Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Naked woman with rose tattoo dumped on roadside. (Best of Crime Stories)

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Naked woman with rose tattoo dumped on roadside. (Best of Crime Stories) · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Can you imagine, at the
0:15
Speaker 1: tender age of just twenty six, a beautiful young woman
0:20
Speaker 1: seemingly vanishes into thin air? Her name Lily lily An Prendergast. Today,
0:30
Speaker 1: what happened to Lily Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Peer.
0:52
Speaker 1: It's a mystery that's haunted William Prendergast for years. What
0:55
Speaker 1: happened to his little sister, Lily Anne? Remember, William says,
1:03
Speaker 1: the twenty six year old was a free spirit, always traveling,
1:06
Speaker 1: who took off hitch hiking. Anybody you are hearing the
1:12
Speaker 1: brother of Lily Ann, who has continued to look for
1:16
Speaker 1: her in the last days. Is there a break in
1:20
Speaker 1: the search for Lily? You're also hearing our friends at
1:22
Speaker 1: Fox forty. That was Jessica Minch speaking. Let me introduce
1:26
Speaker 1: you an all star panel joining us. Wendy Patrick, California prosecutor,
1:31
Speaker 1: author of Red Flags, host of Live with Doctor Wendy
1:34
Speaker 1: on CASEYBQ. You can find her at Wendy Patrick PhD
1:38
Speaker 1: dot com. Renowned psychologists joining us out of Manhattan. Karen Start.
1:43
Speaker 1: You can find her at Karen Stark dot com. That's
1:46
Speaker 1: Karen with a C. Greg Smith Special Deputy Sheriff Johnson
1:51
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office in Kansas. He is the executive director
1:54
Speaker 1: of the Kelsey Smith Foundation. You can find him at
1:57
Speaker 1: Kelsey's Army dot com. Deputy Medical Examiner for Travis County.
2:03
Speaker 1: That's Austin, Texas. Doctor Kendall Crown's joining us. Genetic genealogist
2:09
Speaker 1: The gene Hunter, Cheryl la Point and you can find
2:12
Speaker 1: her at the gene hunter dot com. And a special Yes,
2:16
Speaker 1: a longtime friend and colleague, Mike Duffy, joining us from
2:20
Speaker 1: ABC ten. That's Sacramento. Mike Duffy, let me start with you.
2:25
Speaker 1: What do we know about Lily? I mean everything I
2:29
Speaker 1: hear is and I can see her. She's absolutely beautiful.
2:33
Speaker 1: I'm seeing her holding I think her pitt dog out
2:36
Speaker 1: in front of her home. But what more do we
2:39
Speaker 1: know about her? Where did she live? What's the area like?
2:42
Speaker 1: What can you tell me about her? And why the
2:44
Speaker 1: world was she go missing? Well, Nancy, as you heard
2:47
Speaker 1: from her brother there, he describes her as kind and thoughtful.
2:50
Speaker 1: She'd send him a card for his birthday every time.
2:53
Speaker 1: She was known to be a girl who lived by
2:56
Speaker 1: her own accord. She was one of those people that
3:00
Speaker 1: just made time for everyone around her. Now, something you
3:05
Speaker 1: said bothers me, Mike Duffy. It bothers me a lot.
3:09
Speaker 1: You said she was one of those women that live
3:12
Speaker 1: on her own accord. Now, maybe I'm misinterpreting you, Mike Duffy,
3:18
Speaker 1: but it seems to me that that was a little
3:20
Speaker 1: judgmental because when a woman, when a guy goes out
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Speaker 1: on a walk about, wow, he must be traveling for
3:27
Speaker 1: his gap ear before he goes off to Harvard. But
3:30
Speaker 1: when a woman does it, she quote lives on her
3:35
Speaker 1: own accord. Are you suggesting she's some kind of a
3:38
Speaker 1: tramp because she hithight? No, not at all. It's just
3:42
Speaker 1: an independent woman. Are you sure? Okay, I'm glad to
3:45
Speaker 1: hear that, Mike, because this is a young woman who
3:50
Speaker 1: loved everybody, and everybody loved her very very close to
3:54
Speaker 1: her family. She leaves one day called a free spirit,
3:58
Speaker 1: and she's never seen again. Long story short, this young
4:04
Speaker 1: woman did nothing beside go out and catch a ride,
4:07
Speaker 1: and now she's never seen again. Let me give you
4:10
Speaker 1: her description. Twenty six years old, white female, long dark
4:17
Speaker 1: brown hair, long dark brown hair parted in the middle,
4:21
Speaker 1: absolutely beautiful, pierced ears and she normally wore gold hoops
4:25
Speaker 1: in them. I know that she had a small red
4:30
Speaker 1: flower on her back and she's about five five. That's
4:36
Speaker 1: what we know about the description of this young girl,
4:40
Speaker 1: Lily and pendergrass when she goes missing. But what happened then?
4:45
Speaker 1: What can you tell me, Mike Duffie about the location
4:48
Speaker 1: where she goes missing? What city? Netzy? She disappeared from Dallas,
4:54
Speaker 1: Texas after what they called an argument between her and
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Speaker 1: her parents. Do we know about what? We don't know
5:00
Speaker 1: that information right now, Nancy. But she left her home
5:03
Speaker 1: in an argument and then she was never seen or
5:05
Speaker 1: heard from again. I want to go out to Karen
5:07
Speaker 1: start New York Psychologists joining me at Karen Stark dot com. Karen,
5:12
Speaker 1: you know when my fiance was murdered, at least I
5:16
Speaker 1: knew what had happened to him. I knew that he
5:20
Speaker 1: was shot by a guy that had once to work
5:23
Speaker 1: for the construction crew where Keith was then working over
5:26
Speaker 1: the summer. I can't imagine Karen, adding to the pain
5:33
Speaker 1: not knowing what happened to your sister or your daughter,
5:39
Speaker 1: your girlfriend, not having any idea that wondering, always expecting
5:44
Speaker 1: them to walk through the door, always wondering are they
5:46
Speaker 1: dead or alive? Are they not calling me back because
5:49
Speaker 1: we had an argument right before she left. As the
5:52
Speaker 1: years slip away and every birthday passes, Karen Stark, you know, Nancy,
5:56
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this happened to you with Keith,
5:59
Speaker 1: but we live the last time you were with somebody,
6:03
Speaker 1: and you wonder what you could have done differently, And
6:06
Speaker 1: here they are, they're waiting, and they really have no idea.
6:11
Speaker 1: Will she show up again? Did she start a new life.
6:14
Speaker 1: They have hope, They have hope which you did not have,
6:18
Speaker 1: you couldn't have, And so it's horrific to live like
6:22
Speaker 1: that and wonder and hope that some day to see
6:26
Speaker 1: her again with me. As I mentioned, special Deputy share
6:30
Speaker 1: off with Johnson County Greg Smith joining us from Kansas. Greg,
6:34
Speaker 1: do you do that? Do you play over and over
6:37
Speaker 1: in your mind the last time you saw Kelsey. Oh,
6:40
Speaker 1: I'll never forget that day, Nancy. It's it's just one
6:43
Speaker 1: of those things that's seered into your brain, you know.
6:47
Speaker 1: And conversely, I often think I wonder what who she
6:52
Speaker 1: would have married. I wondered what her children are like.
6:54
Speaker 1: I wondered what she would have thought of nieces and
6:56
Speaker 1: nephews that she's never met. So yeah, it just it
6:59
Speaker 1: goes on and on. I do the same thing. I
7:01
Speaker 1: think back on the last time I saw Keith. You know,
7:04
Speaker 1: my dad passed away. I think back on the last
7:06
Speaker 1: time I saw him, when we spoke over the phone
7:10
Speaker 1: just before I saw him. So, Mike w ABC ten, Sacramento.
7:15
Speaker 1: She goes missing in Dallas, and you know what that means.
7:20
Speaker 1: Heavily populated, a lot of interstate traffic, a lot of tourists.
7:28
Speaker 1: You're not that far from the Mexican border. Long story short,
7:32
Speaker 1: when you take into account the interstate, the tourism, the
7:37
Speaker 1: number of visitors to the state, basically anybody could have
7:40
Speaker 1: taken her. It's not like she grew up in rural
7:42
Speaker 1: bib County making Georgia like I did. Where you know,
7:46
Speaker 1: as far as I could see, there were soy bean
7:48
Speaker 1: fields and pine trees. That narrows the list of suspects.
7:51
Speaker 1: But this is in Dallas, right, Yes, it is in Dallas.
7:55
Speaker 1: I want to go now to back to Wendy Patrick,
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Speaker 1: California executor joining us. You know, you immediately when somebody
8:03
Speaker 1: goes missing start trying to figure out piece together what happened.
8:08
Speaker 1: Number one, they don't know. She's just angry and it's
8:10
Speaker 1: not calling or she was taken. And when you have
8:14
Speaker 1: a big area, a cosropolitan area like Dallas, that really
8:19
Speaker 1: widens the possibility, the potential suspect pool. That's absolutely right, Nan.
8:25
Speaker 1: So when you have that kind of a concentrated population
8:30
Speaker 1: area right next to an interstate, you have to broaden
8:33
Speaker 1: the search. And that's when it becomes more important, is
8:35
Speaker 1: to really trace back what kind of conversations did people
8:39
Speaker 1: have with her right before she went missing? Did she
8:41
Speaker 1: mention wanting to go somewhere? Did you mention a boyfriend?
8:44
Speaker 1: Was there a fight, was there a job opportunity? So
8:47
Speaker 1: everything becomes important because you're absolutely right, all of a sudden,
8:51
Speaker 1: the search has broadened nationwide. When you're in that kind
8:54
Speaker 1: of area and you have that kind of access to
8:56
Speaker 1: such a beginner state, the girl goes missing, that family,
9:00
Speaker 1: here's nothing. As the days, the weeks, the months pass,
9:05
Speaker 1: their hope begins to fade. Crime stories with Nancy Grace,
9:25
Speaker 1: we're talking about Lily and Prendergrass. Just twenty six years old.
9:29
Speaker 1: She marched to the beat of a different drummer, loved
9:32
Speaker 1: to travel, and took off they thought hitchhiking, and then
9:38
Speaker 1: an update. Take a listen to Dave Mack Crime online.
9:42
Speaker 1: On October twenty seventh, nineteen eighty one, a caltrans worker
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Speaker 1: came across a young woman's nearly naked body decomposing in
9:49
Speaker 1: a vacant stretch of weeds along Interstate five in Sacramento County, California.
9:53
Speaker 1: The body had largely decomposed, except for a patch of
9:56
Speaker 1: mummified skin on her right hip, revealing a tattoo of
9:59
Speaker 1: a rose. Forensic pathologists and anthropologists pieced together a detailed
10:04
Speaker 1: portrait of the unidentified woman. She was white, between five
10:07
Speaker 1: foot one and five foot five, and between twenty five
10:10
Speaker 1: and thirty five years old when she died that likely
10:12
Speaker 1: happened six weeks to six months before she was found.
10:16
Speaker 1: She had shoulder length brown hair with highlights, and long,
10:18
Speaker 1: natural fingernails. Her remains offered no clues about how she died,
10:22
Speaker 1: but most experts suspected foul play due to the fact
10:25
Speaker 1: that her body was almost certainly dumped. Enter Mike Duffy
10:29
Speaker 1: they Sacramento, a reporter there at ABC ten exactly how
10:34
Speaker 1: was her body found? Mike Duffy, Well, Nancy let me
10:37
Speaker 1: tell you a little bit about the area for people
10:39
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with it. I five is the main artery that
10:42
Speaker 1: runs all along the West coast from actually Mexico to Canada,
10:45
Speaker 1: so it's always busy, and where this was found is
10:48
Speaker 1: just off to the shoulder. Now, it's south of the
10:51
Speaker 1: city in an area where the urban area quickly becomes farmland,
10:56
Speaker 1: so it's not surprising that someone could have missed the
11:00
Speaker 1: skeletal remains for a very long time. It's kind of
11:02
Speaker 1: a grassy area right in between the interstate, and then
11:05
Speaker 1: the other side of that grassy patch would actually be
11:07
Speaker 1: the Sacramento River. So within this area where a roadside
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Speaker 1: worker who was cutting grass came upon those remains. A
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Speaker 1: roadside worker cutting grass. Let me understand something, Mike Duffy.
11:19
Speaker 1: It's my understanding that she her body was found just
11:24
Speaker 1: off the side of the road. Is that correct? Yes,
11:27
Speaker 1: her body wasn't always a skeleton, Mike Duffy. So people
11:31
Speaker 1: actually rode by her body and either didn't notice or
11:35
Speaker 1: didn't stop. Well, this body was actually discovered in October,
11:40
Speaker 1: so they proved zoom that the body could have been
11:42
Speaker 1: there one to five months earlier, which would have been
11:44
Speaker 1: the summertime. And while most people think of California as
11:47
Speaker 1: this dry, arid place, Sacramento is actually a very lush, grassy,
11:51
Speaker 1: farm filled area. So it is very possible that these
11:54
Speaker 1: remains were somewhere in knee deep grass or higher. Okay,
11:58
Speaker 1: I understand. So you could would have written by and
12:01
Speaker 1: going at that rate of speed on an interstate not
12:04
Speaker 1: notice her at all, Doctor Kennel Crowns joining me deput
12:08
Speaker 1: Medical examined Travis County. That's Austin, Texas, Doctor Kennel Crowns.
12:13
Speaker 1: If her body had laying in the elements for one
12:16
Speaker 1: to five months, what would you expect to find, Well,
12:20
Speaker 1: you would have pretty significant decomposition and you would lose
12:24
Speaker 1: most of the skin and body tissues. Also, the flies
12:30
Speaker 1: would inhabit the body and consume most of the soft
12:33
Speaker 1: tissue as well. And since she's outside, you're going to
12:36
Speaker 1: get numerous different predators or scavengers come through, coyotes, if
12:41
Speaker 1: there's vultures out there, they'll they can strip the body
12:45
Speaker 1: quite quickly, So in one to five months, you'd pretty
12:49
Speaker 1: much be left with skeletonized remains, and anything that they
12:52
Speaker 1: were laying on might be left skin wise and just
12:57
Speaker 1: be kind of leathery, hard, mummified skin, and you're absolutely
13:01
Speaker 1: not going to be able to determine cause of death
13:03
Speaker 1: unless you can find a nick on a bone. She's
13:08
Speaker 1: if in fact, this is going to turn out to
13:10
Speaker 1: be lily and prendergrassed. There are no there's no soft
13:13
Speaker 1: tissue left, that's correct. I mean you can't when they
13:16
Speaker 1: are skeletonized like that. Unless there's a tool mark from
13:19
Speaker 1: a weapon or a bullet hole from a bullet and
13:23
Speaker 1: a skull, etc. You're not going to be able to
13:25
Speaker 1: determine cause of death because there's just nothing left to
13:29
Speaker 1: really look for. The big question is this lily? Take
13:35
Speaker 1: a listen to our France at crime online dot com.
13:39
Speaker 1: When the unidentified female body was found in the Sacramento
13:42
Speaker 1: County in October of nineteen eighty one, investigators didn't know
13:45
Speaker 1: about collecting samples for future DNA testing as it hadn't
13:48
Speaker 1: been discovered yet, so after the body was studied and
13:51
Speaker 1: fingerprints and blood were taken, the unclaimed body was cremated
13:55
Speaker 1: and given a proper burial. In two thousand and three,
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Speaker 1: Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Page was assigned to cold cases
14:01
Speaker 1: and the file of the unidentified woman from nineteen eighty
14:04
Speaker 1: one caught her attention. Studying the case file, Neelan found
14:07
Speaker 1: that somehow a piece of vertebrae had been saved. She
14:11
Speaker 1: sent it off to the State Department of Justice for
14:13
Speaker 1: DNA extraction and the profile was entered into the NCIC
14:16
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. It got no hits. Joining
14:20
Speaker 1: right now a special guest sheryla point genetic genealogist, the
14:24
Speaker 1: so called gene hunter that's ge NA at www dot
14:29
Speaker 1: thegenhunter dot com. Shia explained to me, we first hear
14:35
Speaker 1: our friends at crime Online state that at the time
14:39
Speaker 1: people didn't really understand how to collect DNA. That's right, Nancy.
14:44
Speaker 1: Back when the body was found, we did not have
14:48
Speaker 1: advancements in DNA as we have today. So it was
14:52
Speaker 1: later that very fortunately a piece of vertebrae was found
14:57
Speaker 1: and they were able to pull a DNA profile from
15:01
Speaker 1: her body, and that information was entered into a number
15:06
Speaker 1: of systems, including the name AS system, which is the
15:10
Speaker 1: National Missing and Unidentified Person's database. But again there was
15:15
Speaker 1: no hits that were found because DNA, to her, DNA
15:21
Speaker 1: had never been entered into any of these systems before
15:24
Speaker 1: and at that time, that was the only option they
15:27
Speaker 1: had to look at, Well, how are supposed to collect
15:31
Speaker 1: DNA shia? How are you supposed to collect it in
15:34
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. Well, in twenty twenty, there have been some
15:38
Speaker 1: amazing advancements and police departments, unfortunately in the past, didn't
15:44
Speaker 1: have the resources to even learn how to do collecting.
15:50
Speaker 1: Nowadays we have training there or DNA technicians. Every bit
15:56
Speaker 1: of evidence is swiped for DNA samples and the information.
16:03
Speaker 1: Now we don't need as much DNA to be able
16:05
Speaker 1: to provide a profile, So the samples that we have
16:10
Speaker 1: nowadays don't have to be as big. You don't have
16:13
Speaker 1: to have as good of a quality of a sample.
16:16
Speaker 1: But back at the time when her DNA was taken,
16:20
Speaker 1: we very fortunate, were very fortunate to actually have a
16:23
Speaker 1: sample of vertebrates and they were able to put it
16:27
Speaker 1: in the system and it just sat there for many years.
16:31
Speaker 1: You know, I'm trying to figure out something else to
16:33
Speaker 1: doctor Kendall, Crown's deputy medical examiner Austin. We understand that
16:38
Speaker 1: she was largely skeletonized, but this body reveals a tattoo
16:45
Speaker 1: of a red rose on her lower right back. How
16:49
Speaker 1: could that be if she was skeletonized. So if there's
16:52
Speaker 1: if it's on a lower right back, if she's laying
16:54
Speaker 1: on her back out in the field, it's possible that
16:57
Speaker 1: a portion of her skin was just saved by the
17:00
Speaker 1: happenstance that it was on the back and the animals
17:04
Speaker 1: didn't take it away, or it didn't decompose a way,
17:07
Speaker 1: because of whatever reason, it was preserved and probably dried
17:12
Speaker 1: and mummified. And even in that state, you can still
17:14
Speaker 1: see the tattoos because the tattoos are actually in your
17:18
Speaker 1: a lower section of your skin, not on the outer section,
17:21
Speaker 1: but kind of the dermis or just immediately underneath the
17:24
Speaker 1: outer surface of your skin. So tattoos will be there forever, basically,
17:28
Speaker 1: I mean they can still find them on mummies that
17:32
Speaker 1: they dig up that are a thousand years old. And
17:35
Speaker 1: the reality is to you, Sheryl a point genetic genealogist.
17:39
Speaker 1: While yes, you can tell it's a woman that can
17:43
Speaker 1: be identified by the size, the mass, the length of
17:48
Speaker 1: the leg bones, the arm, bowes, the jaw, the pelvis,
17:51
Speaker 1: the shape of the skull, the teeth, even can identify
17:55
Speaker 1: whether it's a man or a woman. And you now
17:58
Speaker 1: have this leathery piece mummified skin that does have a
18:02
Speaker 1: tattoo would suggests it is lily Ann. But you've got
18:07
Speaker 1: to go through so much more to make a positive ID,
18:10
Speaker 1: and she's not in the system, So Lily Anne cannot
18:13
Speaker 1: be identified by this skeleton anyway. That's very correct, Nancy.
18:19
Speaker 1: You know, even though the Sheriff's apartment put her information,
18:24
Speaker 1: you know, they did a facial reconstruction, they broadcasted in
18:27
Speaker 1: the media. They put her in the name of system
18:30
Speaker 1: which started in two thousand and seven. But in the
18:34
Speaker 1: system that they have, if her DNA was not already
18:38
Speaker 1: in there, they had no way of identifying her. Now
18:44
Speaker 1: we have other ways of being able to identify a body.
18:58
Speaker 1: Crime stories. With Nancy Grace, we are talking about the
19:03
Speaker 1: disappearance of a beautiful young girl, long, dark brown hair,
19:07
Speaker 1: alabaster skins, perfect, She looks like porcelain, like a China doll, beautiful,
19:13
Speaker 1: light blue eyes, who has an argument with her mom
19:17
Speaker 1: and dad one day, leaves and she's never seen again.
19:21
Speaker 1: It's Lilianne prendergrassed for years, her family suffered, wandering, then amazingly,
19:29
Speaker 1: miles and miles and miles away in Sacramento, a skeleton
19:35
Speaker 1: is found by the side of the road, as if
19:38
Speaker 1: this woman had been dumped out like trash, like litterbugs
19:42
Speaker 1: throw a plastic cup out of their window. Was this
19:49
Speaker 1: Lilianne that thought must have tortured them horribly? Take a
19:55
Speaker 1: listen to Jessica Minch at Fox forty. A woman's decomposed
19:59
Speaker 1: body on a side of intersteep five in Octobe Werth,
20:02
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one. And it's a case that's kept me
20:04
Speaker 1: up at night. You know, I wake up thinking about
20:07
Speaker 1: it sometimes. Deputy Page Nieland says, they tried facial reconstruction
20:11
Speaker 1: and they used clay. It's just like you know you'd
20:14
Speaker 1: see in the movies, sketches based off of a picture
20:17
Speaker 1: of the skull and DNA, and in two thousand and
20:20
Speaker 1: five we got that profile entered into the Missing Person's
20:23
Speaker 1: DNA program. You were just hearing. In addition to Jessica
20:26
Speaker 1: Mensh at Fox forty, Deputy Page Niland on the case,
20:30
Speaker 1: speaking of facial reconstruction. I want to go out to
20:35
Speaker 1: our guest, doctor Kendall Crowns. Doctor Kendall Crowns, I will
20:39
Speaker 1: never forget a serial killer that I prosecuted and we
20:43
Speaker 1: can never get enough evidence on him. Until we found
20:47
Speaker 1: a Jane Doe and she was almost beyond recognition the
20:54
Speaker 1: Jane Doe body, but I had a facial reconstructionist do
20:59
Speaker 1: her best and create a composite sketch. As we started
21:03
Speaker 1: to close in on who I believe was the killer,
21:06
Speaker 1: we found out this killer had attacked one of his
21:11
Speaker 1: victims that lived to tell the tale. It was his
21:13
Speaker 1: former girlfriend who kicked him out. It astounded me when
21:18
Speaker 1: I saw the Jane Doe's face in the composite compared
21:22
Speaker 1: to the girlfriend, they looked like twins, which psychologically was
21:29
Speaker 1: very impactful on the jury, so they could be uncannily accurate.
21:35
Speaker 1: But even with a facial reconstructionist, still the body could
21:40
Speaker 1: not be identified until Listen in twenty nineteen. William Prendergast
21:48
Speaker 1: hadn't talked to his little sister Liliane in nearly forty years.
21:51
Speaker 1: He had looked for tried to find her, but nothing worked.
21:55
Speaker 1: So in twenty nineteen he gave a DNA sample to
21:58
Speaker 1: the FBI, and in a matter of just a few months,
22:01
Speaker 1: all of the years of wondering what happened his little
22:03
Speaker 1: sister came to an end. Lilyan Prindergas was found William
22:07
Speaker 1: now knew what happened to his little sister, and the
22:10
Speaker 1: mystery of the female body found in Sacramento County, California
22:13
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one all solved in one day. Her
22:17
Speaker 1: homicide remains unsolved. Can you imagine the huge chunk of
22:23
Speaker 1: time Lily's family went seeking justice trying to find her
22:30
Speaker 1: what she diad was she alive? Mike Duffy, how much
22:33
Speaker 1: time passed from the time Lilingo's missing till the find
22:37
Speaker 1: that time that body is found and is identified through
22:42
Speaker 1: familial DNA. Well, Nancy, she went missing in late nineteen
22:45
Speaker 1: eighty That case was not solved until twenty nineteen. That's
22:50
Speaker 1: nearly forty years later. Mike Duffy, tell me what you
22:53
Speaker 1: know about the case. Well, Nancy, I spoke with the
22:56
Speaker 1: Sacramento County Sheriff's detective who's been working on this case.
23:00
Speaker 1: And one of the things that she emphasizes, you know
23:01
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, well, maybe it was just
23:04
Speaker 1: a car accident, or maybe something happened that wasn't intentional,
23:08
Speaker 1: but she said that there are no injuries that indicate
23:11
Speaker 1: that this would have happened. Is there was no broken
23:14
Speaker 1: bones or things that you had pointed to earlier. She
23:17
Speaker 1: said that this makes it suspicious circumstances, and that's why
23:20
Speaker 1: they're investigating this case is a homicide. And I also
23:23
Speaker 1: wanted to point out one other thing that she told me,
23:25
Speaker 1: which is, you know, there are a lot of these
23:27
Speaker 1: cases that have gone unsolved for decades and decades, and
23:31
Speaker 1: a lot of these national databases weren't even put together
23:35
Speaker 1: until the nineteen eighties, And so she said, it's a
23:39
Speaker 1: really good idea for families who have been waiting for
23:41
Speaker 1: information on their loved ones to consider filing a new
23:45
Speaker 1: report and perhaps submitting DNA that could uncover them after
23:48
Speaker 1: all these years. I'm just thinking about the chut of
23:52
Speaker 1: time to Greg Smith joining me, Special Deputy Sheriff, Johnson
23:55
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office in Kansas. He's the director of the
23:58
Speaker 1: Kelsey Smith Foundation at Kelsey's Army dot com. Greg Smith,
24:03
Speaker 1: from the time that Kelsey went missing to the time
24:08
Speaker 1: that you located her body, what was that How many hours?
24:12
Speaker 1: It was four days before we actually located in her body,
24:19
Speaker 1: so that would have been almost one hundred hours, right?
24:23
Speaker 1: Can you multiply that times forty years? The suffering that
24:30
Speaker 1: you went through in those one hundred hours for forty years. Now,
24:38
Speaker 1: that would be terrible. I mean, we have we have
24:40
Speaker 1: friends that had their daughter kidnapped just right before Kelsey
24:46
Speaker 1: was actually the Karkopetski case, and it was years before
24:50
Speaker 1: they finally found her remains and were able to identify
24:55
Speaker 1: the remains as cars. And every year they would go
24:58
Speaker 1: out and do a march through through town trying to
25:05
Speaker 1: reawake the public to pay she's still missing, help us
25:08
Speaker 1: find her. And it just to watch that is you know,
25:13
Speaker 1: I'm it sounds weird, but I was thankful that we
25:16
Speaker 1: were able to locate Kelsey's body. There is a certain
25:19
Speaker 1: amount of closure there by no means does it thinks everything.
25:24
Speaker 1: I mean, there's constantly what I call a Kelsey sized
25:27
Speaker 1: hole in my life. But but not knowing would just
25:31
Speaker 1: it would be hell on her. You know, I've been
25:33
Speaker 1: working on a knee project. It's called Bloodline Detectives Karen Start,
25:38
Speaker 1: New York psychologist, and it deals with cold cases that
25:41
Speaker 1: have gone cold for many, many years. And yes, what
25:47
Speaker 1: Greg Smith went through when he lost his daughter was
25:51
Speaker 1: just unfathomable. What I went through when I lost my
25:55
Speaker 1: fiance horrible, But we knew what had happened. We didn't
26:02
Speaker 1: like it, but we knew it. We knew it to
26:05
Speaker 1: be a fact. We didn't have to wonder. For instance,
26:09
Speaker 1: like Jennifer Dulos's children now the Connecticut missing Mamma thought,
26:12
Speaker 1: did mommy just leave us? Did she just abandon us?
26:15
Speaker 1: Is she dead? Is she with a boyfriend? Is she
26:17
Speaker 1: living on the riviera? We don't know. Families have spent
26:22
Speaker 1: their whole lives looking for answers. They spent their whole
26:27
Speaker 1: lives looking for answers that, but they also don't let
26:29
Speaker 1: go of their hope, and they keep thinking that there's
26:33
Speaker 1: a possibility that their love general will turn up again.
26:36
Speaker 1: And so I know that death is never over, but
26:41
Speaker 1: in this instance, it's so painful because you keep wondering, hoping,
26:48
Speaker 1: then despairing, and it just never goes away. Do you
26:53
Speaker 1: remember the movie Groundhove Day, Karen, where every day, I
26:58
Speaker 1: think it was Bill Murray would wake up up and
27:00
Speaker 1: relive all the mistakes and everything that had happened the
27:04
Speaker 1: day before, and it would never end. It's like you're
27:07
Speaker 1: you're caught in this weird never never land. I mean
27:12
Speaker 1: to you, Greg Smith, what this family has gone through
27:17
Speaker 1: waking up every day and wondering what's happening, where is she?
27:22
Speaker 1: Is she alive, does she have a new life, has
27:24
Speaker 1: she married, does she have children as she did? Is
27:26
Speaker 1: she being held against her will? I mean kind of
27:29
Speaker 1: like J. C. Dugger's family. Jac was kidnapped on the
27:33
Speaker 1: way to school and many years later she was found alive,
27:36
Speaker 1: having been held kidnapped all those years. It's torture on
27:41
Speaker 1: the family. Greg. Oh, it's terrible. I mean, there's there
27:44
Speaker 1: is no feeling like it. I often say why I
27:48
Speaker 1: speak at events that this is something that I would
27:52
Speaker 1: not wish to happen to my worst enemy. It is
27:56
Speaker 1: just an undescribable feeling, and it just drained you emotionally
28:04
Speaker 1: every day when you get up and you don't know
28:07
Speaker 1: where your daughter is, or where your wife is, or
28:09
Speaker 1: whoever it happens to be. It's just it's it really
28:13
Speaker 1: is a tell on Earth Time Stories with Nancy Grace.
28:28
Speaker 1: We're talking about the disappearance of the gorgeous, young, free
28:31
Speaker 1: spirited twenty six year old girl, Lily and Prendergrass. Mike
28:36
Speaker 1: Duffy joining me, ABC ten, Sacramento. So, Mike, you've talked
28:41
Speaker 1: to detectives on the case, so the case just basically
28:45
Speaker 1: goes cold for a period of time. Yes, Nancy, the
28:48
Speaker 1: case did go cold for a number of years, but
28:50
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that detectives ever gave up hope on this.
28:53
Speaker 1: They constantly followed up on evidence. They constantly tried to
28:58
Speaker 1: use the latest technology to find out more about what
29:01
Speaker 1: happened to this corpse that they found on the side
29:04
Speaker 1: of the road of I five just south of Sacramento,
29:07
Speaker 1: and it took until twenty twenty before they finally got
29:11
Speaker 1: some answers. Guys, take a listen to this. In twenty nineteen,
29:15
Speaker 1: William decided to submit his DNA to the FBI, and
29:21
Speaker 1: while he was relieved to finally know where his sister was,
29:23
Speaker 1: his mind quickly shifted to the person responsible for her death. Ancred,
29:29
Speaker 1: I wanted to immediately find out who he was. I'm
29:32
Speaker 1: cracking down. The death is being investigated as a homicide.
29:36
Speaker 1: If anyone met her, if anyone knew her, please give
29:40
Speaker 1: us a call so that William can finally have some
29:42
Speaker 1: sense of closure after all these painful years. Why would
29:47
Speaker 1: they do such a thing. And the Sheriff's office does
29:51
Speaker 1: stress that no tip is too small or insignificant. If
29:54
Speaker 1: you have any information, please get them a call. Our
29:56
Speaker 1: friend Jessica Match at Fox forty, So tell me that
30:00
Speaker 1: is I want to talk to you. Share a point
30:03
Speaker 1: about familial DNA. How does that work? We heard about
30:07
Speaker 1: it with a Golden State killer. Yes, Nancy, So, familial
30:11
Speaker 1: DNA is actually a match to a family member. When
30:15
Speaker 1: you are looking to identify an unidentified person, their DNA
30:21
Speaker 1: is entered into the coded system and they are we
30:25
Speaker 1: have twenty markers that we look at. An identical match
30:29
Speaker 1: would mean that you have one identified that person, but
30:34
Speaker 1: you can have a partial match, which would be a
30:37
Speaker 1: familial match, which may be for a parent or a sibling,
30:41
Speaker 1: could be a full sibling or a half sibling. And
30:44
Speaker 1: when you have that information, all you have to do
30:48
Speaker 1: is look at the family tree and you can identify
30:50
Speaker 1: a person. So that has become very helpful in an
30:56
Speaker 1: unidentified person's cases. Unfortunately, not every family has submitted DNA
31:03
Speaker 1: and not every unidentified or missing person is in the system,
31:08
Speaker 1: So it's important to get you know your family members
31:13
Speaker 1: entity systems. So to you, Mike Duffy, ABC ten, Sacramento,
31:18
Speaker 1: who would have their DNA in the quote system, And
31:23
Speaker 1: of course we're talking about codis the uniform system with DNA.
31:28
Speaker 1: Who would be in codis well, Nancy, any national, any
31:32
Speaker 1: person who is missing can have their DNA submitted, but
31:36
Speaker 1: that takes action on the side of law enforcement. Now,
31:39
Speaker 1: anyone from a family who is missing their loved one
31:42
Speaker 1: can also submit their DNA, and this is what law
31:45
Speaker 1: enforcement strongly encourages people to do. Submit that DNA so
31:50
Speaker 1: that if there is a possible connection out there, they
31:52
Speaker 1: can make it. And of course we know that if
31:54
Speaker 1: you're a convicted felon, now you give your DNA. If
31:58
Speaker 1: you work for state authorities such as the prison. I
32:02
Speaker 1: had to give my fingerprints when I worked with the
32:04
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office and when I was a FED So
32:06
Speaker 1: very often you find all sorts of information in these
32:10
Speaker 1: federal data banks, but nothing matched to Lily and Prendergast.
32:15
Speaker 1: Do we know, Mike Duffy ABC ten, why the brother
32:20
Speaker 1: decided to submit his DNA to the FBI, Wellentia, it's
32:23
Speaker 1: really because he never gave up hope. He knew that
32:26
Speaker 1: there were answers out there that he just couldn't reach,
32:29
Speaker 1: and so he made the decision. The family decided to
32:32
Speaker 1: pick this case back up despite the pain and suffering
32:34
Speaker 1: that it caused them to readdress it and he submitted
32:37
Speaker 1: his DNA to the SBI. Take a listen to our
32:40
Speaker 1: friends at WBAP Dallas Fort Worth. Twenty six year old
32:45
Speaker 1: Lilyan Prendergast left her family home after an argument in
32:48
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, never to be heard from again. After nearly
32:52
Speaker 1: forty years, the family discovered that Prendergast was the victim
32:55
Speaker 1: of a cold case murder in California. The Sacramento Accounty
32:58
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office had found the body of young woman in
33:00
Speaker 1: October of nineteen eighty one long Interstate five, but could
33:03
Speaker 1: never identify her skeletal remains. That was until a match
33:07
Speaker 1: of familial DNA submitted to the FBI last year. According
33:10
Speaker 1: to WFA, police are still searching for the woman's killers. So,
33:14
Speaker 1: while we now know because the familial DNA submitted by
33:18
Speaker 1: her brother, this is in fact twenty six year old
33:21
Speaker 1: lily Anne, her killer remains at large. But don't be discouraged.
33:28
Speaker 1: This is not the first time familial DNA has resulted
33:31
Speaker 1: in a murder prosecution. Does the name Mandy S David
33:37
Speaker 1: ring a bell? Listen to ABC twenty twenty. The Medical
33:40
Speaker 1: Examiner determined Mandy's cause of death to be drowning. She'd
33:43
Speaker 1: suffered a head injury and had been sexually assaulted. They
33:47
Speaker 1: took DNA evidence from Mandy's body. They created a DNA
33:54
Speaker 1: profile of both Mandy and an unknown male. Time and
33:57
Speaker 1: time again they would have a person of they would
34:00
Speaker 1: question that person, but something would rule them out, they
34:04
Speaker 1: had a good alibi, or ultimately their DNA did not match.
34:08
Speaker 1: This case dragged on. It comes a cold case, but
34:13
Speaker 1: after fifteen twenty years it's like, well, it's never gonna
34:18
Speaker 1: be solved. Now. We also know that that case of
34:22
Speaker 1: Mandy Stavic went cold and all of the targets police
34:27
Speaker 1: were looking at refused to cooperate. So police go to
34:32
Speaker 1: one of the targets place of employment. What we learn
34:36
Speaker 1: is that a coworker offers to help. We all know,
34:41
Speaker 1: Mike Duffy that when you have a target, you think
34:46
Speaker 1: you've got the killer. You may have a familial DNA match,
34:50
Speaker 1: you still have to match it up to the target.
34:55
Speaker 1: We have heard of cases where cops have followed a
34:58
Speaker 1: potential target to a pizza part had gotten a crust
35:01
Speaker 1: of pizza and then gotten DNA off of it. So
35:05
Speaker 1: could you explain, Mike Duffy why you have to track
35:08
Speaker 1: down a target and then get their DNA if it's
35:11
Speaker 1: not in the system. Well, Nancy, you just need that
35:14
Speaker 1: profile in the system, and it's not easy to get
35:17
Speaker 1: because usually you would have to request or get a
35:20
Speaker 1: warrant in order to get that DNA, and if that
35:22
Speaker 1: person had refused ring a warrant, then you would have
35:26
Speaker 1: to find another way. So they reached out to a
35:28
Speaker 1: cork or of the man that they were jeering in
35:30
Speaker 1: on and they asked her for her help, and it worked.
35:33
Speaker 1: It could be a coffee mug he leaves in the
35:35
Speaker 1: sink at the workplace. It could be his sandwich that
35:39
Speaker 1: he throws that, or the chips into the trash can.
35:42
Speaker 1: It could be anything, but it works. And in the
35:46
Speaker 1: case of Mandy Stavie that we're just listening to take
35:49
Speaker 1: a listen to our friend, Watcom County Sheriff Bill elfo.
35:53
Speaker 1: On November twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine, at one fifty pm,
35:57
Speaker 1: eighteen year old Amanda Stavic, also known as Mandy, left
36:02
Speaker 1: home on the Strand Road out in the Achmee Valley
36:05
Speaker 1: to go jogging with the family dog. The dog returned
36:09
Speaker 1: home several hours later, but Mandy did not. Following an
36:13
Speaker 1: exhaustive search, Mandy's body was found in the South Fork
36:16
Speaker 1: of the Nooksack River. The investigation into kidnapping, rape, and
36:21
Speaker 1: murder of Mandy Stavic has remained a top priority for
36:24
Speaker 1: the Wacom County Sheriff's Office. Over the course of the
36:28
Speaker 1: last twenty eight plus years, hundreds of leads emerged and
36:32
Speaker 1: were systematically investigated. Among the potential suspects that emerged in
36:38
Speaker 1: recent years was Timothy Forrest Bass. Deputies forward DNA samples
36:45
Speaker 1: from mister Bass to the Washington State Crime Laboratory, who
36:49
Speaker 1: reported to us that his DNA matched to DNA recovered
36:53
Speaker 1: from Mandy's body in nineteen eighty nine. Bass was arrested
36:57
Speaker 1: by the Sheriff's office detectives on December wealth yesterday, I'm
37:01
Speaker 1: suspicion first degree murder, first degree kidnapping, and first degree rate.
37:06
Speaker 1: That was a twenty year cold case. Now, can a
37:11
Speaker 1: repeat miracle happen and the case of Lily and Prendergrass
37:16
Speaker 1: be solved? Mike Duffy, ABC ten, Sacramento. Do sheriffs in
37:23
Speaker 1: your jurisdiction in Sacramento have hope, Mike Duffy, Absolutely, they
37:28
Speaker 1: have hope. They believe that someone will have heard or
37:31
Speaker 1: seen something that someone will have known Lily at some
37:35
Speaker 1: point in time, and they would be able to connect
37:37
Speaker 1: the dots that are still needed at this time. If
37:40
Speaker 1: you are listening, please go to crime online dot com.
37:44
Speaker 1: Look at the picture of Lily and Prendergass just twenty
37:47
Speaker 1: six years old. Keep in mind the suffering her family
37:51
Speaker 1: has been through. Maybe you know the answer, maybe you
37:55
Speaker 1: don't realize it right now. Tipline nine six seven four
38:00
Speaker 1: tips nine one six eight seven four eight four seven
38:04
Speaker 1: seven Nancy Grace Crime Story signing off, Goodbye friend,