill her [Music] the horrific details that Cortez reveals next leave detectives with no doubt about the guilt of the man sitting across from them he decided to bind her trying to get information from her but she would not cooperate Cortez um stabbed her multiple times we will never know how long he took to torture her and and butcher her and it clearly took time and effort
to stab and slice her in the manner that he did she died in the service of keeping Ryan's identity and his location secret and or she quite frankly just didn't know Cortez Butler's chilling confession is nothing short of a GameChanger both for detectives and for Eric wolf it eliminated our hypothesis that Eric wolf was responsible for Franny's death Eric wasn't involved he's an odd duck kind of guy Eric was able to re gain custody of his daughter I took from this case that we can never jump to c
onclusions I was pretty convinced that he did it um not to the point that I could charge him but I was pretty convinced I had the right person now that investigators do have the right person they're determined to put Cortez Butler away for life but all of that is in Jeopardy I didn't believe that Cortez's confession would be legally admissible in court because it wasn't recorded and if Cortez Butler ever walked free again I don't know that any of us are safe after months of dead ends investigato
rs finally have a confession from Francis Craigs killer but prosecutors are concerned that his testimony may not hold up in court I was concerned that it would be legally inadmissible because it wasn't recorded he was basically told we not planning to use this in court against you I was concerned that he had not been properly advised of his Miranda rights but we still had his DNA on the zip ties and the cell phone records so I kept thinking and I finally got myself legally to a point where I was
convinced that we need to give this a shot in October of 2015 Cortez Butler is charged with francis's murder when the trial begins 6 months later Butler appears relaxed almost giddy Cortez really seemed to thrive in that trial atmosphere he would seek out cameras and smile at them give them them this big full teeth smile he wanted to fight just because he could he wanted to run the show just because he could but that's just a warmup for the verbal assault he launches into when he takes the stan
d Cortez Butler was a monster at that trial he bragged on how many bodies he had it was unbearable Butler gleefully describes his murderous past in gory detail but when asked about killing Francis he fiercely denies it he clearly was so excited to say why he didn't commit this murder cuz he pleads all of his murders and he clearly didn't commit this one because he didn't plead to it Butler also denies ever confessing to police but in a victory for prosecutors the judge allows detectives to testi
fy about Butler's confession we're able to get past that piece because he wasn't in custody for our case he wasn't actually entitled to his Miranda warnings eyewitness accounts play a major role in trying to move the jury beginning with Eric's daughter who found Franny dead Alexis was our first witness up there and I don't know that I will ever forget the audible gasps and sobs and emotion pouring from the jury just from that first witness the physical evidence is laid out we have Cortez Butler'
s DNA on the zip ties that were used in the homicide and we also have phone tracking information showing Cortez Butler and Jackson prosecutors make a compelling case but without a recording of Butler's confession it's the detective's word against Butlers when the jury returns with the verdict there's no guarantee which way the cards will fall Cortez Butler was convicted of first-degree murder and he won't ever walk free again the sentence was life without the possibility of parole for the premed
itation murder of Franny Craig this was a complicated story to tell to a jury it is a difficult one for all of us to wrap our brains around even still Cortez goes to look for Ryan at her house and he doesn't find him and murders Franny in her own bed while she's doing nothing wrong Franny had no connection to her killer whatsoever we can rest maybe a little easier that the bad guys won't ever hurt anybody else at least not outside of the walls of prison but none of it brings Franny back today fr
ancis's two daughters live with their father those closest to Francis do everything they can to hold on to her memory Fran's family I know are they've been lost ever since I've been lost ever since Francis has been murdered I want people to remember how happy of a person she she was how generous how nice and kind she was I miss Fran so much and there's not a day that goes by that I do not think about her I know that she's watching over everybody and making sure that everybody's good because that
's the type of person she [Music] was I wish I had known her and I hope I honored her in my handling of this case for more information on an unexpected killer go to oxygen.com a selfless and caring mother of three she always thought about other people she was just a bright light shining viciously murdered in her own home her bedroom was incredibly blood soaked unlike I'd ever seen before there was anger involved in this crime I remember just screaming investigators are sent down a rabbit hole of
suspects she didn't like him she didn't trust him it raised a red flag that there might be some sort of aair going on she was jealous of her life of what she had there was clearly Bad Blood between them every lead appears to turn into a dead end it just stalled that was disheartening until a surprising witness comes forward it was unbelievable it was the break we were looking for exposing a killer no one saw coming I was pretty shocked I just remember being sick to my [Music] stomach courland T
ownship lies in the heart of Michigan it's fairly rural nice pleasant kind of a good Hometown feel it's one of those areas that everybody gets along and when you dve driving by their house they're waving at you and it's just peaceful and quiet this quaint Community is stunned on Saturday August 5th 2006 when the Kent County Sheriff's Office receives a 911 call emergency my daughter longer in bed and got a lash on her arm and just before 5:00 we received a a call of a potential suicide at the Pag
el residence officers are immediately dispatched to the home of 41-year-old Renee Pagel we were met by Rene's stepmother and her father they were both just in shock Rene's father indicated that his daughter was in her bedroom when I first walked into the bedroom I observed Renee laying on the bed I just remember seeing all the blood the blood soaked sheets her shirt there's blood on her face it was obvious that Renee Pagel was deceased and it wasn't a suicide this was a homicide officers secure
the scene as homicide detectives arriv to investigate her bedroom was incredibly blood soaked unlike I'd ever seen before the bed was covered with blood there was blood spatter on the walls on the ceiling she was stabbed multiple times I was pretty shocked by the amount of wounds that she had when I looked at her hand I saw a large laceration almost in the middle of her hand to be in my opinion a defensive wound Renee was in the fight for her life but unfortunately she had [Music] lost for detec
tives the viciousness of the attack is a clue itself it appears to us it's a crime of passion somebody uh has something against this victim so much so that they want to brutalize this person as much as they possibly could this was personal Somebody went into that residence to murder Renee who in Rene's life would want to attack her and could be capable of such [Music] violence born in 1965 Rene's Spirit was always full of of Joy Renee was the most generous person I have ever known she loved life
she was always smiling Renee Pagel devoted her life to helping others she was a nurse practitioner she had done medical mission trips around the world and then she also worked at a homeless Clinic here in town she always thought about other people Renee's greatest joy was being a mother of three she loved her kids so much she was a great mom recently separated from Michael her husband of 10 years Renee shared custody of her children while always remaining a devoted mother the last couple years
because she wanted to be home with her kids and wanted to have some more normal hours she chose to teach at a technical center even as a teacher Renee found new ways to help people one of her students had come into class one day and was really down and and Renee said what's the matter and she said well my dad is is dying he needs a kidney and so Renee agreed to give her kidney to this man who she had never met she was just so selfless and it manifested itself in so many ways Renee had undergone
the kidney transplant surgery just 5 days before her stunning death so she was already in a weakened State when she was attacked could the killer have timed the attack knowing that Renee would be [Music] recuperating detectives look closer at her injuries hoping they'll reveal telling details about the murder weapon it seemed to be a very strong and well-made knife and large just the amount of uh damage it did to the victim's body it was at least an inch inch and a half blade that was wide there
's no sign of the knife but forensic technicians search the bedroom for other evidence there was large amounts of blood that our scientific support unit had to collect and they collected trace evidence like hairs and fibers for testing detectives continue to search the rest of the home what struck me about this case that was kind of odd there was no other areas in the house that were Disturbed that were bloody or anything track to the home it seemed to be very honed in on just her bedroom it rea
lly kind of puzzled us as investigators it was the most bizarre scene I've ever been on this person in my opinion had to know that they had to cover their tracks and I think it was planned and they thought this out ahead of time as forensics continue their work detectives speak with Rene's parents her father obviously he was extremely upset but he had just found out his daughter brutally murdered detectives ask her father to help them put together a picture of Rene's last known movements he last
saw her the night before around 4: or 5 in the evening when he was picking up the children and bringing them to their father's house who lived approximately 15 to 20 minutes away from Renee with Rene's children safe with their father at the time of the Murder She was Home Alone he told us he spoke with her on the phone around 800 or 9 in the evening just checked in on her cuz obviously he had a lot of concern of her [Music] health based on the state of the body detectives believe Renee was murd
ered sometime between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. they ask her parents who Renee might have seen last her father talked to me about a tenant Mike Decker who was a acquaintance of Renee that has been living on the property for approximately year and a half 2 years also he did speak about a contentious divorce with her husband Michael that she was going through Mike wanted full custody Mike wanted the home Mike wanted to not work and have Renee work and be the provider So that obviously piqued my int
erest could either of these men have possibly wanted Renee dead detectives know they have to hit the ground running right away we have to find out who all these people are in and go and start to question them to try to find out where they were on the night of Murder coming up investigators uncover an ominous Obsession there was a lot of writings about his hatred for Renee alarming Secrets the ceiling had a hidden compartment Renee told me how betrayed she felt she was extremely upset she was ver
y hurt us and the truth blindsides everyone we've never had a a break like this it was you're not going to believe this just disbelief I'm still reeling from that [Music] one detectives in a small Michigan town are investigating the vicious murder of 41-year-old mother of three Renee Pagel police are looking into two possible suspects her tenant and her estranged husband they first turned their attention to Rene's X Michael pag in the beginning they seem like your average All-American couple she
did tell me that she did love him she wanted marriage in a family and he was the opportunity she looked at him I think the words were the night and Shining Armor and speaking to friends of the family they describe Michael as a fantastic dad that he was always about his children nobody said anything bad about him married life seemed like a dream come true until cracks started to appear when I interviewed numerous people I was told that Mike didn't want a full-time job Mike wanted to be at home h
ome with the kids and let Renee do everything and support him they were just having a lot of issues back and forth with one [Music] another in early 2005 Mike abruptly surprised Renee with divorce papers she was very shocked and just sickened to the core there had been some turmoil in the past between them but in her mind things were actually getting better they were kind of turning around so she was blind by it she said to me he expected I mean expected the house the kids and $2,000 a [Music] m
onth in June 2006 just 7 weeks before she was murdered Renee and Michael had their day in divorce court when the judge ruled in her favor and said that she got the kids she got the house and he was going to have to get a better paying job something flipped in him was Michael so angered by the ruling that he killed Renee in a furious rage there were a lot of things that put him at the top of our list as a potential suspect that had killed Renee detectives go to question Michael when we arrived at
Mike's house he was not there his mother said that he should be back shortly and I said just want to get an idea what were you guys doing last night and she said well Mike had the kids they were having a fortnite in the living room where Mike had set up some pillows and some blankets then she stayed at about 88: in the morning she and Michael had a brief conversation and then they went about their day so basically she was giving him an alibi that he was home all night with the kids as police fi
nished the interview with his mother Michael arrives I explained to him that something had happened to Renee and we would like to speak to you about this when Michael was told that she had passed away there was no reaction out of him and immediately without me even going any further a Michael reached into his wallet and gave me a attorney card and said yeah I've been told not to talk to the police here's my attorney so I thought that was extremely odd that Michael didn't want to dig further into
what happened to uh Renee after Consulting with his divorce attorney he told investigators he wouldn't answer any questions Michael's reticence to cooperate is a red flag and on August 6th the day after Rene's murder police arriv at his home with a search warrant we looking for any type of knife that may have been used during the murder we took a lot of knives from the house house but we found no knives that matched the length and the size and and the different characteristics of the knife that
was used police also collect hair samples and fingerprints from Michael we wanted to get photos of his body to make sure that there was no Cuts or anything on him we wanted to look at clothing to see if there was any blood trace evidence anywhere all the forensic evidence that we collected we never found anything that was useful in our investigation all the knives in his home were examined and there was nothing to link them to this crime we had no murder weapon we had no real evidence there was
nothing it was clean so when we left that search warrant I would say we really came out empty-handed we didn't have anything to tie this murder to Mike Pagel despite his potential motive Michael Pagel drops off detectives list of suspects while news of Rene's violent death quickly spreads across town her friend called called me and said Chris Rene is dead it was surreal I remember curling up in a fetal position and just screaming I screamed I was angry as her friends and loved ones struggle wit
h her death Rene's autopsy report comes in cause of death was blunt force trauma homicide it was a large large heavy duty knife that was used on her the autopsy revealed upwards of 50 stab wounds there were numerous lacerations to the hands and the feet suggesting defensive wounds she was stabbed over 50 times I'm still reeling from that one it was so brutal detectives continue their investigation and now Focus their attention on Rene's tenant Mike [Music] Decker she had this Barn that they had
an upstairs apartment and he was a renter the barn was about 75 yard away from the main home he could have been involved he could have been a witness he could have overheard something one of her friends believe that the week of her surgery Renee was going to have pizza with Mike Decker and that she felt that there was some type of maybe a relationship going on so that sparked our interest I mean if he's having a relationship with Renee did something happen to cause him to get upset and potential
ly do this horrific crime we had to find him [Music] immediately two days into the investigation of Renee pagle's murder detectives have a possible suspect her tenant Mike Decker who's rumored to be romantically involved with Renee detectives interview Mike at his apartment on Rene's property at first I kind of thought loner 30-year-old gentleman unemployed living above a barn I thought that was kind of odd when we were speaking to Mr Decker we asked him if he was having a relationship with Rene
e romantic or whatnot Mike said that the relationship is more of a friendship or a kindness thing no romantic involvement he denied having any dinner with Rene over the past week he stated that it was actually a month or two before he suggested that they go out for pizza just as friends but Renee had turned that down because she was busy police asked Mike Decker where he was on the night of the murder he stated that he went into a local city to eat by himself drove back probably between 8 or 9 w
hen he arrived at home he watches a little bit of TV and then goes to bed between 1: and 2: in the morning detectives ask him if he heard anything that night especially after what they had found at the crime scene we did locate a tire track and a footwear impression in Rene's [Music] driveway he denied hearing anything from Rene's house Mike tells police he didn't notice anything unusual the next morning either he woke up in the morning around 9 or 10 and then went to meet with his family to go
see a Bike Race part of the problem with Mike Decker's Alibi even though he was cooperative through this process he was on the property when this murder happened with no one to corroborate his Alibi police get a warrant to search Mike's apartment we seiz his pipe from his sink cuz we wanted to see if there was any blood or trace evidence in there and then found a couple of large knives the evidence is rushed to the crime lab for analysis the knives and the pipe forensically did not show anything
there were no signs of blood we found no knives that matched the type of knife that was used but still Mike cannot be ruled out a week after the homicide detectives interview him again this time at the sheriff's office he showed no issues of concern of us looking at him as a potential suspect from Gathering any type of physical evidence from him we even offered him a polygraph and Mr Decker submitted to that also and and passed without any uh deceit with nothing tying Mike Decker to the crime i
nvestigators let him go searching for any further clues about Renee detectives reach out to her parents once again and in turn get a lead on a new suspect Renee's own sister Michelle Rene's father stated that the relationship between Renee and Michelle was strained he mentioned that Michelle was jealous of Rene's life of what she had she wanted a successful career a family a home all of those things Renee and Michelle's problems went beyond sibling rivalry during the divorce Rene's attorney was
able to subpoena the phone records of Michael Pagel so he turned those over to Renee when she examined phone record she learned that Mike and Michelle were talking frequently so she was extremely upset she was very hurt by this there was such significant communication between Mike Pagel and the sister Michelle that it raised a red flag to us right away that there might be some sort of Affair going on Renee told me how betrayed she felt by her sister she really struggled with that during the inte
rviews with numerous people it was mentioned that Michelle potentially was having a relationship with Michael once I learned that it's obviously somebody we wanted to look at Michelle is brought in for an interview and though she says that she is saddened by her sister's death her answers raise eyebrows with investigators she didn't speak very highly of Renee she was not happy at all the way that Renee was handling divorce Michelle clearly took Mike's side and kind of put her sister in the bad l
ight she felt that Mike was a good father and it was her sister that was really trying to take advantage of him we did ask her if she was in a relationship or had a relationship with Michael and she completely denied it detectives asked Michelle where she was the night of the Murder She said she was working into the evening and that evening she was home with her roommate basically she was stating that she was home the evening of the murder Michelle did take a polygraph and she was found to be tr
uthful and did not appear to have any involvement in the homicide with Michelle all but ruled out investigators discover that she isn't the only family member Renee had issues with when I spoke with Rene's parents it was mentioned that Michael her soon to be ex-husband had a brother the brother was Charles pgo they called him Bo and they said that he was very strange very odd he and Renee did not get along Renee didn't like him she didn't trust him when detectives dig deeper they uncover somethi
ng troubling we learned from a close friend of Renee that he had been married numerous times and she believed that maybe Bo had murdered his last wife was Bo a killer and had he now killed again that obviously raised some red flags for us as investigators and that's somebody we wanted to speak with very [Music] quickly detectives investigating the vicious stabbing of Rene Pagel are looking at her estranged husband's brother Bo Pagel Bo was married three times in the past and one of his Ex-Wives
died under suspicious circumstances one of Rene's friends gives a statement to police claiming that she believed Bo may have killed his ex-wife obviously what really sent us his way was the potential murder of his last wife so that had our attention detectives must determine if Bo could actually be a killer they look deeper into his background Bo was a loner lived at home with his mom we learned that he was on the road trucker and he traveled all over the country he would be gone days at a time
investigators also look closer at Bo and Rene's fractured relationship there was clearly Bad Blood between him and Renee dating back years going back to the wedding we found out that Bo refused to be in the wedding he was going to be the best man he did not like her thought she was not good for Mike and he didn't approve of it whatsoever he was outspoken to Michael about even marrying Renee and I think the relationship between Bo and Mike was really more of an EST strange relationship for the 10
years that Mike and Renee were married but after Renee and Michael's separation everything changed I do know that once Mike filed for divorce he and Bo rekindled that relationship and became pretty close well he was I believe happy that Renee was now out of the picture and he could have his brother back could Bo have wanted Renee permanently out of Michael's life detectives bring him in for questioning so he interviewed Bo and he denied any knowledge of the murder denied any involvement Bo had
said that through the week he was On The Road Trucking he got home Thursday night po Alibi was that he was essentially across the state he had driven a route the day of the homicide he had gotten back around 6:00 and had gone out with some friends for dinner and then afterwards he stated he went home spoke to his daughter and then went to bed and then the next morning got up and went canoeing with his daughter we contacted his work we spoke to the family that he actually uh had dinner with that
Friday evening to account for they were with him what restaurant until what time it pretty much matched up though most of his story checks out no one can confirm that Bo was at home at the time of Rene's murder needing more information detectives reach out to Bo's daughter we confirmed with her that they went on the canoe trip in the morning Bo's daughter also puts to rest any suspicion that Bo was responsible for her mother's death she gave us details about her mother that we didn't know she wa
s a diabetic she had some blood sugar problems and she really didn't care for going to the doctor so she didn't seek the medical help that she needed and that ultimately is what resulted in her death she did not suspect B of doing anything though Bose's Alibi isn't Ironclad there is nothing concrete to link him to Rene's murder and he is released it's been 6 weeks since the homicide and the investigation has ground to a halt the reason that we were stuck is cuz there was no physical evidence tha
t would help tie any one person to this crime we looked at every person the strange husband his brother Bo berne's sister and Rene's tenant and there was nothing to link them to this crime police continue investigating for many months but with no fresh leads the case goes cold it just stalled there was a point where I felt that we would never have a conclusion in this case it was just sad that that we couldn't bring closure to Renee and to her family as the months went by I was just like what is
going on once the months turns into years that was uh disheartening for 13 years there are no new developments in the [Music] case but through it all Rene's best friend never gives up hope we created a website in the Year 2007 and it was a really therapeutic way for people to come and grieve and share stories and that website was very effective in getting the word out about Rene's murder doing whatever it took to find Justice for Renee in a stunning turn of events on which was a complete shock
to Bo and it immediately made Bo angry said I believed you for all these years we've supported you and come to find out you're the one responsible I can't believe you would have done that and I think this this made Mike angry he expected Bo to congratulate him so the way Bo described it was out of frustration Mike took the knife and threw it into the river Bo described it as a about a 12in long bigger knife and it appeared to be a very strong sturdy knife investigators get bow to show them exact
ly where Michael had thrown the knife there was quite a bit of old metal various pieces of cars and other things inside the river and in my opinion that wasn't a safe diving environment we had to find another means to search the bottom of the river police wonder if they will be able to recover a knife that has been in the water for 9 years then one of the detectives comes up with an idea it's called a Earth magnet the magnet is something that I've had at home and it just came to mind as an optio
n for a way to search the watery area and to grab whatever metal pieces were on the bottom of the river it was tremendously impressive for him to come up with his own homemade magnet device and you know he concocted his own fishing line and pulling it through the stream which is remarkable police spent 3 days painstakingly dragging the riverbed with with no success so we were on our last few passes of the river and I began pulling toward my side and then was you're not going to believe this just
disbelief the knife was stuck to the magnet and it was exactly as B [Music] described it was late in the day I want to say 3 or 4:00 and got the phone call he got the knife I'm like no are you kidding me he got the no and this is the magnet and the knife exactly as we found it it was awesome it was everything you could hope for when you're investigating a case to get that piece of evidence that you know you need that you really weren't sure if it was going to be there but there it [Music] is po
lice now need to confirm if the knife found matches the knife used in Renee hegel's murder we brought it down to the medical examiner's office they viewed it and instantly said absolutely it's consistent with the injuries that are on Rey's body we were very confident we had the murder weapon unbelievable we've never had a a break like this we got the needle on the Hast stack by finding the knife and now we had a murder weapon that backed up what a witness said it allowed us to validate both stat
ements that that knife was thrown in that water by Mike Pagel on February 6th 2020 13 years after Rene's death Michael Pagel is officially charged with her murder so this case was going to hinge a lot on the testimony of B but it's still circumstantial evidence and is the jury going to believe him or not in the midst of that the defense attorneys asked if we would consider a ple offer when someone ask for a plea it usually means that they're willing to tell the truth and in this case that was on
e of the conditions is we wanted to hear the truth as part of the plea agreement the prosecution agrees to a plea deal of second degree murder and a minimum of 25 years in prison we wanted to get a term of years to make sure he was old enough that he would never harm anyone again on May 20th 2020 55-year-old Michael Pagel agrees to plead guilty to Second deegree murder avoiding a trial by jury but at his plea hearing Michael suddenly turns the case on its head it was unbelievable and I just reme
mber being sick to my stomach [Music] after 13 years of investigating the heinous murder of Renee Pagel her estranged husband is finally being charged for the brutal crime but at his plea hearing Michael makes an admission that takes Everyone by surprise IED my brother Charles badel to thr Rene B T murdered R we were all absolutely shocked when he said that his brother did this Mike maintained the fact that Bo was the one responsible he admitted that he had orchestrated it and that he had planne
d it but insisted that Bo was the one that actually did the stabbing which was a complete Shak TOS we had investigated and we found no evidence nothing to directly tie Bo Pagel to this murder had bo been hiding his involvement all along while detectives take another look at him they also dig for more evidence against Michael and after several searches of his home they make a surprising discovery at Mike's house we found the ceiling had a hidden compartment when we took this down we found three h
ard drives in this hidden compartment investigators spend time decoding the contents of Michael's hard drives and what they find is chilling in those hard drives there was journaling I would call it strange it appeared to be written by almost two different personalities one that would talk back and forth to the other he talked about planning to divorce how much he hated her there was a lot of writings about his dislike and his hatred for Renee then Weeks Later police tracked down a crucial witne
ss we uncovered a friend who had said that he had gifted a knife to Michael that was substantially similar to the one that was actually found and he admitted that he gave it to Mike as a gift and it was delivered directly to Mike Pagel so that helped us put the knife in Mike's hands so now you have a knife that was found in the river that now a friend of saying had given to Michael and not to Bo while the evidence is circumstantial police believe it strengthens their case even further against Mi
chael there was nothing that could back up Michael's story in terms of physical evidence any other Witnesses anything else other than his word about it whereas Bo at least had stuff to back it up because aliit backed up and the physical evidence that he provided backed it up so there's just absolutely nothing that shows that Bo did this this was Michael Pagel this was all him that comanded this murder that night investigators conclude what likely happened on the night of Rene's murder when the c
hildren were sleeping he snuck out of his house and he went over to Ren it's pretty well known that she donated a kidney obviously she wasn't strong at this point she was asleep in bed and he walked in with that knife and brutally stabbed her I believe that Mike no doubt planned this out there's no way you leave a crime scene that clean and it's not carefully planned how he absolutely didn't leave a blood drop a fingerprint a mark any physical evidence oh tells us about Mike commoning that he ha
d worn coveralls and gashes so he had taken precaution to not get his clothes bloody and that he had removed those items and then put them in a garbage bag and left and that the clothes were later burned he's not a stupid man he knew enough to cover his tracks he went in there purposely he had a intent he had a purpose and he went in there to kill her and he did there was anger involved in this crime this was evil but why would Michael kill Renee I believe Mike Pagel was very upset with the way
the divor was proceeding that he didn't get sole custody of the children that he didn't get the family home things just weren't going his way he's got motive and the F's got raged it's the about to be ex-husband who's not getting what he wanted I think that the writing was on the wall for him that this was the end on October 5th 2020 Michael Pagel is sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison I never thought it would take 14 years to uh bring Justice to Renee and to her family but you know you always
heading back your mind that Justice would be served it was incredible exhilaration and I do believe that the information that I provided and the passion that I poured into this did [Music] help Rene's loved ones will always be inspired by her memory the friendship that we had was deep it was eternal she brought so much Beauty to this world she was just a bright light shining oh I miss her a beloved Taxi Driver Rio was a hardworking guy he always tried to do better and better and better is murde
red in Cold Blood that's when they observed a body inside of the trunk there were nine gunshots that's not an accident we had no leads we had no suspects had no idea who could have done this to him police uncover a Sinister trail of motives a lot of people was jealous of Raphael Raphael tended to like the ladies a little bit Raphael had approximately $2,000 in his vehicle but struggle to find suspects people were asking do we have to be scared is there a murder out there killing us his panics we
noticed on his license plate of his vehicle there appeared to be a blood stain until the bizarre truth turns the case on its head we're calling him through the loudspeaker trying to get him to come out of the house which turned into a hours long standoff when that fingerprint came back with a second person it really blew it wide open we knew he was at the scene that was a bombshell that was a game Cher in terms of the criminal prosecution ultimately to come back to these two people was somethin
g that we never saw [Music] coming Rogers County Oklahoma a quiet rural district North of Tulsa City Limits Rogers County is just a great tight-knit Community it's a agricultural Community a very wholesome family oriented community that all changes in the early hours of May 1st 2015 when a truck driver sees something unusual beneath a bridge our Dispatch Center received a call of a vehicle partially submerged in the cany river off Highway 169 police and firefighters arrive at the scene in minute
s and cordon off the area emergency crews check to see if anyone is trapped inside the news media was there and it was being broadcasted over live tv as the car is towed onto the riverbank its trunk pops open that's when they initially observed a body inside of the trunk at that point we knew we had a serious crime at hand Rogers County Sheriff's detectives arrive and begin their investigation when I arrived on scene I observed a Hispanic male inside of the trunk these Pockets look like they've
been r through only when detectives move the victim's shirt do they realize the violent nature of the attack he appeared to have several gunshot wounds to his chest area there were nine gunshots that's not an accident nine gunshots is intentional somebody wanted to make sure that he did not survive his injuries the first question facing detectives is who is the man in the trunk we did not locate any type of identification or any wallet or anything that a normal person would have in his pockets s
o it made it very hard for us to identify who he was we were taking photographs of his tattoos and unique markings on his body inside of the vehicle we found some cell phones as the car was submerged we got lucky that one of the cell phones was placed on the dash and it was fully intact still operational the detectives and forensics team combed the riverbank for further Clues we noticed a large amount of blood and we suspected that that was the area that the victim was initially shot well near t
hat pull of blood we also found some shell casings consistent with the size of bullet wounds inside the deceased body a few feet away detectives notice more clues there was several beer cans and a cigarette butt and a piece of tissue I was told that a family member had showed up and seen his brother's car on the news and he said yes that's my brother's car the young man's brother is Raphael Hernandez Torres a taxi owner serving customers in Tulsa's Hispanic Community I showed him a photograph of
a tattoo that I had taken from the victim's body that Oscar immediately identified the tattoo belonging to his brother and then began sobbing and crying because at that point we told him that his brother had been murdered it broke my heart when I seen the pictures it felt like the whole the whole world just kind of ended Oscar called me when I found out rapel got shot I didn't know how to react I was just shocked I was like how [Music] how Raphael Hernandez Torres was born outside Mexico City o
n October 22nd 1976 as a kid he was a rebel growing up he was always riding his bike from town to town he loved to go and get to know people from other places get to know other cities um he just loves to travel everywhere when Raphael was 20 years old his parents moved him and his siblings to the us as one of the oldest Sons Raphael helped support the family it was difficult to move to a different place that we didn't know and we had to start from zero Raphael was the big brother and as soon as
we got here Raphael told us to get straight to school learn that language and just keep on going brael was a hardworking guy he always tried to do better and better and better as a Young Man Raphael's warm personality attracted others he was so friendly with everyone especially [Music] ladies Raphael was enterprising too turning his passion for travel into a career rapel started his taxi business with one car uh from there it kept on going and on going Raphael was known in Tulsa's Hispanic Commu
nity as someone willing to to help anyone in need RI care about everybody if he saw you down he'll try to help you if he saw you homeless he'll get you a room and get you a shower and help you out he knew people who didn't have anything to eat and he helped him out Raphael had a great heart what would lead anyone to take Raphael's Life so violently on that Riverbank everybody knew him everybody liked him him he did a service to his community always gave back to his community at this point we're
thinking why would somebody kill him at the crime scene detectives ask Oscar and Juan what they know about Raphael's last hours before his body was discovered in the river Raphael called me and told me that he was going to Texas but the next day he didn't call me which was strange cuz he was always calling me every time he went at of State police ask if Oscar and Juan know why anyone might want to kill their brother we learned that Raphael was known to carry approximately $2,000 on him at all ti
mes whoever did this took his ID took his wallet took any money he may have had so that led to the the possible motive that Raphael had been killed for the money Oscar gives the detectives one more useful piece of information Oscar told us that some of Raphael's Vehicles had been been vandalized where rafhael ran his business a lot of people was jealous of rafhael because he was really successful and the business that he was doing had the Beloved Taxi Driver made a lethal enemy in his community
we had no leads we had no suspects had no idea who could have done this to him this wasn't just a disagreement or something it was a very violent act I had a lot of questions about Raphael why who why would they kill him what did he do this is not a random killing this is someone who targeted Raphael and wanted him to die coming up detectives uncover a tangled web of romantic interests not only does he call her freak link go by and see her but I know he bought her flowers she had an unusual rela
tionship with her ex-husband they both still slept in the same bed so a scorned husband that could fit right in with that now we're starting to thank this could be a motive and a surprising lead sends the case in a new direction we were shocked when we found a second individual's fingerprint at the [Music] scene after discovering Raphael Hernandez Torres shot dead and stuffed into the trunk of his own taxi cap detectives are trying to establish if it was a robbery gone wrong or if he'd been targ
eted by someone with a grudge we were trying to see if we could locate who had vandalizes Raphael's Vehicles see if there's anyone that had a motive or a reason uh to harm or murder Raphael detectives are also on the lookout for vehicles spotted near the bridge on the night of the murder we established a tip line and we got that number out to the news outlets we received multiple tips from passer by describing that they saw a truck on the side of the highway a black SUV on the side of the highwa
y and then a silver car on the side of the highway so we initially started looking for vehicles that could match that description um in the hopes that we could run a name next investigators head to the heart of Tulsa Latino District where Raphael based his business the area of 21st in Garnett and Tulsa is a predominantly Latino Community um right at the heart of that is Santa Cecilia Plaza there's grocery stores there's hair salons ice cream parlors where the Hispanic Community gathers with her
families the plaza cental Cecilia it's a place to go if you're a hispanic most of the time something's always happening Raphael parked his Vehicles outside of the merido and also right next to the ice cream shop Raphael spent every day walking around around talking to these people Raphael gave rides to people that needed them he helped translate and he's just well known in his community as a person always giving back and helping very kind and loving person Rael always said that's what he loved t
o do he loved you know helping out people detectives canvas Raphael's friends at the plaza they were shocked that he was murdered and killed and they were heartbroken was there anyone who had a reason to want him dead it was well known in that community that rapael had money that he carried money with him we spoke with Roman who was considered a maintenance man around the area we spoke with filippia who owned a grocery store as well as a Don who ran the ice cream cart but Don came into contact w
ith rafhael multiple times in a week um as he pushed pushed that card up and down those businesses we actually learned that people seem to really like Raphael no one really seemed to have a motive to want to harm [Music] him as detectives continue searching the plaza for leads they gain access to Raphael's cell phone records so initially we had the physical phone I drafted a search warrant to try to extract as much data as possible from that phone Raphael was talking to multiple people between 9
:15 and 9:30 so we know that he's alive at that point or he wouldn't be answering his phone and then after that time period he doesn't answer any more phone calls It's always important when someone has been murdered to find out who they talked to last one of the numbers that we had identified on Rafael's phone belonged to a female named lety lety worked at a laundry mat near where Raphael kept his Vehicles we found out through OS that Raphael and lety may have had some type of relationship Rapha
el would would frequent let's place of business at the uh laundry mat and would go by to see her not only does he call her frequently go by and see her but I I know he he bought her flowers we took little little gifts up to her he took her to Dallas one time for one of his spars they drove to Dallas and then drove right back there's one more thing about lety that gets the officer's attention we also discover that lety was married as officers dig into this new lead Raphael's autopsy results come
in Raphael was shot three times in the front and six times in the back there's a mindset behind somebody shooting somebody that many times it it tells you that that this is a crime of passion it's not just something that that that just happened so a scorned husband that could fit right in with that now we're starting to think this this could be a motive had Le's husband killed Raphael in a jealous rage detectives decide to get some answers from Ley so we went to interview Ley and Ley was not ver
y forthcoming we had talked to her about her relationship with rafhael you know what is that what is that relationship she told us that they were just friends lady did deny being in relationship with Rafaela we learned after speaking with lety that she had not been truthful to us she did not provide a correct date of birth did not provide her correct address at the station detective searched Le's name in the police database we later learned let's true address and her true date of birth in doing
so we discovered that lety had an outstanding warrant so obviously we're on high alert with her because she's trying to deceive us knowing that we've been lied to we want to observe L's comings and goings so we'd start conducting surveillance on Le's home as detectives stake out Le's home their attention is drawn to a vehicle as we arrived we saw a vehicle pull in that was almost an exact match to one of the mentioned in the tip line he's driving a black truck with a silver stripe on the back of
it and that was a Poss vehicle we were looking [Music] for detectives investigating the shooting of Taxi Driver Raphael Hernandez Torres believe his friendship with laundermat worker Ley could have sent her husband into a jealous rage the first thing we decided to do when looking into Ley and her husband was we went to see who her husband man's talking to then a truck pulls up in Le's driveway that matches a vehicle spotted near the scene of Raphael's murder so from there we decide that we're g
oing to make contact with the individual in the truck officers confront the truck's owner who claims to be the friend of Le's husband Mario rilio was basically crashing on Mario and let's couch um and they were putting him up for several weeks while speaking with rilio we noticed on his license plate of his vehicle that there appear to be a blood stain and there's a bloody fingerprint on the tag of the truck look under the truck and there's a piece of tissue that is kind of consistent with tissu
e that we found at the scene is this the evidence detectives have been searching for they search the house and see what else they can find during the search of that home we did find a firearm inside the home we submitted that to the State Crime Lab we had a victim that had been killed put into the trunk of his vehicle and then that vehicle was subsequently pushed into the river it was a very narrow window of time that all this happened in so in most of the investigators mind it's very good possi
bility that that there's two people involved in this well we got what we believe could be the possible vehicle we have evidence that lady's husband and this friend of his could be our suspects and we're thinking this is the big crack to the case that we've been looking for police bring Mario and rilio in for questioning they ask Mario about Raphael had the taxi driver's advances on Ley made him a Target Mario was familiar with that Raphael um had bought his wife flowers and was known to stop by
her place of business frequently but he did not seem to be very upset by that Mario insists that he was was never jealous of Raphael because he and Ley are divorced we had discovered that lety had an unusual relationship with her ex-husband they both still lived in the same house they lived there with their children um they even slept in the same bed she was kind of out seeeing people he didn't care Mario also insists that he was at home asleep on the night of the murder roio gives the same Alib
i insisting that he never left the house house that night their aliis were not really solid we were worried about them being co-conspirators so at the time we weren't putting just a whole lot of stock into that officers press rilio about the blood on his license plate and we talked to him about the blood on it and he's got a good excuse for that he cut his finger trying to put the tag on and the Bloody fingerprint is his blood they were more than willing to provide their DNA and fingerprints to
clear themselves despite officer suspicion of Mario and roio the lab results tell a different story we have DNA from the scene and Ro Helio and Mario don't possess that DNA the firearm inside the home did not match but bullets that we found in Raphael and based on their phone numbers they weren't at the scene and we found zero evidence linking them to the crime and that whole Theory really started to fall AP quick we were going back to the drawing board and we're starting over again we weren't s
ure on where to go from here other than talking to the community is very frustrating during this point with each passing day pressure to solve the case is only increasing people were asking do we have to be scared is there a murder out there killing us his panics my whole family was worried because they didn't want me doing the T taxing business cuz they don't want me to be the same as my brother at a Crossroads in the investigation police find a new way forward when they gain access to further
cell phone records from the night of the murder one of the last contacts that Raphael had was a fair that was supposed to be getting a ride to Texas later that night and Raphael never showed up but there's one other number that we know is also communicating with Raphael at at around the time of his death Raphael was scheduled to pick up an individual and told him that he was going to be late because he had another job Rafael had told him that he was going to help a friend who had gotten into an
accident and he was going to go translate for him to the police we know that a phone conversation took place around 9:15 and we believe that around 9:35 that Raphael was murdered had Raphael been lured to his death by a call from someone he knew as we start diving into the call detail records on that phone number we're able to follow the Tower information and the location of that phone to the scene of the crime we were able to to track Raphael's phone and the suspect phone both going to the same
area however Raphael's phone didn't leave and the suspect phone went back to Tulsa this was very important to us because we knew that this was the possible killer that enticed Raphael to where he ultimately was shot and killed that's when we make the decision to focus everything on that number when police try to identify the phone's owner there's a problem we get subscriber information for the phone number and it comes back to un fictitious name the number was on a prepaid phone it wasn't attac
hed to any particular person that number was was very important to us especially after seeing the links that the individual went to to hide their identity we felt very strong that this number um was going to belong to the killer so investigators had to start looking at at other ways of identifying who this phone belonged to we started to get call detail records for that number and they started contacting people that were in contact with the cell phone we were able to pinpoint a phone number from
someone that talked to the suspect phone several times close to the time of the killing the phone number belongs to a man named Marco Lara but once we got the name for Marco laara we started running a criminal history check and we find drug charges some Firearms charges stuff that we were interested in when you're looking for a violent killer we knew that Marco knew who possessed our bad guy's phone number because he had been calling it Marco ran with some of the same people in that area that R
aphael had contact with and so we really felt like like Marco was going to be a good spot to uh gain some information we went to the area of the plaza Marco lived one street over and we staked out his house we saw a truck pull into his driveway and he gets out of the driver's seat and he walks into the house so we get out and we start covering exits to make sure that he isn't leaving but that's when things went [Music] South [Music] two weeks after cab driver Raphael Hernandez Torres is found sh
ot dead in the trunk of his car police are about to confront Marco Lara a man they believe may know the identity of the killer we went there to make contact with Marco he refused to come to the door we're calling him out through the loudspeaker trying to get him to come out of the house which turned into a standoff we established a phone connection there was a woman and children in the house his family and we're requesting for him to come out and this goes on for a long time eventually his wife
and children come out and we believe you know that it's just him in the home there was a several hour standoff with him in which he ultimately gave up and came outside and surrendered police take Marco into custody and begin their interrogation initially we were thinking this is a bad guy he's got criminal history he's actively resisting us coming and arresting him we're thinking okay this could very well be an associate of our of our killer if not possibly involved but cell tower phone records
prove otherwise once we got him arrested we were able to determine that his phone as well had not traveled to the area where Raphael was killed if Marco is not involved then why had he resisted arrest he has an outstanding warrant he's doing whatever he can to keep from going to jail no longer a direct suspect Marco still has information valuable to the investigation so we had seized his phone and we had his phone I typed in our suspect's number and he said that's him that number belonged to Rom
an madrano who lived in Tulsa Marco provided us the apartment complex that Roman lived at so knowing that Roman madrano was the owner of that phone we sat at the apartment complex and we figured out what apartment he was in and the next morning we served a search more own that apartment when detectives search the apartment where Roman Madrono lives with his wife Blanca they're surprised by what they find as we entered the residence I noticed there was no furniture it appeared that that Roman um
maybe didn't have a lot of money maybe he was struggling um to pay his bills we find that there's very little in the way of of furniture and it looks like things are being sold off there's IRS paperwork scattered about searching through Blanca's purse officers make a discovery that raises their suspicions further there was approximately $2,000 in her purse Raphael had approximately $2,000 you know in his vehicle and now our suspect's wife has this large sum of money in her purse that is pretty c
lose to the amount we had the one suspect number that we had determined to belong to Roman Madrono at that point we felt we had enough to bring Roman and his wife in for questioning at the police station detectives first interview Roman's wife Blanca Blanca initially denied knowing who Raphael was Blanca told us that she was not given a ride by rhael that Roman has nothing to do with this then how to explain the $2,000 in her purse Roman doesn't have any money he's worried about losing a roof ov
er his head it's well known in the community that rafhael carries lots of cash with him so I don't think it was any secret that by killing rafhael that Roman could get a Payday out of that Blanca basically told us that Roman was with her the night of the the homicide that he's always home in another interview room detectives question Roman Roman told us that he did not know Raphael that he didn't know that his wife knew Raphael that he had never been to the area where the homicide occurred Roman
denied every aspect of any knowledge of the case whatsoever Roman just heard of Raphael's taxi service and that he was you know doing work at the in the Hispanic Community but detectives have information that suggests a closer connection shortly after the first interview with Marco he reached out to us and gave us more information about Roman Marco told us that he had overheard Roman and another individual talking about how Raphael had given Roman's wife Blanca a ride in this taxi cab to the Tu
lsa County Jail pressed further Roman admits to knowing more about Raphael than he first let on Rafael had a successful business and tended to like the ladies a little [Music] bit Roman did not like the fact that she was taking rides with Raphael he still wasn't willing to tell us that that he was you know at the scene of the crime confronted with Roman's admission that she'd taken rides with Raphael Blanca's Story begins to change now she knows Raphael she's telling us that they had talked you
know they knew of each other Blanca began to tell us that during one of her rides with Raphael that he came on to her and that she believed that it was inappropriate and told Roman about it we had learned that Raphael had made comments to Blanca as trying to hit on her and that this was very upsetting to Roman Blanca described Roman as a very jealous man had something happened between Raphael and Blanca that triggered Roman to seek revenge based on how many times they were shot there was a perso
nal element to this uh we believe that Raphael's conduct towards Roman's wife could have been a motive to kill him at this point in the investigation we definitely feel like we have our guy [Music] 17 days after Raphael Hernandez torres's murder police are investigating husband and wife Roman and Blanca Madrono there were two angles that that led us to Roman one was jealousy we knew that Roman was aware of um Raphael giving a ride to Blanca Roman believed that Raphael disrespected his wife by co
ming on to her as she described which would indicate a motive behind Raphael's killing but we also knew that Roman was struggling financially and we had every reason to believe that Roman would know that Raphael carried uh money with him we definitely feel like we've got problem caused to AR and we feel like we have our guy um we don't know if there's another individual at this point but but we know we've got at least one of them under questioning the couple remains adamant in their denials Roma
n would never come out and and tell us the truth Roman told us that he had never been to the area where the homicide occurred Blanca gives us an alibi for Roman and says that he's at the house with her we knew that wasn't true because it was Roman cell phone that was at the scene we got to the overlay of suspect location from the cell towers we knew the possessor of that phone was involved in this killing was it possible that someone else had Roman's phone on the night of the murder we had the e
vidence from the cell phone that Roman talked to Blanca 20 times the night of the homicide if you're sitting right next to him why are you calling him that many times and she says I'm not so things started kind of started to change now we have actual evidence from you know the mouth of his own wife um that what he's saying isn't true so to this point we have a very compelling circumstantial case we've got the cell phone records we have motive police take Roman's fingerprints and swab him for DNA
and then we get the information back from their crime lab and we find DNA from the scene on a beer bottle that belongs to Roman madano the DNA evidence that came back to Roman Madrono you know really firmed up the case against him it went from a very circumstantial case to a really good case police are ready to charge Roman with murder but know the case is far from airtight there was no murder weapon we didn't have an eyewitness to it we knew that proving it in court was going to be very diffic
ult to do then as detectives go back carefully over forensic reports from the State Crime Lab they find something unexpected we were shocked when we found a second individual's fingerprint at the scene when that fingerprint came back with a second person it really blew it wide open this fingerprint affirmed our suspicion that there was more than one person involved in The Killing that was a bombshell that that was a game changer in terms of the criminal prosecution because now we had an eyewitne
ss that print came back to a guy by the name of Adon MOA Adon MOA was a member of the community there in the plazy this fingerprint came back from the Department of Homeland Security when Adon Moira was deported previously Adon MOA was known as the ice cream man when I found out that the ice cream man was involved it was a shock because you you don't expect someone to be that person why would Raphael's friend the ice cream vendor turn against him we knew he was at the scene we knew he knew the v
ictim we knew he knew the other suspect Marco Laura told us that Adon and Roman were pretty tied I mean they spent a lot of time together the consensus amongst the investigators is that it was more than likely a a tourism motive one they were in in Dire Straits needing money and two that Raphael had disrespected Roman and talking to and his wife Blanca at that point we issued a warrant for Adon MOA um however we did not have a location is where he was at we spoke with an individual that told us
that he had gotten scared about a criminal investigation and that he had went up North but we did find that he was on Facebook we wrote a search warrant to Facebook and Facebook provided us a probable location of a dawn we were able able to locate those IP addresses into a suburb of Detroit Michigan it gave us about a three block area detectives contact US Marshals who take a dawn into custody within a matter of hours I read Adon his rights while speaking with him he acted as if he was not close
to Raphael in any way when I asked him specifically if he had been to the area of the KY River he stopped the interview and requested his attorney be present hearing of adon's arrest Roman requests another interview with police during that interview Roman was trying to give me scenarios where Adon had perpetrated this crime and Roman was just trying to give him a ride had no idea what was going on told that Roman has pinned the blame on him Adon decides to cooperate and tell his side of the sto
ry Adon eventually agrees to speak with us and said that Roman had owed him money and that he had a way to get him his money back Adon says that the night of the homicide Roman tells him that he needs Adon to come with him and that he was going to get him the money so Adon gets in the vehicle with Roman Roman stops they get a pack of beer and they drive down to the river bank of the cany river had a dawn just signed on to help Roman kill Raphael if so which one of them fired the gun there's a lo
t of things that we don't know at this point we had two people that we could put at the crime scene but we didn't know who the trigger man was we felt confident that we could prove that Roman Madrono was there and was a part of the crime but Roman was trying to give me scenarios where Adon had perpetrated this crime Adon is doing as best he can to separate himself from the crime crime it's extremely important for the family members that that we get Justice for them this was an incredibly violent
crime and we wanted the person that pulled that trigger when I found out Rafia was slurred out because someone needed help it was just horrible why would you lie to him like that we wanted a conviction for the community for the family so we requested that Adon take a polygraph there's no way that that we can get Raphael back but what we can do is solve the crime and send the perpetrators to [Music] prison police now have two suspects in custody for the shooting of Raphael Hernandez Torres Roman
Madrono and Adon Mora Ramos ultimately to come back to these two people was something that we never saw coming adon's unexpected involvement in the murder gives police a valuable way to secure a conviction to ensure he's telling the truth police have Adon submit to a polygraph test during the interview with Adon he explained to us that Roman wanted him to be at a certain location to help him with a job of some sort they went out to the area where the homicide had occurred and they were there dr
inking some beer and just hanging out Adon doesn't really know what's going on he's asking Roman you know what are we doing how are we going to get this money well Roman keeps walking off and he's he's on the phone he makes a phone call where Adon can't hear him after a period of time Adon sees Raphael's silver car pulling down where they're at Raphael believed that he was going to help a friend who had gotten into an accident it was Roman's cell phone that made the call to lure Rafa out to the
rural secluded area according to a dawn Raphael drank a few beers with them and then Roman asked for his help jump starting his car Roman directed Rafael's vehicle to pull down and give him a jump Roman tells Adon to take the jumper cables and hook him up to the cars Adon tells investigators that what happened next took him by surprise Adon is trying to hook up the cables under the hood of the car [Music] and he hears the gunshots he looks up and says that he sees Roman standing over Raphael and
that Raphael has been shot several times a dawn fingers Roman as the trigger man as the actual killer the polygraph test confirms that ad Dawn is telling the truth that was the last piece of evidence that that we needed the information that he gave um was truthful and it became clear that Roman was really the one that had a personal uh Vendetta against Raphael and the financial motive for it but we knew Don participated we knew he helped out with it ad Don admitted that he put Rafael's body in
the trunk and helped push the vehicle into the river and Adon said he was afraid that Roman was going to shoot him as well Adon never says anything about the money Adon just says he's worried that he's going to be next now he's a witness to this crime and so Adon because of that fear fled the area shortly after the crime had happened ultimately we charged Adon with accessory and and gave him a 15-year sentence Adon was there he could have stopped this and he didn't he could have cooperated and h
e didn't um so he needed to go to prison Roman entered a plea of no contest two murder in the first degree and the judge sentenced him to life in prison with the possibility of parole when this investigation started it was a true who done it we weren't certain on who was involved or why they would want Raphael killed for such a violent act to be committed over a couple thousand dollars and an off-hand comment to uh to Roman's wife is unexplainable it was a cruel and unusual way of getting back a
t somebody for being jealous um and wanting the things that he had Raphael was a generous man a benevolent man and they took advantage of that they knew that he would be willing to help them and they used that good nature against him and ultimately um lured him out there and murdered him my whole family feel relieved because we we finally got Justice from our brother Rafel cuz his dead didn't go in vain my feeling and thought about these people was always like why why what problem did they have
with Raphael I don't know today the Hernandez Tes family does everything they can to keep Raphael's memory alive Raphael was like a role model for everybody he was the biggest role model for me cuz he showed me even when I'm when I'm down to always get up and fight for what I like I would just love for Raphael to be remembered as a crazy funny FLIR titious guy who thought of helping other people always something or someone who remembers Rafael and talk about his life and we just all start crying
and we wish he was still here but he's still with us a generous Soul she was a very giving person and a very sharing person person who helped Neighbors in need when they needed extra money for baby food or diapers Jor was always there is found brutally murdered this homicide was one of the most violent homicides that I've worked there was blood from basically the floor to the ceiling it was something that shocked the community police uncover a Sinister trail of deception and hate he had some st
range Tendencies he seemed to be stalking there the polygraph came back with some clear signs that he was being deceptive to unveil a killer no one expected he made her believe that he was her night and shining armor so she never saw it coming he had two completely different faces on him he was just the devil [Music] incarnate [Music] one hot summer morning in the Sleepy rural town of Clinton Louisiana the sheriff's office gets a call that sends him to a farmhouse just outside of town it belongs
to a woman named Jora gillery when Jor didn't show up for work on Monday morning her co-worker started to get nervous they called her cell phone she didn't answer they called her landline and it was busy stayed busy at that point a friend at work called the sheriff's office in East alician and said would you please go check on our coworker Jor gillery the deputy that worked for the East F Sheriff's Office and he went to the residence to look for her the door was unlocked and he discovered the b
ody [Music] he backed out of the house and he said he threw up outside he could barely even speak to the dispatcher he was so upset by what he found detectives are called to the scene you could tell something had happened at the very entrance of the door there was blood right there on the door handle the blood on the floor leads to detectives inside the house there you could follow the blood trail and it went into the kitchen there were several knives that were had blood on them inside of the dr
awer there was also uh evidence like someone tried to use the phone and there was blood on the side of the phone the blood leads to the bedroom where detectives are met with a gruesome sight in the middle of the floor lies the lifeless body of 42-year-old Jora gillery uh you could see evident tears in her skin which I mean we knew at the time were deep stab wounds she was beaten severely there was blood from basically the floor to the ceiling the lamp was broken broke and and uh stuff knocked ov
er in the bedroom I've seen other homicides that I've work that this one was more brutal the body was also half closed legs opened and she was pinned against the wall there was a possibility that she had been raped detectives in this small Parish don't investigate many homicides let alone one this brutal they call in the Louisiana State Police to help process the scene they took some DNA samples of the material that was found under her fingernails the samples are sent to the lab to see if there
are any traces of the Killer's DNA we didn't find any type of murder weapons we found that it was actually no force entry we pretty well figured that it was somebody that she knew and had a little bit of trust in to open the door as police collect evidence jora's neighbors philli and Amy Skipper arrive on the scene they was whole shocked Philip's wife Amy she was really destroyed and and she was um the friend of Miss Gill's police informed jora's family her brother-in-law Albert is the first to
get the terrible news I received a call from the sheriff's office indicating that uh janur was dead had been murdered and obviously um it was just an unbelievably bad moment to jora's sister my spouse at that time Ivon that was probably the single most devastating moment in her life the family rushes to the scene when they arrive detectives ask them for any details they can provide about jinora joro grew up in Unice Louisiana a small town in St Landry Parish from the time that joro was a young g
irl in in school she was a very giving person she was a very intelligent woman filled with love for Life filled with love for Animals janora worked at an insurance company in Baton Rouge but chose to live in rural Clinton where she could indulge in her passion for Animals she had 30 dogs she had three or four horses she had rescue animals she took care of friends animals if they couldn't animals were a big part of her life friends were a big part of jora's life too she was thrilled when a sweet
couple moved in across the street and they immediately headed off Philip and Amy Skipper moved into her neighborhood and I felt very comfortable that she had developed this warm relationship with the Skippers over the years Jora and her neighbors became close friends Jora told me how reliable they were and how hardworking they were janor really liked her neighbors and she thought of the Skippers almost like family now her friends are heartbroken over jora's violent death and police are faced wit
h the puzzle of finding her killer it made no sense janor had no enemies and she wasn't involved in anything shady or suspicious when the autopsy report comes back the next day it concludes that the murder took place between 11:00 p.m. and 2: a.m. it also reveals just how brutal jora's final moments were she was shot five times with a 22 caliber gun and stabbed five times but neither of these attacks caused her death a severe blow to the back of the head severed her brain stem from her body she
was actually alive and she was fighting back and was stab and shot this was one of the most uh violent homicides that I've worked it was a very much Overkill um which usually mean it is a crime of [Music] passion this was a particularly brutal dastardly deed we all stood outside jora's house uh that morning and talked about who could possibly have done this despite the concern of jora's family and friends detectives can't rule out anyone as a suspect we began talking to the neighbors and um co-w
orkers the ones that showed up and just started trying to get information one person in particular draws investigators ATT attention gor's neighbor Philip Skipper Philip was real calm um what really got me was his over wanting to help too much you know we just had a feeling Philip knew something coming up investigators uncover a dark Obsession he was infatuated with her and couldn't take no for an answer and menacing secrets called her names behind her back all the time but never to her face the
re was an incentive for them to actually uh murder her that leads them to a suspect they never expected they went on a tour of the murder scene and he described the whole thing he just blurted out you have a woman named Mrs G that was murdered over there after 42-year-old janora gillery is found savagely killed in her home detectives in Clinton Louisiana suspect that her neighbor Philip Skipper might know something about the murder Philip was was overh helpful at the crime scene and it is someth
ing that we wanted to check out more police decide to bring in Philip Skipper and his wife Amy for an interview janor really like her neighbors and the Skippers had a young child and their stepson who was 15 years old at the time Philip Skipper tells investigators that when his young family first moved to Clinton they were down on their luck but their neighbor janora kindly helped out she started to take them under her umbrella and make sure that they had food and made sure that they had electri
city when the Skippers needed extra money for baby food or diapers Jor was always there the trailer they were living in for example was really dilapidated so janor helped them buy a new trailer she helped them improve their lives as as much as she could jora's kindness didn't stop there she started to employ philli to do all of the work uh in her yard and around the house and employed Amy Skipper to do the work inside her house Jora treated the Skippers like family and trusted them with keys to
her property she was just a very very generous neighbor detectives want to know if the Skippers ever argued with Jora Amy Skipper said their relationship had recently been strained by an fortunate incident Philip Skipper was Raising pit bulls and there was one dog that was not a pit that didn't get along with his other pit bulls and Jor agreed to keep that in her kennel with her dogs well that dog somehow got loose during the day while Jor was at work the dog ran back to the Skipper's trailer an
d killed a goat they kept as a pet Amy Skipper ran over to gor's house got on the phone called janor at work and was upset with Jor and that's witnessed by a couple of gor's co-workers who heard gor's end of the conversation she was crying by the end of this phone call that's how upset Jor was and Jor told Amy Skipper on the phone leave the key at my house get out of my house and never come back when police question Phillip about the conflict he tells them that he and Amy had since patched thing
s up with Jora and they were back on friendly terms Philip Skipper was dismissive about the falling out he said it was just a you know a dispute among neighbors and they worked it out and there was no lingering After Effects police are skeptical about Philip's version of events and when they notice scratches on his arms they wonder if they were made by Jora while trying to fight for her life question him about that he said it was from him and his stepson wrestling in the yard not convinced by hi
s story investigators asked philli where he was on the night of the murder and he said was asleep uh at the time that the murder [Music] happened to confirm Philip's story police asked to interview his 15-year-old stepson John Balo when you interviewed the juveniles in Louisiana you had to have permission of the guardian or the parent which we had I mean they they did cooperate there and let us talk to them when detectives question and John they noticed scratches on his arms too is it possible J
ora fought back against two attackers John balio had marks on him he gave us the same story John corroborates his stepdad's story but police are still suspicious the marks on their arms was really something that we wanted to check out more more if they was being truthful so after that interview we we did decide to have a polygraph set up Philip and John agree to take the test but before it can be scheduled investigators uncover a critical detail during the course of Investigation we did learn ab
out an insurance policy Miss Giller had taken out out on herself and the money would go to the Skippers was an insurance payout reason enough for the Skippers to kill their friend and neighbor with a lack of motive it's really hard to find the killer the insurance policy was an incentive for them to actually uh murder her police have just discovered that murder victim Jora Gill's neighbors the skipper family are the beneficiaries of jora's $25,000 life insurance policy and it's just kind of unus
ual that the neighbor would have an insurance policy and list the other neighbor as a beneficiary they're not related the insurance policy raises eyebrows for investigators but jora's family is well aware of the policy and does not suspect Foul Play Jora wanted to make sure that the Skippers had the food that they needed had the clothing that they needed for at least a period of time should she meet an untimely departure the Skippers after jora's death did not know how to collect they contacted
me and asked me to assist them and I did still police believe the insurance money is a possible motive that coupled with the scratches on Philip and Jon's arms convinces detectives to take the next step Philip Skipper and John Balo showed up at the Baton Rouge Police Department which has a polygraphy unit and uh they both took separate polygraph tests the polygraph interrogator asked 15-year-old John Balo for an alibi John Balo said he was at home asleep when the murders occur both John and Phil
ip are asked about their knowledge of the Murder By The Examiner and when their responses are analyzed detectives are surprised by the results both of their test came back with no real signs of deception the results on the polygraphs it was inconclusive and the officer that was doing the polygraph didn't think that they had done the murder the results are a blow to the investigation and Lead detectives dropped the Skippers as suspects we still didn't have no physical evidence and the polygraph m
ade us think well we need to start looking elsewhere detectives interview Jan's friends and co-workers about anyone she may have dated [Music] recently A friend of Miss Giller he gives the name of Tommy Alexandra police track down Tommy at his home in a nearby town he agrees to talk to police Tommy tells investigators that he met Jor months prior at a feed store where she was stalking up on food for her animals Jor agreed to meet Tommy for a drink their first of several dates Tommy and Jor had d
ated on and off for for some time but it soon became apparent to Jora that Tommy had other love interests it turned out Tommy Alexander was not just dating janor at the time he was digging a couple of different women Jor really liked him but Tommy didn't want to settle down he he wasn't going to commit to one woman is it possible that an argument between janora and Tommy could have turned deadly we interviewed Tommy about the homicide on the night J nor was murdered Tommy says that he was at hom
e police talk to his girlfriend who confirms his Alibi they were able to eventually eliminate him as a suspect as far as physical evidence to tie specific suspect to the scene there really wasn't anything they kept trying to dig for facts but they were hampered by the fact that once again they couldn't figure out why anyone wanted to kill her to determined to get Justice for Jora investigators interview her co-workers and discover that she had an ongoing conflict with a man in her life we learne
d about another friend Steve Williams from co-workers and basic what we learned is that he want to date Miss Giller but the feeling is not mutual Steve Williams um managed to persuade Jor to go out one time and that was enough for her she didn't want to go out with him again and and she let him know but he didn't take that no very well miss Giller had really got concerned about him according to her friends he would sit out in the parking lot and wait for her to get off from work would show up un
announced Steve Williams showed up out of the blue while she was working her horses he pursued her a little more aggressively than was comfortable for the family from co-workers uh explanations over there he seemed to be stalking Jor Jor said he's bothering me and he needs to stop when detectives look into to Steve Williams they're shocked to learn that their potential suspect is one of their own state Williams was a m rge police officer detectives have learned that Steve Williams who had been r
epeatedly contacting janor gillery in the months before her murder is a fellow police officer Steve Williams had recently gotten a job with the Baton rou police department and he was a probation police officer in the next jurisdiction over he was infatuated with her and he was just a a guy who couldn't take no for an answer jora's friends knew that she was not interested and of course after the murder when the police are asking well who may have been upset with Jor he became a focus of the inves
tigation when you investigate uh law enforcement officers is harder than most because they know the law as good as you do but we did have good cooperation through baton R City uh police department whatever we needed they was willing to provide as investigators gather more information about Steve they uncover an intriguing tip from one of his colleagues 29-year-old officer Tabitha MC Tabitha came forward during the investigation and she had worked with Steve was at Baton rge police office uh it t
urns out she got kind of a bad vibe from him Tabitha tells investigators that she overheard Steve having heated phone conversations with a woman on several occasions while at the police shooting range she said they make multiple phone calls police need to check jora's phone records to find out if janora was the person Steve had been calling Tabitha also tells investigators that Steve mentioned shooting targets at his mother's home and when they ask Tabitha if Steve mentioned the type of gun he u
sed her answer sets off alarm Bells she says he used a 22 which by this time we found out that uh 22 was used in the shooting of Mis gillery as a police officer of course uh Steve Williams had Firearms a 22 caliber pistol which is certainly not a police gun but he did have a 22 and he shot it at his mother's house based on the history of him stalking Miss Giller and the access to 22 that's when we decided that we would check Steve Williams out a little bit more when detectives check jora's phone
records They quickly discover an alarming pattern looking at the phone records Steve Williams in my opinion was stalking Miss Giller the phone record showed 35 calls to Janoris home from the shooting range in 4 months and an escalating pattern of calls and messages Steve Williams had left several messages for Jor the weekend that she was killed in fact he told her in a message that he was stopped by her house on the day she was killed invest instigators don't waste a second bringing steveen for
questioning and when they do his demeanor has them instantly suspicious Steve was real nervous it was just something about him like he was hiding something from us Steve insists he had nothing to do with jora's murder and claims he stayed at his mother's house the night janora was killed Steve's Mama's residence about 40 minutes away from where the homicide was police believe janora was murdered between 11:00 p.m. and 2: a.m. could Steve have slipped out undetected while his mother was sleeping
Jor was shot with a 22 caliber pistol and the fact that he had a 22 was nearby on the day she was killed it really put him very high up on the suspect list that's when we had him take a polygraph Steve's answers are analyzed and the results sent to detectives Steve Williams polygraph examination came back with some clear signs that he was possibly being deceptive his polygraph basically told us that he may have known something about that murder made me really think that he had something to do w
ith this that's when Steve advised he wasn't going to talk to us no more he wanted a lawyer despite Steve's refusal to cooperate detectives continue to investigate him he looked like a good suspect now the question would be can they find the evidence to prove it they got a warrant for his house they got warrants for his personal cars and they got a warrant for his police car now to do that they had to work with the Baton rou police department and the detectives were helping to recover a 22 you k
now knife anything with blood stains anything to link him to the crime scene they didn't find anything it's a major setback but detectives still have one last piece of forensic evidence that they believe could connect Steve Williams to the murder they get a search warrant for a DNA sample from Steve to see if it's a match for genetic material found on jora's body we had those fingernail scrapings that were taking off her from the state police crime lab it was determined yes there was some male D
NA under her fingernails coming up investigators zero in on a vicious killer I picked out the worst photo that I could find of the crime scene and I threw it in front of his face and made him look at it said did she deserve [Music] it police hope to use DNA evidence to link Baton Rouge Police Officer Steve Williams to Jor Gill's murder Steve's DNA is compared to material found under jora's fingernails his DNA was not actually determined to be under her fingernails the DNA also doesn't match any
known criminals in the FBI database the fingernail scraping came back to unknown male genetic profile with no physical evidence linking Steve Williams to the crime he's ruled out as a suspect leaving investigators at a standstill the case had gone cold and they had no other leads to check into the case stays hold for an entire year that was great disappointment and great frustration on the part of the family when the case went cold the shock of jora's murder may have faded but the community live
s in fear of a killer who's still at large when a murder occurs it's very alarming everybody's on edge especially after the case was at of stand still then on July 27th 2001 a tip comes in that changes [Music] everything and I got a call on the telephone straight to the office it was detective Mark Apperson from Tang poo Sheriff's Office and he he just blurred it out he's like do you have a woman named Mrs G that was murdered over there and uh I just kind of look up over at DME and I said yeah w
e do have a woman named Miss G that was killed the detective there was working a uh domestic violence battery and the victim had came in and told him that her boyfriend knew something about a murder in Clinton the woman tells detectives her boyfriend's name is Donnie fiser we rode over there and found Donnie fiser we brought him over there to the tant Poo sheriff's office but Donnie fiser is not in the mood to talk you could tell he knew something that's when I picked out the worst photo that I
could find of the crimes thing and I threw it in front of his face and made him look at it said did she deserve it reluctantly Donnie looks down at the gruesome photos and moments later his whole demeanor changes he started to break down and cry and he looked at it and then he told us basically it's confession Donnie says he heard a detailed account of the murder from one of jora's neighbors the neighbor took Donnie fiser on a tour of the murder scene he said once they got there he took him and
said this is how it happened investigators are stunned they questioned all of gor's Neighbors at the outset of the investigation but it didn't uncover any useful information or lead to an arrest detectives demand that Donnie reveal the neighbor's name he said it was John Balo Philip Skipper's stepson detectives are shocked they press Donnie for details and he claims that Jon told him about the murder while cleaning up janor Gill's house Jor giler's family had hired John Balo to go clean up the c
rime scene Donnie Fisher he was out there helping so as they're cleaning up the house John Balo was bragging to Donnie Fischer about how he killed Jor gillery John balio took Donnie and said here's what we did here here's what we did here and he described the whole thing investigators don't know whether to believe Donnie's story especially since John balo's polygraph was considered truthful yet every word of it lines up with the evidence John actually showed Donnie how m g ran through the house
and talking to Donnie he described everything that we had put together from what we've seen at the crime scene detectives want want to know why would Balo want jinora dead after all she had done for his family Miss gillery would would rather help somebody than hurt somebody you know she would do anything she could to help the Skippers it it's kind of hard righto police now believe that Donnie is telling the truth so they quickly file an arrest warrant we picked up John Balo late late on a Friday
evening we brought him back to East police CER Sheriff's Office for charges of first-degree murder investigators now believe the key to cracking this case is a confession from the alleged killer luckily a recent change in Louisiana state law allows them to question a minor accused of murder without a lawyer or Guardian present the police had to get John balio to come clean and tell the truth we brought him to my office and advised him of his rights he bounced from here to there during his state
ments at first when we initially questioned him and then we started talking about the brutality of this homicide after probably an hour hour and a half interviewing he finally came and told the story about how he killed Miss G but first Balo needs to get something off his chest he didn't do it by himself pointed the finger right back at Philip Skipper detectives are speechless John Balo just implicated his stepdad Phillip in the murder of Jor gillery and that's not all he pointed to several othe
r people [Music] take detectives in Clinton Louisiana have just arrested Philip Skipper's stepson John Balo for the murder of 42-year-old Jora gillery John started basically telling us how this went down and John claims he didn't act alone he points the the finger at his stepdad Philip Skipper and two other people Johnny Hoy was a brother-in-law to Philip Skipper and uh Lisa Skipper Hoy was a sister to Philip Skipper he said they killed this woman together Lisa and Johnny that's the first time w
e their name had ever came up and we were a whole shocked John Balo gave a detailed confession on videotape to exactly what happened John claims that Phillip Johnny and Lisa had formed a white supremacist gang called the Brotherhood and that killing janora was meant to be John's initiation into the group it would be my true testing Brotherhood it was a skin head gang actually they were very anti-black and Neo Nazi Philip Skipper he had two completely different faces on him I mean he had the one
he% to janor gillery which was you know the nice neighbor and then behind her back he called her all kind of names he hated black people he basically made her believe that he was her night and shining armor she never saw it coming killing Jora would not only initiate balio into their game but also bring a financial windfall Philip Skipper who's smart enough to figure out that hey if she doesn't like us anymore it's not going to be very long before she changes that insurance policy and names some
one else's beneficiary Balo tells detectives that on the night of the murder the group had been drinking heavily they arrived at jora's door at 2: a.m. when we got there Lisa walked up to the door and knocked on it and told Miss G that she needed some money to get the baby some diapers and um this G cracked the door open that's when Johnny hit her and forced his way in there they just jumped on her like a pack of hyenas she ran through the house down the hall screaming for to leave her alone and
she run into the kitchen and got to the knife drawer trying to get her knife so she could cut him you make them leave her alone eventually she ran to her bedroom John told us that they took turns stabbing her and they took turns beating her and they took turns shooting her and then somebody threw the final blow that according to the medical examiner killed her instantly it was a blow with a bat to the Head Philip started hitting her with the bat and after Miss G stopped breathing they started r
aping her John balio said that they used condoms there was not an indication of any seminol fluid or any semen at the scene that night with no evidence to backup John balo's claim of sexual assault the rape charges are dropped but detected are still determined to bring jora's Killers to Justice John Bao's confession gave us enough probable calls to make sure this case got prosecuted for cooperating with police JN is given a deal he pleads guilty to Second deegree murder and receives a juvenile l
ife sentence to expire when he turns 21 Lisa hoit also takes a plea agreement and is sentenced to 25 years that leaves Johnny hoit and Philip Skipper to face Justice in separate trials when news of the arrests gets out jora's family is devastated when the family found that Philip and John were involved they were really really upset and angry that the the people that janora had taken care of so diligently were the ones involved in her murder the prosecutors are determined to bring jora's Killers
to justice but they have a problem there's no concrete evidence linking either Philip or Johnny to the crime scene there was some male DNA under her fingernails but it did not match the samples that we had from the three males in this case both cases rest entirely on the testimony of John Balo John Balo walked us through what happened at night and that was crucial for our case he actually brought everything together and and made the whole situation make sense to a jury was Philip Skipper St the
jury came back with a unanimous verdict he was guilty of second degree murder Philip Skipper is sentenced to life and prison without the possibility of parole Philip's wife Amy is not charged with any crime a lot of time people ask what about Amy what about Amy Amy Skipper had no idea what her husband was doing I genuinely believe that Amy Skipper did not have any knowledge of what was going to take place I believe that she had nothing to do with this Johnny Hoy was found guilty of second deegre
e murder and sentenced to 25 years without the possibility of parole but for the family of Jor gillery no punishment could possibly make up for the pain they suffered in the wake of her murder jora's father died of a broken heart it was just a very very difficult time for everyone in that family I like for people to remember Jora as we knew her warm and happy and someone who would give the shirt off her back to anyone who needed it we are all happy to have had our lives enriched by her Passage t
hrough this [Music] life from a vibrant young woman with a bright future she just was like a magnet she was very very pretty but also very smart is the victim of a truly disturbing murder he'd been struck on the head many times it's kind of the Horror Story the body itself appeared to have been washed jewelry had been put on her after the fact she had been staged for suspect's desires who could have done this could it be somebody who likes her somebody who has a fantasy over her detectives hunt
for a deranged killer we noticed blooded palm print police had collected about a 100 different print Impressions we could be looking for a serial killer just when it looks like justice may never be served it was extremely frustrating A stunning Discovery points to a murderer in their their midst when we found out who it was it was like are you kidding nobody could believe [Music] it less than an hour outside Los Angeles Irvine California is a peaceful community with a coastal Vibe Irvine is very
very pretty it is pretty much the Hub of Orange County the ocean's only 10 minutes away and this is where everybody wanted to be Irvine has always been considered to be a very safe City and has not been known for violence on May 14th 1979 Irvine's sense of safety is shattered when a man calls 911 to say he can't get a hold of his 22-year-old girlfriend Savannah Anderson earlier that day her boyfriend went over to her residence to meet her at about 6:00 he couldn't get any response at the door h
e went back home for a while couldn't get a hold of her still he called the police department about 7:25 p.m. it was a welfare check her boyfriend indicated that she had not been feeling well and so there was a concern that it could be a health issue when uh the officer arrived he met her boyfriend bill bills and another man Ken bergenson who identified himself as her boss they explained they' both come to the apartment to try to find out if she was okay cuz nobody been able to get a hold of her
that day I was very fortunate to work with Savannah Savannah was always prompt and she didn't come that day all day long it was like trying to get a hold of her no answers by the end of the day we were very concerned something might have happened because that wasn't like her the officer found the apartment was in fact locked up tight there was no key available from the apartment office the officer found out that a bedroom window nearby was unlocked from the inside and he was able to open that b
edroom window when the officer made entry he was able to see a woman with a lot of blood around her lying in bed towels wrapped around her face and head she was called to the touch both Savannah's boyfriend and boss are taken to the station for questioning while homicide investigators are called to the scene when I walked in it appeared to me that there was a struggle a fight and it was very clear that she was attacked on the bed and she laid on the bed for some time due to the amount of blood t
hat had pulled in that area a lot of blood splatter Bing against the uh back of the wall and the headboard she also had towels over her face after the towels were taken off her face was found out to be beaten very severely excessively the towels were significant it tells you that the killer may have known her and didn't want to look at what they've done it appeared that the uh body of the victim had been beaten with something hard she had multiple defensive marks on her arms her hands nail marks
around the neck area which would indicate that she also had a ligature that had been placed around her neck the legs were slightly raised as if some sexual activity may have occurred there perhaps she was a victim of a sexual assault the degree of violence to Savannah's body was unusual did somebody do it because they were angry at her if they were angry at her is that because they knew her they loved her they hated her based on the state of the body police believe Savannah was likely killed in
the early hours of the morning looking closer several details strike investigators as highly unusual Savannah had some jewelry honored there was a necklace around her neck and the clasp was at the front there's also a watch on her arm that looked like it had just been put on there Loosely we were surprised to see that those items were still intact on her based upon the brutality of her attacker so it appeared that he may have just put those items back on her the uh body itself appeared to have
been washed as there is very little Blood on the skin surface of the victim we noticed drag marks from the bed onto the carpet leading into the bathroom inside the bathroom there was diluted blood with water around the sink area and also the bathtub she looked like she had been cleaned up and set in a particular position on the bed it was staged for this suspect's desires and I think that was important to get an idea of what this type of person was willing to do to Savannah's body put things on
her put clothes on her whatever it was very unusual for any type of murder in my opinion it looks like somebody wanted to make it look like she was fine and nothing was wrong police find some important Clues the killer left behind we noticed blooded palm print leading from the bedroom into the bathroom palm prints are identifiable just like fingerprints there were smudged bloodied fingerprints on the toilet seat they were basically the only way that we'd be able to find out who the killer might
have been there was no DNA at the time detectives find no murder weapon or any sign of forced entry we made the determination that the killer may have been known by Savannah and let him in through the front door another theory was through an unlocked open window after finishing up at the scene detectives break the news of Savannah's death to her loved ones the parents lived in Utah when I spoke to Savannah's mother on the phone she was devastated by this it was her only child It's probably hard
for most people to realize first of all what it's like to lose a child let alone the only child you have Savannah's mother said Savannah had made a collect call to her about 10:00 the previous day on Mother's Day evening they had talked on the phone for about 2 hours Savannah was very happy good mood that must have made it even more so U difficult when I found out what had happened to Savannah we were all totally shocked my heart just hurt so much how very sad this beautiful young lady her life
was gone is very senseless very very hard to [Music] understand born in 1956 Savannah Anderson grew up in Salt Lake City Utah and had Big Dreams she was 22 when she moved to Irvine she came here looking for a better opportunity she was very independent and she wanted to do it on her own I met savan when she was working here for commercial credit Savannah was a secretary for for the operations manager she just was like a magnet she was very very pretty I remember when people did come in the offic
e especially the men she did attract attention Savannah was flattered but she did have a boyfriend Bill Mills whom she met 3 months after moving to California she was more of a private person and herself as far as not one to just open up and tell everybody what she was doing she was definitely on the shy side when I found out what had happened to Savannah I felt angry and and just crushed and so hurt my first thought it was just how tragic this was I just can't imagine it's kind of the horror st
ory who could have done this could it be somebody close to her somebody who knows her somebody who likes her somebody who has a fantasy over her when you have a brutal killing like Savannah's case detectives immediately looked for the people that are close to her her boyfriend the fact that bill the boyfriend was the one that called the police is he innocently calling the police her cuz he doesn't know that something had happened to her or is he the one who may have done it so he contacted the p
olice to say GE something might be wrong with the hopes that the police will go ahead and discover the crime and then say Well it can't be the boyfriend because he called us here could it be almost a way out to try to point the finger away from you it's just something you have to look into coming up police question The Grieving boyfriend to see if he has something to hide his attorney advised him not to take a polygraph and detectives uncover more suspects why is he here now at this time that wa
s suspicious somebody was lying another crime turns the investigation on its head this individual was responsible for five murders perhaps she was the victim of this killer and the perpetrator's identity leaves everyone in shock it was absolutely devastating when we found out who it [Music] was police investigating the gruesome murder of 22-year-old Savannah Anderson have their first suspect her boyfriend Bill Mills when you have a crime of passion where somebody is murdered there are definitely
times when a boyfriend who just got angry and upset did the crime the first thing we did was began meeting with Bill Mills so we could understand better about Savannah his relationship Bill tells police he and savan started dating 6 months ago and he was in love they had met each other in another apartment apartment community they had gotten along well he was about 9 years older than Savannah in talking with him had learned that he had just asked her to marry him police are curious if something
came up to disrupt the couple's plans for the future it was a large violent crime scene did he do it because he was angry at her bill tells investigators he last Saw Savannah a day earlier on May 13th they had grunch together and then uh he spent the day over at her apartment during the interview with Bill Mills we found out that Savannah and he did have sex that day so that would be important later on in case there was Seaman found inside of her bill told me on the 13th he left her apartment a
t about 1 p.m. once he did leave what happened to him could anybody account for his activity after he apparently left her apartment he said he went home he went to bed and then to work the following day bill says he and Savannah had plans on the 14th after they both got off work he went to her apartment about 6 knocked couldn't raise her he went back home for a while then Bill Mills went ahead and contacted the police department Bill denies having anything to do with Savannah's death it appeared
that bill Mills was really in love with her thought it was a very serious uh relationship he was very happy with her bill was uh Cooperative he tried to assist us as much as he could but there is one request Bill won't comply with there is a red flag he was asked if he would be willing to take a polygraph he contacted an attorney and his attorney uh advised him not to take one we did ask if we could see his body his hands his arms see if there's any indications of a struggle with anybody but hi
s body was clean we asked him if we could go ahead and take his finger and palm prints he agreed to let us do that it will be weeks before the results come in in the meantime detectives are forced to let bill go next they move on to another man in Savannah's Life part of the investigation and process was to meet with her boss Ken bergenson who had been at the crime scene in speaking with him he said he had known her in Salt Lake and had offered her a job locally here Ken bergerson also said that
he kind of considered himself a father figure to her he helped her move they had talked many times been out for drinks been out for lunch and different things could Ken have wanted more than a professional relationship with Savannah was anything going going on romantically in the present day I asked Ken where he was the night of May 13th and he indicated that he was with his wife that whole evening we did contact the white to verify that and there's no reason to believe that uh he was anywhere
but at his home that night after the interview we asked Ken to submit his prints so they could be compared against the crime scene we just let him go home that night after the interview [Music] the police questioned each one of us in the office I worked for Ken bergerson at the time he was just such a nice guy and so concerned about her she was living by herself and she was just so beautiful I just thought you know somebody saw her somebody was either stalking her or something happened but I was
just so angry that somebody could possibly do something like this it had to have been somebody I thought who was very sick there was nothing really that Drew anyone's attention to any issues that Savannah had at work and nothing came of it police canvased the apartment complex the next day searching for Witnesses we didn't find anyone that said that they'd heard any struggle or screams to cooperate when that attack may have occurred there were two security guards that were assigned to the compl
ex it was a a multi-unit under construction so after I got the names of the security Personnel who worked that night which is about a week after we originally responded out there I talked to the security guard first who worked the midnight to 6:30 shift his name is Chuck Doyle according to Doyle security was hired to ensure the residents were safe and to overlook any construction sites and that sort of thing for theft Chuck tells investigators on a usual shift he would drive through the complex
and also Patrol by foot I asked him how he found out about the murder of the woman and he said he found out through the company I asked him if he knew the lady who lived there showed him two pictures and he picked out the picture of Savannah Anderson when asked about his dealings with Savannah Chuck's answer gives investigators cause for concern he indicated about a month prior that he helped Savannah gain entry into apartment and slid a window open for her it was notable that Mr Doyle had said
he was aware that at least at that time one of the windows was unlocked Doyle said you'll find my fingerprints on Savannah's window and this is the reason why immediately we printed him it really made me zero in on him as a potential suspect [Music] a week after Savannah Anderson was found bludgeon to death in her bed security guard Chuck Doyle has drawn suspicion after admitting that his fingerprints are likely on her unlocked window she had locked herself out of her apartment before contacted
him while he was on the site to see if he could help her get into the apartment the security did not have any pass keys he found that a window was unlocked he was able to slide the window open he also said that he didn't go inside now that could be for a couple of reasons could be perfectly innocent that he didn't go inside could also be to say well I didn't go inside if he may have somehow be involved in the death had Chuck slipped in through the same unlocked window to kill Savannah police pre
ss him for his movements that night Chuck Dole said that he reported reported for Duty on the 14th at midnight or was supposed to indicated that he was about 10 minutes 15 minutes late he was supposed to replace a security guard named Bob sers he drove by savanas and saw her talking on the phone he thought maybe that was around 1215 or so 1220 but was not certain he went and parked next to Bob siller's carart about 12:30 he estimated sellers approached he got the daily reports from Sellers and u
h then sellers went ahead and got in his car and drove off when detectives ask what happened next Chuck's answer raises even more suspicion he said he drove around a while went back to the carport and went to sleep which would seemed very odd he thought he probably kned off for a while Doyle says that he was awoken by a car Direct hor slam it was sellers who had returned and invited him to breakfast Doyle says it was maybe 1 or 2 in the morning they went to breakfast at spire's restaurant a 24-h
our cafe the cafe is just 10 minutes from the complex Doyle said that he was dropped off by sellers at about 2:30 in the morning Chuck says the rest of his shift was uneventful and he clocked out at 6:30 a.m. there's just something really unusual about the sequence of events that's being described by Doyle investigators are left with more questions than answers did Savannah die on Chuck's watch or was he the one who killed her hoping for clarity and to corroborate Chuck's story they turned to th
e other security guard Robert sers Robert sers enlisted into the Marine Corps at age 17 he's 22 now he was assigned that day to uh work from about 4: in the afternoon and he was supposed to get off at about midnight that night I asked him if he knew who Savannah Anderson was he said he had talked to both her and her boyfriend that evening sellers told me that he thought he saw Savannah around 1 p.m. on the phone Robert confirms that Chuck was late for work so he didn't leave the apartment comple
x until around 12:30 a.m. after leaving Doyle he then went home showered as a US Marine he was supposed to go to a a Marine base at 6:00 the morning he decided it wasn't worth trying to go to sleep so he thought well I'll just go out to breakfast with doy so that's when he returned sellers told me that he came back to the complex about 3:30 which is an hour and a half or two hours after what do recalled this happening so there was this inconsistency between the both of them about what time they
must have gone to the restaurant Seller said there is a waitress named Gail who waited on him I took note of that at the end of the seller's interview we asked if he would go ahead and give us Finger palm prints which he agreed [Music] to investigators hope the autopsy report can help them pinpoint Savannah's time of death according to the coroner's report Savannah Anderson died at approximately 2 a.m. on May 14th the cause of death was strangulation she'd been struck on the head many times foun
d multiple contusions on her face there is broken fingernails a broken jaw cracked teeth we did have biological fluids uh semen that was found but DNA was not in existence at the time so we didn't have that tool my first thought was just how horrible to to die like that I cried and I was just very upset just thinking that something like that had happened to a person that was just so lovely it just terrible if Savannah was killed at 2: a.m. which security guard is telling the truth was Chuck real
ly off sight like he claimed or was Robert right meaning Chuck was at the apartment complex when the murder took place there was a wide Gap in discrepancy between their two stories and timing so the two were brought in together to try and determine if someone was mistaken about times they both basically stuck to their stories I wasn't sure which either timeline might have been correct whether it might have been doy or sellers because they were just too far apart so we thought at that time somebo
dy was [Music] lying detectives are investigating the disturbing murder of Savannah Anderson the two security guards from her apartment complex are unable to agree where they were at 2: a.m. when Savannah was killed the timing is very sketchy between what Doyle says and what we learned from sellers this is raising a lot of flags to me because why don't they know where they were and what time they were going over time discrepancies Doyle said well I slept I could be mistaken I'm not sure so selle
rs seem to be more credible TimeWise according to Robert sers Chuck was on duty at 2: a.m. and the pair only went to spire's restaurant around 3:30 a.m. I asked one of the uh troll guys to go ahead and try to contact any waitress here that might have been named Gail to see if she recall the security guys coming in there at all they weren't able to find a Gail that worked at the spire's restaurant so we could not identify that particular part of the story it looked like the best chance of us dete
rmining who the suspect was was going to be through the fingerprint and palm print evidence left behind at this time we already had fingerprints and pal prints from the boyfriend Bill Mills the boss Ken burgers and from the two security guards Chuck Doyle and Bob Sellers and I felt that if we can find out if any of those were the the palm prints that's going to be the resolution of our case we'd be able to determine who' done it so we sent them away with high hopes that we're going to be able to
resolve the case once we get the results back while waiting for the results investigators dig deeper into Savannah's life hoping something will point to her killer Savannah seemed to be a very likable person who had from all reports a good mind good IQ personable funny one that you would be very happy to have as a daughter she was very sweet very sophisticated quiet she had very strong values and morals you know she was just not one of those that was going to be out looking for trouble just how
she went and how young she went it's so tragic our world is a it's it's cruel we interviewed neighbors Savannah had been at the apartment complex about 6 weeks her contacts uh friends were very limited what I learned through investigation was Savannah had moved deliberately for the safety of having Security on the premises she really want wanted a place that felt safe and the fact that they had security she loved that aspect of it she felt really good about where she was going 2 months after Sa
vannah's death police received the results of the finger and palm print analysis from the scene I was really hoping we heard back from the crime lab that it's going to be one of the guys we'd already talked to in terms of identification and finding and identifying that individual it was everything none of the prints that came back were any of the fingerprints submitted from the bloody finger and palm prints really disappointing couldn't figure out why it seemed like there should have been somebo
dy in there that was responsible for it yet the crime lab is telling us that these weren't the responsible parties at all we thought we had some viable suspects but we're told nope it's not them well now what wow the results mean Savannah's boyfriend her boss and the two security guards are all cleared I was very discouraged but thought okay we just haven't come across the perpetrator he's out there we'll find him we'll identify him I feel comfortable with that based on the pal print detectives
immediately looked for people in the area that maybe had criminal histories they looked at people that had been arrested after that for similar type of Breakin crimes and if they had any suspicions whatsoever they would get their pal print and their fingerprints and they'd compare them to the crime scene prints and then rule them out if they didn't match 3 months after the crime police had collected about a 100 different print Impressions the palm prints didn't match it was extremely frustrating
to work through this with a case threatening to turn cold detectives refuse to quit and take the case face in a chilling New Direction after going through potential suspects that were eliminated through the palm print we began to examine that Savannah Anderson may be the victim of a serial killer known as the bedroom Basher this individual was responsible for five murders in the Orange County area at the time with a population under 2 million people the number of attacks in a matter of months i
s troubling and the similarities striking he would Target young blown females between 17 and 35 ground floor Apartments open windows open doors once inside he would bludgeon strangle and sexually assault the females so Savannah certainly fit that Mo and so we had to take a real strong look at perhaps she was the victim of this individual who had not been identified we could be looking for a serial [Music] killer detectives investigating the brutal murder of Savannah Anderson now believ she may h
ave fallen victim to a serial killer bedro Basher went after females in homes or apartments in the uh Orange County area raped them in at least one case killed somebody by bludging them which is what happened to Savannah based upon the number of bludgeonings in Orange County which were five we felt that there would be another that would take place 5 months after Savannah's murder investigators worst fears are confirmed when the serial killer strikes again during this time there was a woman in Or
ange County that had been attacked believed by the bedroom Basher who survived and was able to give a description to the police a composite drawing was made she described the perpetrator as a male olive skin potm Mark face long hair mustache dark eyes in his late 20 early 30s a task for force was created in Orange County Flyers were disseminated to the public and to patrol units it resulted in multiple contacts of people who believed they knew who this individual was unfortunately none of those
resulted in uh the apprehension of the individual a year after the murder with no arrests and a killer on the loose women in the area live in a constant state of of Terror the community was definitely impacted by this terrible murder the news was full of these kind of things and it did create fear among people the fact that I was living So Close by it's a little scary any female who resided by themselves took extra precautions to ensure that their Windows doors were in fact locked every possibil
ity we looked at we were unable to make any Headway in determining what happened to Savannah Anderson it was extremely frustrating there was no one else that we were aware of that could provide any insight Andor potentially could be a suspect 3 years after Savannah's murder her case remains unsolved after you go through tips leads you step back you re-examine you say what did I miss it's got to be there what did I miss I started to believe that they just weren't going to find out and that's terr
ible to think that something like that could happen and that this person is out there roaming around still two more years pass until a rookie homicide detective Takes A Renewed interest in the case Savannah case was the first Cold Case that I ever worked I was familiar with it because I was in Patrol when it happened and I thought well nobody's looked at it for a while maybe I should look at it a friend of mine who knows Larry mcgomery very well calls him the evidence Whisperer I was aware he wa
s looking at the Van Anderson case and at one point he came to me and we compared notes on him after combing through all the evidence detectives revisit whether saan was a victim of this still unidentified bedroom Basher the possibility that she was killed by a ser IAL killer was definitely looked at I was looking at anything that I could use to direct me to a possible suspect I'm looking at what was done at the crime scene what did the suspect do with the body what was maybe in his mind because
of what he did in comparing Savannah's murder to those committed by the bedroom Basher something just doesn't add up the one thing that stood out that was not similar was the cleaning up of the victim when I look at a crime scene like this it's somebody who has a desire for Savannah she appeared uninjured other than towels on top of her face it wasn't the gore that he liked he had to kill her in order to get her into a position where he could fantasize about having an actual relationship with h
er this is a real girl now as opposed to a dead body the question in this case is who did it all the people we' looked at and that looked good were not matching the prince there was one point where I started looking at the security guards to see what they were doing cuz they were certainly involved in being there at the time there were very big differences between what Doyle said happened and what sellers said happened that night and I thought that was very odd I thought at the time that I inter
viewed Doyle that one of the problems was he may have gone asleep for a while that would certainly account for the timeline being different or his uneasiness and talking to us about that particular time period police quickly locate Chuck and bring him in for another interview his story about what happened the night of the murder is the same but a few details Stand Out Doyle said that he got to the site probably 10 minutes late he had not been able to find the person he was supposed to replace ye
t Bob sers about 12:30 Doyle saw sers come with a shirt in his hand and I asked Doyle did you ever ask him why he was late or why he didn't have his uniform shirt on he said no he never asked him that he just figures uh he's on his own time so he could probably wear whatever he wants that's unusual that right there is a big red flag that's not the only thing that raises alarm Bells Doyle said that sellers had commented about wanting to have a drink with Savannah he thought she was very attractiv
e detectives asked Chuck Doyle if Robert sers ever confided anything else to him regarding the relationship between Doyle and sellers they weren't buddies they didn't do things together they weren't really close friends following this lead investigators asked chuck if it was common for them to go for breakfast during a shift like they did the night of the murder they never did that before so why is sellers there on a night when he's supposed to leave soon to go to work at a Marine base saying he
y you want to go get something to eat it didn't seem to fit but I had the paperwork that shows that he had been exonerated it wasn't his print but I saw all kinds of things that sellers did that was suspicious why is he here now at this time it all fits if he came back and did something with the body at that time it all made sense TimeWise and that's when I decided we need to find those prints again and see if we matched them [Music] properly 5 years after Savannah Anderson was found murdered in
her apartment Cold Case Investigator suspect your killer has been hiding in plain sight the entire time I've got a suspicion that this guy Robert sillers might be the guy cuz there's too many lies or mistakes he's already been exonerated and I didn't believe the exoneration we need to find somebody who's better than our Sheriff's Department who's best in the world that we can get Robert's Prince and the ones found at the crime scene are rushed to FBI headquarters the FBI discovered that some pa
rts of the pum print were so thick with blood that it became a negative it was the opposite of what it should be because of the thick blood the thick blood looked like The Ridges when really they were The Valleys of the print the FBI reanalyzed the palm print and compared to prints obtained from Robert the next day the fingerprint Lab at the FBI was able to identify in about 24 points of identification a positive identification of security guard Bob sellers we have to arrest him now sers at the
time he was arrested was living in a mobile home up in Brea at the police department he was presented with evidence that his prints are in fact in the blood there he didn't come forward right away but very quickly after he had some lies he did admit that he did everything that we thought he did he was obsessed with her he found her very attractive he thought perhaps by going into her apartment that he might convince her of some romantic get together he gained entry into her apartment through an
unlocked window where he could hear her on the telephone talking with her mother he stayed in the bedroom hid as best possible while she talked in the kitchen living room area once she got off the phone and about a little after 12 she came into the bedroom when she saw him she was thinking I have an intruder a man in here and I'm frightened and he became frightened and realized that he had to silence her he pulled out his baton and began striking her he then went to strangulation during the stru
ggle with Savannah he said that his shirt got bloody so he had to take it off so when he went to see Doyle he had a shirt in his hand so that his replacement would not see the blood on it and then he goes home gets cleaned up sneaks back in and then goes into Savanna's apartment sellers wanted her sexually he had to kill her to get that he did talk about he wanted her to be clean and so that's why he drug her into the shower and washed the blood off of her and took her back into the bedroom and
wrapped her head in towels because she was so badly beaten so then he just had a body that was clean and he could have his fantasy at 3:00 in the morning he's trying to sneak out and that's when Doyle sees him and that's when at the spur of the moment he has to all of a sudden pretend like oh I'm here to go to breakfast with you okay he almost seemed relieved when he finally was able to confess that he actually did kill Savannah on March 29th 1984 Robert sers is charged with murder rape attempte
d rape and burglary I think after 5 years he thought he probably did get away with it in that time he got married started a family the anguish that he caused was Savannah Anderson's death he didn't deserve having that extra 5 years on November 4th 1986 Robert sers is found guilty of first-degree murder and a special circumstance of rape but his lawyers win his appeal his conviction was overturned on a technicality the fact that the prosecution could not prove that she was alive during the rape c
hanged the verdict for a life without possibility of parole instead of a retrial prosecutors offer Robert a deal he accepts to avoid the death penalty and pleads guilty to first-degree murder he is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison here you have a guard a man a marine placed there to protect the residents and it turned out he is the one committing the crime one would not expect the one who is protecting you to be your killer it was absolutely devastating when we found out who it was the ir
ony of it all was the fact that she moved to this beautiful apartment complex thinking she was going to be safe and secure and it was the security guard that actually did it it was like are you kidding nobody could believe it authorities don't find anything to link Robert sers to the bedroom Basher killings in 1996 the Gerald Parker was identified and convicted of those crimes in 1999 Robert sers died in prison I do feel there was Justice especially when I found out that he died after he had bee
n in prisoned that was Justice right there when I remember Savannah I think of this beautiful young woman just the prettiest smile she was very very poised I I think she would have definitely had a bright future had her life not been taken in any sense of the manner whether she had married and had a family or gone on in the business world she just was a very lovely [Music] person for for EX for e
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