Latest / Crime Night / The Thanksgiving Tragedy of Wendy Jerome

Transcript

The Thanksgiving Tragedy of Wendy Jerome · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to just picture this for a second.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: It is Thanksgiving night, November twenty second, nineteen eighty four.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, so a holiday family time exactly.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: The city is Rochester, New York, and we have a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: thirty year old mother, Marlene Jerome. She is asleep on
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: her couch and the house just you know, quiet, it's
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: heavy with that warmth of a big holiday dinner.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Righte that post turkey.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Crash, yeah exactly. But then at eight pm she just
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: jolts awake and it is not a loud noise that
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: wakes her. It's well, it's that visceral, instinctual dread.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the silent alarm bell that I think
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: only a parent can really hear. Because she realizes immediately
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that her fourteen year old daughter, Wendy, she isn't home yet.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: And I mean, you really have to put yourself in
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: that living room, because this is nineteen eighty four. You
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: can't just check a location.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: App on your phone, right, no texting.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly, no quick text to see where she is. The
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: helplessness in that moment is just absolute. Wendy had just
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: gone a few blocks over to her best friend Sue's house.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: She was just dropping off a birthday car, just a
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: quick erin, yeah, super short walk. She was supposed to
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: be back by eight point zero zero for punkin Pie.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: But as those minutes tick by, that mother's intuition just
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: starts screaming. So Marlene calls Sue's house and there is
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: no answer.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: She calls other friends, nothing, and so she just spends
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: hours trapped in that terrible limbo, calling herself, you know,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: don't overreact, clinging to the hope that maybe maybe Wendy
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: just went out with Sue's family or.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Something, yeah, trying to rationalize it right.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But then at eleven thirty pm, the phone finally rings
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and it's Sue's mother and she says Wendy had left
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: their house at seven thirty. Oh no, yeah, And Sue's
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: mother is calling because on her way home, she just
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: drove past the local school school thirty three, and she
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: saw flashing lights, police everywhere, and she tells Marlene to
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: hang up the phone and call the police immediately.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Which is just the most terrifying thing you could possibly hear, truly.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And did the police arrive at Marlene's door within minutes?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And this, this is the moment that just atures Marlene's
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: reality forever because she is holding a photo of Wendy, right,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: She's desperate to show the officer who to.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Look for, just bleeding for help.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the officer refuses to even look at the picture.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: He just looks at this terrified mother and says, she
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: came across a bad person.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: God, just completely devastating.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: It's brutal. I mean, imagine the sheer terror of that night.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: And you really want to put yourself in the shoes
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of those investigators too, because those first few hours, those
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: initial decisions, they dictate everything.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: They absolutely do. They were standing at the very beginning
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: of this desperate, agonizing investigation that well it would actually
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: span thirty six years.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Thirty six years.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And while Marlene is left sitting on that couch,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: you know, her mind is just filling the void with
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: the most terrific possibilities. She's picturing her daughter strip naked,
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: abandoned in the freezing snow, her throat slashed from ear
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: to ear.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Because that's what your brain does, exactly.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: The human brain catastrophizes when it doesn't have facts. It
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: creates these scenarios of just ultimate vulnerability, but the physical
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: reality that investigators were securing down in the courtyard of
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: school thirty three. It was actually telling a strangely contradictory.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Story, right, because the reality of the crime scene was.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Different, very different. The forensic evidence in this secluded, totally
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: unlit alcove on the school grounds. It painted a much
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: more complex sequence of events.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: And this alcove, it was protected by these knee high
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: brick walls.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, offering almost total cover in the dark.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Whoever lured or forced Wendy back there, they knew the
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: geography really really well. And the thing is, Wendy hadn't
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: just been cut. The primary cause of death was actually
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: massive blunt force trauma to the head.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Jesus.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: But in this contrast with Marlene's worst fears, Wendy was
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: not found.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Naked, right, And that physical evidence it showed a terrifying
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: timeline because she was found redressed, her jeans were unzipped,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: she still had a sweater on, though her bra and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: her winter coat were kind of just thrown nearby.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Which tells us a lot about the sequence of the attack.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Definitely, andignificantly, the killer had used her own T shirt
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and a pink hoodie to cover her face, which I
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: don't know that detail feels so deeply personal. It's not
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: just functional. It's almost like the killer couldn't bear a
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: look at what he'd just done.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Right, And as an investigator, that is a textbook indicator
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: of remorse or shame, or this psychological need to depersonalize the.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Victim you kind of erase them.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Exactly covering the face frequently suggests the killer might have
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: known the victim, or at the very least they felt
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: this overwhelming psychological weight right in the immediate aftermath of
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: the violence. It is an act of erasing the identity
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: of the person they've just destroyed.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Wow, and you know, she did have a laceration on
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: her neck, but it was small, it was not that
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: horrific ear to ear wound. Her mother was picturing in
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: her head, and there were severe defensive wounds all over
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Wendy's hands. I mean, she fought back with everything she had.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: She fought for her life.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can actually trace that fight through the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: blood evidence. There are blood droplets found forty five feet
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: away from where she was ultimately discovered.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Right. So, the working theory when you read that blood
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: spatter is that after the initial assault, the attacker either
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: allowed her to get dressed, or she managed to pull
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: her clothes on herself. Yeah, she sat up, tried to
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: make this desperate run for it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Which explains the blood forty five feet away.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and then the attacker struck again fatally. But here's
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the thing, the trail extends way beyond that alcove. Investigators
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: found a single isolated drop of blood three hundred feet away,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: out on the sidewalk by Rosewood Terrace.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Oh hey, wait, if the blood trail goes three hundred
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: feet away, how do investigators definitively know that drop belongs
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: to the killer? I mean, what if that was Wendy
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: trying to escape, running toward the street and he caught
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: her and dragged her back.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: That is a great question, and investigators absolutely have to
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: rule out that exact scenario right away. But if Wendy
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: had run three hundred feet to the street while she
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: was actively bleeding, and then she was dragged back to
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: the alcove, well, the physical landscape would reflect.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: That struggle like there would be physical signs exactly.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: You would see drag marks in the dirt, in the snow,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: you'd see a continuous, heavy trail of blood, not just
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: one isolated drop. And honestly, there would likely be witnesses
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: who heard screams from that residential street.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Plus, the violence in the alcove was incredibly frenzied in
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: its tacks involving a knife. In that level of chaos,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: it is highly, highly probable that the killer's hand slipped
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: on the hilt and he sliced his own skin. Oh wow,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: And they actually share the same blood type, which temporarily
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: muddied the waters back in nineteen eighty four. But the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: isolated nature of that distant drop and totally devoid of
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: any drag marks, it strongly indicated a fleeing suspect who
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: was bleeding from a self inflicted wound.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Right, so, that distant blood drop basically acts as a
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: compass needle pointing straight into the residential streets surrounding the school.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: And keeping in mind this is nineteen eighty four, they
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: do not have DNA profiling. They have to rely on
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: straight up shoe leather detective work, just knocking on doors
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: in the.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Dark, and that's grueling work.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: Very and they immediately realized this neighborhood is just densely
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: packed with these eccentric, highly suspicious characters living right on
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: top of this crime scene.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, following a physical trail into a tight knit residential area,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: it almost always creates an investigative bottleneck because you are
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: instantly flooded with red.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Herrings, so many dead ends.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly like they initially looked at a guy named Craig.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: He's a twenty four year old who actually found the body.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, really, Yeah, he was just cutting through the
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: school grounds to avoid paying a cover charge at a
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: local bar. But his alibi checked out perfectly, so they
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: cleared him quickly.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Right, But then you encounter someone like Dale, because that
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: exact same night, Dale, who is a twenty nine year
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: old local guy. He walks into the emergency room covered
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in blood and fresh cuts.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: Unbelievable timing.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and his mother lives on Rosewood Terrace, literally just
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a block from the school, right where that isolated drop
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: of blood was found.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: And Dale claims he was mugged by a group of men.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: But detectives they can't very a single detail of his story.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: There are no witnesses, no signs of a struggle in
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: the area he described, So they apply some pressure and
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: his story just.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Shatters, completely falls apart.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he admits he sliced himself up with a razor
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: blade just to manufacture sympathy from his girlfriend.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Which is insane. That is like a massive smoke grenade
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: thrown into the middle of an investigation. It's like a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: magnet pulling the compass needle totally away from true north.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: You've got detectives working against a ticking clock to find
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: a child's killer, and this guy is draining massive amounts
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: of critical police resources for some twisted relationships stunt.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: It's infuriating, but it perfectly illustrates how communities can unintentionally
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: paralyze these investigations because everyone has a rumor, or a
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: grudge or a secret to hide. Dale's stunt creates chaos,
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: and in that chaos, the real signal gets lost and
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: deflecting attention. Dale then points the finger at another local,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: an eighteen year old named Michael Ross.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Right and Michael Ross had a terrifying reputation in the neighborhood.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Like Ill claims he heard Michael explicitly say he was
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: going to get Wendy, and when police interrogate Michael, his
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: alibi totally disintegrates. He claims he was at a local diner,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the Greasy Spoon, but the manager looks at his picture
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: and confirms he was never there.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: And Michael Ross he fit the behavioral profile of a
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: violent offender perfectly. He was known to carry a nice
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: and neighbors were genuinely afraid of him.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: He was the neighborhood bookeyman, he really was.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: But you know, fitting a profile doesn't make you guilty
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: of a specific crime without a confession or the murder weapon,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: or an eyewitness placing him at the school, Michael Ross
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: remained a person of interest, but detectives just couldn't cross
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: the legal threshold to arrest him.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: So once Dale is cleared and they hit this massive
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: evidentiary wall with Michael Ross, the leads just evaporate. The
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: neighborhood goes completely quiet, and the case enters this deep freeze,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: forcing the investigation to literally wait decades for science to
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: catch up to the evidence. They meticulously collected that And
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: we have to.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Remember the passage of time in a cold case. It
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: is never silent for the victim's family. The psychological torment
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: for them was relentless. The family endured these harassing, threatening
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: phone calls from someone taunting them, telling Marlene she better
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: keep a close eye.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: On her son, Ugh, just pouring acid on an open
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: womb exactly.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: It completely destroyed the family's foundation. The grief, the paranoia,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: the totally unresolved trauma. It eventually led to Marlene and
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: her husband Wayne getting a divorce. That is so sad
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: it is, and Wayne carried this immense, crushing guilt for
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: allowing Wendy to walk to her friend's house that night.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: He actually passed away in twenty eleven, still carrying that burden,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: never knowing who took his daughter. Wow.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: But Marlene, she refused to let the darkness win. About
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: ten years after the murderer, she actually marches into the
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: police station and demands to see the crime scene and autopsy.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Photos, which is incredibly brave it is, and the.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Police had been shielding her right, believing they were protecting
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: her from the gruesome reality. But I mean, put yourself
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: in her position for a second. Why would seeing horrific
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: autopsy photos of your own child actually bring a sense
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: of peace.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: It really comes down to the brutal psychology of closure,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: because for a decade, Marlene was living with the terrifying
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: limitlessness of her own imagination. She pictured Wendy utterly defenseless,
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: enduring just the most sadistic torture conceivable. When you don't
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: have the facts, your brain defaults to the absolute worst
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: case scenario. But seeing those photos it grounded her in reality.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: She saw that Wendy wasn't left exposed to the elements.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: She saw the wound wasn't ear to ear.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: She saw the facts, yes.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: And most importantly, she saw the defensive wounds. She learned
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: that her little girl fought back fiercely, and that tangible truth,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: as painful as it was to look at, it provided
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: a tiny sliver of solace. She finally knew the reality
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: of what happened, rather than just constantly battling the ghosts
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: in her own mind.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Which makes total sense when you put it like that.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: So the family is fighting for survival while forensic science
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: is just slowly crawling forward. And finally, in nineteen ninety nine,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: the lab is able to extract a full male DNA
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: profile from the sexual assault kit. They upload it to CODIS,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the national database, and they get absolutely nothing, no hits,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: nothing at all. Right, So the killer has either stayed
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: completely out of the system or was just never swabbed
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: for past crimes.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: And so this file sits gathering dust again all the
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: way until twenty sixteen. That's when a detective named Sergeant
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Gus Finosa takes over the cold case fault. He pulls
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Wendy's file and the sheer brutality of it just grips him.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: He takes it personally, he really does. He becomes deeply invested,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: making a personal promise to Marlene that he won't let
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: it go. And the very next year, twenty seventeen, the
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: state of New York finally approves familial DNA testing.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And this completely changes the investigative landscape because familial DNA
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: means you don't need a direct match to the killer.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: If a blood relative of the killer is in the database,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the system will flag the genetic similarities, basically handing you
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: a brandch on the killer's family tree. It's a game changer, yeah,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: but the system had these incredibly strict guardrails it did.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: To run a familial search in New York, the DNA
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: profile was legally required to have sixteen specific genetic markers
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: or alleles. This strict threshold it was designed to prevent
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: false positives and basically protect the privacy of innocent relatives.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Right civilibrity stuff.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly, but the profile pulled from the nineteen eighty four
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: evidence it only had fifteen alleles, so the state rejected
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: the submission. They were literally one genetic marker away from
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: a search that could crack a three decade old mystery.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, think about that frustration. It is like holding
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: the key to a vault, but it's missing one tiny groove,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: so the lock just refuses to turn. You are locked
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: out by a fraction of a microscopic marker.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: It's maddening. But Venosa is advised by the lab technicians
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: to just hold his ground because extraction technology is improving
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: exponentially every single year. So they wait.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: You just have to be patient, right, And in.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Twenty nineteen they resubmit their original sample using advanced extraction methods,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: and finally, in July twenty twenty, they get a hit,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: actually two familial hits.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, but the DNA doesn't just spit out the killer's name, right.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: It drops investigators into this scrawling genealogical maze. The familial
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: hit points to a man named Arthur Williams in the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: state database, and Arthur is not the killer. His DNA
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: just proves he shares a bloodline with.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: The killer right, So investigators have to begin forensically dissecting
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Arthur's life. They uncover a record of a traffic stop
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: where Arthur, who was driving with a suspended license, he
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: lied to the police and gave his cousin's name to
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: avoid getting a ticket. Yeah, but when detectives pull up
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: this cousin's profile, they immediately recognize the name because in
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, this cousin lived on Rosewood Terrace. Wow,
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: five houses down from the school, three houses away from
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: where that isolated drop of blood was found.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Wait, if the cousin lived on Rosewood Terrace and the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: blood drop was out there, the killer wasn't just fleeing randomly,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: he was running home exactly. So they put this cousin
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: under heavy surveillance. They follow him to a security job
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: at a hotel and Venosa covertly secures the guy's discarded
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: coffee cup from a lobby trash fan to get a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: DNA sample, and they rush it to the lab. Wait
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: two tenths days and learn it's not a match.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: Which is just a crushing disappointment, but it verifies they
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: are hunting in the right genetic forest. You know, the
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: killer is undeniably related to Arthur, and Arthur has a
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: cousin living right on top of the crime scene. So
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: they pivot back to Arthur analyzing who visited him during
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: a stint he had.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: In prison, looking for other relatives.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and they uncover a visitation log where a man
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: signed in is Arthur's brother. His name is Timothy Williams.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: But wait, why was Timothy completely absent when they initially
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: searched Arthur's immediate family records? Like? How did they miss
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: a brother.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Due to a completely bizarre quirk of timing. See, Arthur's
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: father died in nineteen sixty three, and the obituary publicly
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: listed all of his living children. But Timothy's mother was
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: actually pregnant with him when the father died. Oh wow, Yeah,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: he was born seven months later, so his name was
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: completely absent from the father's public obituary. He was basically
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: a ghost.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: In the public record, a ghost who in nineteen eighty
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: four was a twenty year old man living with their
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: exact same cousin on Rosewood Terrace. And Okay, here's the
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: sheer irony of all this. Back in nineteen eighty four,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: when police were canvassing that neighborhood asking about Michael Ross,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: you know, the violent teenager everyone feared. Timothy Williams was
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the neighbor who confidently told the police that Michael Ross
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: was sneaky and couldn't be trusted.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: The audacity is just chilling, insane. He stood on his
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: porch conversed with the very police investigating the murder he
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: had just committed and actively directed their attention toward the
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: local boogeyman.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So they have their phantom. Now, they have the geographic proximity,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: they have the familial DNA connection, but they can't secure
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: a murder conviction on a family tree and an address.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: They need a direct one to one biological match, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: they need it without tipping him off, right right.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Securing that match that required just a miraculous piece of
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: evidence retention, because Timothy had minor run ins with the
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: law over the decades, but never a felony conviction that
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: required a DNA swab for the national database. However, in
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, an ex girlfriend of his filed a
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: sexual assault report. Okay, she eventually chose not to pursue
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: the charges, but a physical rape kit was actually collected
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: at the hospital.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And back in the early nineties, before the whole DNA boom,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the chain of custody for uncharged crimes was notoriously erratic.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Like a kit for a drop charge was usually just
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: destined for the incinerator.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Yep, usually thrown right out.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: But Rochester's police basement was this chaotic, completely disorganized labyrinth.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: We're talking bicycles from the sixties, randall doors, boxes piled
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: up to the ceiling. And Venosa goes hunting in that
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: subterranean maze and incredibly finds this perfectly preserved sealed sexual
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: assault kit from nineteen ninety two, just sitting in the chaos.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: It's literally a miracle, it is.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: So they tested against the semen found on Wendy's clothes
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and it is a one hundred percent direct match.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: So the science is undeniable now. But apprehending him presents
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: a whole new tactical challenge because by twenty twenty, Timothy
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: Williams is fifty six years old, he is relocated far
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: away from the snows of Rochester, ready to go. He's
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: living a quiet, totally unassuming suburban life down in Florida
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: with his wife Barbara. He's a father, He moses Lawn
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: he is perfectly integrated into this new community.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Wow. So to make the arrest ironclad and legal across
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: state lines, they need a fresh, contemporary sample. So Florida
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: police actually stake out his suburban home and pull two
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: discarded bottles from his recycling bin out on the curb.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: They test the saliva on the rim, and the match
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: is officially confirmed.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: So September twenty twenty, Sergeant Venosa and his team fly
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: down to Florida and, sitting on a hotel balcony the
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: night before, the engineer this brilliant psychological.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Ambush because they can't just grab him.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: No, they know if they just slap handcuffs on him,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: he'll immediately invoke his right to council and worse, with
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: months to prepare for trial, he might fabricate a story
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: about having a secret, consensual relationship with Wendy just to
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: legally explain away the presence of his DNA right.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: They have to paint him into a corner before he
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: even realizes the interrogators hold the brush. So they knock
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: on his front door and they don't even mention Wendy Jerome.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: They introduce themselves as cold case detectives from Rochester, looking
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: into his old neighbor from nineteen eighty four, Michael Ross.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: They just casually ask if he remembers him.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And it is the perfect bait. It flatters his ego.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Timothy's guard instantly drops, assuming he's merely a witness again,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: just like he was back in nineteen.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Eighty four, just trying to be helpful.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but he overplays his hand. He lies to distance himself.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: He tells the detectives he doesn't even know Michael Ross
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: and sis he didn't even live in Rochester in nineteen
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: eighty four, and states on the record that he had
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: absolutely no idea who Wendy Jerome was.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And in those sentences, he unwittingly closed the trap on
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: himself because by denying he knew her, by lying about
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: living there, he destroyed any potential consensual defense he could
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: ever attempt to mount in court. So the moment the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: lies were recorded, the handcuffs came out, and.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: His wife, Barbara is completely blindsided. She married him nine
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: years after the murder. She tells the police he was
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: never violent.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: With her, which is terrifying.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: It is she shared a home, a life, and a
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: family with a predator for decades and had absolutely no
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: idea what he was capable of.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Venosa and his team flied directly back to Rochester
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and they drive straight to Marlene's house and they deliver
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: the news she had waited thirty six agonizing years to hear,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: right there on her front porch.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: And the ures was a triumph, obviously, But the justice
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: system is an exhausting, grueling machine because in twenty twenty three,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: the case finally went to trial, but it actually ended
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: in a mistrial due to juror misconduct, which is just
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: gut wrenching.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Imagine the devastation for Marlene preparing for decades and during
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the trauma of seeing those autopsy photos in open court,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: only for a procedural error to force them to start
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: all over again.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just brutal. But they endure a second trial in
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: February twenty twenty four, and Timothy, realizing he is completely
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: cornered by the DNA evidence, he actually takes his stand
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: and he pivots.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: What does he say?
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: He absurdly claims that he, a twenty year old man,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: had a consensual encounter with the fourteen year old Wendy
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: in that freezing alcove, and that someone else must have
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: magically appeared and murdered her the moment he walked away.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Are you kidding me?
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: No? It was a desperate, deeply offensive fabrication, and the
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: jury dismantled it instantly. On March eighth, twenty twenty four,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Timothy Williams was found guilty of second degree murder, marking
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: the very first conviction in New York State utilizing familiar DNA.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: He was sentenced to twenty five years to life.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, and the bond that forged between Sergeant Venosa and
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Marlene through all of that ordeal is just profound. Following
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: the conviction, Venosa actually asked Marlene for her blessing to
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: get a tattoo of Wendy's initials along with her birth
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: and death dates.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: That's incredible.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He also gifted Marlene the exact physical handcuffs he
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: used to arrest Timothy in Florida, having them custom engraved
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: for her.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: It is a striking testament to investigators who truly carry
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: the weight of the victims they serve. But you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: if we pull back and just examine the reality this case,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: there is something deeply unsettling for you to consider. What's
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: that think about Timothy Williams just a few years ago,
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: taking out his recycling in the bright Florida sun. We
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: tend to conceptualize cold cases as these static files in
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: a dusty vault, but the perpetrators are often living, breathing people.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: They are seamlessly woven into new communities, joining pta meetings
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: and waving to their neighbors from the driveway. Makes you
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: wonder who might be living next door to you right now,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: hiding a thirty six year old secret.