Latest / Crime and Horror / EVERYONE was a suspect in this Broadway dancer’s murder... - MrBallen

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EVERYONE was a suspect in this Broadway dancer’s murder... - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: In December of 2005, a young woman walked down a
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Speaker 1: sidewalk in New York City. There were Christmas decorations on
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Speaker 1: all the buildings and Christmas lights. I mean, it was
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Speaker 1: very festive. But as she walked along, she glanced over
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Speaker 1: at a newspaper stand, and she saw something on the
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Speaker 1: front page of that paper that literally made her stop
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Speaker 1: in her tracks, and not because it was festive. It
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Speaker 1: was awful. Right there on the front page was a
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Speaker 1: picture of the one thing in her life that she'd
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Speaker 1: hoped she would never forget. ever see again. But before
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Speaker 1: we get into today's story, if you're a fan of
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Speaker 1: the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then
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Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you on the next
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Speaker 1: extremely hot day, sneak into the like buttons house and
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1:01
Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. Early on the evening of Sunday,
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Speaker 1: November 27th, 2005, A 21-year-old woman named Catherine Woods leaned
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Speaker 1: towards the mirror to put on her eyeliner inside the
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Speaker 1: bathroom of her small apartment in New York City. Catherine's
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Speaker 1: phone was sitting on the bathroom counter, and she heard
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Speaker 1: a buzz, but she didn't even look to see who
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Speaker 1: was calling. She didn't have time to talk to anyone,
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Speaker 1: because she had to finish getting ready for her 7
1:45
Speaker 1: o'clock shift at work. So Catherine had moved to New
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Speaker 1: York City from Ohio three years earlier to pursue her
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Speaker 1: dream of becoming a dancer on Broadway. But everything here
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Speaker 1: was so expensive that in addition to chasing her dream,
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Speaker 1: she also had to work three different jobs just to
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Speaker 1: make ends meet. Now, two of those jobs were pretty standard.
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Speaker 1: She worked as a waitress and also taught children's dance classes.
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Speaker 1: But tonight, she was getting ready to go to her
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Speaker 1: third job. And this job was not really standard at all.
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Speaker 1: In fact, to her, she was sort of embarrassed about it.
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Speaker 1: And because of that, she was keeping it a secret
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Speaker 1: from almost everybody in her life. Her third job was
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Speaker 1: working as a topless dancer at a strip club near
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Speaker 1: Times Square called Flash Dancers. Catherine honestly hated the work,
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Speaker 1: but it paid really well, and if she wanted to
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Speaker 1: have her shot at Broadway, she needed to pay for
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Speaker 1: voice lessons and dance classes. Now, she did live in Manhattan,
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Speaker 1: which was the most expensive part of the already very
2:40
Speaker 1: expensive city, and she knew that she could save some
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Speaker 1: money if she just moved to a neighborhood where rent
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Speaker 1: was cheaper. But when she had first moved to New York...
2:49
Speaker 1: She had lived in a less expensive neighborhood for that reason,
2:52
Speaker 1: and unfortunately, her landlord had sexually assaulted her. The experience
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Speaker 1: had been so traumatic that Catherine had, at the time,
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Speaker 1: considered just leaving New York and going back to Ohio
3:02
Speaker 1: and just being done with this place. But in the end,
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Speaker 1: she had decided to stay in New York and continue
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Speaker 1: chasing her dream. Now, she did move within New York.
3:11
Speaker 1: She'd gotten this apartment in Manhattan because it was a
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Speaker 1: lot safer, and she also got a roommate to help
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Speaker 1: with the cost. His name was David Hahn, he was 23,
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Speaker 1: and he was one of Catherine's friends from back home
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Speaker 1: in Ohio. But at this very moment, David was not
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Speaker 1: inside the apartment. He'd gone outside to get his car
3:28
Speaker 1: so he could drive Catherine to work. Catherine finished her
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Speaker 1: makeup and left the bathroom, and as she walked through
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Speaker 1: the living room, she stepped over a black dog that
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Speaker 1: was sleeping on the floor. The dog was not Catherine's,
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Speaker 1: and it actually was not David's either. David was a
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Speaker 1: part-time dog sitter, so this dog was just staying with
3:43
Speaker 1: them while its owners were out of town. Just like Catherine,
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Speaker 1: David also had a bunch of part-time jobs to help
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Speaker 1: make ends meet. When he wasn't dog-sitting, he worked as
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Speaker 1: a doorman at a hotel just up the street from
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Speaker 1: their apartment. Now, Catherine and David had actually been romantic
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Speaker 1: at one point. They had dated for a little while.
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Speaker 1: But these days, they were just roommates living together to
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Speaker 1: split the bills. Although, secretly, Catherine did sometimes wonder if,
4:06
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they should give it another shot to
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Speaker 1: try being a couple again. Thanksgiving had been a few
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Speaker 1: days ago, and instead of going home to Ohio like
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Speaker 1: she usually did... Catherine had stayed in New York and
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Speaker 1: celebrated with David, and it had been a really nice time. Plus,
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Speaker 1: David knew about Catherine's third job of working at Flashdancers,
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Speaker 1: and he didn't judge her for it. And Catherine felt
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Speaker 1: like a lot of people did, so she liked that
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Speaker 1: about him. But the biggest hurdle that Catherine could see
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Speaker 1: to potentially rekindling their relationship was the fact that David
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Speaker 1: disliked basically every man she met, whether she was dating
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Speaker 1: them or not. He just did not like them. Now,
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Speaker 1: some of these guys, she could understand why David, you know,
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Speaker 1: didn't like them. Like there was this guy Joe that
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Speaker 1: she had dated briefly, who really she'd only met because
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Speaker 1: he was a patron of her strip club. But then
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Speaker 1: there were people like Paul, who was a personal trainer
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Speaker 1: at Catherine's gym, who she'd only seen off and on,
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Speaker 1: and who was nothing but nice to David. And even
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Speaker 1: though Paul and Catherine were not dating now, and mostly
5:01
Speaker 1: just spoke on the phone periodically, David still insisted that
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Speaker 1: Paul was a creep. He just did not like the guy.
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Speaker 1: But for now, Catherine figured, you know what, I'm not
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Speaker 1: going to figure out my entire romantic life. I just
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Speaker 1: need to finish getting ready, and go downstairs so she
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Speaker 1: wouldn't keep David waiting. So Catherine went into her bedroom
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Speaker 1: and began getting dressed. And that's when she heard that
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Speaker 1: dog start barking at something in the living room. And so, curious,
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Speaker 1: Catherine walked in that direction to see what was going on.
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Speaker 1: A little while later, Catherine's roommate, David, walked quickly along
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Speaker 1: the sidewalk to get his car, which was parked a
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Speaker 1: ways up the street. He was out of breath by
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Speaker 1: the time he reached it. He knew he had to hurry,
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Speaker 1: so he jumped in, and he drove back to the
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Speaker 1: apartment building, and he called Catherine as he pulled up
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Speaker 1: out front. When she didn't answer, he threw on his hazards,
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Speaker 1: and he climbed back out to go into the building
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Speaker 1: to go get her. And he had just made it
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Speaker 1: up the flight of stairs that led to his second-floor apartment,
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Speaker 1: and he was going down the hallway when he saw
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Speaker 1: something that made him come to an abrupt stop. It
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Speaker 1: was that black dog that he was dog-sitting. Somehow, it
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Speaker 1: had gotten out of the apartment and was just standing
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Speaker 1: there in the shared hallway outside of his apartment door.
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Speaker 1: David blinked and then realized that his neighbor, a man
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Speaker 1: he rarely interacted with named Brad Stewart, was standing right
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Speaker 1: behind the dog, and Brad was holding a leash that
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Speaker 1: was clearly clipped onto the dog's collar. For a second,
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Speaker 1: Brad looked surprised, and David was just completely confused about
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Speaker 1: why this guy had the dog that he was dog-sitting
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Speaker 1: on a leash. But then Brad told David that he
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Speaker 1: had found the dog wandering around, recognized it as David's,
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Speaker 1: and brought it back to his apartment. Brad said he
6:39
Speaker 1: had just knocked on David's apartment door, but so far
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Speaker 1: nobody had answered. So at this point, David understood, you know,
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Speaker 1: why Brad has the dog. But he didn't know why
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Speaker 1: the dog was out of the apartment in the first place.
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Speaker 1: But he kept that to himself and just thanked Brad,
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Speaker 1: took the leash, and then stepped over to the door
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Speaker 1: of his apartment, number 2D. The apartment door was shut,
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Speaker 1: but when he turned the handle, he found that it
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Speaker 1: was unlocked. David couldn't remember if he had left it
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Speaker 1: unlocked or not, so he just opened it and he
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Speaker 1: called out Catherine's name. But there was no answer. which
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Speaker 1: was weird. So he stepped inside. Now he didn't see Catherine,
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Speaker 1: but he did see the door to her bedroom was
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Speaker 1: slightly cracked open. So he walked over to it and
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Speaker 1: he called out to her again. And then when she
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Speaker 1: didn't call back, he tried pushing her door open, but
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Speaker 1: the door didn't really open. It instead swung maybe a
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Speaker 1: few inches and then stopped. And David felt resistance on
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Speaker 1: the other side, like something maybe on the ground was
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Speaker 1: holding the door from opening all the way. And so
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Speaker 1: now with all these strange things happening, David's starting to
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Speaker 1: feel pretty worried and And so the surge of adrenaline
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Speaker 1: came over him and he just shoved the door open
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Speaker 1: and he stuck his head in and he looked inside.
7:44
Speaker 1: And when he saw what was in there, he immediately
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Speaker 1: pulled back, turned around, ran into the hallway, and he
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Speaker 1: called the police. A half an hour later, around 7.30 p.m.,
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Speaker 1: an NYPD detective named Stephen Goetz walked up a flight
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Speaker 1: of stairs at an apartment building in Manhattan. This part
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Speaker 1: of the city was known to be extremely safe. Homicides
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Speaker 1: never really happened here. But if the 911 caller had
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Speaker 1: been telling the truth, Goetz knew that a potential grisly
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Speaker 1: murder scene was in fact waiting for him in apartment 2D.
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Speaker 1: When he reached the second floor landing, he saw there
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Speaker 1: were already a few other NYPD officers on the scene.
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Speaker 1: And one of them was speaking to this young skinny
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Speaker 1: guy standing in the hallway who looked really upset, and
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Speaker 1: he was holding a leash that was connected to a
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Speaker 1: black dog. Another officer walked over to Goetz and filled
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Speaker 1: him in. He said the man that was being spoken
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Speaker 1: to was the victim's roommate, David Hahn, and he was
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Speaker 1: the one who had found the body and called 911.
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Speaker 1: The victim, Catherine Woods, was inside the apartment in the
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Speaker 1: back bedroom. Goetz nodded and then walked down the hallway,
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Speaker 1: past David and the dog, toward the apartment door. His
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Speaker 1: plan was to look at the scene himself before he
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Speaker 1: began questioning anyone. Goetz put on some disposable rubber gloves
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Speaker 1: and checked out the doorframe to the actual apartment, and
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Speaker 1: then he also looked at the door itself. but he
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Speaker 1: didn't see any damage that could signify forced entry. So
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Speaker 1: he stepped into the apartment, and he saw that the
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Speaker 1: small living room was a little bit messy, but it
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Speaker 1: wasn't like it had been ransacked or something. You know,
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Speaker 1: the futon was pulled out, and there were some men's
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Speaker 1: clothes strewn around, but it sort of looked like a
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Speaker 1: typical place that people lived. And so Goetz walked through
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Speaker 1: the living room, being careful not to disturb anything, and
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Speaker 1: he went towards what he assumed was the bedroom, where
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Speaker 1: the body was. The door was open just wide enough
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Speaker 1: that Goetz was able to get through. when he stepped
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Speaker 1: through and was inside the room, he saw blood everywhere.
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Speaker 1: It was all over the walls and the furniture and
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Speaker 1: the room itself looked like it had been completely torn apart.
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Speaker 1: One of the dresser drawers was open and lots of
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Speaker 1: women's clothing was scattered all over the place and the
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Speaker 1: mattress had been completely taken off the bed frame and
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Speaker 1: was now lying on the floor. And that's actually what
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Speaker 1: was blocking the door from opening all the way. And
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Speaker 1: then in the middle of the room, in a pool
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Speaker 1: of blood, lay the body of a young woman. Goetz
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Speaker 1: knew from the 911 call that her name was Catherine Woods.
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Speaker 1: He walked over and squatted down next to her for
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Speaker 1: a closer look. She was wearing a t-shirt and underwear,
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Speaker 1: and the t-shirt had a very obvious shoe print on it,
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Speaker 1: like whoever had killed Catherine had stepped on her. and
10:18
Speaker 1: there were at least a dozen stab wounds all over
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Speaker 1: her body. There were also what appeared to be defensive
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Speaker 1: wounds on her hands and arms, which Goetz knew meant
10:26
Speaker 1: she must have fought back against her attacker. But the
10:29
Speaker 1: worst injuries she sustained were definitely to her neck. Whoever
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Speaker 1: had killed her had slit her throat so deeply that
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Speaker 1: they had almost decapitated her. And so to Goetz, right away,
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Speaker 1: it seemed like whoever killed Catherine had been in an
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Speaker 1: absolute rage. At that point, Goetz heard footsteps coming from
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Speaker 1: behind him. And he stood up and he turned around
10:49
Speaker 1: to see that the NYPD forensics team had arrived. Now,
10:53
Speaker 1: the blocked door was making maneuvering in and out of
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Speaker 1: this bedroom pretty difficult. So one of the first things
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Speaker 1: the forensics team did was to pick up the mattress
11:00
Speaker 1: and carefully lean it against the wall. So the bedroom
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Speaker 1: door could now swing open all the way. Then Detective
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Speaker 1: Goetz just stepped back and let the forensics team get
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Speaker 1: to work. He watched as they pulled that shoe print
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Speaker 1: off the T-shirt Catherine was wearing. And then also there
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Speaker 1: was a second identical shoe print that was on her
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Speaker 1: bedsheets that they also grabbed. To Goetz, both of these
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Speaker 1: prints did appear to be from the exact same shoe,
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Speaker 1: and to the naked eye, these prints appeared, at least
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Speaker 1: to Goetz, to belong to very likely an average-sized man.
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Speaker 1: Detective Goetz was immediately curious about something, so he stepped
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Speaker 1: out of the bedroom into the living room, and he
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Speaker 1: quickly found a couple pairs of men's shoes lying on
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Speaker 1: the floor. And although the tread of these shoes did
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Speaker 1: not match the prints he had just seen in the bedroom,
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Speaker 1: they did appear to be the exact same size. An
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Speaker 1: hour later, at about 8.30 p.m. on November 27, 2005,
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Speaker 1: Detective Goetz sat down at a table inside of an
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Speaker 1: interview room at the NYPD's 19th Precinct, and once he did,
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Speaker 1: he handed a bottle of water across the table to
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Speaker 1: David Hahn, the roommate of the murder victim, and Detective Goetz,
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Speaker 1: current number one suspect. There had been no sign of
12:16
Speaker 1: forced entry at the apartment that David and Catherine shared,
12:19
Speaker 1: which meant that Catherine's killer had been either had access
12:22
Speaker 1: to the apartment or was let inside by somebody who did.
12:26
Speaker 1: And the murder had been committed with a knife in
12:28
Speaker 1: a really savage way that struck Goetz as being a
12:31
Speaker 1: personally motivated attack. Even though Catherine's bedroom had been trashed,
12:35
Speaker 1: nothing seemed to have been stolen. And because Catherine had
12:38
Speaker 1: been found partially undressed, there was potentially a sexual motive
12:42
Speaker 1: at play as well. So Goetz's working theory here was
12:45
Speaker 1: that this murder was committed by a man who knew
12:47
Speaker 1: the victim well and had easy access to her living space.
12:51
Speaker 1: And David fit that profile to a tee. Plus, he
12:55
Speaker 1: apparently wore the same size shoe as the killer. Although,
12:59
Speaker 1: as Detective Goetz settled into his chair and brought out
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Speaker 1: his notepad, he did a quick scan of David's forearms
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Speaker 1: and his hands. And he saw that David had no
13:07
Speaker 1: visible cuts, scrapes, or bruises. The detective thought that Catherine's
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Speaker 1: killer likely would have some injuries there because she had
13:15
Speaker 1: obviously been fighting for her life. She would have left
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Speaker 1: a mark on them. But Goetz didn't say anything about
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Speaker 1: this to David. Instead, he just leaned forward, and he
13:22
Speaker 1: asked David to walk him through what had happened that day.
13:25
Speaker 1: David's hands were shaking a bit, but he took a
13:27
Speaker 1: deep breath to calm himself, and he said that he
13:30
Speaker 1: had been at the apartment with Catherine that night until
13:33
Speaker 1: about 6.40 p.m. That was when he had left to
13:35
Speaker 1: go get his car so he could come back and
13:37
Speaker 1: drive Catherine to her 7 o'clock shift at Flashdancers. But
13:42
Speaker 1: he said retrieving his car had taken longer than he expected,
13:45
Speaker 1: because on the way, he had run into some of
13:47
Speaker 1: his co-workers from his doorman job And he had stopped
13:50
Speaker 1: to chat with them. He said after he had done
13:52
Speaker 1: that and he had gotten his car and he went
13:54
Speaker 1: back to the apartment, he had expected Catherine to be
13:57
Speaker 1: waiting outside by the curb. But when he got there,
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Speaker 1: there was no sign of her. And she didn't answer
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Speaker 1: when he called her. So David said he'd ultimately gone
14:05
Speaker 1: inside and ran upstairs to the apartment. And in the hallway,
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Speaker 1: he had found his neighbor, Brad, who was oddly holding
14:12
Speaker 1: the leash of the black dog that David was supposed
14:14
Speaker 1: to be looking after. And then David said he went
14:16
Speaker 1: into his apartment. And that's when he found Catherine's body.
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Speaker 1: David said he had called 911 right away. It was
14:22
Speaker 1: right around 7 p.m. And at this, Getz stopped writing
14:25
Speaker 1: on the notepad and just looked up at David. He
14:28
Speaker 1: couldn't believe what he was hearing. David was claiming that
14:31
Speaker 1: he'd only been out of the apartment for 20 minutes
14:34
Speaker 1: and that in that narrow window of time, Catherine had
14:36
Speaker 1: been brutally murdered and the killer had also escaped. It
14:40
Speaker 1: honestly sounded like one of the worst alibis Getz had
14:43
Speaker 1: ever heard. But he didn't want David to know just
14:46
Speaker 1: how close he was to getting arrested for murder. because
14:49
Speaker 1: he didn't want David to get scared and stop talking.
14:52
Speaker 1: So Goetz kept his tone very sympathetic as he asked
14:54
Speaker 1: how long David had known Catherine for. David said they
14:57
Speaker 1: had met back in Ohio a few years ago while
15:00
Speaker 1: Catherine was visiting her hometown. They'd begun dating, and he'd
15:03
Speaker 1: ultimately moved out to New York to live with her.
15:05
Speaker 1: But it wasn't long before Catherine broke up with him
15:08
Speaker 1: and then asked him to move out. But David said
15:11
Speaker 1: he had not been able to afford his own place,
15:13
Speaker 1: so he had started sleeping in his car. And Catherine
15:17
Speaker 1: had felt bad about that. So she had ultimately let
15:19
Speaker 1: him move back in on the condition that he slept
15:22
Speaker 1: on the futon out in the living room. By now,
15:25
Speaker 1: Detective Goetz's pen was flying across the page because David
15:28
Speaker 1: was not just Catherine's roommate. He was her ex-boyfriend. An
15:32
Speaker 1: ex-boyfriend who was the last person to see Catherine alive
15:36
Speaker 1: and discovered her body. Goetz was more confident than ever
15:39
Speaker 1: that he was sitting across from Catherine's killer. He told
15:42
Speaker 1: David that everything he was saying was incredibly helpful. But
15:45
Speaker 1: right now, he needed to go check on something. David
15:47
Speaker 1: agreed to wait, and Getz stood up to leave. But
15:50
Speaker 1: he stopped at the door, and he asked David for
15:52
Speaker 1: one last thing before he left. He asked what his
15:55
Speaker 1: shoe size was. And without missing a beat, David answered
15:58
Speaker 1: that he wore a 10.5. Getz jotted this down, and
16:02
Speaker 1: then he left. What he hadn't told David was the
16:04
Speaker 1: reason he was stepping out of the room was to
16:07
Speaker 1: go get some information from the NYPD's forensics team and
16:10
Speaker 1: the uniformed officers who were currently questioning David's neighbors. once
16:14
Speaker 1: Goetz had that information, he was going to use it
16:17
Speaker 1: to try to catch David in a lie. About 19
16:25
Speaker 1: hours later, so about 3 p.m. the next day, Goetz
16:28
Speaker 1: was sitting at his desk feeling completely exhausted, but was
16:32
Speaker 1: pounding yet another cup of coffee. He'd been up all
16:35
Speaker 1: night interrogating David, who was still literally sitting right down
16:38
Speaker 1: the hall in the interrogation room. And also, Goetz had
16:41
Speaker 1: been going back and forth with the forensics team and
16:43
Speaker 1: other officers and detectives who were out in the neighborhood,
16:46
Speaker 1: and he still had loads more to do before he
16:49
Speaker 1: could finally go to sleep. Right now, Goetz was going
16:52
Speaker 1: over a new batch of reports from the uniformed officers
16:55
Speaker 1: who had gone door to door in Catherine and David's
16:57
Speaker 1: apartment building, asking the neighbors if they'd seen or heard
17:00
Speaker 1: anything unusual. And just like Goetz had hoped, the information
17:04
Speaker 1: they were getting did contradict pieces of David's story. David
17:08
Speaker 1: claimed that he had left the apartment at about 6.40 p.m.
17:11
Speaker 1: and said that at that time, Catherine was fine. But
17:15
Speaker 1: two neighbors said they heard screams coming from the apartment
17:18
Speaker 1: before 6.40 p.m. The man in the unit directly above
17:22
Speaker 1: David and Catherine said he had heard three screams at 6.28 p.m.
17:27
Speaker 1: And the people in the unit next door to David
17:29
Speaker 1: and Catherine said they'd heard screaming, barking, and the sound
17:32
Speaker 1: of furniture moving around even earlier, between 5.45 and 6 p.m. Now,
17:38
Speaker 1: none of these neighbors had done anything about these noises
17:40
Speaker 1: because the noises had stopped pretty quickly. And then there
17:43
Speaker 1: was Brad Stewart, the neighbor who had said he had
17:45
Speaker 1: found the black dog. Brad told police that when he
17:48
Speaker 1: ran into David in the hallway, it was sometime between
17:50
Speaker 1: 6 and 6.30. But David had said that he went
17:53
Speaker 1: back up to the apartment and found Catherine's body at
17:56
Speaker 1: about 7 p.m., a full half hour later. Now, gets new,
17:59
Speaker 1: witnesses were often bad with time. And in a dense
18:02
Speaker 1: New York City apartment building, there were lots of noises
18:05
Speaker 1: coming from lots of units. But still, it looked to
18:07
Speaker 1: him like David's alibi had serious problems. And so the
18:11
Speaker 1: detective sat back and had some more coffee, and then
18:14
Speaker 1: his phone rang. He picked it up, and it was
18:16
Speaker 1: the forensics team with an update about those shoe prints
18:19
Speaker 1: that were on Catherine's shirt and the bedsheets. And the
18:22
Speaker 1: prints were indeed left behind by a roughly average-sized man.
18:27
Speaker 1: They were a men's size 10 1⁄2. And this was
18:31
Speaker 1: the exact size Getz knew David wore. Getz thanked them.
18:35
Speaker 1: hung up the phone, and then rushed back to the
18:38
Speaker 1: interrogation room to have yet another chat with David Hahn.
18:42
Speaker 1: This time, though, Goetz did not offer David a water.
18:44
Speaker 1: He just sat down and he confronted him with all
18:47
Speaker 1: these new facts. He told David that the killer's shoe
18:49
Speaker 1: prints were exactly his shoe size, that his neighbors had
18:52
Speaker 1: heard screams before David had supposedly left the building, and
18:56
Speaker 1: that Brad said he'd seen David in the hallway at
18:58
Speaker 1: least a half an hour earlier than David had claimed
19:01
Speaker 1: he was there. Goetz leaned in and told David that
19:04
Speaker 1: There were also security cameras in the apartment building, and
19:07
Speaker 1: his officers were already in the process of getting access
19:10
Speaker 1: to that footage. So if David had anything to say,
19:13
Speaker 1: he better say it now. Getz watched as David's expression
19:16
Speaker 1: went from exhausted to clearly afraid. It seemed like this
19:20
Speaker 1: might be the first time that David realized the police
19:23
Speaker 1: truly did not believe his story. And after a second
19:26
Speaker 1: of just stunned silence, David insisted that he had not
19:30
Speaker 1: killed Catherine, and he begged Getz to believe him. But
19:33
Speaker 1: when Goetz just glared back at him completely unmoved, David
19:37
Speaker 1: launched into a whole new story, one he had not
19:40
Speaker 1: mentioned at all over the last 20 hours of interrogation.
19:45
Speaker 1: David said Catherine knew this guy named Paul Cortez. She
19:49
Speaker 1: had dated him. but David had always thought he was
19:51
Speaker 1: kind of a creep. And David said Catherine had told
19:54
Speaker 1: him that Paul was obsessed with her. So David said
19:58
Speaker 1: the police really ought to go investigate Paul, not him.
20:02
Speaker 1: To Goetz, this seemed like a desperate last-minute attempt to
20:05
Speaker 1: cast suspicion on somebody else. but he knew he did
20:08
Speaker 1: have to follow every lead, so he did write down
20:11
Speaker 1: Paul's name and told David they'd look into it. When
20:14
Speaker 1: Goetz finally left the station for the evening, David was
20:17
Speaker 1: still in the interrogation room, and reporters from all the
20:20
Speaker 1: daily papers were beginning to assemble right outside. The following morning,
20:33
Speaker 1: the story of Catherine's murder continued. and pictures of her
20:36
Speaker 1: smiling face were all over the news. The front page
20:39
Speaker 1: of the New York Daily News carried a headline that
20:42
Speaker 1: made Goetz grimace. It read, Secret Life of Slain Stripper. Inside,
20:47
Speaker 1: the article reported that Catherine's family hadn't known she was
20:50
Speaker 1: working as a topless dancer until they literally flew to
20:54
Speaker 1: the city from Ohio to collect her body. Goetz skimmed
20:57
Speaker 1: the article at his desk. He wasn't convinced that Catherine's
21:00
Speaker 1: line of work had anything to do with her murder,
21:02
Speaker 1: but the papers seemed intent on running with it. And
21:05
Speaker 1: a media circus was like the last thing Getz wanted.
21:08
Speaker 1: His team was already under enough pressure to make an
21:10
Speaker 1: arrest as it was. And it was going to be
21:12
Speaker 1: even harder to do their jobs now that a bunch
21:14
Speaker 1: of tips were going to be flooding in from the
21:16
Speaker 1: public from all this media. Getz put down the newspaper,
21:19
Speaker 1: got up from his desk, and walked down the hall
21:21
Speaker 1: to the interrogation room. He'd finished the day yesterday feeling
21:24
Speaker 1: pretty confident that David was his murderer. So when he'd
21:28
Speaker 1: sent David home, he had given him instructions not to
21:31
Speaker 1: leave the city because... He intended to arrest David and soon.
21:35
Speaker 1: But first, Goetz did need to follow up on the
21:37
Speaker 1: other leads he had to hopefully rule them out. And
21:40
Speaker 1: one of those leads was sitting in the interrogation room
21:43
Speaker 1: right now waiting for him. It was Paul Cortez, the
21:46
Speaker 1: man that David had named, who officers had tracked down
21:48
Speaker 1: and brought in. The man who supposedly was obsessed with Catherine.
21:52
Speaker 1: As soon as Goetz entered the room, the first thing
21:54
Speaker 1: he did was look at Paul's shoes. And he could
21:57
Speaker 1: see that they were a pretty typical size too. At
21:59
Speaker 1: a glance, they looked like they could also be a
22:02
Speaker 1: ten and a half. Goetz also looked for scratches or
22:05
Speaker 1: bruises on Paul's skin, in particular on his forearms and
22:08
Speaker 1: his hands. And he did see one. There was a
22:10
Speaker 1: small injury on one of Paul's fingertips. Goetz asked about it,
22:14
Speaker 1: and Paul said his finger had just gotten pinched between
22:16
Speaker 1: a couple of weights at the gym. Paul was very
22:18
Speaker 1: calm and soft-spoken, and he said he'd heard all about
22:21
Speaker 1: Catherine's death in the papers, and he just wanted to
22:23
Speaker 1: help if he could. When Goetz told him that they'd
22:26
Speaker 1: gotten his name from David Hahn, Paul just kind of
22:28
Speaker 1: rolled his eyes and said, you know, David had always
22:30
Speaker 1: been jealous of his relationship with Catherine. Paul explained that
22:34
Speaker 1: he had met Catherine at the gym about a year ago,
22:36
Speaker 1: and they'd been dating off and on ever since. At
22:38
Speaker 1: the time of Catherine's death, he said they had been off,
22:41
Speaker 1: but Paul said he still cared about her and had
22:43
Speaker 1: hoped that maybe one day they might get back together.
22:46
Speaker 1: Paul told Goetz that he hadn't actually seen Catherine on
22:49
Speaker 1: the day of her death, but that he had actually
22:51
Speaker 1: spoken to her on the phone earlier that afternoon, which
22:54
Speaker 1: was not unusual. The two did speak on the phone
22:56
Speaker 1: from time to time. That's all it was. Paul said
22:58
Speaker 1: he actually had tried calling her a second time that day,
23:01
Speaker 1: but she didn't answer her. but Paul said he really
23:03
Speaker 1: didn't think much of it. And then Paul said that
23:05
Speaker 1: night he wound up going shopping with some friends and
23:08
Speaker 1: then also to a local bar to watch the Jets
23:10
Speaker 1: game at about 8.30. Getz made a note to follow
23:13
Speaker 1: up on Paul's alibi. Then he asked Paul if he
23:16
Speaker 1: had any idea who might have killed Catherine. Paul thought
23:19
Speaker 1: for a moment and then his eyes lit up and
23:21
Speaker 1: he said there had been some stalker guy named Joe
23:24
Speaker 1: who'd been one of Catherine's regulars at the strip club.
23:26
Speaker 1: You know, months ago, he'd somehow gotten Catherine's phone number
23:29
Speaker 1: and had reached out to her outside of the club.
23:31
Speaker 1: And around that same time, Catherine had actually gotten roofied
23:35
Speaker 1: during one of her strip club shifts. A roofie is
23:37
Speaker 1: called the date rape drug. It basically makes you incapacitated
23:41
Speaker 1: and effectively unconscious. You don't remember anything. People will be
23:44
Speaker 1: given a roofie and then be sexually assaulted. That's often
23:47
Speaker 1: its use. And even though he'd never been able to
23:49
Speaker 1: prove this, Paul always suspected it had been Joe who
23:53
Speaker 1: gave Catherine that roofie. Catherine had cut off contact with Joe,
23:56
Speaker 1: but the whole incident had bothered Paul so much that
23:59
Speaker 1: he'd tried to convince Catherine to just quit the exotic
24:02
Speaker 1: dancing scene. But she refused. Paul admitted that he actually
24:06
Speaker 1: went on to call Catherine's father to tell him how
24:09
Speaker 1: worried he was about her. And Catherine had been so
24:12
Speaker 1: mad about that that she stopped talking to Paul for weeks.
24:15
Speaker 1: And so Goetz jotted all this down and then asked
24:17
Speaker 1: Paul if he knew how to get in touch with
24:19
Speaker 1: this guy Joe. Paul said he didn't have Joe's number,
24:21
Speaker 1: but it was definitely in Catherine's phone. Because the last
24:25
Speaker 1: time Paul ever spoke on the phone with Catherine on
24:27
Speaker 1: the afternoon of her death she had mentioned something that
24:30
Speaker 1: really surprised him. She said that after months of silence,
24:34
Speaker 1: Joe had started calling her again, completely out of the blue.
24:37
Speaker 1: And at this, Getz studied Paul's face, looking for any
24:41
Speaker 1: hint of deception. This whole Joe story seemed like it
24:44
Speaker 1: might just be a way to deflect suspicion from Paul himself.
24:47
Speaker 1: But it really didn't feel like Paul was lying here.
24:50
Speaker 1: And besides, Catherine's phone records would be simple enough to verify.
24:53
Speaker 1: Getz hated to admit it, but maybe the newspapers were right.
24:57
Speaker 1: Maybe it was time he started looking seriously into some
24:59
Speaker 1: of Catherine's customers at the strip club. The following afternoon,
25:11
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, November 30th, Detective Goetz was feeling really annoyed
25:15
Speaker 1: as he hung up the phone at his desk. It
25:17
Speaker 1: had been a call from another reporter. But Goetz hadn't
25:20
Speaker 1: made an arrest yet, so he was staying tight-lipped. But
25:23
Speaker 1: for now, he just turned his focus back to the
25:25
Speaker 1: stack of papers on his desk. They were Catherine's cell
25:28
Speaker 1: phone records, which he'd subpoenaed yesterday, and they showed that
25:31
Speaker 1: Paul had been telling the truth. Both he and Joe
25:34
Speaker 1: had called Catherine shortly before she died. So he'd brought
25:38
Speaker 1: in Joe for an interview, and he asked him to
25:40
Speaker 1: explain why, after months of silence, he had called Catherine
25:44
Speaker 1: right before she turned up dead. And Joe had replied
25:47
Speaker 1: he'd only called her to check in, to say he
25:49
Speaker 1: hoped she had a nice Thanksgiving. He had claimed that
25:52
Speaker 1: he was really just trying to be friendly. But then
25:54
Speaker 1: Goetz just asked Joe point blank if he had ever
25:56
Speaker 1: roofied anyone's drink before. And at this, Joe's eyes went
25:59
Speaker 1: wide and he kind of sputtered out that he would
26:02
Speaker 1: never dream of doing anything like that. But based on
26:05
Speaker 1: Joe's tone, Goetz really felt like he was lying. And
26:10
Speaker 1: so now Goetz felt like the entire investigation was wide open.
26:14
Speaker 1: A few days ago, he had been absolutely confident that
26:17
Speaker 1: David was the killer, but men from Catherine's life just
26:19
Speaker 1: kept coming out of the woodwork. He now had three
26:23
Speaker 1: main suspects instead of just one. In fact, at this point,
26:27
Speaker 1: his original suspect, David, was actually looking more innocent. Goetz's
26:31
Speaker 1: officers had spoken to David's co-workers at the hotel where
26:34
Speaker 1: he worked as a doorman, and they confirmed that he
26:36
Speaker 1: really had stopped and talked to them on the evening
26:38
Speaker 1: of Catherine's death, just like he had claimed. And while
26:41
Speaker 1: Goetz had hoped that the security camera footage from the
26:44
Speaker 1: apartment building would prove David was lying about his alibi,
26:47
Speaker 1: at least in terms of when he was there, it
26:49
Speaker 1: actually showed David leaving the front entrance of the building
26:52
Speaker 1: at 6.38 p.m., which lined up with David's story because
26:56
Speaker 1: he said he left around 6.40. Now, this did not
26:59
Speaker 1: prove that David was innocent. Based on what the neighbors
27:02
Speaker 1: had heard, she could have been killed before 6.38, but
27:04
Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of cameras in the apartment building,
27:07
Speaker 1: and no angle covered the hallway outside of apartment 2D.
27:11
Speaker 1: So the footage couldn't prove one way or another whether
27:14
Speaker 1: Brad Stewart, or anybody else for that matter, had gone
27:17
Speaker 1: into the apartment while David was gone. Just then, his
27:21
Speaker 1: phone rang. Goetz reached for it, expecting it to be
27:24
Speaker 1: another reporter, but this time he was pleasantly surprised. It
27:28
Speaker 1: was a member of the forensics team, and there was
27:30
Speaker 1: this obvious excitement in their voice. He told Goetz that
27:33
Speaker 1: they'd just discovered something big, something they completely missed during
27:37
Speaker 1: their first sweep of Catherine's apartment. The forensics team member
27:41
Speaker 1: explained that when they'd first entered Catherine's bedroom, they had
27:44
Speaker 1: taken that mattress that was stuck behind the door and
27:47
Speaker 1: propped it up against the wall to get it out
27:49
Speaker 1: of the way. But when they'd done that, the mattress
27:52
Speaker 1: had actually covered up something that was right there on
27:54
Speaker 1: the wall all along. A bloody handprint. It was not
27:58
Speaker 1: until a couple of days later, after they'd carefully gone
28:01
Speaker 1: over everything else in the room, that they moved the
28:04
Speaker 1: mattress back down onto the floor. And that's when they
28:07
Speaker 1: found the handprint. Goetz's face lit up when he heard
28:09
Speaker 1: this news, because now he knew all he had to
28:12
Speaker 1: do was go get handprints from all of his suspects,
28:15
Speaker 1: which seemed like that would be pretty easy to do.
28:17
Speaker 1: But he quickly realized he had a problem, because some
28:20
Speaker 1: of his suspects had already lawyered up at this point,
28:23
Speaker 1: and they were refusing to speak with police, let alone
28:26
Speaker 1: hand over their prints. And Goetz really could not force
28:29
Speaker 1: them to give their prints unless he arrested them. And
28:32
Speaker 1: so that meant Goetz was now in this weird catch-22,
28:35
Speaker 1: because he needed the suspect's prints in order to make
28:38
Speaker 1: the arrest, but he also couldn't get their prints unless
28:41
Speaker 1: he arrested them. So at this point, the investigation kind
28:44
Speaker 1: of stalled out. Weeks went by, and Detective Goetz started
28:47
Speaker 1: to get really frustrated, because there was just nothing he
28:51
Speaker 1: could legally do to push the case forward. However, the
28:54
Speaker 1: case was still receiving a ton of coverage in the press,
28:57
Speaker 1: and to a lot of people, it looked like the
28:59
Speaker 1: NYPD was just sort of dropping the ball here. But
29:02
Speaker 1: then on December 16th, so three weeks after Catherine's murder,
29:06
Speaker 1: the news coverage that had annoyed Goetz so much actually
29:10
Speaker 1: ended up giving him exactly what he needed. That day,
29:14
Speaker 1: a woman called the NYPD because of something she had
29:17
Speaker 1: seen on the front page of one of the newspapers
29:20
Speaker 1: in New York. And what this woman said led Goetz
29:23
Speaker 1: directly to Catherine's killer. Based on forensic evidence and numerous interviews,
29:32
Speaker 1: this is what police believe happened to Catherine Woods on
29:35
Speaker 1: the evening of November 27, 2005. Shortly after 6.40 p.m., the
29:46
Speaker 1: killer climbed the stairs inside of Catherine's apartment building. They
29:49
Speaker 1: knew that at that very moment, she'd be getting ready
29:52
Speaker 1: for another shift at Flashdancers. And the fact that she
29:55
Speaker 1: even worked there secretly really bothered the killer way more
29:59
Speaker 1: than they would ever let on. The idea of Catherine
30:01
Speaker 1: dancing and giving her attention to other men made the
30:04
Speaker 1: killer so jealous they couldn't even stand it. Now, the
30:07
Speaker 1: killer had tried to talk with Catherine and win her over,
30:11
Speaker 1: but she had rejected him. So the time for talking
30:14
Speaker 1: was over. And so the killer quietly walked up to
30:17
Speaker 1: the door of apartment 2D and reached down and turned
30:20
Speaker 1: the handle, which was unlocked. As they slipped silently into
30:24
Speaker 1: the apartment, the killer brought out the knife that they
30:26
Speaker 1: had hidden inside of their sweatshirt. But then something they
30:29
Speaker 1: had not anticipated happened. There was this dog lying on
30:33
Speaker 1: the apartment floor that got up and began to bark
30:36
Speaker 1: at them. For a moment, the killer thought about just
30:38
Speaker 1: abandoning the plan and leaving. But then Catherine, alerted by
30:42
Speaker 1: the dog, came out of the bedroom and looked right
30:45
Speaker 1: at the killer and saw the knife in their hand.
30:48
Speaker 1: Catherine screamed and ran right back into her bedroom, the
30:51
Speaker 1: very bedroom that she had made explicitly off-limits to the killer.
30:55
Speaker 1: And just thinking about that, the surge of anger suddenly
30:58
Speaker 1: overtook them, and the killer charged into the room after her.
31:02
Speaker 1: Catherine was already on the other side of the bed,
31:04
Speaker 1: lifting up the mattress as a sort of barricade. But
31:07
Speaker 1: the killer just forced their way past it and they
31:09
Speaker 1: grabbed Catherine from behind. But Catherine, she fought back. She
31:13
Speaker 1: began thrashing around, doing everything she could to break free.
31:17
Speaker 1: But she couldn't. And so they struggled and began smashing
31:20
Speaker 1: into the furniture and knocking things down all over the room.
31:24
Speaker 1: And it was around this point that the killer lifted
31:27
Speaker 1: up that knife they had brought and they slit her
31:29
Speaker 1: neck as deep as they could. But even then, even
31:32
Speaker 1: with this fatal wound, Catherine kept on fighting. And she
31:36
Speaker 1: was so vicious that the killer actually had to brace
31:39
Speaker 1: themselves against a wall just to keep their balance. And
31:42
Speaker 1: in the chaos, the killer didn't realize, you know, as
31:45
Speaker 1: they're fighting off Catherine, that they had placed a bloody
31:48
Speaker 1: hand on the wall, leaving a print behind. Finally, when
31:53
Speaker 1: Catherine fell to the floor, the killer was still blinded
31:56
Speaker 1: with their rage. And they just got down there and
31:58
Speaker 1: began stabbing her over and over again. And then finally,
32:02
Speaker 1: when Catherine stopped moving, the killer just jumped up and
32:06
Speaker 1: ran out of the apartment. But when they got into
32:09
Speaker 1: the hallway, they realized that black dog that had barked
32:12
Speaker 1: at them had gotten out. Now, the killer wanted the
32:15
Speaker 1: dog back in the apartment, but the dog was clearly
32:17
Speaker 1: on edge. You know, they were still barking at the killer.
32:20
Speaker 1: And so instead, the killer just shut the apartment door,
32:23
Speaker 1: trapping the dog in the hallway. And then the killer
32:25
Speaker 1: fled the apartment building out the back door where there
32:28
Speaker 1: was no security camera. And for weeks, the killer was
32:31
Speaker 1: not caught until their violent past came back to bite them.
32:36
Speaker 1: Several weeks after Catherine's murder, a young woman who didn't
32:40
Speaker 1: know Catherine was walking down the streets of New York
32:43
Speaker 1: when she noticed a newspaper. And on the cover of
32:46
Speaker 1: this newspaper was plastered the face of the killer. who
32:50
Speaker 1: was currently a suspect in a murder case. And this
32:53
Speaker 1: woman was horrified because she knew this person. They, the killer,
32:58
Speaker 1: had sexually assaulted her about a year earlier, but she
33:02
Speaker 1: had never filed a police report. But after seeing that
33:05
Speaker 1: this horrible person was being actively accused of murder, she
33:09
Speaker 1: called the NYPD and she told them what she knew.
33:12
Speaker 1: And the NYPD Special Victims Unit used this woman's accusation
33:16
Speaker 1: as the basis to arrest the killer. And finally, once
33:20
Speaker 1: they were under arrest, Goetz was able to get their handprint.
33:24
Speaker 1: And those prints did in fact match the bloody handprint
33:28
Speaker 1: found on Catherine's wall. They belonged to Catherine's on-again, off-again boyfriend,
33:34
Speaker 1: Paul Cortez. David's suspicions of Paul had been right all along.
33:39
Speaker 1: Paul was a creep who had assaulted at least one
33:41
Speaker 1: other woman before he killed Catherine. Data collected from nearby
33:45
Speaker 1: cell towers would prove that Paul was near Catherine's apartment
33:48
Speaker 1: building immediately before her murder, and he had been calling
33:52
Speaker 1: her over and over again. When she ignored his calls,
33:56
Speaker 1: Paul waited until he saw David leave the apartment to
33:59
Speaker 1: go get his car, and then he hustled upstairs to
34:02
Speaker 1: the apartment, knowing Catherine would be alone. Even though David
34:06
Speaker 1: was only gone for 20 minutes, that was still long
34:08
Speaker 1: enough for Paul to get inside the apartment, murder Catherine,
34:12
Speaker 1: and slip away unnoticed. Paul was arrested about a month
34:16
Speaker 1: after Catherine's murder on Wednesday, December 23, 2005. He was
34:20
Speaker 1: found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years
34:24
Speaker 1: to life. Thank you so much for watching. Let me
34:35
Speaker 1: know what you thought of today's episode in the comments.
34:37
Speaker 1: And remember, we have a whole playlist of true crime
34:40
Speaker 1: episodes ready for you to binge right now. So click
34:42
Speaker 1: here and give them a watch. All right, until next time,
34:46
Speaker 1: see ya.