a sweet and pure college student she was literally the most innocent and genuine person I've ever known viciously attacked in her own home what I saw was just absolutely horrific I mean this shout went through hell who would have a reason to want to kill this girl police are desperate to find the killer before he strikes again it's Panic there is somebody capable of doing what they did to Missy out there and we don't have them but a dark trail of evidence he actually wound up weeping kind of in
a fetal position this is bizarre this is strange leads them to a suspect this was someone hiding in plain sight they could have never imagined no one would have known that not anybody [Music] the City of Arlington is the home of two professional sports teams and a major amusement park there's something for everybody and if you can't find something to do then you've got a problem but in early April 1994 this this idilic community was rocked to its core 911 and it started when police received a 91
1 call from the Holly Park apartment complex woke up 3:30 in the morning smelling smoke I walk into my living room there's so much smoke that I can't see it's Panic there's a fire we need to get out residents quickly evacuate the building as firefighters arrive to battle The Blaze you're totally helpless you just sit there and watch everything go up in Flames still think about it just how close I came to D firefighters track the fire to its source an apartment on the second floor once inside the
y make a horrific [Music] Discovery far Fighters discovered a body in the [Music] bedroom this was not just someone falling asleep in bed smoking this was something more homicide investigators are quickly summoned and try to make sense of the devastating scene I was informed of what the fire department had found and what they reported we had a body inside of a a burning home detective Stanton and I make entry into the apartment the fire is out but there's still a lot of damage virtually everythi
ng has got like a coating of this black nasty soot Fire Marshals could actually smell the gasoline and were able to see poor patterns this was an intentionally set fire the trail of Destruction leads all the way to the bed what I saw was just absolutely horrific I've seen bad crime scenes and I've seen crime scenes involving people that were burnt in fires this was uh elevated a young lady who you could see even with the smoke damage and the burn damage you could still see that this was a victim
of a very brutal sexual assault the body was laying on her back on the bed the positioning is consistent with sexual assault she had trauma to her face as though she had been physically assaulted clearly there was a puncture Mark in the middle of her chest this child went through went through hell it was like nothing I've ever seen you know who would do something something as horrible as this a lot of evidence was destroyed simply because of the fire damage but we found what we believe might ha
ve been the murder weapon there was a knife in the sink but fire damage to the knife has robbed investigators of the forensic evidence needed to link it to the killer had that fire not been set we probably would have had light and Prince no tell them what we would have had investigators collect the knife for testing and managed to salvage some papers that survived the Inferno for detectives the most important goal is to identify their victim we found out that that apartment was in fact leased an
d occupied by one one occupant identified as Missy grall 19-year-old college student from Burleson I can remember standing on the lawn and I said there's Missy's car but she's not out here with us she was not accounted for so we had a general idea who our victim was but that was not confirmed this body was so distorted that they had to use a forensic odontologist to confirm Missi as the victim once we've identified the victim is Missy grall we talked to her family and Burleson and it's gut-wrenc
hing Missy's mother was devastated I had a daughter myself that sort of hits home as investigators meet with Missy's family word of her death spreads through the small community when I heard the news my heart just dropped Missy was so innocent and so pure and such an honest Soul she was so much fun very friendly nurturing she would have given anything to help anybody she was literally the most genuine person I've ever known we were very active in church she and I both were Missy was very strong
in her faith very moral she was always the person to do the right thing always in high school her strength went beyond her faith Missy was very focused she was a very hard worker that's how she was so successful in school she was in the high school band she played the French horn and she was amazing at it even as a teenager Missy had a Clear Vision of what she wanted and the drive to get it she wanted to go to the University of Texas at Arlington and she wanted to get her own apartment but she d
idn't want to burden her mother financially so Missy was working to support herself to afford to be able to go to to school but even though she wanted to stand on her own Missy's heart stayed close to home she probably spoke with her mom every day on the phone Missy and her mother were very close they were a team in life and treasured each other you cannot describe the pain that Missy's mother went through but I'll let her know I really need you you're you're going to help me find who did this t
o Missy because she knew her daughter better than probably anybody Missy's mother tells detectives what she knows of Missy's activities on the last night of her life well Missy worked these late hours as a food server she would always let her mother know that I'm home I'm safe on the night of Missy's murder she' called her mother late at night when she got home she finished her father phone call with her mom and then dispatch getting a phone call then the apartment's on fire establishing kind of
a window as to when the actual murder would have occurred police determined that Missy had been killed sometime between midnight and 3:30 a.m. it's not much for detectives to go on but when they arrive back in Arlington they have an unexpected lead waiting once the victim's name had been released one of our officers came forward and said I took a report listing your victim a week prior to the death Missy grall filed a police report on a guy that's staying with Missy who stole from her and I'm t
hinking that very well could be our killer we need to find this person we need to talk to them we need to get them in here as soon as possible coming up detectives track a dangerous suspect this individual made threats against her and soon uncover a lead they never expected it caught my attention immediately something is very suspicious here that puts them face to face with Missy's attacker I said you killed Missy rubal let's start talking about this Arlington police detectives are searching for
the killer of Texas college student Missy grubba they've learned that the 19-year-old co-ed filed a police report a week before her death Missy had reported A co-worker took her tip jars over $1,000 worth of tips Missy took the semester off in order to save more money so all of her tip money was being hoarded so she could go back next semester to college the police report describes how Missy named a Charles Johnson as the potential thief and that he had been staying with her before her money di
sappeared detectives speak to Missy's friends to find out more about Charles and his relationship to [Music] Missy Charles was a coworker and apparently was someone that she thought was a friend of hers she socialized with co-workers typically after work young people she worked with that's her her Crowd Charles Johnson at that time we are told was homeless and so Missy being the very generous individual that she is allows him to come stay with her in fact she even gave him a key to her apartment
Missy was very kind-hearted and I think that it was very easy for some people to take advantage of kind-hearted people people talking with her friends there was a common theme about missing she was not only incredibly sweet but incredibly naive too pure to see the bad in people as an investigator and that scares me because I see someone who is easily victimized only days after Charles moved in Missy discovers she has been played Missy finds out one day that about $1,000 has gone from her tip jo
b well the only person that could have done that was Charles Johnson enraged Missy confronts Charles about the theft and kicks him out of her home something else that was very important from everything that I learned about Missy was she will also stand up for what's right so Missy immediately calls the police Missy filed a police report and a theft charge warrant was issued for Charles's arrest here's some motive right here this is retaliation for getting me in trouble and so he's immediately on
our radar we want to see this guy we want to talk to him problem is we didn't know where he was at it's hard to find somebody who was basically homeless and we had detectives that were assigned to find him while police search for Johnson Miss's autopsy report comes in it confirms investigators belief that the fire is not what killed her the autopsy findings demonstrated she was dead before the fire started she should have inhaled some smoke we should have seen some soot we should have seen some
carbon monoxide in her blood that's not the case here at all she had a bruise of her left eye and an injury on the brow Ridge that uh would be consistently with being struck by a fist or another object injuries directed that show that the as salent wanted to feel in control and dominant the Fatal Stab Wound of the chest was the actual cause of death but it went completely through her heart and damaged her left lung and it was a massive internal bleed the autopsy also confirms detective's worst
suspicions the attack was sexual in nature she had been forcibly penetrated this was a rape homicide by a very aggressive perpetrator though the fire destroyed physical evidence at the scene the medical examiner immediately notifies detectives of a major Discovery we did a search of the Body for any Remnant evidence that wasn't destroyed by the fire Seaman was recovered that could be analyzed for DNA forensic evidence and physical evidence is great you got to have it it leads you to your killer
so that seen was a forensic link to the suspect the Seaman is sent for DNA analysis hoping it will point to the killer but detectives make a calculated decision not to make the information public the fact that she was sexually assaulted was not public it was not released and the reason for that is because it's what we call guilt knowledge evidence and it's knowledge that is only known by the person who did the crime you never reveal that cuz that can lead you to that suspect to identify him that
's very powerful evidence other evidence is piling up too among the documents collected from Miss's apartment detectives discover a treasure Trove of personal letters these were letters from someone named Ivan via the nature of the letters indicated some type of relationship between this individual and Missy grall we don't know if it was romantic or not but some type of close personal relationship so that's important we needed to find out who this individual was detectives do a background check
on Ivan and they're alarmed by what they uncover Ivan was a wretched sex offender and I just set the hairs on the back of my neck up yeah this is the sort of individual that we're looking for let's go find Ivan right away [Music] detectives investigating the rape and murder of Missy grba have found letters in the victim's apartment that reveal she was having a relationship with Ivan via a young man with a dark past he was in fact flagged as a sex offender and so he he's immediately on our radar
cuz we know that Missy was sexually assaulted [Music] detectives examine the letters between Missy and Ivan and discover that they had a tumultuous relationship the context of those letters looked like a a conflict of two young adults trying to make something work in a relationship that is filled with confusion the conflict centered around how far Missy would allow the relationship to go physically Missy was very moral it was an admirable thing in our faith to remain pure until we were married i
t's something that Missy took very seriously the letters suggest that Ivan and Missy may have come too close to crossing the line apparently there might have been times where they went a little further than Missy was comfortable with you could tell that she was upset about that Missy's friends knew that she was not one to Back Down Under Pressure if she felt like she was being taken advantage of then she would stand up for herself and I admired that about her so much bottom line is we need to br
ing Ivan in we need to talk to him because he was in fact in some level of a relationship with Missy time of her death two days after Missy's murder detectives bring Ivan in for an interview he claims that he and Missy were working through their issues in a kind and loving way Ivan told me that he cared for Missy and he wanted a relationship with her he certainly did want to have that relationship go a step further but Missy was convicted to her beliefs and to her faith they were also battling w
ith the fact that he had this crime over his head Ivan tells detectives he was home alone asleep the night Missy was murdered that's not an acceptable Alibi for myself for detective Stanton but was it really possible this young man could have committed such a horrible crime when you start talking about the personality of who you're looking for you got to be careful if you start picturing this person as this evil Predator you may miss the actual killer that's why you have to follow the evidence t
he fact that we had Seaman from the crime scene means we have forensic evidence that would either connect him or exclude him detectives ask Ivan to provide DNA samples but until those test results are revealed detectives do not have grounds to hold Ivan in custody in 1994 those tests usually took anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks while waiting for results on DNA tests for Ivan and searching for Missy's former co-worker Charles Johnson detectives continue their investigation by canvasing Miss's friends
at the restaurant and learn something that adds another suspect to the list although this time this suspect could be at the very top the name Jeffrey Smith came up her work Associates told us that Jeffrey Smith was an employee there who Missy reported and got him in trouble at work what we were being told is that really upset him it angered him restaurant staff tell the detectives that Jeffrey had threatened to kill Missy during an outburst and he was fired a few weeks later after getting into a
fight with a manager what we are being told is this individual was hot-tempered and he had made threats against her so we're putting all this together and thinking yeah we really need to talk to this guy but who could imagine a coworker committing such a horrendous crime detectives speak with another employee at the restaurant who knows Jeffrey well his girlfriend Kristen agreed to come in to speak with Detective stain and I visibly nervous Kristen paints a troubling picture of her boyfriend Kr
isten told us that they were living together but she also shared that she was concerned with his personality he was very volatile she was afraid of him and she did not feel safe being there with him she was going to move out and move back with her parents in Denton but it wasn't just fear for What Jeffrey might do that was causing Christen to leave him it was a fear of what he'd already done what Kristen wanted us to know and she was very open about it was she actually suspected that Jeff was in
volved in the murder of this detectives investigating the murder of 19-year-old Missy guba are interviewing Christen Waller a young woman who believes her boyfriend Jeffrey Smith could be the killer she just basically said this is what my belief is so I asked why what how did she formulate that told us night of Miss's murder Jeff did not come to the apartment and he didn't come back all night so she didn't know where he was at she also knew the conflict between her and him so she's putting all t
his together and she actually believed that Jeff was with Missy on that night and that he committed this crime Kristen gives detectives the phone number for where Jeff is staying a background check shows the 22-year-old has has no criminal history but detectives are still suspicious we know that he had made some threats against missing and his whereabouts are unknown on the night of her death so we needed to talk to him I called Jeff Smith after speaking with Christen and he actually was coopera
tive and agreed to come to the police department in the interview room detectives are struck by Jeff's demeanor Jeff Smith was smiling and on shaline just really not taking the entire situation that serious or ask him what was your relationship like with Miss gual his story was she was infatuated with him and a a matter of fact her infatuation is what created the problems and the conflict between him and Kristen Kristen's telling us no I'm moving out because the guy scares me to death Jeff also
has a conflicting account of his Alibi he gave us this excuse that he was with Kristen we already had information that he was not when detectives suggest Jeff is lying to them about his Alibi he laughs them off I've seen this type of Personality before he's narcissistic he's cocky he's arrogant and I certainly wasn't going to take anything that he said at face value despite their concerns about Jeff detectives have no evidence to connect him to Miss's murder and are forced to let him go but befo
re he leaves they ask him for a DNA sample and to their surprise he agrees he did give us the samples that we needed for a forensic analysis they would certainly connect or exclude him from the murder then 4 days after Miss's murder detective Lenor gets a frantic call from Kristen about Jeffrey Smith he had abducted Kristen earlier in the morning physically abducted her and drove off with her from her parents home in Denton Kristen tells detective Lenor that Jeff was distraught and held her in a
n apartment for 8 hours threatening to kill her if she tried to leave Christen telling us the motive was that Jeff just didn't want her to leave him he released her safely a little later that day but now she didn't know where he was at she was definitely afraid of him she contacted the Denton police department and ended up getting a a warrant for his arrest for kidnapping he became a fugitive you've got this guy who is a Loose Cannon and there was a level of urgency to find him we put out a nati
onal broadcast along with that warrant that he is also a suspect and a murder investigation with Kristen safely at her parents' house and police in several States searching for Jeff detectives in Arlington find their murder investigation in a holding pattern as far as Jeff Smith we do have his hair his blood in his saliva for DNA they would certainly connect or exclude him from the murder DNA testing is still underway but Days Later investigators do get an important update date from the lab they
were able to type the blood from the seen and they knew they were looking for someone with with a certain type of blood Jeff did not match the blood type from the SE in addition to Jeffrey Smith Ivan via is also ruled out because of his blood type leaving Charles Johnson as The only active suspect for Missy's murder and Charles is still at large that that is it's incredibly frustrating because there is somebody capable of doing what they did to Missy out there and we don't have them as the week
s pass with the case unsolved Missy's family and friends grow more and more concerned it was very disheartening for a lot of us we just watch the news and and would hang on to anything that they would mention about it it made all of us wonder why it happened to Missy it was just [Music] devastating then a month into the investigation detectives get a tip from an unexpected Source I got a call out of the blue from uh Miss grubo she want to let me know that she recalled a conversation that she had
uh with missing [Music] it was so incredibly bizarre and I just thought something is very suspicious here detectives hunting the killer of college student Missy grba have just received a lead that is turned up the heat on a Case going cold the victim's mother recalls a detail from the days just before Miss's death Missy's mom is providing information about how Missy had talked about this guy Louise he was 32y old man who had come over to the apartment and the main thing that Mrs gual remembers
is is that he talked to her all night long till in the early morning hours but then they got involved in a pillow fight at the time Mrs grba thought little of the playful incident but she suggests maybe Louise could help the inv investigation with information about Missy detectives have a different view this is bizarre this is strange a 32-year-old man had a pillow fight with her it caught my attention immediately investigators ask how Missy knew Louise Louise worked with Missy and he lived at t
he Holly Park Apartments she had done some babysitting for Louisa's baby at the apartment complex detectives first stop the restaurant where Missy and Louise both worked Louis isn't there but the manager tells them Luise is a model employee he was an Army veteran I learned that about him no criminal history matter of fact management gave him an award for a heroic act he actually stopped up robbery the detectives ask workers what they knew about Louis's relationship with Missy co-workers describe
d lisis as a friend sometimes after work they might enjoy a beer together detectives also hear something that catches them offu a work associate relayed to us that Lewis made the comment and these were his words is I hope they catch that son of a [Β __Β ] that killed and raped Missy the fact that she was sexually assaulted no one should have known that that was never released he might have just been speculating but the fact that it was said really really alarmed me investigators have uncovered yet
another suspicious coworker in Missy's life one that she saw every day detectives asked the manager for Louis's phone number told him I was investigating the death of Missy gual and that his name had surfaced from her babysitting his son and Lis agreed to come see me he was relaxed he was polite pleasant regular clean-cut [Music] guy he told us that Missy used to Babys said his his son and that they work together so I told Lis what I want to do is exclude all of the known males to Missy so that
I could find the guilty party and the process in which I do that is I take samples blood hair and saliva compare it to the DNA and exclude them the request instantly changes Louis's mood his response immediately was what what are you talking about wasn't wasn't the evidence all burned up and I said no it wasn't I've got significant incriminating evidence that was specifically left there by the suspect now his demeanor is changing and you can see the the concern in his face I kind of even broke
my own rule a little bit here because a lot of times I don't like to give guilt knowledge information but the fact that I knew that he had already said something about Missy being sexually assaulted I went ahead and revealed to him whoever killed Missy sexually assaulted her and I've got their seon and Luis immediately says you know I've got to go I I I have to leave and and I have no legal right to keeping regardless of what I believe I just simply asked Lis are you are you going to give me you
r sample he says I got to get out of here I got to leave we'll do it [Applause] Monday Monday comes and goes with no sign of Louise but detectives don't let up I call him he calls me back Tuesday we make arrangements for Wednesday come Wednesday he doesn't show up again detective Lenor calls Louise at work but gets some alarming news management had informed us that the woman that he was living with at the time his common-law wife had called and said that he had to leave town I called her I said
I hear Louisa's gone you and I need to talk Janette has been living with Louise for 2 years the couple moved into the Hol Park apartment 6 months earlier they had been together long enough for them to have a child together she was also pregnant with another child but what's interesting is on the Monday that Lis was going to meet with me which was about 3 days earlier they got married they got legally married well in Texas a wife cannot testify against her husband I mean those are my thoughts tha
t are going on I kind of kept that to myself and said okay that's interesting Janette knew Missy as a sweet girl who used to babysit her son and had been shocked to hear about her murder and so I asked if she recalls what occurred on the night of Missy's Murder She said Louis had gotten off work about 10:30 11 and informed her that he was going to have some drinks with some friends then he came in close to midnight and then she heard him leave 2 hours later Janette hears Louise return she hears
him come into the apartment and takes a shower and then leaves again and then she hears him come back again she notices that he's coughing and he smells of smoke his story to her is that he was out jogging and he noticed that there was an apartment on fire and so he went in there and that he saw this individual on a bed and he said it was Missy and he tried to do mouth to mouth he said but he couldn't do it and he was overcome by smoke and that he had to leave and he came back that's it end of s
tory they just go to bed nobody calls 911 uh nobody does anything they go to sleep I mean the story is so bizarre but she didn't questioning and I don't think she ever really saw it for what it was until she actually sitting down and starts telling me and as she's telling me reality is sitting in as far as what Louis might have done she's pretty much stunned I said I need to go into your apartment I need to get a search warrant investigators descend on Louise and janette's apartment just a few b
uildings over from where Missy was killed one of the things that I wanted was his dog tags because he was in the Army I wanted to know what his blood type was and I wanted to know if the blood type from his dog tags matched the blood type from the seon the blood type matches that of Miss's attacker it's the link detectives have been looking for and enough to bring Louise in but first they'll need to find him so I got an arrest warrant for Lise the next day I get a teletype that the vehicle that
Luise was in was found abandoned and burned in San Antonio detectives believe they have finally uncovered the man who murdered Missy grubba and set fire to her apartment but Luis Ayo has fled Arling his car found abandoned and set Ablaze in San Antonio we don't know but suspected there was evidence there but the car was pretty much gone I mean it was burned up there's an urgency we need to find this person as soon as possible detective Lenor suspects Louis's wife Janette knows where he's hiding
I told her that we realized you had nothing to do with this crime but you can be a party by covering and by lying I said you realize that when she was murdered she was sexually assaulted and when she heard that you could see it it it upset her it angered her confronted with the full horror of what was done to Missy Janette gives up Louise Janette gave me the address where he was staying in San Antonio San Antonio Police Department went into the home and arrested Luis without incident detectives
Lenor and Stanton traveled to San Antonio to confront Lis Ayo in person it is the most unique interrogation I've ever seen I mean Louise really had like a mental regression and he actually wound up in a ball on the floor weeping and kind of in a fetal position I don't know what he was doing I just thought he wanted us to have some type of empathy for him when Louise finally tells his side of the story it doesn't add up for detectives he did not admit to sexually assaulting missing rubo he did ad
mit yes I did have sexual intercourse with her he said we had consensual sex I knew it was her first time and I wanted it to be a very gentle and pleasant experience for her that just sickened me what happened to that young lady was anything but gentle and loving it was brutal faced with Louis's denial detective Lenor changes tactics I said you killed Missy gual all right let's start talking about this he said you know I don't remember I remember getting a knife I think I did stab her detectives
are stunned is this the confession they've been waiting for I'm not going to call it a confession because my definition of a confession is someone who says this is what I did and I did everything that you have evidence that they committed Luise gave a state statement with several admissions that included guilt knowledge information Louise did not admit to setting the fire but he recalls that there was a fire set he gave us all of this incriminating information that clearly said it was him they
have enough to charge Louise but detectives want to make the case against him airtight detective sa and I got an evident search warrant collected his blood and his hair and S a sample he was in fact matched to the DNA from the sexual assault kit with Louis's statements detectives can put together exactly what happened on the night Missy was murdered I believe he went there thinking he could convince her to have intercourse with him his primary focus was to have sex with that young lady maybe ini
tially he thought would be consensual which it would never happen so now he's mad at her and then he took it to another level physically abused her sexually assaulted her and then he killed her after he killed Missy he needed to destroy evidence and that's when he made his decision to set fire to the apartment Lewis was charged with capital murder once we had a written statement we had the statements from the wife pretty straightforward case as Louise awaits trial detective zero in on two former
suspects in the case Charles Johnson was finally tracked down and he was not even in the area at the time of the murder Jeffrey Smith was arrested and convicted of kidnapping his girlfriend Christen he received a 4-year sentence Louisa royo's trial lasts only 5 days we got a conviction rather quickly and in Texas once a person is convicted of capital murder with the death penalty wave it's an automatic life sentence although detectives have found their killer the win is Bittersweet he being in
prison will never take away the pain the horrific torture that child was put through and him being in prison will never heal the wounds that the family has they never recover you can't bring Missy back you just do what you got to do and and make sure people pay for the crimes they [Music] commit Missy's mother is in a state of permanent grief Missy's death did leave a very large void Missy's life was taken way too soon but it was a beautiful life she was a beautiful soul and she still is for mor
e information on an unexpected killer go to oxygen.com [Music] a beloved mother and friend Sarah was the sweetest person on this Earth she wanted to do anything for you to make you happy murdered in her home just the sheer brutality somebody was out of control it was so terrifying it was so frightening sends police on the hunt for a killer possible suspects right away is her husband and they find out uh-oh there's someone else involved with this person you were there is sitting there wondering a
re they ever going to find who did this but the search for the truth this is strange there were so many twists and turns what really happened uncovers a culprit something's going on here they were never even on the suspect radar that surprises everyone wow that was a Twist none of us expected it was shocking no this isn't right I never expected that someone like that could be evil [Music] Howard County Maryland an affluent Community nestled between Baltimore and Washington DC Howard County itsel
f is a very quiet peaceful suburb Howard County is very much a bedroom community people move here for the schools that's what it's known for there's very very little crime but on Sunday November 15th 1998 at 7:44 p.m. a concerned resident makes a call to police I have a friend who I normally hear from every day and I haven't heard from her all day and there's a really funny maming machine from last night uh-huh and I wondered if someone could drive by her house and check it out what's the lady's
name Sarah Rus I did not hear from Sarah all day that is not normal something wrong Laura tells police that the 35-year-old single mother lives with her one-year-old son but the boy is with his father this weekend Patrol officers head to the Rus home in the township of elk to investigate the police were able to gain access to the house and upon entering the house they conducted a sweep and in the back uh family room they found the body of uh Sarah r it appeared that she'd been stabbed to death
even hardened homicide investigators are taken aback when they see Sarah's mutilated body the thing that still stakes in my mind is is just the sheer brutality I can close my eyes and see it as vividly today as I did then the ones most visible were wounds to Sarah's neck and throat multiple deep cuts and slashes she was basically just short of being decapitated she had severe cuts to each wrist her hands were just short of being cut completely off there was a series of stab wounds uh to her stom
ach tremendous amount of Blood on the floor around her uh blood spattered Up and Down the Walls there was blood spattered all over the child's toys it was complete an utter Overkill somebody was out of control [Music] could the vicious nature of the attack mean this was a crime of passion detectives hunt for Clues to help piece together this gruesome event it was apparent that she had been dead for a period of time before we discovered her the blood had pretty much dried I was estimated she'd pr
obably had been dead for about 24 hours it had been forced entry to the house bloody bootprints bleeding from the body indicate that the suspect both entered and exited through the window there appeared to be some degree of rans sacking VCR appeared to be missing the phone was missing from the wall a couple drawers in the kitchen had been rifled through but at the same time the victim's laptop computer person items were relatively untouched on the kitchen table an initial thought on our part was
could it all be staging and attempt to throw us off to make us think it was a robbery or burglary gone bad looking for Witnesses police fan out to speak with Sarah's Neighbors on her quiet Suburban Street as brutal and as violent as this attack was nobody heard anything not a sound inside the house the forensic team spends hours Gathering evidence on the wall above Sarah's body crime scene technicians were able to recover couple bloody fingerprints that indicated that the person was wearing [Mu
sic] gloves investigators must now solve the mystery of why Sarah Rus would fall prey to such a brutal attack detectives start by speaking with Sarah's friend Laura biter who first called police they have to reveal the heartbreaking news that her friend is dead I didn't want it to be true I was in Deni and you just can't process information for a while it just you're Frozen I kept trying to deny that it was Sarah no one deserves to die like that Sarah Williamson was born on a Florida military ba
se in 1963 the daughter of an Air Force Sergeant growing up she was gregarious with a knack for mathematics Sarah was not your typical uh introverted mathematician she was very sociable to describe Sarah she gave love freely she wanted to do anything for you to make you happy after graduating college Sarah moved to Maryland where she took a job as a statistician at the National Security Agency Sarah and I met at work and she was the best friend you could ever had Sarah was the sweetest person on
this Earth she had friends everywhere at work she had built up a reputation for herself she was well respected and she always was going to school or improving herself in some way in 1991 while earning a master's degree Sarah met Lorenzo Rus and they began a relationship the two married in 1994 Sarah wanted the husband the children that the house in the country the white picket fence she wanted that that Golden Dream after 3 years of marriage Sarah and Lorenzo had a son will she was a great mom
she doed on will but the new baby put a strain on the marriage her family was down in Alabama so she was missing that support system Lorenzo did very little uh to help her over the next year friends saw their relationship deteriorate things really took a downturn the marriage was breaking down Sarah during all that was a complete mess in 1998 Sarah and Lorenzo separated eager for a fresh start Sarah filed for divorce she was just becoming a strong woman again proud of the fact that she was able
to live on her own and take care of her child on her own it was wonderful to see now 5 months later Sarah has been found butchered in her own living room the Beloved Mother's lifeless body left laying in a pool of blood she had become such a strong independent woman and I was so proud of her was just I was devastated Laura gives detectives the phone message message from her answering machine that prompted Laura to call police in the first place I couldn't understand any of it because it was so g
arble the only thing I knew somebody was in trouble I did a redial and I figured out it was from Sarah in listening to the to the recording you can hear sounds of a struggle followed by a series of short sharp screams it was 30 40 seconds basically of Sarah being murdered I believe that she was probably in the process of maybe trying to call 911 when she inadvertently hit the preset speed dial for Laura the time stamp on the message is 8:46 p.m. on Saturday night only 36 hours earlier the record
ing gave us a starting point that we know on this date and this time Sarah RIS was attacked and murdered I could hear her last moments I was shocked I was horrified and then I got angry and I'm like you got to go pick up Lorenzo he's involved in this Laura was aware Sarah was involved in a very bitter and heated custody dispute with her estranged husband she had real fear that it was not going to end well so I wanted to talk to the husband this is not going to be a random act of violence this is
going to be Murder coming up a hunt for the truth something's going on here we had to look into the possibility of an affair reveals buried secrets we opened the door and he threw up all over the parking lot he knows something and a stunning turn in the case I was absolutely shocked it's like out of a movie it was such an unexpected twist [Music] hours after discovering the body of 35-year-old Sarah Rus detectives investigating the murder have a lead Sarah's friend Laura tells police she suspec
ts Sarah's estranged husband Lorenzo Rus might have had something to do with her murder we found out that Sarah was involved in an extremely contentious custody divorce situation internal police records that indicated the police had responded there at least once before for disturbance between Sarah and her estranged husband after will was born the marriage really started breaking down Lorenzo was very jealous of his child because his child was taking away the attention that he he had received fr
om Sarah Sarah told me that he was not happy with that Sarah turned to Lorenzo's mother Amelia who lived nearby for help Sarah wanted Amelia involved she was hoping that Amelia would be a calming influence on Lorenzo and it would also allow you know Sarah to spend a little bit more time with Lorenzo instead of getting better things got worse Sarah confided me his mother mother was little too involved doing all of the the caregiving and Lorenzo wanted nothing to do with the day-to-day task that i
t takes to raise a child Sarah was very adamant that Lorenzo is his father he needs to be very involved in taking care of their son one morning I got a phone call Sarah was hysterical she and Lorenzo got into an argument he tried to hit her while she was holding will so she had to turn with a baby in her arm and he had kicked her she was just distraught and I've come pick her up and we head straight to the courtroom we put a restraining order in and um Lorenzo is not allowed back into the house
Lorenzo was extremely mad Sarah was scared for her life she was deathly afraid that she was going to be murdered Lorenzo Rus is approached by the Howard County Police for questioning when Lorenzo was first notified that his wife had been murdered he covered his face with his hands he fell to his knees and in the initial officer's Minds he pretended to be crying and weeping into his hands and that when he stood up there was no evidence at all that he had been crying one of the first things I noti
ced in dealing with Lorenzo was his lack of reaction his lack of emotion his lack of caring was significant thought he was smug I thought he was arrogant I just sensed he wasn't all that upset by what had happened to Sarah Detective start by asking the 33-year-old sales manager if he had any involvement in Sarah's murder he denied it that he' had anything to do with it at the same time I just felt that there was something off it was just an instinct on my part but I couldn't put my finger on it
Lorenzo offers up his own Theory as to who killed Sarah he alluded to the fact that Sarah may have been involved or been having an affair with a previous coworker but he said that if anything had happened it would have probably been a result of this affair Lorenzo claims the last time he saw Sarah was on Friday morning when he picked up their son for the weekend The Alibi that he provided for the Saturday night and weekend in question was that he was was at home at the family house with the baby
his brother and his parents who also lived in the house were there detectives collect evidence from Lorenzo to search against anything found at the crime scene we had a search warrant for his person which allowed us to collect samples of DNA uh hair photographs and fingerprints with nothing concrete to Tyler Renzo to the murder detectives have to let him go even though everything was pointing towards Lorenzo he still has an alibi when he's saying he's at home and he's got all his family Witness
es if in fact he did it we need to start punching holes in the family Alibi investigators head to the raris family home 30 minutes away in [Music] Parkville his car was seized and other detectives then launched into the search of the rarest family home we conducted interviews with all the family members including Lorenzo's mother Amilia when I asked where she was on that Saturday night she said that she was working she was a nurse's aid at a local nursing home so she was at work during the time
frame of of the homicide Amelia tells detectives that another member of the Rus family was at home that night Lorenzo's brother Mike lived with the the rares family in Parkville they all lived in the same house Mike is the younger brother of Lorenzo but as far as their their personalities there was a distinct difference between the two he didn't have the same degree of arrogance or smugness about him that Lorenzo had he appeared to be somewhat timid Mike tells police that Lorenzo was at home whe
n he woke up to go work his night shift job it's the family saying he was there a family Alibi in my opinion has never been rocked solid it has to be investigated but a search of the raus home fails to yield any new Clues nothing of evidentiary value came from the rare's house nothing of evidentiary value came from his his truck the only thing we walked away with is we had his initial denials and his initial Alibi from that point on he lawyered up as detectives consider their next move the publi
c concern about the murder of Sarah Rus grows this murder like sent shock waves through the Howard County Community it caused major headlines there are a lot of Saras in this community so to have a smart competent career-driven woman murdered in this way in her house it was shocking with nothing tying Lorenzo to the murder investigators turned their attention to his allegation that Sarah was having an affair could that have led to her death we had to look into the possibility of an affair the fo
rmer boss that Lorenzo claimed she was having an affair with had to be tracked down and interviewed the relationship between the two of them we had to look at it we had to [Music] investigate police investigating the Savage murder of Sarah Rus are looking into her estranged husband's claim that Sarah had been having an affair with her former boss Lorenzo had complied that Sarah was having an affair with with a former coworker or supervisor a gentleman by the name of Don Lewis he had since retire
d from Mena and was living in Massachusetts detectives travel to cap Cod to interview Don Lewis the 51-year-old tells detectives that he is not surprised by Lorenzo's claim of an affair Mr Lewis told us that Lorenzo had emailed accusing him of having an affair with Sarah he denied it he said he was a father figure or mentor to Sarah there was no romantic overtones and that there was no reason for him to kill her nor did he want anything bad to happen to her Dawn tells detectives he had been shoc
ked to hear news of Sarah's death and he was at a friend's dinner party hundreds of miles away when it happened Mr Lewis had an alibi for the Saturday night he was in Massachusetts the night of the murder and they had a solid Alibi detectives reach out to those close to Sarah to learn more about her relationship with her former boss Don Lewis was a friend of hers they did um have like a mentor mentee relationship but that was all there was to Don Lewis it was more like a a fatherdaughter type of
relationship there was never a romance the investigation revealed it the affair aspect of it appeared to be pure fabrication on the part of Lorenzo there was just nothing there a week following her death those closest to Sarah gathered to honor her memory the church Memorial was packed there was so much love in that room everybody showed up all of her co-workers and friends from work showed up the police showed up Lorenzo didn't show up nor didn't they the rest of the family I actually covered
her memorial service her friends were not shy about casting aspersions on Lorenzo rare as her husband that's their their suspect number one their Prime Suspect after Sarah's funeral investigators speak with the medical examiner about what was found during the autopsy the cause of death was no surprise it was massive blood loss due to the lacerations to her throat she bled out over 80% of her blood volume even the pathologist characterizes complete Overkill [Music] a forensics report reveals no u
seful fingerprints from the crime scene but investigators still hold hope for tests on the bloody glove prints found on the wall behind the body the blood was sent out for uh DNA analysis that takes a little bit of time to obtain while they await test results detectives revisit their strongest lead the phone message that captured the final moments of Sarah's life other detectives are listening to the tape and they thought that at some point in the struggle they heard Sarah utter the name Mike co
uld Sarah be calling out the name of her killer somebody says oh right there it sounds like Mike I hear Mike Lorenzo's brother's name is Mike or Michael but what possible motive could Mike Rus have to kill his sister-in-law one of the theories that we were kicking around at this point was could it have been a family member because initially all suspicion would have fallen on Lorenzo and to keep Lorenzo out of it and to maintain the the child custody to have a family member do it most logical one
would have been Mike he had to be looked at as a potential suspect Detective down with Lorenzo's little brother and play him the answering machine message the recording was played for him and Mike was asked do you hear the name Mike and he said no he did not Mike denied being personally involved in the murder of Sarah My overall impressions of Mike was I don't think he had it in him to do something like this but I had a feeling that there was something playing on him again he was part of Lorenz
o's Alibi that he was at home at the time of the murder Mike sticks to the story he'd previously told police that when he woke up Saturday evening to go to work Lorenzo was at home blood was drawn hairs were pulled we fingerprinted them we photographed we drove him back to his job I told him I said I think you know what happened I think you know what what is going on and we opened the door and he threw up all over the parking lot and I said whenever you want to come clean on this you know who to
call and I gave you my card my partner and I we both felt he knows [Music] something detectives investigating the murder of Sarah Rus suspect that her brother-in-law Mike Rus might know more about her murder than he is letting on my feeling was something's going on here maybe if he didn't do it he definitely knows about it Mike's brother and Sarah's estranged husband Lorenzo Rus is still a suspect in Sarah's murder but both men say they were at home together at the time she was killed if there
was one Avenue to break the rares family Alibi I just thought the weak link was going to be Mike problem was the lawyer that was representing Lorenzo got involved and from that point on we were not allowed to speak with Mike without Council being present that threw up a huge wall a month following the murder the police investigation is at a standstill but there is one person person that investigators think might be able to help Lorenzo had been married previously his first wife Becky was still l
iving locally we thought she's somebody that we could enlist detectives meet with Becky RIS to ask for her assistance in the investigation once she heard that Sarah had been murdered Becky actually agreed to help us she still had some degree of relationship with lenzo they were cordial to each other Becky agreed to allow us to record her phone calls with Lorenzo we were hoping to obtain statements from Lorenzo that would incriminate him in the murder Becky reaches out to her ex-husband and tries
to steer their conversation to Sarah's Murder She was phenomenal she conducted a number of control calls on our behalf with him we were hopefully optimistic that we would get something but he never said anything incriminating to her on those [Music] recordings detectives have hit a dead end in their pursuit of Sarah's killer I remember cornering the police chief out of like a public event to ask him hey any updates on the case and he obviously said no there were no updates to give they had noth
ing I prayed every day that this would be the day that something you know would would come forth investigators get New Hope when DNA analysis of blood from the glove prints at the crime scene comes back the blood came back as uh a mixture of Sarah's DNA and an unknown male we were confident that we had the Killer's DNA because it's mixed with Sarah's blood if we found that person then we could definitely put them at the scene with her actually bleeding could this finally be what detectives need
to Tyler Renzo to his wife's murder we submitted uh DNA samples from Lorenzo and his brother Mike for DNA comparison came back that neither one or a match obviously that was a bit of a blow I mean it was very disappointing even though everything was pointing towards Lorenzo it's not him in the beginning you know it was pretty clear the police thought that her husband played a role in this she had a very messy divorce going on there were custody disputes but the police didn't arrest him and so th
ere was a real air of mystery about it because the police couldn't figure it out either if Lorenzo was not responsible for the murder of Sarah who could her killer be and why was the Beloved mother killed in such a violent manner investigators are back to square one something has got to give on this you go back through it again did I miss something you have to look at everything I did contact the FBI Behavioral Sciences unit in quano and they run it against all other cases in the country looking
for similarities nothing of value came from that detectives also seek help with deciphering the answering machine message from Laura that captured Sarah's attack we sent the recording to the FBI to see if they could clean it up and enhance it to try to determine if in fact it was a name it turned out it's not Mike the whole thing with hearing the name Mike I think in hindsight was just pure power of suggestion when you have a murder of this sort and no arrest there was a concern and tension in
the community as to what kind of person would do something like this we had been hammering away on this thing for almost 7 eight months at that point we're kind of like dead in the water we felt there was nothing else we could do to advance the case you were just sitting there wondering are they ever going to find who did this you started to lose hope just as the case goes cold an urgent call comes in from a neighboring jurisdiction my partner came running down the hall and says you need to come
down and take this call I have Baltimore County homicide on the phone you need to hear this we got it we got this case [Music] the seven-month hunt for the killer of Sarah Rus is at a standstill when detectives investigating the murder receive an unexpected phone call picked up the phone and it was detective Phil morl from Baltimore County he says hey he says uh I just got done running a wired conversation with an inmate in the Baltimore County Detention Center talking about how he committed th
is murder of of a woman he described how he went through the window and how he attacked her how he stabbed her in the belly and he said I damn near took her head off and he says do you guys have anything like it I said oh yeah we do the murder of Sarah RAR and he says well you need to hear you need to hear this tape Howard County investigators get a copy of the jail house recording of ardale tickles who had been locked up for an armed robbery 3 months ago we sat down we started listening to the
tape of Ardell tickles tickles is describing this homicide that he had [Music] committed no took the KN I just took the head off tickles is describing things that only the police and the suspect would know all the injuries that had been inflicted upon Sarah none of that had been released none of that had been made public I knew now we had it I mean I I'm confident Ardell tickles committed this murder tickles keeps talking and has an even bigger Revelation he's talking about how he came to be emp
loyed to do this I know looking at told me this lady he didn't me to I to go it's now a straight up murder For Hire we had the actual physical killer of Sarah RIS we needed the person who hired him and paid him to conduct the murder a coworker we had some homework to [Music] do who was this mysterious coworker what was her relation to Sarah and why would she want Sarah killed investigators start with ardale tiggles he's 19 years old he's a kid at this point he was incarcerated awaiting trial he
robbed the McDonald's and he shot the manager during the course of the robbery when we started digging into him we couldn't find any kind of criminal record with him prior to this detectives check tickle's employment history looking for any intersection with Sarah's life or those that knew her we went back like a year he was employed in the laundry room at a local nursing home in Baltimore he did the laundry for this facility the entire investigation turns when detectives realize who also worked
at the same nursing home Lorenzo's mother ailia they were co-workers that was kind of mindblowing all you know she was never even on the suspect radar him and Amilia working at the same nursing home it was the one piece to the puzzle that needed to put in and the rest of them just kind of fell into place after that could it really be true that this 63-year-old grandmother hired someone to kill her daughter-in-law and if it is true who else knew about it we still weren't convinced that Lorenzo w
as completely blameless in this so there was still a lot of investigative work to do the rarest house in Parkville was put under surveillance while we invest investigated the relationship between tickles and Amilia we matched up work schedules so we were able to establish yes they worked together yes they worked the same hours we were able to locate a few co-workers who remember seeing ailia talking to this guy we were able to show that relationship did in fact exist but even with a known relati
onship police had no evidence Amelia plotted to to murder Sarah to get to the truth investigators turned to the man they believe killed Sarah tickles was brought in to try to elicit his cooperation what he gives up we can use detectives play tickles the jailhouse recording I had the tape recording set to a point where he admits to stabbing her he heard his voice talk about the murder as you can see we don't need your confession and we got it can you please enlighten me on what I'm facing or what
I'm dealing with in this case you're going to be charged with one count of first-degree murder but we need to get some details worked out the person we want is this woman that hired you I had a picture of Amilia I said is this the woman and he says yeah that's that's her we got her I mean it it was huge in some respects it validated what we thought all on long that everything originated in the rarest household and the rarest family for never in a 100 years where we had thought that she's the on
e that was calling the shot what did she say to you she was tormented she couldn't go on the life until this lady was dead she was like do me a favor kill this lady basically she use the word kill kill take him off the Earth yeah she said I'll pay you she said I give you money if you hire somebody to commit a murder and that person carries it out then you're susceptible to the same charges and the same penalties as the person who did the actual killing so now we're looking at first-degree murder
charges for a million after it was over with did you call this woman that night no I met her at work like that week okay is that when she paid you yeah she she had a bundle of like $3,000 despite tickle's Revelations investigators know it will be hard to bring charges against Amelia on the word of a jailed Defender we had enough we could have easily arrested tickles and called it case closed we needed something that really implicated aelia in the conspiracy what we wanted him to do to nail down
the first-degree murder charge was get on the phone and call ailia we wanted to run a control call with him and he refused when that didn't happen and we had some work to do [Music] investigators now suspect Sarah Rus was murdered in a hit organized by her mother-in-law Amelia Rus but the Hitman ardale tickles refuses to take part in a wiretap to implicate her I would have loved to have got this controlled phone call to ailia to further establish M milia involvement in the planning of the murde
r but we still felt we were on the right track a big item of evidence in this case obviously would be follow the money we pulled Amelia's Financial records and found out sure enough Amilia wrote a checkout in the amount tickle says he got paid and she wrote it out to cash that was key that's the money Trail Amelia RIS is arrested and interviewed by detectives she acknowledged her relationship with tickles and she also acknowledged that she hired him but she alleged that she did not hire him to k
ill her he did that on his own she said I just wanted to scare her there was no intention to kill I didn't know that it's like that in fact I thought he's not going to kill her he is just going to Stone the house you know you throw the stone there $3,000 to Stone the house yes to Stone the house and make her feel sorry as R for me Amelia told us she wanted Sarah scared because she felt that Sarah throughout their relationship had disrespected her did not acknowledge her as a woman with more mate
rnal experience because of the child because of the child I am not welcome to help I think she did not like my style the mother in my culture is revered and respected I want to be treated with respect I'm her mother my marriage she disrespected me that is a laugh a laugh on my face and it is even more than death to me I understand you were insulted oh my God million words more than that showing disrespect to a mother is death is it is it enough that have yes the go me I think she was trying to p
ortray herself as this poor little old lady who who was as much a victim as anything um we weren't buying any of it I mean it's just it's pure evil there's no other way to describe you know what happened here then detectives ask Amelia the question they've been trying to answer since day one is Lorenzo involved no does he know to this day what happened no I not want to tell my son I tell him he will have problem he loves the woman very much he's still in love with him yeah does Michael know anyt
hing about this no really thinking despite Amelia's claim that she had no intention for Sarah to be killed police proceed with charges against her we were able to establish that she hired him and paid him that gave us more than enough to further solidify the case we had against her already the case against Ardell tickles is strengthened when tests match his DNA to blood evidence found at the crime scene both Ardell tickles and ailar rares were charged with first-degree murder conspiracy and in a
elia's case she was charged with the with with a crime of [Music] solicitation when we first heard that it was Amilia the feeling was no this isn't right when I found out about her I'm like where the heck did Amilia come from I was absolutely shocked that the Mother-in-law orchestrated the entire thing and it was a hitman who did it was wow that was a Twist none of us expected like there's no way it's like out of a movie in January of 2000 both ardale tickles and Amelia Rus faced trial for the m
urder murder of Sarah Rus there was no trial for Ardell tickles he was going to go to trial and Ardell tickles unexpectedly decides to plead guilty he's completely remorseful he says you know I shouldn't have done it and then he got life in prison from the judge Amelia Rus enters a plea of not guilty she maintained her innocence that she had just paid this guy $3,000 to go throw stones at the house I testified at the trial I was is there to let the jury know who Sarah was I was afraid they would
see this sweet Meek little old lady and not believe that someone like that could be evil and could organize this murder areale tickles refuses to testify but prosecutors present the recording of his police interview describing the plot and the crime as well as the telephone message that captured Sarah's last moments of life it was so terrifying it was so frightening um it was so uh unspeakably brutal it was chilling after a 7-Day trial Amelia Rus is found guilty of all charges she is sentenced
to life in prison without the possibility of parole I was relieved when the guilty verdict was read and I am glad that they saw through that that demeanor that she put on for those closest to Sarah there will always be a void left behind she gave Joy she received Joy I really do miss her I I need to hear her laugh we lost a really good person that day we lost a light and I just hope that you know she's happy in God's arms and that she's looking out for will I miss her so [Music] much a gregariou
s young man just months away from his wedding day was always happy all he wanted in life was to have a family work hard and fall in love has his future viciously ripped away it was evident the young man had been bludgeoned it hurt me so much and I lost it I lost it investigators are sent down a rabbit hole of suspects he was violently jealous he's a significant drug dealer it looked like that he may have been kidnapped they were accompanying a very scared looking Hispanic young man before a shoc
king Revelation what he was describing was more like something off of a TV show turns the case on its head what he did to us changed our life forever it was a shock to all of us it came as an absolute surprise he had no remorse he had no guilt he's a monster Cornelius a small town in northern Oregon nestled among picturesque Orchards Cornelius is longtime farming Community it's a very kind of nice sort of sleepy place it's kind of a little bedroom community it's mostly a blue collar Town working
class the calm of Cornelius is shaken one quiet morning with reported disappearance of 20-year-old Gonzalo Pisano Guzman that morning my mom saw that gonzalo's bed was made like no one slept there so she obviously got all concerned and he didn't come home last night and then my mom tells me to go to the police station with soul to report him missing his fiance soul and his sister Wana had been actively looking for him that day that morning the family contacted his place of employment he had not
shown up for work the family was extremely distraught by this disappearance he doesn't miss work without calling in they couldn't reach him by pager by telephone and we're all freaking out because this is not who he is and what he does it's so odd it's not normal we learned that Saul had seen Gonzalo the night before they had visited with each other until about4 after 9 that evening and Saul reported seeing him leaving in his car alone headed home but he did not return home last night to Aid th
e detectives Saul provides a description of what Gonzalo was wearing when she last saw him he had on an athletic top with some numbers on it and specifically uh two gold chains while hanana and Saul speak with police other family members frantically look for Gonzalo we all went different ways in our cars driving around just to see if we found his car we were trying to look for anything my dad thought you know maybe he got in an accident we were desperate we just wanted a clue around 4 5:00 in th
e afternoon we all started feeling like okay something's wrong now on the outskirts of town Gonzalo father makes a disturbing Discovery my dad spotted the car in an empty field when he saw the car the white car he knew right away that was onz Solo's car he found the car burned up he rushed to the car opened up the car and didn't find anybody so once that happened it was just now where is he at did he get kidnapped he's dead it was even worse detectives arrive in search for signs of what happened
to Gonzalo the car was totally destroyed by fire it appeared that the car had been heavily dowed with accelerate probably gasoline somebody was clearly trying to cover up evidence from inside that vehicle there was no evidence of anybody there were zip ties found near the car as far as the scene was concerned it yielded minimal Clues as the car had been burned completely chances of DNA or blood or fingerprints uh were greatly reduced later that afternoon another chilling Discovery is made just
11 M away a citizen had seen something that looked like a dead body in the ditch on her Road the body was found about a 15 20 minute drive from where the burn car was this young man matched both the physical description the clothing and the jewelry at this point there was no doubt that this was Galo it was clearly a homicide uh there was evidence of bullet wounds on the body and what appeared to be repeated knife blows to the heart we also discovered some injuries to the back of the head and it
was evident the young man had been bludgeoned it was apparent that he died of violent death we felt almost immediately that this was very personal in nature there was no phone and there was no wallet at the scene but he still had his jewelry with him which were old so the thought of this being a robbery was off the table pretty quickly there was another motive here there were zip ties found near the body and they matched the zip ties from the scene of the car one of the things that went through
my head was had someone brought zip ties to restrain Gonzalo we also located four spent casings from a 40 caliber semi-automatic pistol after finishing up at the crime scene police are faced with the difficult task of delivering the devastating news to gonzalo's family the police came early in the morning I opened the door and they told me we found your brother uh but unfortunately he's dead I was in [Music] shock [Music] I heard my mom screaming it was something I never want to hear again it's
it's not even a scream it's a pain so deep that only Moms Only moms know what that is I found out that he was murdered and I lost it I lost it [Music] to know that such an amazing person was taken away he didn't deserve to die that way bottom line is I don't have my brother anymore born in Mexico in 1979 Gonzalo had a playful spirit he loved to dance he loved music always a smile always caring and always joking around with [Music] people when the family moved to the United States in 1989 outgoin
g Gonzalo settled in quickly he was very Charming he was really goodlooking he was popular with the girls so he was always asked to be in kinas which is a traditional you know uh party for us Mexicans when you turn 15 in 1998 Gonzalo met marisal MOA at a party and the teenagers quickly fell in [Music] love it was that genuine love and happiness there was a light in him he was a complete different person a happy full person all he wanted in life was to have a family work hard and fall in love aft
er a whirlwind romance Gonzalo proposed to mariso so the wedding was set to be in September that was just a couple of months after he was murdered we have a big family so it was going to be a big deal but instead of a wedding Gonzalo loved ones are left heartbroken and grieving while his family plans a funeral detectives are digging into to the work of this homicide case this case was puzzling there really didn't seem to be a strong motive as to why this young man was murdered everything was goi
ng good in his life he was responsible he wasn't involved in gangs he's just very well-liked very upbeat and just a trustworthy young man man that was really difficult there was still so many unanswered questions and we had no definitive leads as to who would have caused this or who we were looking for the fact that there was still a killer out there to me it was very ominous this is very Grim we needed to really look into who is responsible for this coming up investigators uncover a menacing Gr
udge he held an extreme dislike for Gonzalo he was determined to have gonz Al killed the knife wounds directed at the heart did speak of extreme animosity and leads them to discover a web of alarming secrets and lies she wasn't in love with gelo and he wasn't in love with her she admitted it was all a lie he saw skin heads in vehicles and that's when we really started to think something was wrong before the truth blindsides everyone I was like in shock it was so senseless it was so senseless [Mu
sic] in the town of Cornelius Oregon police are investigating the vicious murder of 20-year-old Gonzalo Pizano Guzman wanting more details about his last known movements detectives speak to his fiance Saul she described in detail how Gonzalo had come to her house on the night of the 6th that they sat out front on the porch they were discussing their plans for the upcoming wedding and going over a guest list she stated that following the conversation that he left around 9:00 she stated while they
were sitting on the porch that her cousin haime and a friend Eddie were playing in the in the garage of the house uh apparently shooting baskets that led us to believe that these two young fellows may have been the last known persons to see Gonzalo alive so it was important that we interview them investigators bring Kime and Eddie into the sheriff's office during the interview both stated that uh they had to get to work that night and approached Gonzalo as he was getting in his car and asked if
they could get a ride they were running late for work they worked on a janitorial crew run by Saul's brother Raphael they had to be at work in Hillsboro at the Hawthorne Farms fitness center at 10:00 they said Raphael picked them up and took them to work at the Athletic Club and that eventually they got off at about 4:30 in the morning the fact that they both gave the same statement actually provided themselves an alibi they did not offer any conflict that they had with Gonzalo they indicated t
hat they had uh no reason to to hurt him to corroborate haime and Eddie's Alibi police police speak to their boss sa's brother Raphael we interviewed him at his house he was very Cooperative very smooth very polite had his own business a young entrepreneur rafhael was an incredibly self-possessed 19-year-old uh he had created a janitorial service although he was very young had a very good contract had his own cleaning company and appeared to be very successful detectives asked him to confirm hai
me and Eddie's story he confirmed that he had picked them up at Eddie's house and drove them to work he confirmed their story that they had worked cleaning the health club that night he said that he was at the Athletic Club until about 4 in the morning so Raphael in effect corroborates Eddie and haim's version of events on the night of the 6th so we kind of set them aside with haime and Eddie alabid investigators turned to the Y report hoping to find New Leads it became very apparent just how vi
olently he had died the medical examiner did find three blunt force blows uh to his skull the autopsy also showed that he had been shot five times and then he had also been stabbed five times very brutally in the area of the heart the close cluster of the knife wounds directed at the heart did speak of extreme animosity some violent emotion the gunshot wounds made it appear that his hands were up in a defensive gesture Gonzalo was likely pleading for some measure of mercy and uh ultimately none
was to be had the autopsy report also determines that gonzalo's death occurred around 10 p.m. with the findings in hand investigators now turn to Gonzalo workplace searching for possible suspects we interviewed his supervisor gonzalo's boss described him as reliable steady worker punctual as detectives dig deeper they learn about a startling new side to Gonzalo it appeared that he had a relationship with one of the security guards that worked there gonzalo's boss did tell us there may have been
some possible involvement between the security guard bobette and Gonzalo so we needed to look into it we needed to interview her police bring bobette gonzalo's alleged girlfriend in for questioning she was very upset about his death she was very emotional very distraught about finding out that Gonzalo had been murdered and ultimately disclosed that in fact she had had a very intimate relationship with Gonzalo for a couple months but she made it very clear she wasn't in love with Gonzalo and he w
asn't in love with her bobette described her relationship with Gonzalo was kind of a fling it was Kept Secret she understood that he was engaged to be married but it crossed our minds that maybe bobette's feelings were stronger than she let on maybe she did not want this wedding to go for it the wedding was planned for September only a few months away police asked gonzalo's coworker about her movements on the day of the murder B bet had been at several different locations that day uh running err
ands and she had receipts to support that so she was ruled out as a suspect but while bobette's cleared of Suspicion she hands detectives a crucial tip bobette mentioned an ex-boyfriend named Oscar Rodriguez she told us Oscar was quite jealous he was extraordinarily jealous apparently had been violently jealous in the past about 4 days before the murder Oscar had found out about her relationship with Gonzalo he became infuriated and began accusing her of cheating on him that could be a motive fo
r gonzalo's murder so Oscar became a lead [Music] suspect only 2 days into the investigation of the vicious murder of gonzal follow Pizano Guzman police discover he was involved with his coworker bobette now she's pointed the finger at her jealous a Oscar Rodriguez she speculated that maybe he had something to do with it we looked into him he had a criminal history he'd been pretty extensively involved in gangs at that point in his life and he was well known to the local police very much an impu
lsive young man that was also involved in drug activity and drug use bobette told us that this was a relationship she had to escape from she personally felt threatened by his presence and his behavior and she was very worried that perhaps he was the one that uh took some action uh towards Gonzalo investigators uncover a troubling detail about Oscar's life it was discovered that Oscar Rodriguez mother uh lived right next door to uh the victim's family the investigation kind of perked up as far as
focusing in on Oscar given the fact that he had such access to Gonzalo detective suspicion grows further when they speak to Oscar himself when Oscar Rodriguez was interviewed he light us and told us he had not had any contact at all with bobette and didn't really know anything about what was going on when we started to confront him that this was in cont contradiction to the information that we had from bobette he became Furious started yelling at us you don't trust me he stated he had no claims
to continue any relationship with bobette and uh he wanted to wash his hands of this entire investigation because of his nature he just drew suspicion upon himself he was asked if he'd take a polygraph to show that he didn't have anything to do with Gonzalez's murder he became very volatile and immediately demanded to end the interview then actually stormed out of the interview with Oscar not cooperating detectives investigate his whereabouts during the time of the murder during this time frame
Oscar Rodriguez was actually serving a sentence in the restitution Center the restitution Center is a work relase facility for low to mid-level offenders where Oscar could get passes to go out and find work so the question was did Oscar have a pass at the date and time of the murder was it possible that he wasn't in the restitution Center he is on a strict timeline he had to check in check out it's a secure facility the building is locked there are alarms on all the doors and windows at the res
titution Center there is a lockdown period at night until early in the morning after the records were examined it was positively concluded that he was in the restitution Center at the the time Gonzalo was killed it was impossible for him to have been involved in the actual homicide and ultimately he was ruled out as a suspect it's been a week since the murder and the investigation is no closer to finding a suspect meanwhile the family prepares to bury their beloved Gonzalo it was really hard on
everybody my mom decided she wanted to take him to Mexico he was buried over there and we all stayed for a while trying to grieve together as a family and process what had just happened to our family my mom was just devastated it hurt me so much to lose Gonzalo I was grieving deeply I was in Den I was in my own world and I don't even know how I got by while the family Grieves in Mexico the community of Cornelius is feeling on edge there wasn't a quick arrest within you know a couple days or a we
ek this caused concern in the community cuz no one know who did it searching for New Leads detectives turn to the public we decided to put out a reward for information and the idea was to get people to come forward if they knew anything and let them know that we're a little bit frustrated with where this investigation is going we need public help nearly 2 weeks after gonzalo's murder police get a tip that sends the investigation in a whole new direction we got a call from an employee of the uhb
gas station his name was Ryan Petty he claimed that he had seen some graffiti written in the bathroom of the gas station and the graffiti said Gonzalo Guzman 12 Street gang please help call the police and once he heard about the reward he put Gonzalo with that name Gonzalo and recognized it must be the same victim who who had left that that cry for help on the wall detectives rush to the gas station to interview Ryan while interviewing him he divulges a shocking Revelation so what called his att
ention to the bathroom was shortly before he saw a car pull up a white Mony Carlo uh that had in his words skin heads in the vehicles one of them allegedly had a swas stia tattooed on his body they were accompanying a very scared looking Hispanic young man he stated that it looked like that Gonzalo may have been kidnapped that was significant in the fact that we felt this was a big break that came in the [Music] case nearly 2 weeks after Gonzalo Pisano Guzman was found brutally murdered a gas st
ation attendant named Ryan Petty has told police he saw Gonzalo with three suspicious men the night he was killed he described a Carlo of skin heads that uh had drove up and a young man in the back seat who appeared frightened and they escorted him into the men's restroom for a short period of time he said that ultimately out of the bathroom the Hispanic individual came out and they hustled him back into the car and drove away the Ryan Petty reported that uh when he went into the bathroom after
the an individual left it he saw written saw on the wall Gonzalo Guzman help a 12 Street gang call police but as detectives dig into Ryan's story some details don't add up had it been Gonzalo who had gone into that bathroom afraid for his life and put his name on the wall he never would have written his name as Gonzalo Guzman we knew that was incorrect he would not sign his name in that nature that was the maternal name he would have used the paternal name Guzman is his mother's name he would ha
ve written his name as Gonzalo Pano Pano is his father's name and so right away this was suspicious and just the whole nature of what he was describing was more like something off of a TV show the skin heads the swastika it just didn't ring true and so it was suspected that he was trying to come forward for the reward we looked through the videotape from the SB station During the period of time this employee stated that car had gone by there was nothing in that videotape that corroborated anythi
ng he had told us no white Monte Carlo no individuals who could be characterized as skin heads more importantly no individual who was a scared Hispanic person being escorted the bath the examination of the surveillance video at the gas station contradicted Ryan Petty's uh version of events and also one of the issues was he didn't report this right away when police check Ryan's record they find more troubling news he had a pretty checkered p asked he was no stranger to the criminal justice system
some of his arrests were for crimes that would cause you to doubt his honesty in my mind we rule it out as pure fabrication it just was too cute too stereotypical the mistake with the Spanish surname I didn't buy it with another lead exhausted investigators face a daunting realization we reached a point where we were getting nowhere leads weren't panning out having no significant suspect is very depressing really if you don't solve these cases early on the longer they go the likelihood that you
're actually going to be able to solve them um becomes less and less in cases like this where we're not getting anywhere especially on a homicide we took this very personal up to that point this team had not had an unresolved Thomas ride the lack of progress also adds to the pain suffered by gonzalo's family was very hard it was very painful to come back from Mexico and there was no arrest yet [Music] for everything was very silent and we were getting very very impatient my mom was getting very
impatient with the detectives and all they told us is to please trust them so we put our life in their hands two more months pass without an arrest with the case at a standstill detectives review the entire investigation for something they may have missed that can be very frustrating when you reach that point where you've kind of hit the wall but you just have to resolve to redouble your efforts and to keep digging keep pushing it was time to go back and look over everybody one more time we knew
that Eddie and haime were the last people to see Gonzalo at Soul's house the night of the murder even though they' been interviewed and gave a pretty good account their activity that night their boss rafhael provided an alibi for them we wanted to be sure so at this stage is when we asked them to take a a polygraph but when we began to ask them to take a polygraph they started dodging and weaving for some reason they began to bulk and this threw a red flag as to why they weren't coming forward
again these are the last two people to see Gonzalo alive and now they're uh getting cold feed about taking a polygraphing Sam and that's when we really started to think something was wrong detectives keep the pressure on haime and Eddie and on September 14th Eddie comes in for his polygraph the polygrapher was hooking Eddie up attaching these leads to him to measure his response and uh he doesn't even get to the questions and Edie says okay I'll tell you what happened and he immediately makes it
clear that he wants to tell everything that happened in police par once he spild it two months after the murder of Gonzalo Pisano Guzman detectives are re interviewing Witnesses hoping for a break now Eddie one of the last people to see Gonzalo alive has told police he knows more than he's L on he gave a detailed recorded statement about what happened on the night of the murder as he talks to investigators Eddie drops a bombshell he disclosed that he had actually been approached by his boss Rap
hael who was sa's brother to coordinate delivering Gonzalo to the Forest Hills Country Club parking lot Eddie told us that it had all been planned out by Raphael Raphael had enlisted Joe Noble to help with this crime Joe was Raphael's friend Eddie went on to tell us at night he and haime lured Gonzalo to drive his car to the golf course and as they pulled up Joe Noble appeared with a gun in his hand and as Eddie and haime got out of gonzalo's car Noble got into the car pointing the gun at Gonzal
o and also present in the parking lot was Raphael and his white Ford F-150 Gonzalo was driven Away by Raphael and Joe but Eddie claims he has no idea what happened next he stated that that he and haime had left the country club and got into their vehicle left and went home and went to work as usual could the brother of gonzalo's fiance Saul really be behind his brutal murder it was extremely surprising to suddenly see Rafel MOA as somebody different than this really incredibly self-possessed 19-
year-old who started his own business but according to Eddie Raphael leads a disturbing double life Eddie told us that Raphael was a pretty active drug dealer the nice entrepreneur cover of Raphael was also lie he's a significant drug dealer and it appears orchestrated the kidnapping of Gonzalo with Joe Noble this completely surprised me Raphael did appear at least on the surface to be legit and now he's just not who we thought he was it was a shock to all of us the one thing detectives still ne
ed to know is why Raphael would want to kill his future brother-in-law and up to that point in time there was nothing to link him there was there was no motive that anybody could speak of investigators first turned their attention to Joe Noble suspecting he may have been taking orders from Raphael Joe Noble was uh known as a smalltime criminal an informant told us he was very concerned about a 40 caliber pistol he had sold to Joe Noble and he suspected that this may have been the murder weapon u
sed in the killing of Gonzalo that's not the last of the informant's revelations he said that Joe Noble had talked to a female at one of the local bars and had asked her to Alibi for him on that particular night in question we contacted her she told us that yes Joe had asked her to say he was with her on the night of the Sixth and most importantly she said I wasn't with him police bring Joe in for questioning Joe denied having any involvement whatsoever to the murder during our interview with Jo
e he actually tried to use The Alibi and then when we confronted him with the fact that we'd already talked to her and she said it was all Bs then he stopped talking Joel stated that he wanted an attorney and didn't want to talk anymore with nothing concrete to hold Joe police are forced to release him and turn their attention to Raphael investigators learned that Rafael's cleaning business was not all that it was reported to be he had a contract with the hawor Farms Athletic Club the manager of
the health club was not very impressed with the quality of Raphael's work and the work of his crew it was really a shoddy operation by all accounts we considered the fact that the cleaning company may have been a front for Raphael's drug dealing Raphael told police he was cleaning the gym with Eddie and haime the Knight of gonzalo's murder so investigators check with Management in order to corroborate his Alibi the manager of the club said he often couldn't reach him so he had no idea if he was
there or not on the night of the murder with his Alibi falling apart detectives ask Raphael's sister Saul why he might want Gonzalo dead Saul admitted that Raphael had had a serious talk with her and that it was clear that he was opposed to the wedding felt she was too young Raphael did not want Gonzalo marrying Soul just did not see Gonzalo as being worthy of marrying into the family investigators learned that Raphael would mock Gonzalo for the car he drove he'd mock him for bringing over a bo
ttle of wine to his parents that was cheap and and not any good rapael held an extreme dislike for Gonzalo when accompanied by friends he would go by gonzalo's car and talk about keying it or smashing a window out and laughing about it with the evidence against Raphael stacking up police are ready to bring him in for an interview but there's just one setback he disappeared at this point it's become pretty apparent that Raphael's got something to hide you put it all together there was proba cause
to arrest him with a warrant for Raphael's arrest police initiate a Manhunt he had a girlfriend named Sandy Montes we found him hiding at his uh girlfriend's house he had dyed his hair orange and it was obvious that he had done it to try to change his identity on September 28th 2000 Raphael is officially charged with first-degree kidnapping and aggravated murder was like in shock I had so much anger at Raphael it's an anger I can't explain just when police believe they have their man the invest
igation takes another shocking turn we had Raphael in custody when his girlfriend showed up with evidence stating that there is no way he could have been at the murder scene this raised some obvious concerns could it be possible that Raphael was not involved in gonzalo's murder it came as an absolute [Music] Surprise Police have arrested Raphael MOA in the death of his sister's fiance Gonzalo Pisano Guzman but now Raphael's girlfriend Cindy claims she has an alibi for him on the night of the mur
der C produced a receipt from a auto detailing place that reported to have dropped off Raphael's vehicle the night of the murder and that Raphael was there and signed for it it was presented as a solid piece of evidence that Raphael was working at the Athletic Club the night in question and they had the receipt to prove it and an individual named Cassandra who owned the company had signed off and was going to be an alibi witness checking the vality of the receipt police interview Cassandra who a
dmits to being a friend of Raphael with a little bit of prodding by the investigators uh she finally admitted that in fact the receipt was fake she confessed it was all a lie orchestrated by Raphael it was something that she dummied up because Raphael had asked her to with Raphael's Alibi discredited investigators turn up the heat on co-conspirator Joe Noble he told the officers that he hadn't been completely honest he admitted that he was at the parking lot at the golf course he was there when
the car was burned he admits the kidnap he admits to Pistol whipping the victim he said that it was Raphael ordering him to do that they then picked up Gonzalo put him in the back of a Ford white pickup truck and then Raphael drove Joe home with the victim knocked out in the back of the truck but when when he last Saw Gonzalo Gonzalo albe it knocked out was still alive and then supposedly Raphael would have then driven back out to HG Lake and killed Gonzalo detectives have a hard time believing
Joe was not there when Gonzalo was finally killed but have no proof we had no physical evidence that we could link them to the crime and it was frustrating desperate investigators obtain security footage from businesses along the Route they believe Raphael and Joe would have taken to and from the murder something on one of the tapes grabs their attention we saw Raphael's pickup pull into the gas station to get gas and loone behold there's Joseph Noble getting out of the white Fort and going into
the gas station and the timing of the gas station surveillance footage indicated that would have been probably shortly after the murder [Music] police also obtain a warrant for Raphael's phone records rafhael insisted all along that he couldn't have committed the murder because he was Miles Away cleaning the gym and lo and behold at the time of the murder his phone was not bouncing off the nearest Tower to the Athletic Club it was bouncing off the nearest Tower to hag Lake which puts him in the
area of the murder that was huge I felt ecstatic because I knew in that moment that we had him and it absolutely conclusively meant that his Alibi at the Athletic Club was false this was a big moment of actually having some physical evidence there's a great deal of satisfaction to having found the truth with the new evidence in hand prosecutors are confident they can secure a conviction and in 2003 Joe Noble and Raphael MOA are tried together both were charged with uh aggravated murder and with
kidnapping in the first Dee at trial prosecutors present a picture of what they believe happened to Gonzalo the night he was murdered Raphael did not want him marrying his sister Raphael was determined to have Gonzalo killed and so he hatched a plan to get Gonzalo out to the golf course Lord Gonzalo out there with Eddie and haime after getting out of the car Galo was beat and Pistol whipped and thrown into the back seat of the pickup Raphael or Joe then set the car on fire and they proceeded to
hag Lake they drove to an isolated spot Gonzalo got out of the car the gun was pointed at him we believe that he was shot multiple times by Joe and that Raphael was the one that wanted to get the final word in and stabbed him multiple times in the heart on the stand a witness reveals Raphael bragged to him about the murder that Gonzalo was begging for his life that gonel was promising that he would stop the relationship with Saul that he would move to [Music] Mexico no one deserves to be killed
that way no one it was so senseless it was so senseless on April 28th 2003 the jury finds Raphael and Joe guilty of gonzalo's murder Joe was sentenced to life with a possibility of parole after 25 years Raphael was sentenced to straight life no possibility appr [Music] proo after 5 years in prison Raphael appeals his conviction arguing ineffective counsel the judge decided that this case should go back to trial which was a shock to all of us ultimately the decision was made to allow rafhael to
plea to manslaughter in the first degree Raphael's sentence is reduced to 25 years and 10 months with time served he will be eligible for early release in 2024 he had no remorse he had no guilt he's a monster is what he did to us changed our life forever he destroyed [Music] us even after everything they've endured gonzalo's family remains inspired by his memory he was a happy person that wanted everybody around him to have that same joy and made sure that we were always laughing those are the m
oments that I will always cherish the most Gonzalo was one of the most genuine man that I've known that I continue to [Music] admire a popular and fun-loving college student Mindy was a very bubbly person she's always seemed to be happy she had a light in her eyes and she accepted everyone is found savagely murdered in her apartment there was a belt wrapped around her neck and appeared to be a broken off knife still stuck in her throat police need to determine was this a Sinister Obsession Mindy
I know what happened to you God pick the beautiful flower he had called and left numerous messages on her cell phone just really a strange type of relationship a crucial piece of evidence there was some material under the fingernails of her left hand I know you got a mark on your hand how did you get that shines a light on a dangerous predator no one saw coming I was very shocked I think everybody was he was not the man we thought he was I don't think I would ever expect that outcome at all [Mu
sic] um it's Danny anyway [Music] can where are you I remember trying to call Mindy a few times and she wasn't answering so me and my friend Danielle drove and parked in front of her apartment across the street I ran inside I knocked on um the door and there was no answer and it wasn't locked and so I opened the door and I stepped in and about two steps in I saw something on the ground right in front of my feet it was Mindy and then I noticed something around her neck horrified Mindy's friend ru
shes outside to call 911 about 10 minutes before 9:00 at night dispatch called me at my house and said that theyve got a hysterical caller on the phone I got the address and it was one block from my house when I arrived both Danielle and Tony were very distraught very upset the apartment was located on the second floor of the building as I entered I could uh smell a very strong odor like an ammonia disinfectant the uh body of the victim was laying across the entry hallway and it appeared her thr
oat had been half cut open detectives begin their investigation and ident identify the victim as 22-year-old college senior Mindy morger I knew Mindy she was a student at the uh College I had seen her at a lot of their events and to see that it was her I was really surprised and quite shocked there was a belt wrapped around her neck and appeared to be a broken off knife still stuck in her throat it appeared that the belt was applied to the neck prior to the neck being cut investigators find an e
mpty bottle of disinfectant beside the body somebody had poured the disinfectant over her body possibly trying to destroy any type of evidence the killer tried to cover their tracks but investigators find something they missed there was some material under the fingernails of her left hand where possibly Mindy had scratched her as salant we felt that this was going to be a DNA forensic type case based on materials that were found on the Mindy's fingernails and uh to preserve that the hands are pl
aced in bags for autopsy she had a purse around her right arm her wallet was laying just outside of the purse it didn't appear that they'd been gone through or anything removed from them there was clean laundry around the body and a laundry basket it almost appeared as if she was attacked as she was going in the door with that laundry it did not look like apartment had been Ram sacked or or gone through so it it didn't appear that theft was a motive in this killing there was no sign of any Fores
t entry into the apartment it told us that the person was either in her apartment or followed her in her cell phone was located and the first missed call on that phone was at 12:47 p.m. on September 13th that gave us some indication as to what time the attack may have occurred by 10: p.m. more than 9 hours after the first missed call detectives have little to go on and as they work into the night at the crime scene when we uh first left the scene the uh following morning we had no clear indicati
on of who may have done [Music] this police reach Mindy's sister to inform her of the murder and she delivers the tragic news to her parents the front doorbell rang and I said who's there and Rebecca our daughter she said it's me Dad you got some bad news and then Rebecca said to me that Mom Mindy is Dad it was just like somebody taking a knife and just sticking it right into your heart I just wanted to try to just say no this isn't real this didn't happen I didn't want it to be true she had suc
h a loving loving heart and I loved her very much born in bogat Columbia on April 29th 1984 Mindy was adopted as a baby by Valley City Farmers Larry and Eunice morger the first time I saw Mindy she had the biggest darkest most beautiful eyes that I had ever seen it was pretty pretty pretty amazing to see this little little character in the basket that she brought home to be part of our family Mindy was the youngest of four Morgan Stern children three of them adopted by Larry and eudice Mindy was
very much a townboy and as she grew up she got so beautiful she didn't really realize that she would be looked upon as somebody that would turn boys heads After High School Mindy moved to Valley City and Dove headlong into college life she just seemed to enjoy all the friends that she had there Mindy was a very friendly outgoing bubbly person she's always seemed to be happy she had a light in her eyes and she accepted everyone Mindy's future was looking bright until the stunning attack that cut
her down in her prime it was very difficult to see Mindy's body in the condition that it was in when we found her I want to find out who did this guess she was loved by a lot of people in our community back at the crime scene Mindy's two friends tell detectives they weren't the only ones to see Mindy's body when Tony found mindia at the scene she screamed uh which alerted uh man in a neighboring apartment to come out to to see what was wrong he was there when I first entered the apartment compl
ex and they showed me where Mindy was located he told investigators that he checked for a pulse using the the back of his hand to not leave any finger pints on the victim it was a little odd because people don't describe things like that like using the back of their hand so they don't leave fingerprints and things like that if he was there to help I couldn't understand why he'd be worried about something like that police identify the man as Robert Lind and soon notice a telling detail about him
he had scratches on his hands that would correspond to someone trying to get your hands off of them when they were being attacked had Mindy scratched Robert as she fought for her life Robert Lind having those scratches being in the same building he certainly needed to be looked at a lot of times a person at the crime scene is a person that committed the crime and if any evidence of them is found they have an excuse for saying why it was [Music] there coming up detectives uncover a world of Secre
ts she reminding me so much of my wife like I don't want you talking to her time here it turned out upon checking his background that he had a felony record and as they zero in on a killer I was absolutely certain we had the right guy a stunning setback turns the case on its head I just thought it's all over with now they're going to let him go this case was a shock to everybody when we found out who the person was it was just [Music] [Music] wow police investigating the murder of 22-year-old co
llege student Mindy morger have just identified their first suspect her neighbor Robert Lind when officer met Robert Lind they noticed some scratches on his hands and he also used the back of his hand to see if she was deceased or not his concern was he didn't want to leave any fingerprints or DNA in the apartment because he had nothing to do with the incident suspicions aroused police bring Robert Lind into the station for an interview good you I were in passing and see her every day all he kne
w about her is that she was a pretty girl and that she lived in the apartment building when investigators dig into Robert's history they find something troubling it turned out upon uh checking his background that he had a felony record I got po see car G my original sentence was um 2 years and8 months Robert linday was in the criminal system out California he's street smart and he knew not to leave fingerprints at the crime scene detectives ask Robert how he got the scratches on his hands all yo
ur hands are really cut up and stuff is that normal from work yeah this is an everyday thing Ste yeah all day long steel I get cover pretty bad constantly he claimed he worked at a a place where they built steel buildings and stuff like that and he got the bruises on his hands from his job police cut to the Chase and ask Robert where he was on the day Mindy was murdered it wasn't anything out ordinary regular day work start I start there like Robert Lind told investigators that he had been at at
work that day from 7 in the morning and he didn't arrive uh homeed to his apartment until about 5:30 we talked to his employer he did work all day he did work with steel so it's very easy for him to cut his hands so there was really nothing to put him head that apartment at the time the crime occurred still police aren't ready to rule out Robert just yet we asked him to provide DNA sample which he agreed to while they await DNA test results police canvas Mindy's neighbors we were looking for an
ybody that that might have seen something heard something so we can get a better timeline as far as when this might have happened while going door too investigators are pleased to see a familiar face as I was collecting statements outside I saw Mo Gibbs he had been living in the apartment building with his wife and stepdaughter Mo works at the Barnes County jail and due to the fact that he was a correctional officer I would run into him quite often while he was working and I also knew Mo because
we played on the coet softball tournament together a guy in his position probably would be an excellent witness if he had seen or heard anything mogab said that he knew Mindy as a person that lived in the building he had seen her come and go the investigator asked Mo if he noticed anything unusual that afternoon Mo had said that he went with his wife and stepdaughter for lunch then came back to the apartment at about 12:45 and uh started packing and loading uh boxes as he and his wife were goin
g to be moving out of the apartment he mentioned that when he went into the apartment complex he could smell a strong distinct odor of a disinfectant other than that he claimed that he didn't hear or see anything so we we're working with the timeline between the first Miss call at 12:47 p.m. and the disinfectant being smelled shortly after 1:00 p.m. so we figured she probably was deceased prior to 1:00 in the afternoon to rule them out police collect DNA samples from Mo and the other building re
sidents all the DNA samples taken during our interviews were sent to the State Crime Lab in search of New Leads detectives turn to Mindy's loved ones I just didn't think there was anybody that would want to do anything like that to her investigators push Mindy's parents to think hard about anyone who might have had a problem with her Mindy's mother mentioned that Tony had had this boyfriend that wasn't uh such a nice person his name was James I was dating James Robinson at the time and he was do
ing some bad things and I was taking the brunt of it and Mindy didn't really care for him because she had known that there was times that got pretty scary Mindy did bring him up at one time something about him being on drugs or something Mindy was trying to get Tony to quit seeing James and that may give him some reason to hold a grudge against Mindy this James Robinson didn't look like he wanted his girlfriend Tony to be friends with Mindy she did you know obviously like a friend does get out y
ou know you need to leave he's not a good guy this isn't a good relationship in trying to help her friend had Mindy made a deadly enemy seemed like a attack was personal in nature it made me think that maybe this guy had something to do with her death [Music] investigators are hunting for the killer of popular college student Mindy morger they now suspect James Robinson who may have held a grudge against Mindy for trying to turn his girlfriend Tony against him so James was called in to do an int
erview to see what we could glean from him Did You Know M pry well I knew her from going to visit at work and she'd be there or whatever and we'd get together every once I go out and EET her police ask James if he has a criminal record James said that he had in the past had trouble with illegal drugs he had been charged but uh he was trying to stay out of of uh that lifestyle as James talks detectives notice suspicious cuts on his hands you do to your hand look like you got a yeah went right thr
ough a window blood like something looks pretty fresh police pressed James on his whereabouts at the time of the murder what were you doing during the day know I have 4 hours of community service stff to do James told investigators that he went to do community service from these previous charges he then went to a friend's house and uh went back home sometime 5:00 or later we checked and it was verified that he had been at those locations that day even though James's Alibi checks out investigator
s collect a DNA sample in order to officially rule him out as they review evidence from the crime scene autopsy results arrive the autopsy of meny's body indicated that she had died from asphixiation and due to the cuts to her neck there was no indication that Mindy had been sexually assaulted still awaiting results on DNA collected from Mindy's fingernails detectives turned to her co-workers for New Leads Mindy had been working at a restaurant in Valley City as a weight staff it was important t
o interview Mindy's co-workers and see if they knew of anyone unusual in the restaurant that stood out to them there was a man that lived in a motor home across the street from the restaurant Mindy told co-workers that he made her feel really uneasy and he was always in there bothering them so hearing that information we decided to interview him what's your PO name r Albert Walter so how long you been in valy City well I don't know you could say I'm a Drifter but uh Mr Walters didn't have any ti
es to the area just kind of an odd character you remember anything particular did on Wednesday oh that was a day that change the oil in the mot room he really didn't have a good Alibi for when Mindy was murdered just as with previous suspects detective spot a potentially damning clue I know you got a mark on your how did you get that when I put that have you had any type of altercations or disagreements in any of the restaurants with anybody I can't think of any he claimed he never bothered anyb
ody in the restaurant where Mindy worked claimed he didn't know who she was but Mindy's co-workers tell a different story they all said that he was in it quite often Mr Walters would have seen her coming and going at least would that give him a reason to follow her we really didn't know at that point red flags were waving of course but I was real careful not to jump to any conclusions too early on in the investigation detectives collect Ralph's DNA and let him go but they're not ready to clear h
im just yet we keep him on the list we're hoping DNA samples if he was involved would eventually tie him into it two days after the murder The Wait For answers starts to take a toll on Mindy's family that was a hard part not knowing what was going on and what happened and why it was like living someplace in another world and you just wanted answers 3 days into the investigation detectives catch a break when they find disturbing voicemails left on Mindy's phone after she was dead my number sweeti
e I miss you I love you you're my inspiration please help me please help me baby than please help me some help me detective searched the number and discovered that it belongs to a man named Rodney Kia after Mindy had passed away he had called and left numerous messages on her cell phone investigators rush to find out who Rodney Kia is and why he called Mindy after her [Music] murder Mindy's friends had told us about a previous Boyfriend by the name of Kyle Kia they had been very serious and they
had broken up the prior year Mindy's phone indicated a lot of calls between she and Kyle's father Rodney we thought this was was really odd because why would an ex-boyfriend's father be so interested in Mindy there was some indication from Mindy's friends that Mindy had told Rodney to quit calling [Music] her it's been 3 days since 22-year-old Mindy Morganstern was found brutally murdered in her apartment police have a new suspect an ex-boyfriend's father who left suspicious voicemails for Mind
y after her deathy this is RO I know what happened to you voice can't I love you kid God beautiful flower sorry happened that way it happened to you it just was really odd why Mindy's ex-boyfriend's father was leaving these messages why he was so infatuated with her and obviously he had feelings for her eager to learn more about Mindy's communication with Rodney Detective start by questioning his son Kyle Kyle was Mindy's ex-boyfriend and Mindy I think still had feelings for Kyle it was found th
at Kyle had broken off his relationship with her a year before and was planning to get married to someone else and had really had very little contact with Mindy since that time that they had broken up I feel a little bad that maybe I could have handle it a little different have you had any other contact with you no that was the last time I ever talk to her I know she would kind of information kind of through my dad him and her would continue to talk after verifying that Kyle was working out of t
own on the day of the murder detectives turned their questions to his father's relationship with Mindy I said it's like I don't want you talking to her you know 10 20 years down the road you guys are still me talking and is kind of weird it is kind of weird yeah it was actually ruining his relationship with his father because Rodney was so involved with Mindy still I even asked my dad I would appreciate it you guys have sto talking Rod Kia had an almost unhealthy amount of contact with Mindy and
then that continued even after Kyle and Mindy broke up the calls were very frequent like multiple times daily and it really made us Wonder did Mindy want him to quit calling her did that make him angry detectives bring Rodney Kia in for an interview he was at least in his 50s and we weren't sure what it was that he wanted out of Mindy you and Mindy became what you call it friends she dated your son correct I don't understand the relationship well you have know she was quite the bubbly character
she reminded me so much of my wife in her younger days detectives press Rodney about the messages he left after hearing of Mindy's death I didn't call after I went back left mess was really stupid to do that but they wanted her to pick up what did you tell her my God Pi the perfect FL it was just really a strange type of relationship between a man that was her boyfriend's father and her detectives press Rodney on his whereabouts at the time of the murder Rod Guta indicated that he was working o
n his farm with his two sons from 7: in the morning till early in the evening we checked and verified that yes he had been at work that day detectives collect DNA from Rodney but with nothing concrete against him they must let him go we still thought that it was such an odd relationship that we certainly wouldn't close the book on on looking at at Rodney any further the pressure to find Mindy's killer only increases as the community becomes gripped by fear it was super scary because you didn't k
now who it was it could have been anybody you were scared to go out by yourself you were scared to do anything it wasn't safe Little Valley City anymore 6 days after the murder Mindy's funeral draws hundreds of mourners we had the funeral at the high school gym because we didn't think everybody could fit into the church while there was over 500 people at the funeral the police told us they would have some undercover agents watching because they didn't know for sure if this person was you know af
ter her or after us and you get kind of paranoid of anything like that happening until they finally catch the right person the day after Mindy's funeral investigators receive surprising news from the crime lab the State Crime Lab called and said that we have a positive match of the DNA the DNA extracted from under the fingernails of Mindy matched and unsolved brutal sexual assault and Fargo 2 years previously and when we found out who the person was it was just kind of Silence then it was a [Mus
ic] shock one week after the murder of 22-year-old Mindy Morganstern detectives received DNA test results that turn the case on its head the DNA from every one of the suspects go Walters Lind and the others all came back as not a match to the DNA found under Mindy's fingernails I asked who is it they told me it was M Gibbs when they got the match it was just wow the DNA match of Mo Gibbs was really unexpected for us I knew him personally he was a correctional officer and it really caught me off
guard that somebody in the law enforcement Community would have done something like this when detectives look deep into Mo's background they discover a hidden past Mo Gibbs was not the man we thought he was when we started digging into his background we had found out that he'd actually changed his name we found out that he was involved in a driveby shooting and he had served 5 years in prison also his DNA matched this reported rape in Fargo from 2 years previously given Mo's violent criminal pas
t detectives come up with a strategy to lure him into the station we had called Mo and asked him if he would be willing to come in just to eliminate him as a suspect we're playing on his friendship with law enforcement the idea was to get him in walk them into a story and then immediately give him the polygraph Mo Gibbs lived in the apartment building that Mindy lived in and he said that he had seen her around but he really didn't know her at all mo said that he had worked at the jail the previo
us night uh had gotten home about 7:00 in the morning and then he started packing and loading boxes out of uh the apartment anything unusual that you noticed in the apartment building nope I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary the whole day you know back and forth scratches were observed on Mo's hands and Mo stated that he got those scratches from moving boxes the polygraph operator asked him if he'd ever been in Mindy's room or in her apartment I went to her place one time and that was p
robably either a week in a half or two weeks ago he stated that she was trying to carry a laundry basket and and some other things all at the same time and he assisted her in carrying that laundry to her apartment I'm thinking that he wanted to have an excuse for having evidence in that apartment with Mo's story in place the polygraph can begin regarding Mindy's death do you intend to truthfully answer those questions yes did you injure Mindy cause her death no at the conclusion of the polygraph
examination The Examiner felt that there was some indication of deception there's a little bit of indication there that something is bothering me about this and um you know I guess I just want to try and get a resolve I mean I don't know nothing about it I mean as far as anything else I wasn't there so it's not bothering me that I know I mean uh cuz I know I live there okay what do you know about DNA nothing nothing how would you feel if I told you that your DNA matches DNA that we found on min
d's body I'd be like that wasn't true so I know I wasn't there so at that point we didn't think that he was really going to ever admit to anything at least that day we're in a bind here your DNA is matching what we found on her under her fingernails I don't know how my fingernail my Dil was under her fingernails when we get DNA back though and it says this is the person that matches this person out of so many million we can't argue with that more plus I'm going to let you in on something else he
re the DNA that they match that they brought up it also matches uh the DNA that was found on a girl that was sexually assaulted 2 years ago in Fargo okay he was arrested immediately after that interview and charged with murder could you stand up please put your hand your back we have an arrest warrant for the murder of news of Mo's arrest opens a Floodgate Of shocking accusations a number of female inmates in the jail where Mo Gibb's work came forward and said he's been doing sexual stuff to us
in the jail for weeks or months [Music] MO is charged with six felonies for the sexual assaults and one count of first-degree murder it was a very very much a shock when they revealed who was arrested I was very surprised and very shocked due to the fact I knew him personally but it was a great feeling to get the person who had done this this horrific crime we went to trial in Min not North Dakota provided evidence to the jury there about the DNA under her fingernails the scratches on his hand d
espite the evidence against him Mo's lawyers mount a strong defense their argument was the DNA found in Mindy's fingernails was probably touch DNA that she got from door knobs that M Gibbs had been touching I went into the jury deliberations believing strongly that we proved our case Beyond A Reasonable Doubt on July 12th 2007 the jury returns to the courtroom with news that takes Everyone by surprise the jury deliberated for a fair period of time and came back as a hung jury and could not reach
a decision we were so sure he was going to go down but they just got him off you kind of went home and you were thinking what are we going to do [Music] now corrections officer Mo Gibbs has just been tried for the murder of 22-year-old Mindy Morganstern but when the verdict comes back a hung jury Mindy's loved ones are left fearing the worst I was very shocked I think everybody was I don't think I would ever expect that outcome at all when we heard it was a hung jury I just thought it's all ove
r with now they're going to let him go was it possible that Mo had not killed Mindy after all or was a murderer about to go free when a hungery like that happens it's extremely disappointing and hard to understand for people cuz it's just a temporary setback I was absolutely certain we had the raik in the Min not trial the defense the one thing they really hung their hat on was that trying to say it was just touch DNA we felt it was obvious that to get DNA under your fingernails it wasn't from t
ouching any kind of torup so we wanted to totally rule that out and were able to find another expert to help us do that on October 22nd 2007 more than a year after Mindy's murder Mo Gibbs goes on trial for the second time the expert described this as a vigorous assault the amount of DNA was not from touching Mador Abra laundry basket the prosecution lays out further Evidence carefully building the case against mo mo gb's phone was seized after his arrest there were never times when he went for a
n hour or more that he was not texting or doing something with his phone he got off at 700 in the morning from his shift and he was continually either emailing or texting people until he had to go pick up his fiance to go to lunch he dropped her back off around 12:30 or 1:00 and that's when we believe he came back to the apartment building Mindy's last missed call was at 12:47 that day and for the next 2 hours Mo Gibbs was doing something else other than sending texts or sending emails with DNA
and other evidence placing Mo at the scene the prosecution lays out their theory of the murder I believe that men was carrying clothes into her apartment and mo Gibbs was in the hallway and got her in there and pushed her on the floor and attempted to rape her I think Mindy fought back and things went drastically wrong I think what happened was he tried strangling her with a belt it wasn't going as he wanted it to she wasn't dying fast enough so he got a knife and he stabbed her and then when he
got done he finds a a cleaning solution dumps it on her body and then he gets the heck out of there then he starts back with the texting and emailing and went on with his [Music] life as Mo's second murder trial concludes prosecutors have one final card to play there was a cmate of Mo Gibbs while he was awaiting trial that had told investigators that Mo had admitted to uh killing Mindy Gibs had told him that he'd done it he'd do it again if he had the [Music] opportunity as the jury deliberates
for a second time Mindy's loved ones nervously await the outcome and I was wondering what's going on I wanted to know things I wanted to hear what was coming out of their mouths on November 16th 2007 after deliberating for over 27 hours the jury returns with the verdict we the jury do find the defendant mole m Gibbs guilty of the crime of murder for killing Mindy Morganstern Mo Gibbs is sentenced to life without [Music] parole he got a 12year sentence on the unsolved rape and 15 years on the ja
il sexual assaults that had happened it was a relief that they finally caught the person that he wasn't going to be out there to do it to somebody else again the fact that mid is going to be in prison it was finally over with we could finally go on and just try to get through life the rest of the time that we had Mo got what he deserved because of Mindy's actions and her strength we were able to get the DNA that we needed and that DNA helped us solve this [Music] case though Justice is served no
thing can dull the pain of Mindy's loss oh I miss Mindy so much every day you never get over it but you go on and you pray for that time when you can see her again up there in in the heavens that's where I know where she's at I like to remember her smile I have a picture of her on my refrigerator and the light just radiates from her face and she's so happy and that's the way I like to remember her [Music] e for e for for for for e for for for for for for e e for for for
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