Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 15-year-old Girl Found Raped, Stabbed to Death in Cornfield

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15-year-old Girl Found Raped, Stabbed to Death in Cornfield · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A little girl borrows her
0:15
Speaker 1: brother's bike to go just a few blocks. She's never
0:20
Speaker 1: seen alive again, her body found soon after, and then
0:26
Speaker 1: somehow the case goes cold until now. Crime Stories with
0:39
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. In July of nineteen seventy two, forty nine
0:49
Speaker 1: years ago, a young girl by the name of Julie Hansen,
0:53
Speaker 1: age fifteen, whirled her brother's bike to go to a
0:57
Speaker 1: baseball game. Julie never returned home. She was reported missing
1:03
Speaker 1: to the Naperville Police Department, and the department of the
1:06
Speaker 1: following day put together an exhaustive search for Julie along
1:14
Speaker 1: with members of the community. The bike was discovered on
1:19
Speaker 1: a gravel road off eighty seven Street and knocknel Robe.
1:24
Speaker 1: That was the following day after Julie was reported missing.
1:27
Speaker 1: Can you imagine the parents when they hear the bike
1:33
Speaker 1: has been found, but no Julie. With me an all
1:37
Speaker 1: start panel to make sense of what happened to Julie Anne.
1:43
Speaker 1: First of all, Robert Crispin, former fed with the DA
1:47
Speaker 1: in the Miami Fort Lauderdale area cop, now head of
1:52
Speaker 1: Crispin Special Investigations at Crispin Investigates dot Com. Renowned psychologist
1:57
Speaker 1: joining us out of Manhattan. Karen's Dark at Karen Stark
2:01
Speaker 1: dot com. Ashley Wilcot judge, trial lawyer, anchor Court TV
2:06
Speaker 1: at Ashley Wilcot dot com. Andrew Singer is joining us
2:11
Speaker 1: from BODI Technologies, the largest private forensic DNA laboratory in
2:16
Speaker 1: the US, and you can find him at bodtech dot com. Bode.
2:23
Speaker 1: Doctor Tim Gallagher esteemed to Medical Examiner for the entire
2:28
Speaker 1: state of Florida at pathcaremed dot com, Senior Lecturer University
2:34
Speaker 1: Florida Medical School in the Forensic Medicine Division, and founder
2:38
Speaker 1: and host of the International Forensic Medicine Death Investigation Conference.
2:44
Speaker 1: But first of all, to Lisa farvar Field, editor with
2:47
Speaker 1: Patch Media Atpatch dot com, joining us out of Chicago. Lisa,
2:51
Speaker 1: I want to go back to the day Julianne Hanson
2:55
Speaker 1: goes missing. What happened. Julianne Hanson was fifteen years old
3:00
Speaker 1: when she borrowed her brother's bike to go to a
3:03
Speaker 1: baseball game. And you know, she's fifteen and she borrows
3:07
Speaker 1: her younger twelve year old brothers bike to go to
3:09
Speaker 1: the baseball game, and she never returned. I know that,
3:13
Speaker 1: first of all, she was reported missing. The bike was
3:16
Speaker 1: then found. But when was she reported missing? She was
3:20
Speaker 1: reported missing on July eighth, nineteen seventy two. She's reported
3:23
Speaker 1: missing and then parents are crushed when they get the news, Oh,
3:29
Speaker 1: we found her bike. Where was the bicycle found? Lisa?
3:34
Speaker 1: The bike was found on a gravel road, now far
3:37
Speaker 1: from where the family lived. So the bike was found
3:40
Speaker 1: at eighty seven Street in Knocknold's Road in Naperville. What
3:43
Speaker 1: can you tell me about Napierville, Illinois. Naperville is a suburb.
3:48
Speaker 1: It's about roughly an hour or so outside of Chicago,
3:53
Speaker 1: and it's generally pretty well ranked for its family friendly atmosphere,
4:01
Speaker 1: for its good schools um and it's it's a place
4:05
Speaker 1: where generally not a lot of the series of violent
4:09
Speaker 1: crimes are reported. It's there have been, i'd say, over
4:13
Speaker 1: the past, you know, since since Hanson the South, there
4:16
Speaker 1: have been you know, just I want to say maybe
4:19
Speaker 1: a fewer than a handful of uh, you know, serious
4:23
Speaker 1: kinds of that nature reported and they prevailed. What I
4:25
Speaker 1: know is that it was once a frontier post when
4:28
Speaker 1: the wild West was being settled, and you get that
4:32
Speaker 1: far and Napierville was started as an outpost. It's over
4:37
Speaker 1: an hour from Chicago, very very low crime rate, and
4:41
Speaker 1: to this day the population is just a little bit
4:43
Speaker 1: over one hundred thousand for the whole area. It's a
4:48
Speaker 1: safer alternative if you have to go in and work
4:51
Speaker 1: in Chicago, which is crime ridden. This is a spot
4:54
Speaker 1: where you want to raise your family. This is a
4:57
Speaker 1: spot that's safe, full tree lined neighborhoods, working parents, both
5:04
Speaker 1: parents typically working in that area, Lovely homes, lots of
5:10
Speaker 1: good schools. Not a place where you think your girl
5:15
Speaker 1: is going to be snatched off a bike. And then
5:18
Speaker 1: twenty four hours later you find the bike abandoned on
5:22
Speaker 1: a gravel road and after you Lisa Farber, was the
5:26
Speaker 1: bike crumpled, had it been in a crash or was
5:29
Speaker 1: it just abandoned on the side of the road. Do
5:31
Speaker 1: we know? From what I from what information I have
5:34
Speaker 1: from police, there was no indication that the bike showed
5:38
Speaker 1: any like extensive damage or anything like that. The bike
5:41
Speaker 1: was just found, from my understanding, abandoned on the side
5:44
Speaker 1: of the road. Oh gosh, Ashley Willcott say if the
5:47
Speaker 1: bike had been crumpled up, and that would give way
5:51
Speaker 1: to a whole different avenue of investigation. You know what
5:53
Speaker 1: it reminds me of. It reminds me the missing mom, Suzanne,
6:02
Speaker 1: who reportedly went for a bike ride on Mother's Day
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Speaker 1: and all that was left was the bike, and then
6:13
Speaker 1: speculation goes on about what may have happened. I think
6:16
Speaker 1: the whole scene was staged. But Suzanne Morphu still has
6:21
Speaker 1: not been found. All that's found is the bike and
6:24
Speaker 1: it shows no sign that we know of of injury
6:27
Speaker 1: to the bike. So that leads you down a certain
6:30
Speaker 1: path of investigation, Ashley, Oh, it absolutely does. First, when
6:34
Speaker 1: you talked about the parents, if I saw God forbid
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Speaker 1: the bike and no child, I immediately and my gut
6:40
Speaker 1: would know something's wrong, something has happened. But that is
6:44
Speaker 1: the crime scene. That is where law enforcement must start
6:48
Speaker 1: looking first to determine what's around the bike. Is there
6:52
Speaker 1: any type of wrapping from a piece of candy or
6:56
Speaker 1: anything that's been dropped. Is there any sign of a struggle,
7:00
Speaker 1: What's in the dirt, what's in the grass. Does it
7:02
Speaker 1: looked like there were four footprints or just the two
7:06
Speaker 1: footprints of this beautiful little girl. That's the crime scene, Nancy,
7:09
Speaker 1: That's where you start so upsetting for the parents, living
7:12
Speaker 1: through this, what more do we know? Take a listen
7:14
Speaker 1: to our friends at crime Online. Fifteen year old Julie
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Speaker 1: Hanson had typical small town plans for her weekend. Her
7:21
Speaker 1: parents were away, her brother and sister were home, and
7:24
Speaker 1: there was a baseball game that meant friends and boys.
7:28
Speaker 1: Hanson borrowed her brother's bicycle to go to the game,
7:31
Speaker 1: and she was seen leaving the home on the bike.
7:33
Speaker 1: She never made it. Her older sister reported her missing
7:37
Speaker 1: the next day. And of course it's perfectly natural for
7:39
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old teen girl to want to go
7:41
Speaker 1: see a boys baseball game, and that leads to a
7:45
Speaker 1: whole another avenue of investigation, because you wonder what the
7:49
Speaker 1: parents gone that night. Was she planning to sneak off
7:55
Speaker 1: with a boy or a friend from school? So you
7:59
Speaker 1: got to run down that path as well. Robert Crispin, Absolutely,
8:02
Speaker 1: you're looking at all her friends. You're looking at her
8:04
Speaker 1: relationships with people in school, friends, she may be doing
8:08
Speaker 1: summer jobs with. You're looking at everybody associated with her
8:12
Speaker 1: in the beginning, starting to move forward, and oh the guilt,
8:15
Speaker 1: Karen start of the parents they go away for one
8:18
Speaker 1: night and their daughter goes missing. Well, I mean Danswy
8:22
Speaker 1: You have twins. Just think about what that's like for
8:25
Speaker 1: the parents. They would never have suspected that going away
8:30
Speaker 1: for this one night would lead to these kind of consequences.
8:33
Speaker 1: It's awful. Take a listen to more from our friends
8:37
Speaker 1: at crime Online. The police, along with members of the community,
8:40
Speaker 1: launched an exhaustive search for the missing fifteen year old.
8:44
Speaker 1: The bike was found in a ditch on a gravel
8:46
Speaker 1: road in a cornfield just one hundred feet away. Julie
8:49
Speaker 1: Hanson's body was discovered later that day. The team had
8:53
Speaker 1: been sexually assaulted and stabbed thirty six times Crime Stories
9:12
Speaker 1: with Nancy Grace. You know, I want to go to
9:16
Speaker 1: not only doctor Tim Gallagher, the medical examiner for the
9:20
Speaker 1: entire state of Florida, but to Lisa Farvor with Patch
9:23
Speaker 1: Media atpatch dot com. Lisa, tell me about this location
9:30
Speaker 1: where her body was found. Did I hear a cornfield? Yeah,
9:33
Speaker 1: that's that's correct. From our understanding, her body was actually
9:37
Speaker 1: located in a well. I believe a cornfield near by
9:41
Speaker 1: where the bike was found. You know there's something about
9:43
Speaker 1: that to renowned psychologist Karen Start joining us out of
9:46
Speaker 1: Manhattan today. It brings to mind the case of Molly Tibbets,
9:50
Speaker 1: who was kidnapped, I believe, raped and then hidden in
9:58
Speaker 1: a way in a corner field. And when you think
10:01
Speaker 1: about it now, Karen, I know you're in New York,
10:05
Speaker 1: in New York City, but for those of you that
10:08
Speaker 1: didn't grow up in a rural area like I did,
10:10
Speaker 1: when you're in the middle of a cornfield, you can't
10:13
Speaker 1: see anything. The corn stalks are this close together, a
10:17
Speaker 1: foot apart, maybe two for you to walk down between them.
10:21
Speaker 1: You can't see through them. Someone takes this girl, this
10:27
Speaker 1: beautiful girl, out into a cornfield and rapes and murders
10:32
Speaker 1: are stabbing. We know at least thirty six times, delieving
10:38
Speaker 1: the body the rape in a cornfield, Karen Stark. Somehow
10:44
Speaker 1: being in that environment makes it even worse. She couldn't
10:47
Speaker 1: tell where she was, she didn't know which way to run. Horrible,
10:50
Speaker 1: and it adds another layer into the psychopathy of the killer.
10:55
Speaker 1: And I think that we can all picture it, Nancy,
10:58
Speaker 1: the juxtaposition of that cornfield with the fact that this
11:03
Speaker 1: is a young girl who's being raped and murdered, and
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Speaker 1: how awful, just awful it must have been for her
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Speaker 1: to be so disoriented and frightened and lost, and it
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Speaker 1: just says that this is not just somebody who was
11:19
Speaker 1: after killing someone was bad enough, but that he enjoyed
11:23
Speaker 1: the fact that it was this innocence of the Cornfield
11:27
Speaker 1: and this young girl, and that she was terrified. Doctor
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Speaker 1: Tim Gallagher a medical zammer for the state of Florida,
11:34
Speaker 1: and you can find him at pathcaremad dot com. Doctor Gallagher.
11:38
Speaker 1: I learned this but early on. But a good example
11:43
Speaker 1: that people could relate to would be the case of
11:45
Speaker 1: Travis Alexander who was stabbed we think about twenty nine
11:50
Speaker 1: times by Jodi Aris before she shot him dead, shot
11:54
Speaker 1: him in the hip. The medical examer actually couldn't really
11:58
Speaker 1: make out the number of stab wounds because there were
12:01
Speaker 1: so many that some of them overlapped on each other.
12:06
Speaker 1: So you can tell if one stab wound could be
12:08
Speaker 1: two or three stab wounds because the stabbing was on
12:11
Speaker 1: top the other stab wounds. Could you explain that better
12:15
Speaker 1: than I am? Well, I'll give it a try to
12:18
Speaker 1: and see. It's true that when you have multiple stab wounds,
12:22
Speaker 1: some of them do overlap. And not only would they overlap,
12:25
Speaker 1: you know when we think about a stab, when we
12:27
Speaker 1: think about a knife, going in and out, you know,
12:30
Speaker 1: in the same wound and out of the same wound,
12:34
Speaker 1: you know. But sometimes we can have a case where
12:36
Speaker 1: they drag the knife through the body, almost slicing through
12:40
Speaker 1: the body. And if you have a slicing wound that
12:43
Speaker 1: goes through four or five other wounds. You know, it's
12:46
Speaker 1: very difficult to count the exact number of times of
12:49
Speaker 1: person's been stabbed. You know. The wounds generally congregate around
12:53
Speaker 1: vital organs of the body, so there may be multiple
12:56
Speaker 1: stab wounds through a single lung, thirty or forty wounds
13:00
Speaker 1: through the heart, you know, So the best we can
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Speaker 1: do is estimate. But really the description between thirty wounds
13:09
Speaker 1: and twenty wounds is you just know that there's a
13:11
Speaker 1: lot of wounds there. This person was very angry. Can
13:13
Speaker 1: I ask you a personal question, doctor Tim Gallagher? Do
13:17
Speaker 1: you have a family? I do yet, including a wife
13:21
Speaker 1: and children? Well, I don't have any children. Do you
13:24
Speaker 1: and your wife ever talk about what you do for
13:26
Speaker 1: a living? Not one. I was just listening to you talking.
13:29
Speaker 1: I was just imagining you sitting over dinner. Maybe you
13:31
Speaker 1: know you had chicken out of the crock pot. You're
13:34
Speaker 1: talking about overlapping stab wounds, so many of them, you
13:37
Speaker 1: just can't tell how many of there are. Do you
13:40
Speaker 1: guys ever talk about that? Well, you know she was
13:44
Speaker 1: in she's a doctor as well, but she does cancer patients.
13:49
Speaker 1: You know, she works with cancer patients, and her idea
13:56
Speaker 1: of morbid things are not my idea of morbid thing.
14:00
Speaker 1: We do watch a lot of the forensic shows on television,
14:02
Speaker 1: but we don't really talk about my line of work
14:04
Speaker 1: as much as we talk about hers. As she woke up,
14:07
Speaker 1: what about you? All I have to say is I
14:09
Speaker 1: didn't marry an attorney, did I? So what I did?
14:12
Speaker 1: Though in my kids neither did I? Thank God? And
14:14
Speaker 1: happen right? No, And listen, you know, in our worlds, regrettably,
14:19
Speaker 1: you're such a great victim's advocate. In our world this
14:23
Speaker 1: is not a typical. We see children get abdected. But
14:28
Speaker 1: what is not typical is these parents have been soothing
14:32
Speaker 1: for how long forty plus years, having no idea what
14:35
Speaker 1: happened to their daughters. I'm asking you if you ever
14:39
Speaker 1: talks about these cases to your family. Of course, I've
14:45
Speaker 1: got children, you know, I've got three kids. Of course
14:47
Speaker 1: I do. I probably talk too much because I never
14:50
Speaker 1: get into these kind of details. No way, I mean,
14:53
Speaker 1: Robert Crispin, I mean, I'm just curious. I never talk
14:58
Speaker 1: about details of crime case is to my husband or
15:02
Speaker 1: my children, who besides us wants to hear about thirty
15:06
Speaker 1: six stab wounds. I'm a little girl. And then they overlap,
15:09
Speaker 1: so it made it really hard to tell just how
15:10
Speaker 1: many times she'd been stabbed. I mean, that's very heavy,
15:13
Speaker 1: that's incendiary talk. Listen, we eat, sleep, and breathe this Nancy,
15:18
Speaker 1: the people in our business, and it's nice to just
15:21
Speaker 1: come home and not talk about it and just disconnect
15:24
Speaker 1: it really is. You know what my husband does, he's
15:27
Speaker 1: an investment banker. I tried to read his emails one time, Robert,
15:31
Speaker 1: I teld you this, my eyes started bleeding. It was
15:33
Speaker 1: so boring. I couldn't take it. But I'm sure he
15:36
Speaker 1: does not want to hear about this. Let me get back,
15:38
Speaker 1: let me get us out of the weeds and back
15:40
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road. I'm just curious because
15:44
Speaker 1: I never talk about details of cases when I'm not
15:47
Speaker 1: working the case. I don't want it stuck in my
15:51
Speaker 1: children or my husband's heads. Okay, so the body is
15:54
Speaker 1: found in a cornfield and I'm just trying to if
15:57
Speaker 1: I was trying this case, a conveyed it to a jury,
16:01
Speaker 1: what this child? And yes, under the law, she is
16:04
Speaker 1: a child. She is a minor went through being raped
16:08
Speaker 1: and murdered in a cornfield. But the search is on.
16:13
Speaker 1: Take a listen to Chief Robert Marshall with a Naperville
16:17
Speaker 1: Police depart conducted a search of the area, found her
16:19
Speaker 1: body and she was deceased and had been stabbed multiple times.
16:25
Speaker 1: Our department immediately began an investigation to find Julie's killer. Unfortunately,
16:32
Speaker 1: the offender was not immediately found, and our department never
16:39
Speaker 1: in five decades gave up looking for Julie's killer. The
16:44
Speaker 1: last forty nine years, we've chased many leads, identified many suspects,
16:50
Speaker 1: and all were eliminated through the exhaustive investigation by R detectives.
16:55
Speaker 1: Can we get real just a moment, Lisa Farvor joining
16:58
Speaker 1: us from patch dot com. You know, it's got to
17:02
Speaker 1: be somebody from that area, maybe from even that neighborhood
17:07
Speaker 1: or two roads over, or somebody that's in that neighborhood frequently,
17:11
Speaker 1: like a delivery person or the newspaper guy, somebody that
17:15
Speaker 1: drives through there or again lives there. Who is gonna
17:19
Speaker 1: know to snatch this girl right there in a spot
17:23
Speaker 1: where they had to believe nobody was going to see
17:25
Speaker 1: them doing the snatching and drag her into a cornfield.
17:30
Speaker 1: Who would know that other than someone that had that
17:35
Speaker 1: lives there or goes through there all the time. Lisa,
17:38
Speaker 1: that kind of limits that narrows a suspect pool, does
17:42
Speaker 1: it not. Yeah, I think that that was what was
17:45
Speaker 1: particularly chilling when this took place for the community, because
17:50
Speaker 1: from what I've read at that time, you know, people
17:53
Speaker 1: in the area rarely locked their doors, you know, if
17:56
Speaker 1: everyone just felt super safe. So I think the fact
17:59
Speaker 1: that this happened, and it seems as though it was
18:05
Speaker 1: probably someone from the community, might have been one of
18:08
Speaker 1: the most chilling aspects of what happened. Prime Stories with
18:24
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, Guys, we are talking about the brutal kidnap, rape,
18:30
Speaker 1: and murder of a teen girl that borrows her little
18:33
Speaker 1: brother's bike to go watch a baseball game a few
18:36
Speaker 1: blocks away. She never makes it to the game. She's
18:39
Speaker 1: abducted en route to the game. Her body found raped,
18:45
Speaker 1: brutally stabbed at least thirty six times dead in a cornfield.
18:50
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friend Rob Lgs WLSTV, ABC
18:55
Speaker 1: seven Chicago. It was so tough for then, and I
18:59
Speaker 1: think it's got to be hard for the family at
19:01
Speaker 1: this point because it brings it all back Tonight. Peggy
19:04
Speaker 1: Thompson's childhood friends are remembering fifteen year old Julianne Hanson
19:08
Speaker 1: and her family. She was very personable, a very sweet girl.
19:13
Speaker 1: She's only a couple of years older than us, but
19:15
Speaker 1: she babysat some of the kids in the neighborhood. Nearly
19:18
Speaker 1: fifty years ago, in nineteen seventy two, Julie Hansen was
19:22
Speaker 1: brutally murdered. Her body found in a field near eighty
19:25
Speaker 1: seventh and Modaff Road in Naperville. No one locked doors,
19:29
Speaker 1: We knew everybody, and then this happened. And I've called
19:33
Speaker 1: at the end of the age of innocence because it
19:36
Speaker 1: immediately changed to a very fearful existence, especially for us
19:40
Speaker 1: as kids. That is exactly what Lisa Farv is telling
19:44
Speaker 1: us about. At the time of this little girl's brutal murder. Again,
19:50
Speaker 1: you were hearing from our friends at WLSTV. The case
19:53
Speaker 1: goes on, the search heats up. What do we know
19:57
Speaker 1: about the search efforts at the time, Lisa, However, what
20:00
Speaker 1: did they do to try to catch the purp at
20:03
Speaker 1: the time. I know that they from my understanding, they
20:07
Speaker 1: did some pretty exhaustive what they were able to do
20:10
Speaker 1: at the time with the limited amount of research that
20:12
Speaker 1: they had. But the major development obviously didn't happen until
20:18
Speaker 1: much later, when technology kind of, you know, changed a
20:22
Speaker 1: little bit. Let me out to doctor Tim Gallagher, a
20:24
Speaker 1: medical examer joining us out of Florida. Doctor Gallagher, we
20:28
Speaker 1: know that she was raped according to the police report.
20:31
Speaker 1: When you examine a body, what do you find as
20:36
Speaker 1: supporting the theory of rape, Well, there are two things.
20:40
Speaker 1: One of them you would look for bruising in the
20:42
Speaker 1: general area, bruising around the vagina, bruising around the bones
20:46
Speaker 1: of the vagina. You'd also look for a torn tissue,
20:50
Speaker 1: you know, in that area, torn tissue within the vagina
20:53
Speaker 1: and within the anus. Additional places to look for are
20:58
Speaker 1: the lips, look behind lips to see if there's any
21:01
Speaker 1: trauma behind the lips as well. And generally these days
21:04
Speaker 1: we would do a sexual assault kit and look for
21:08
Speaker 1: seamen evidence, trace, DNA and other five clothing fibers that
21:15
Speaker 1: may have been left by the assailant. Let me go
21:17
Speaker 1: out to a special guest joining us, Andrew Singer of
21:21
Speaker 1: Body Technologies, the largest private forensic DNA lab in the
21:26
Speaker 1: United States. You can find them at boditech dot com
21:31
Speaker 1: bodetech dot com. Andrew, when you find sperm in or
21:41
Speaker 1: on the body and you look under a microscope, what
21:47
Speaker 1: does that look like? Well, believe it or not, Nancy,
21:50
Speaker 1: in most of these cases, we are not actually looking
21:53
Speaker 1: for the sperm. We are looking for the presence of
21:55
Speaker 1: foreign male DNA within these cases. And as we identify that,
22:01
Speaker 1: we are we are working to develop a DNA profile
22:04
Speaker 1: from that foreign foreign evidence, and we separate that from
22:08
Speaker 1: from the victim and we take that profile and put
22:12
Speaker 1: it into databases to try to figure out who that
22:15
Speaker 1: came from. So then let me back up to doctor
22:18
Speaker 1: Tim Gallagher. I'm trying to figure out I mean, I
22:23
Speaker 1: know what it looks like under a microscope because I've
22:25
Speaker 1: looked at it the crime lab. But when you're looking
22:28
Speaker 1: at the body, how do you detect and identify sperm? Well,
22:32
Speaker 1: it's true you can't identify a sperm, but you could
22:35
Speaker 1: identify a semen and you know that the sperm is
22:38
Speaker 1: probably within the semen if it does exist, right, providing
22:41
Speaker 1: that person you're providing the person did not have a
22:43
Speaker 1: vase activity, you would find a sperm within the semen.
22:47
Speaker 1: So typically we would find that on the inner parts
22:50
Speaker 1: of the thighs, in the pubic region of the victim,
22:54
Speaker 1: and around the anal area. And what does the sperm
22:58
Speaker 1: or as you say, semen look like under a microscope. Well,
23:01
Speaker 1: seman in itself is a protein, you know, so there
23:04
Speaker 1: really is no description of it. There's no solid part
23:08
Speaker 1: of the semen. But the sperm within the semen would
23:12
Speaker 1: look like a single cell. Like a football. It looks
23:16
Speaker 1: like a football with a big long tail coming out
23:19
Speaker 1: of it. Okay, wait a minute, I thought it looked
23:20
Speaker 1: like a shrimp. Shrimp, no um both for humans. For humans,
23:25
Speaker 1: it looks like a football with a big long with
23:27
Speaker 1: a tail with a big long whiptail coming out of
23:29
Speaker 1: the back of it. That's the shrimp. Um I. Okay,
23:36
Speaker 1: you say football, I beholder. I would imagine. So you
23:42
Speaker 1: see that under the microscope. Now, sperm can live. As
23:50
Speaker 1: I recall about seventy two hours, it starts um falling apart.
23:56
Speaker 1: Literally first the tail falls off and the head falls
23:59
Speaker 1: off more to my shrimp comparison. Do I have that
24:04
Speaker 1: much right? Well, it does live seventy two hours under
24:07
Speaker 1: the right conditions, the right temperature, and within the right fluid. Yes,
24:11
Speaker 1: But if it drives out, you know, on the leg
24:14
Speaker 1: of somebody, you know it's going to be dead when
24:16
Speaker 1: that semen is dry. And Andrew Singer, do you need it?
24:20
Speaker 1: Can you still get the DNA from it even if
24:22
Speaker 1: it's stride Yes, you can, yep. And most of these
24:26
Speaker 1: cases like this one, with proper collection and storage of
24:30
Speaker 1: the sample, obviously we can get DNA profiles off of
24:33
Speaker 1: it thirty, forty, fifty, even longer years after it has
24:38
Speaker 1: been collecting. That's amazing, Andrew, That is amazing, Andrew Singer.
24:42
Speaker 1: So how do you store it, doctor Gallagher, to make
24:45
Speaker 1: sure that somebody like Andrew Singer Boti technologies can get
24:50
Speaker 1: an ID one day, maybe even fifty years later. How
24:53
Speaker 1: do you have to store it and not screw it up? Well,
24:57
Speaker 1: moisture is the enemy of DNA, so you would have
25:00
Speaker 1: to store it in a dry area, you know, on
25:03
Speaker 1: a porous surface like like there's certain types of paper
25:07
Speaker 1: that you can leave it on and store it in
25:09
Speaker 1: a dry area. And it'll deserve itself very well. Okay,
25:13
Speaker 1: now that is where I just learned another new thing,
25:16
Speaker 1: doctor Gallagher. I thought maybe I've been watching too much
25:19
Speaker 1: dexter um. I thought you put it on glass slides. No, well,
25:24
Speaker 1: you would put it on glass slides if it's fresh,
25:26
Speaker 1: if it's a fresh sample and the temperature is correct,
25:30
Speaker 1: and you feel that there may be a motile or
25:33
Speaker 1: a live sperm, you know, within the cement. Otherwise you
25:36
Speaker 1: put it on did you say something a can to paper?
25:39
Speaker 1: All right, there's something called Watchman paper that you can
25:42
Speaker 1: put it on, and it's very poor. Could you spell
25:45
Speaker 1: that because I couldn't understand you. Sorry, Watchman w h
25:48
Speaker 1: A T M A N N Watchman paper. We could
25:52
Speaker 1: place it on a Watchman paper and then store it
25:54
Speaker 1: in a dry area and that'll stay viable for I mean,
25:58
Speaker 1: the DNA will not break down four decades and decades. Okay,
26:03
Speaker 1: give me a comparison so I can understand. What does
26:06
Speaker 1: Watsman paper look like. I'm imagining that that blue paper
26:11
Speaker 1: like almost like a cloth material used to change oil with,
26:16
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that's wrong. What does Watson paper look like?
26:20
Speaker 1: If you remember the old post board like oak tag
26:24
Speaker 1: heavy cardboard. Um, a gift box maybe something like a
26:29
Speaker 1: like a gift box flid. Yes, yes, okay, now I understand.
26:33
Speaker 1: And how big is the paper? Like two inches by
26:36
Speaker 1: two inches? Well, it comes in rolls. It's as big
26:39
Speaker 1: as you need it to be, you know. So you
26:41
Speaker 1: know they can come pre cutting four by four cards
26:44
Speaker 1: four inch by four inch, right, but it can come
26:46
Speaker 1: in longer. Did you know any of that, Jackie? Okay,
26:51
Speaker 1: Now this is where you come in, Andrew Singer, Um,
26:55
Speaker 1: take a listen to Chief Robert Marshall. People often call
27:00
Speaker 1: these type of cases cold cases. This was never a
27:03
Speaker 1: cold case for our police department. We continually investigated this
27:08
Speaker 1: case throughout those forty nine years. We were all conscious
27:13
Speaker 1: of Julie's murder, looking for the killer, and we had
27:17
Speaker 1: Julie's picture on our desks and investigations for all of
27:21
Speaker 1: these years. Throughout the years, the investigators that have worked
27:25
Speaker 1: this case have come, some have retired, and every one
27:29
Speaker 1: of us assigned to investigations took the opportunity to work
27:33
Speaker 1: at the work on this case and look for evidence
27:35
Speaker 1: that would lead to the identification of Julie's killer. Karen Stark,
27:41
Speaker 1: you have been in my office many many times at
27:43
Speaker 1: court TV, just like as in the district Attorney's officer
27:47
Speaker 1: where are prosecuted. There's a lot of pieces of evidence there, photos,
27:53
Speaker 1: not gory crime scene photos. But for instance, I still
27:57
Speaker 1: have a photo in my office. It's a button the
28:00
Speaker 1: family of Travis Alexander, Jody Airis's murder victim, gave me.
28:04
Speaker 1: It's a button that they would wear. It's a picture
28:06
Speaker 1: of Travis Alexander. And I see that frequently when I
28:12
Speaker 1: open a particular drawer. There are its memories, and I'm
28:17
Speaker 1: thinking about these cops that kept Julianne's picture on their
28:23
Speaker 1: desks to remind them this case has not been sold.
28:28
Speaker 1: I mean, after you work on an investigation or prosecution
28:31
Speaker 1: for a long time, even if your victim is dead,
28:34
Speaker 1: you get attached to the victim. You get attached to
28:37
Speaker 1: the mission of getting justice. I don't find that unusual
28:41
Speaker 1: at all. Neither do I Nancy, and I do remember
28:44
Speaker 1: all of those photographs that you had in your office.
28:47
Speaker 1: Doesn't surprise me because we're talking about the victims, and
28:51
Speaker 1: so often we remember the person that committed the crime,
28:54
Speaker 1: the perpetrators. The victims stay with us, you know, we
28:58
Speaker 1: learned about them and their innocence, and like in this story,
29:02
Speaker 1: the cornfield, that vision that will never lead my mind,
29:06
Speaker 1: that picture of this innocent girl there, and so it
29:09
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense to me they kept it there. They
29:12
Speaker 1: wanted to remember her, and they wanted to solve it.
29:30
Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace, so Andrew Singer joining us
29:36
Speaker 1: from Body Technologies, the biggest private forensic DNA lab in
29:42
Speaker 1: the US. Andrew, let me put all sentimentality aside, because
29:46
Speaker 1: this case is not going to be solved without somebody
29:49
Speaker 1: just like you, a DNA scientific expert. We keep hearing
29:56
Speaker 1: about how DNA has advanced. It's the time Julianne was
30:00
Speaker 1: raped and murdered. How has it? It's incredible, Frankly, and
30:05
Speaker 1: I do actually want to commend the investigators and all
30:08
Speaker 1: of those involved in the case for properly collecting the
30:11
Speaker 1: DNA and storing it for all of these years, holding
30:14
Speaker 1: out the hope that this case would eventually be solved.
30:18
Speaker 1: Twenty thirty years ago, you were looking at needing DNA
30:22
Speaker 1: the size of bloodstain, the size of a quarter, if
30:25
Speaker 1: not longer, to be able to just type it and
30:26
Speaker 1: search it. And we've advanced so far where you can
30:29
Speaker 1: simply get DNA from just a few cells. And in
30:32
Speaker 1: this case, the way they were able to identify it
30:35
Speaker 1: is through true novel advancements and the way these DNA
30:38
Speaker 1: profiles are searched and to identify where the source of
30:42
Speaker 1: the DNA came from. So the DNA from the seamen,
30:47
Speaker 1: from the sperm that long ago on this little girl
30:53
Speaker 1: was properly collected, was at the crime lab, I mean
30:59
Speaker 1: at the morgue, was then saved, was then sent to
31:02
Speaker 1: the crime lab. The chain of evidence was kept, and
31:06
Speaker 1: Robert Crispin I nearly lost a serial killer because I
31:13
Speaker 1: could get him on one murder and the chain was
31:17
Speaker 1: not protected, the chain of custody critical. People think it's
31:23
Speaker 1: no big deal, But what happened in that case was
31:26
Speaker 1: the homicide detective. What did he do? He mislabeled the bag,
31:31
Speaker 1: something was wrong with the label on the bag. We
31:34
Speaker 1: got the Purps DNA. It was bagged and taken to
31:38
Speaker 1: the crime lab. But in the bagging nothing happened to it.
31:42
Speaker 1: It wasn't contaminated, just that the name was wrong or
31:47
Speaker 1: the case number was wrong on that bag. And it
31:50
Speaker 1: ruined my chain of custody. And it will chain of
31:53
Speaker 1: custody means that, for instance, jack I'm sorry, but you're
31:57
Speaker 1: dead again. I find Jackie's dead body and incomes Robert Crispin.
32:03
Speaker 1: He secures the scene. Crime texts come out, they take
32:08
Speaker 1: some ded, they take her clothing. They take it to
32:12
Speaker 1: the morgue, but they have to carry it properly to
32:16
Speaker 1: prove in court there was no contamination. Who finds it
32:20
Speaker 1: here has to sign the bag. I've got it and
32:23
Speaker 1: I'm leaving it with let's just say doctor Tim Gallagher.
32:27
Speaker 1: At the morgue, Doctor Tim Gallagher performs his experiments on
32:33
Speaker 1: it and then he signs off. I'm putting it in
32:36
Speaker 1: the locker. Then the cop that comes, the transport officer
32:40
Speaker 1: as it is called, comes and picks that up, signs it.
32:44
Speaker 1: I'm transporting it to the crime lab. And when it
32:47
Speaker 1: gets to the crime lab, date time, all of that
32:49
Speaker 1: on there. The crime lab person that accepts it signs it,
32:55
Speaker 1: and then the scientist signs it, and that would be
32:58
Speaker 1: Andrew Singer from Bodie Technology. If you can't prove each
33:02
Speaker 1: and every step of that chain of custody, it cannot
33:06
Speaker 1: come into evidence. Bam, there you go. So you save
33:12
Speaker 1: all this evidence. You finally get it in the hands
33:15
Speaker 1: of somebody like Andrew Singer, and then what do you
33:19
Speaker 1: do with it? Andrew Singer? Oh, by the way, I
33:21
Speaker 1: had the DNA retaken. I went with the investigator to
33:27
Speaker 1: get the DNA, pursue it to warrant, of course. Then
33:31
Speaker 1: he and I transported it to the crime lab and
33:37
Speaker 1: handed it over. I didn't sign it because I was
33:39
Speaker 1: going to try the case and I couldn't cross the
33:40
Speaker 1: exam of my own self. So he signed it. There
33:44
Speaker 1: you go, We got the guy off the streets. Now
33:47
Speaker 1: back to this, Andrew, when you get this sample, what
33:51
Speaker 1: do you do? How can you now look at that
33:55
Speaker 1: sample that was taken years and years and years ago
33:58
Speaker 1: seamen from a little girl and the figure out what
34:01
Speaker 1: do you do? Yeah, the first thing that we're doing
34:03
Speaker 1: is we are trying to understand the case itself and
34:08
Speaker 1: what samples arrived at our laboratory that potentially could take
34:12
Speaker 1: it could contain DNA that's probitive to the case. So
34:16
Speaker 1: in a case like this, if there was a sexual assault,
34:19
Speaker 1: there would potentially be swabs from the vaginal area. We
34:21
Speaker 1: would collect the swabs, we would process that and look
34:25
Speaker 1: for the presence of male DNA through a screening process
34:29
Speaker 1: that we have and then the event that it's present,
34:31
Speaker 1: we then we run it through our laboratory and we
34:35
Speaker 1: try to develop a DNA profile, separate it from the victim,
34:39
Speaker 1: and ultimately have that DNA profile searched against a national
34:43
Speaker 1: database to see if if we can identify who provided
34:47
Speaker 1: that DNA sample, and in that case it would be
34:49
Speaker 1: the suspect of our crimes, someone that has voluntarily or
34:53
Speaker 1: someone's relative that has voluntarily put in their DNA. Well
34:56
Speaker 1: you compare it to that data. But yeah, before we
34:59
Speaker 1: get there, were typically searching it against the national database
35:02
Speaker 1: that's that's searched by the FBI, and in this case,
35:05
Speaker 1: and in many of these coal cases that we're using
35:07
Speaker 1: genealogy on now, it does not result in a match.
35:11
Speaker 1: So now there are we are processing it utilizing a
35:16
Speaker 1: second technology. And the technology is the same type of
35:19
Speaker 1: technology that's used by twenty three and ME and ancestry
35:22
Speaker 1: and family tree DNA to develop your family trees. And
35:27
Speaker 1: in some of those databases, people are voluntarily putting their
35:32
Speaker 1: profiles in and enabling law enforcement to search against it.
35:37
Speaker 1: Thank god. Yeah, it's really an incredible development and technology
35:42
Speaker 1: and the ability to identify, new tools and new ways
35:46
Speaker 1: to identify these coal cases, because there are hundreds of
35:49
Speaker 1: thousands of them, and many of them horrific like this case.
35:52
Speaker 1: Because of cops like Robert Crispin, medical examiners like daughter
35:57
Speaker 1: Tim Gallagher, scientists with technology laughs like Andrew Singer, and
36:03
Speaker 1: body technology. This is what happens. Take listen to our
36:07
Speaker 1: friends at k STP. Her doorbell camera caught a group
36:11
Speaker 1: of police slowly walking down her block. She then took
36:15
Speaker 1: this photo of officers at a home right across the street.
36:18
Speaker 1: I'm a true crime fan. I listened to a podcast,
36:21
Speaker 1: so of course I had to see what was going on.
36:24
Speaker 1: But Stacy Maturn had no idea a nearly fifty year
36:27
Speaker 1: old true crime was playing out right in front of her. Shocked, Yeah,
36:33
Speaker 1: not what I thought. Seventy six year old Berry Welpley
36:37
Speaker 1: was arrested last week at his Mound's View home. You
36:39
Speaker 1: ever see him at the house? Ye never saw him once.
36:43
Speaker 1: We lived here five years. Most neighbors we spoke with
36:45
Speaker 1: say Welbley was quiet and stayed to himself. But one
36:48
Speaker 1: told me he was friendly, and she hopes the allegation
36:52
Speaker 1: isn't true. Glad he's caught. Stacy never did see her
36:56
Speaker 1: neighbor across the street, but she may hear the name
37:00
Speaker 1: on the mailbox on a true crime podcast, You're not
37:03
Speaker 1: kidding about that. You were hearing Joe Mason at KSTP
37:08
Speaker 1: and that name Barry Lee wellplay twenty seven at the time,
37:14
Speaker 1: Julianne Hansen was yanked off her bicycle, dragged into a cornfille,
37:21
Speaker 1: raped and stabbed thirty six times. Take a listen to
37:24
Speaker 1: Rob Elgus WLSTVABC seven today. An incredible development in a
37:28
Speaker 1: decades long cold case. We all have daughter us, so
37:32
Speaker 1: we took this case personal from day one. Naperville Police
37:36
Speaker 1: announcing they have arrested this man, Very Welpley, the seventy
37:40
Speaker 1: six year old was living in Minnesota at this home
37:43
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy two. Welpley was twenty seven and lived
37:46
Speaker 1: about a mile from the Hansons. New DNA evidence helped
37:49
Speaker 1: crack the case. For Peggy Thompson and her childhood friends.
37:53
Speaker 1: There is relief and hope justice will finally be served.
37:57
Speaker 1: I personally am very thankful I finally got someone. I'm
38:01
Speaker 1: just disappointed that he lived free for fifty years. Let
38:04
Speaker 1: me go out to Lisa Farvor, editor with Patchmedia dot
38:07
Speaker 1: Com at Patch dot com. Lisa, from what I understand,
38:12
Speaker 1: this guy now up in his seventies, twenty seven years
38:15
Speaker 1: old at the time, was a welder that lived in
38:22
Speaker 1: Mound's View at the time of his arrest. I retired welder.
38:27
Speaker 1: What can you tell me? Wellple was a retired whilder
38:30
Speaker 1: living in Moundsview at the time of his arrest. Um
38:34
Speaker 1: when he when he lived? He didn't live in Neahbor
38:37
Speaker 1: Villa when he was twenty seven years old, which was
38:40
Speaker 1: at the time of Hanson's dusk, and at that time
38:45
Speaker 1: he lived relatively close to where her family lived. What
38:48
Speaker 1: we all sat at the beginning, this had to be
38:51
Speaker 1: someone that lived or passed through the area frequently. He
38:55
Speaker 1: lived within one mile of this little girl. Now, all
39:00
Speaker 1: these years later, finally justice, A seventy six year old
39:05
Speaker 1: retired welder, Barry Lee Welpley hid in plain sight all
39:12
Speaker 1: of these years following the brutal rape and murder of
39:15
Speaker 1: this little girl. May he wrought in hell Sadly, both
39:20
Speaker 1: of Julie Anne's parents have passed on. They did not
39:24
Speaker 1: live to see full justice. But don't worry. We will
39:30
Speaker 1: God willing Nancy Grace's crime story, signing off goodbye friend,