Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / More than a dozen women terrorized and assaulted by man shrouded by a pillowcase with slits for eyes. Has the Pillowcase Rapist been caught?

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More than a dozen women terrorized and assaulted by man shrouded by a pillowcase with slits for eyes. Has the Pillowcase Rapist been caught? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:06
Speaker 1: Verse one, then two, three, four, up to eleven and
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Speaker 1: possibly more women asleep in their own apartments when suddenly
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Speaker 1: they are attacked by a man with a pillow case
0:22
Speaker 1: over his head. Slits cut the pillowcase for his eyes, bound,
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Speaker 1: tortured and raped repeatedly. Will DNA catch the pillowcase Rapist?
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Speaker 1: I Nancy Grace, This is Crime Stories. Thank you for
0:41
Speaker 1: being with us. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The Rape
0:53
Speaker 1: Criman Center calls the pillowcase rapist a crafty criminal who's
0:55
Speaker 1: thrilled to pieces. He hasn't been caught in five years.
0:58
Speaker 1: Police say they expect the recent listening we'll make him
1:00
Speaker 1: more cautious, but they don't believe it'll stop him. The
1:03
Speaker 1: pillowcase Rapist terrorized more than forty women from South Miami
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Speaker 1: to Deerfield Beach, and no one covered the case more
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Speaker 1: closely than former Miami Herald reporter and author Edna wu Kannan.
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Speaker 1: She even included him in her first novel. It appears
1:16
Speaker 1: at this writing that the pillowcase Rapist has not struck
1:19
Speaker 1: since the attached the quick witted woman Victim number forty four.
1:23
Speaker 1: You're hearing our friends at WPLG Local ten ABC reporter
1:28
Speaker 1: Ian Margol the pillow case rapist. Why is he called
1:33
Speaker 1: the pillowcase rapist with forty plus victims? And how has
1:38
Speaker 1: he gotten away with that? IMC. Grace, This is Crime Stories.
1:42
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us. Take a listen to this.
1:46
Speaker 1: According to records leading back to nineteen eighty one, the
1:49
Speaker 1: pillowcase rapist was a suspect who used a pillowcase, a towel,
1:52
Speaker 1: or a shirt to conceal his identity while breaking into
1:55
Speaker 1: homes and raping women in South Florida. For years, that
1:59
Speaker 1: case not going anywhere until this weekend, with the arrest
2:03
Speaker 1: of a six year old sex offender right here in
2:05
Speaker 1: Brevard County. Now, this is all according to a Miami
2:08
Speaker 1: Herald reports, take a look. Six year old Robert Eugene
2:11
Speaker 1: Cohler was arrested Saturday. According to jail records, he was
2:14
Speaker 1: arrested at his home in Palm Bay for an out
2:16
Speaker 1: of county warrant being held right now in the Brevard
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Speaker 1: County jail. The Miami Herald reporting believe he is the
2:22
Speaker 1: pillowcase rapist. The Miami Herald reporting the pillowcase rapist attacked
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Speaker 1: at least forty four women from nineteen eighty one to
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six. The case, involving local and state authorities
2:33
Speaker 1: and a task force to find the pillowcase rapist, was
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Speaker 1: disbanded in nineteen eighty seven. No breaks in that case
2:40
Speaker 1: until now, and what a break it is again? I
2:44
Speaker 1: Meanancy graces his crime stories. Thank you for being with us. Typically,
2:48
Speaker 1: the so called pillowcase rapists would hide his identity with pillowcases, towels,
2:52
Speaker 1: or shirts before he would attack his victims. How did
2:56
Speaker 1: he get away with it for so long? In fact,
2:59
Speaker 1: he was even a registered sex offender. His name Robert
3:05
Speaker 1: Eugene Kohler Robert Eugene Koehler, and he's suspected in being
3:12
Speaker 1: a killer in a high profile case where batting was
3:18
Speaker 1: used to hide his face. Kohler already had a sex
3:22
Speaker 1: battery conviction in Palm Beach County. But how did he
3:26
Speaker 1: manage to get away with this many crimes for this long?
3:30
Speaker 1: With me an all star panel? Renowned attorney Jason Ocean's
3:34
Speaker 1: Joining me from New York. Cloyd Steiger, Seattle, PD twenty
3:37
Speaker 1: two years in homicide, author of Seattle's Forgotten serial Killer,
3:41
Speaker 1: Gary Jean Grant at Kloyd Steiger dot com Joseph Scott Morgan,
3:45
Speaker 1: Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My
3:50
Speaker 1: Feet on Amazon. Karen Stark, psychologist, joining us from Manhattan
3:54
Speaker 1: at Karen Stark dot com. Cheryl a point genetic genealogist
3:59
Speaker 1: The gene Hunter. But right now to Levi page climb
4:02
Speaker 1: online dot com investigative reporter Levi start at the beginning
4:07
Speaker 1: with the first victim, Well Nancy. The m O of
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Speaker 1: the pillowcase rapists is that he would break into homes
4:15
Speaker 1: or apartments of his victims. He had a pillowcase and
4:18
Speaker 1: he would cover their face and they couldn't get a
4:21
Speaker 1: good look at him. But some of his victims reported
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Speaker 1: seeing a man wearing a mask with islets cut out
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Speaker 1: of it, made from what looked like a pillowcase, and
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Speaker 1: he would rape them using a knife like object, and
4:34
Speaker 1: before leaving the scene, he would take items from their
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Speaker 1: apartments or town homes, like jewelry or their underwear. And
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Speaker 1: he preyed on women in Miami Dad in Broward County, Florida.
4:46
Speaker 1: This is in South Florida, and law enforcement claims that
4:50
Speaker 1: this rapist had forty four victims in the eighties and
4:54
Speaker 1: he singled out one apartment complex in Broward County, and
4:58
Speaker 1: he had five victims one particular apartment complex there. His victims,
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Speaker 1: most of them were young, single professionals. Their occupations ranged
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Speaker 1: from flight attendants, a teacher, health spot instructor, models, nurses,
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Speaker 1: even an insurance executive. But there was one attack Nancy
5:19
Speaker 1: that broke the mold. And this was his last known
5:22
Speaker 1: attack in the eighties, and it was an eighty two
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Speaker 1: year old woman who was described as frell And even
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Speaker 1: though she was older than the rest of his victims,
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Speaker 1: her account matched their stories to a t. He used
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Speaker 1: a pillowcase, he covers his head, had icelets cut out.
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Speaker 1: He used clothing to cover up their face during the rape.
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Speaker 1: But what is extraordinary is Nancy. This eighty two year
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Speaker 1: old woman chased him out of her home using a
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Speaker 1: dishtal rack. And South Florida was living in fear Nancy
5:55
Speaker 1: in the eighties with this maniac on the loose. And
5:58
Speaker 1: what's really scary is Nancy. At one crime scene, he
6:01
Speaker 1: left behind underwear that did not belong to the victim.
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Speaker 1: And one of the underwear was a little a pair
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Speaker 1: of underwear that a little girl would wear. Oh no,
6:13
Speaker 1: because that suggests to me that there are child victims.
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Speaker 1: You know, Decloyd Steiger, thirty six years Seattle, PG homicide detective.
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Speaker 1: It's amazing to me and confounding. Clearly this guy is
6:25
Speaker 1: from the Miami Dade and Prowurd area. Because all of
6:29
Speaker 1: his victims are right there in that cluster of three
6:33
Speaker 1: major Florida counties. It's hard for me to believe that
6:37
Speaker 1: he would drive a long distance to come repeatedly to
6:40
Speaker 1: the same tri county area. So that gives me a
6:43
Speaker 1: clue right there. Yeah, there's the thing called geographical profiling,
6:47
Speaker 1: and I think if you look at this cause history,
6:49
Speaker 1: you're going to find that he either lived or worked
6:51
Speaker 1: very close to the complex that Levi I mentioned where
6:54
Speaker 1: five rapes happened, and had some reason to be in
6:57
Speaker 1: the others. Although as he gets better in his practice
7:00
Speaker 1: he might prow out a little bit. But I think
7:01
Speaker 1: you're right, he's going to be in that area and
7:04
Speaker 1: from that area to Karen Start, New York psychologist, Karen,
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Speaker 1: what does it mean to you that he would use
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Speaker 1: a pillowcase over his head with the eyes cut out. Well,
7:13
Speaker 1: I think that that was his version of a nask
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Speaker 1: Nancy and he didn't go to a lot of trouble
7:21
Speaker 1: to try and get something that would really be the
7:26
Speaker 1: kinds of thing that other people who would be in
7:29
Speaker 1: that position would use. He would just take what was convenient,
7:32
Speaker 1: a pillowcase, nick two slips, and that was it. But
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Speaker 1: he was very smart because he also covered the face
7:39
Speaker 1: of the victim. Take a listen. So, with the assistance
7:42
Speaker 1: of the Bavard County Sheriff's office, he was taken into custody.
7:47
Speaker 1: Kohler was then transported here to Miami, where yesterday a
7:52
Speaker 1: judge issued a search warrant to collect DNA directly from him,
7:58
Speaker 1: where they swapped his mouth at the jail. That DNA
8:03
Speaker 1: sample was taken directly to the crime laboratory where analysts
8:09
Speaker 1: worked literally all through last night to be able to
8:13
Speaker 1: make and confirm one the color is the source of
8:19
Speaker 1: that male DNA that was found in so many of
8:23
Speaker 1: those pillowcase rapists cases. Wow, So it ended up being
8:28
Speaker 1: a matter of genetics. But speaking of MS to Joseph
8:32
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan, forensics expert, what about the fact that many
8:36
Speaker 1: people believe the pillowcase rapist went silent because the last
8:40
Speaker 1: victim saw his face. I think that it is significant
8:45
Speaker 1: it would kind of knock him back out of his
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Speaker 1: comfort zone. As Cloyd had mentioned just a second ago,
8:51
Speaker 1: this goes to kind of geographic sourcing relative to him
8:55
Speaker 1: watching the area, of him being familiar with it, and
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Speaker 1: he may even be very familiar with the motives of
9:02
Speaker 1: the police or the drivers of the police. How are
9:05
Speaker 1: they investigating this case, So he may have dropped off
9:08
Speaker 1: of the map, or there's another possibility he could very
9:12
Speaker 1: well have changed his m in the way he was
9:15
Speaker 1: handling things. There might not be connectivity quite established yet
9:19
Speaker 1: between older cases and newer cases, so that remains to
9:23
Speaker 1: be seen. I think that it's very troubling what Levi
9:26
Speaker 1: I had mentioned relative to the underwear of the small child.
9:30
Speaker 1: It's kind of unlikely, but I think that's something that
9:33
Speaker 1: needs to be considered. Crime stories with Meancy Grace. The
9:49
Speaker 1: authorities say that Robert Color used a pillow case, a
9:53
Speaker 1: T shirt or a talent to conceal his identity. He
9:57
Speaker 1: allegedly assaulted more than forty women in nineteen eighty one.
10:01
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty six, at their town homes and at
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Speaker 1: their apartments. He was arrested at his home in Pombay
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Speaker 1: and brought back here to Miami Day, Prosecutors and victims
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Speaker 1: of forty four sex crimes have been waiting nearly forty
10:14
Speaker 1: years for the arrest of the suspected pillowcase rapist. The
10:18
Speaker 1: sixty year old Pombay resident has his sexual offense history
10:21
Speaker 1: in South Florida. Robert Kohler has been a registered sex
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Speaker 1: offenders since in nineteen ninety one conviction in Palm Beach County.
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Speaker 1: Now he's accused of dozens of sexual assaults from the
10:30
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. Miamie Date Police suspect Kohler as a serial
10:34
Speaker 1: rapist who used a pillowcase to blindfold his victims. In
10:37
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, the Associated Press called the pillowcase rapist
10:41
Speaker 1: the most hunted man in South Florida history. You are
10:45
Speaker 1: hearing our friends joining us from CBS Miami. That was
10:49
Speaker 1: Peter Dianche speaking finally a guy in custody. Now he's
10:55
Speaker 1: up in his sixties. I don't get it, Leavi Page.
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Speaker 1: If he isn't his sixties, how was he when all
11:00
Speaker 1: of these rapes were occurring, Nancy, He was in his
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Speaker 1: twenties and thirties while he committed these rapes. Wow, what
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Speaker 1: does that say to you? Karen Stark psychologists joining us
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Speaker 1: that he has been doing this now for forty years
11:12
Speaker 1: and starting in his early twenties. Well, it shows exactly
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Speaker 1: what you would expect in this kind of profile, that
11:20
Speaker 1: once he begins to do it, he can't stop himself.
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Speaker 1: And question is did he get worse? Did he did
11:27
Speaker 1: he start to have fantasies about doing more harm if
11:33
Speaker 1: he's doing it for so many years, But it doesn't
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Speaker 1: surprise me that he keeps on. Guys, we were talking
11:38
Speaker 1: about a guy called the Pillow Case rapist. Now, what
11:43
Speaker 1: about the evidence including a dungeon in progress found at
11:48
Speaker 1: his residence? What can that reveal about his mindset? But
11:53
Speaker 1: how did the case get cracked to start with? Take
11:56
Speaker 1: a listen to our friends at Local ten ABC. They
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Speaker 1: have late now DNA to twenty five different rape cases
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Speaker 1: from South Miami to Deerfield. This is forty years in
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Speaker 1: the making, and tonight, with no bond, the alleged Pillowcase
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Speaker 1: rapist is in custody here Robert Kohler. It took a
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Speaker 1: matter of minutes for the appearance of a man police
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Speaker 1: have wanted thirty six years. Robert Kohler transferred from Revard
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Speaker 1: County suspected as the notorious pillowcase rapist, suspected in fact,
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Speaker 1: in dozens of rapes with similar ms, covering victim's faces
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Speaker 1: with material like pillowcases. Miami Dade's new police director was
12:33
Speaker 1: in high school at the time. The whole department, the
12:36
Speaker 1: community was mobilized. A lot of sweat and tears were
12:39
Speaker 1: put into those cases, and this guy was eluding it.
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Speaker 1: The arrest wore in details how evidence from a rape
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Speaker 1: in northwest Miami Dade in December nineteen eighty three became
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Speaker 1: a DNA match in January twenty twenty. I want to
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Speaker 1: focus right now on what was found in his home.
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Speaker 1: Take a listen to w f LA news. Found within
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Speaker 1: one of those safes were a number of items of
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Speaker 1: women's jewelry, things that looked like trinkets, possibly souvenirs if
13:08
Speaker 1: you will, of his prior offenses. In addition, what was
13:12
Speaker 1: found in one of those safes was a metal nail
13:15
Speaker 1: file that was wrapped in a protective covering, which seemed
13:19
Speaker 1: like a strange object to hide away in a safe, unless,
13:22
Speaker 1: of course, it was the weapon that the offender had used.
13:25
Speaker 1: Because many of the victims described the weapon as being
13:28
Speaker 1: a sharp pointy object, something like an ice pick, which
13:32
Speaker 1: a nail file certainly would fit the bill, and so
13:35
Speaker 1: it appeared as though that may also have been a souvenir,
13:38
Speaker 1: if you will, that this man had. In addition, the
13:41
Speaker 1: police found what appeared to be, for lack of a
13:44
Speaker 1: better term, a dungeon in progress. He had excavated a
13:49
Speaker 1: little room underneath the floor of his house that was
13:53
Speaker 1: very disturbing for the investigators to see. And we feared
13:57
Speaker 1: very much that had we not gotten him into custody,
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Speaker 1: that he may have had other plans even worse than
14:03
Speaker 1: what he executed on all of these women. From these cases,
14:06
Speaker 1: a dungeon in progress, jewelry taken from victim saved as mementos. Now,
14:12
Speaker 1: this is a guy that was raising a daughter and
14:15
Speaker 1: son with various girlfriends. Although one neighbor said Erica Winzel quote,
14:23
Speaker 1: I kept him as far away from us as I could,
14:26
Speaker 1: The neighborhood just feels safer now that he's gone. Isn't
14:30
Speaker 1: an unusual Cloyd Steiger that people get a gut instinct
14:34
Speaker 1: on other people and then they turn out to beat predators. Yeah, Well,
14:39
Speaker 1: this guy as predator written all over him. Everything about him.
14:42
Speaker 1: I'm sure, he fatasized continuously about about these crimes. But
14:46
Speaker 1: you're right, people will get what they call spidey sense
14:49
Speaker 1: that this guy's no good. It makes the hair crawl
14:51
Speaker 1: on their back and so they stay away from the minutes.
14:55
Speaker 1: You should always trust that instinct. Guys, we are talking
14:58
Speaker 1: about the so called Pillow case rapist. But how in
15:01
Speaker 1: the end was he finally caught. I'd like to say
15:06
Speaker 1: it was police work, that it was an epiphany and
15:13
Speaker 1: suddenly everything fit together. But it was good old fashioned science.
15:18
Speaker 1: Take a listen to this. The FDLA began to do
15:22
Speaker 1: familia DNA searchers, which allowed them to identify persons with
15:28
Speaker 1: DNA profiles similar similar to the profile of the offender,
15:34
Speaker 1: so on that theory, such individuals were likely related. So
15:41
Speaker 1: when the son of Robert Kohler was arrested last year
15:47
Speaker 1: for felony domestic violence. Remember demandatory collection of DNA is
15:51
Speaker 1: only required in felony cases, his DNA was entered into
15:56
Speaker 1: the day base and DNA sorry fd determined that the
16:02
Speaker 1: DNA of the sun was so similar to the DNA
16:07
Speaker 1: of the then unknown offender that the offender had to
16:11
Speaker 1: be the man's father. That's from our friends at w
16:15
Speaker 1: FLA News Channel eight. First of all, to Jason Oceans,
16:20
Speaker 1: New York defense attorney joining us from Manhattan. Jason Oceans,
16:24
Speaker 1: I'm sure that the defense attorneys are going to try
16:26
Speaker 1: and defeat or suppress any evidence of familial DNA. What
16:32
Speaker 1: I understand is his son was charged on domestic abuse.
16:37
Speaker 1: When his DNA was entered into the system. It was
16:41
Speaker 1: a quasi match, not a direct match, but an associated
16:46
Speaker 1: match to DNA found. I guess sperm of the pillow
16:50
Speaker 1: case rapist. Now, how can the defense attack this and
16:54
Speaker 1: what's the chance they'll win? Nancy, You knows, as science
16:59
Speaker 1: and becomes so much more sophisticated in the ability to
17:04
Speaker 1: really lock it down without defense attorneys being able to
17:08
Speaker 1: dissect it. Because it's brand new, it's unproven, These cases
17:12
Speaker 1: become much harder to isolate. You know the concept of
17:19
Speaker 1: attacking the victims, which is very common in jurisdictions. You're
17:24
Speaker 1: battling science, so you know, the recollection of everyone is
17:28
Speaker 1: going to be off a bit, and I think that's
17:30
Speaker 1: where you can go after you know your pace if
17:34
Speaker 1: you're trying it is the recollection of defendants of victims
17:37
Speaker 1: that are many, many years old. You could certainly cross
17:41
Speaker 1: them very well. But the science probably at the end
17:44
Speaker 1: of the day, and the commonality of it in its
17:47
Speaker 1: use and how it was done, it becomes almost, you know,
17:51
Speaker 1: too much of a hill to overcome. To Cheryl a point,
17:54
Speaker 1: joining us genetic genealogist, the gene hunter shared thanks for
17:58
Speaker 1: being with us, Shara. Right now, only a handful of
18:01
Speaker 1: states allow familial DNA defense attorneys arguing that it's a
18:07
Speaker 1: violation of their rights to use this technique. But explain
18:12
Speaker 1: to me, cheryla point, how it works. Let's get an
18:14
Speaker 1: understanding of what familial DNA is, Nancy. Familial DNA is
18:20
Speaker 1: search that law enforcement does through their DNA databases, which
18:25
Speaker 1: are databases like codus, where they actually look for genetic
18:29
Speaker 1: information that's going to ten point a relative of a
18:34
Speaker 1: person that they're looking to identify. So they won't have
18:38
Speaker 1: an exact match to the criminal, but they will have
18:43
Speaker 1: a partial match. And normally that would show you a
18:49
Speaker 1: close family member like a child apparent, And in this case,
18:54
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. They were able to find a
19:00
Speaker 1: match to a son like you said, that had been
19:03
Speaker 1: arrested for a felony domestic violence. Towards last year, and
19:08
Speaker 1: there is no doubt that the DNA does not lie.
19:11
Speaker 1: And in my opinion this in so many cases we're
19:17
Speaker 1: going to see DNA matches to it's going to be
19:21
Speaker 1: a partial match to this son's DNA, and then what
19:25
Speaker 1: needs to be done is the perpetrator's DNA needs to
19:30
Speaker 1: be taken, which I know it was already done, and
19:32
Speaker 1: I believe they already connected them to about twenty five
19:50
Speaker 1: crime stories with Nancy Grace. Police say, all these years later,
19:53
Speaker 1: they finally have DNA evidence. They say DNA from a
19:56
Speaker 1: rape KIP for one of the cases matches the DNA
19:59
Speaker 1: of Kohler's son, who was arrested recently. Police say they
20:02
Speaker 1: then matched the son's DNA to his father. Eric and
20:05
Speaker 1: Alex Wenzel watched as police came to their neighborhood to
20:08
Speaker 1: arrest Kohler, and they say they always have some questions
20:11
Speaker 1: about him. I just I just always read him as
20:13
Speaker 1: incredibly predatory. They just, like I said, you know, just
20:18
Speaker 1: the way he looked at people, absolutely horrified. Jennifer Pritchett
20:21
Speaker 1: grew up on Kohler Street in Palm Bay. She remembers
20:23
Speaker 1: as a young girl being warned to stay away from
20:26
Speaker 1: his house. With that many women he's accused of, I
20:29
Speaker 1: cannot believe that it has taken this long to arrest
20:33
Speaker 1: him or find him. It's difficult to hear from the
20:35
Speaker 1: courtroom microphone, but Kohler tells the judge he is not guilty.
20:39
Speaker 1: You are hearing from our friends at CBS Miami. That
20:42
Speaker 1: was Peter Dinch speaking guys. When the neighbors say I
20:46
Speaker 1: wore my children to stay away from him, you know
20:49
Speaker 1: what's freaky about that? My husband, David has relatives in Florida,
20:54
Speaker 1: where doesn't really matter, but they were telling me when
20:58
Speaker 1: we were ready to get together their home. They were
21:01
Speaker 1: pointing across the street and singing, that guy is really
21:04
Speaker 1: weird because one, two, three, and four, and we just
21:08
Speaker 1: stay away from him. And he's always been that way,
21:11
Speaker 1: and the other neighbors have commented on it to them.
21:15
Speaker 1: You know what's amazing. Cloyd Steiger, Seattle PD homicide author
21:20
Speaker 1: Seattle's Forgotten serial killer, Gary Jean Grant. You get a
21:23
Speaker 1: gut feeling, not always, but a lot of times, Like
21:26
Speaker 1: when I would be in court Cloyd twice a week,
21:29
Speaker 1: there'd be in a RAMI calendar at the beginning of
21:32
Speaker 1: the week on Monday, with like one hundred plus new
21:34
Speaker 1: felony cases, we'd usually pick another day during the week
21:38
Speaker 1: as a plea calendar for anybody that wanted to plea,
21:41
Speaker 1: clearing the way for whoever was left standing would be
21:44
Speaker 1: going to trial on the trial calendar in a week.
21:47
Speaker 1: Certain people, certain defendants, you know, no problem, you jack
21:50
Speaker 1: a carfine, you know you got an ounce of pot,
21:53
Speaker 1: who cares blah blah, shoplifted, pay restitution, and you will
21:58
Speaker 1: clear your record. But would be certain people, Cloyd, certain people,
22:03
Speaker 1: and I would lock eyes with them across the courtroom
22:06
Speaker 1: and I would just know. I can't describe it, Cloyd.
22:10
Speaker 1: I would know I'm gonna have to try him because
22:14
Speaker 1: he's not gonna plead, and if he gets out, he's
22:17
Speaker 1: going to kill somebody. It's just a feeling. It's just
22:20
Speaker 1: an instinct. And I didn't really get it that often,
22:24
Speaker 1: you know, but I would get it, and you know,
22:26
Speaker 1: I really believe it is something born of thousands of
22:31
Speaker 1: years of evolution. I can't really describe it, Cloyd, but
22:34
Speaker 1: you probably felt it as a cop, yeah, all the time.
22:37
Speaker 1: And a matter of fact, you don't have to be
22:39
Speaker 1: a cop to feeling you just have to be a person.
22:40
Speaker 1: And I think that's a primal instinct to built into people.
22:43
Speaker 1: That's also built into animals in the wild. You know,
22:45
Speaker 1: it's just that you know your raider goes up because
22:48
Speaker 1: there's something going on there, putting up some vibe. And
22:50
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you guys we are talking about
22:53
Speaker 1: the so called pillowcase rapist, because first thing he would
22:57
Speaker 1: do as his m o as attack the woman with
23:01
Speaker 1: his face covered with a pillowcase, eyes slit in there.
23:06
Speaker 1: And it reminds me just scary pictures that I've seen
23:12
Speaker 1: Karen Starr. If you see that in your home, that
23:15
Speaker 1: the first thing you do is you feel fear there's
23:19
Speaker 1: an intruder in your home. They're masked, all you can
23:22
Speaker 1: see your slits for eyes through a pillowcase. And I
23:25
Speaker 1: guess that was the whole point of it, to instill terror.
23:28
Speaker 1: And I think there's no doubt in my mind, Nancy,
23:32
Speaker 1: if you think about what a pillowcase represents, you know,
23:36
Speaker 1: just the fact that there's this person with this white
23:39
Speaker 1: thing over their head, it's very frightening thing of the clan.
23:43
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that they would use a sheet
23:45
Speaker 1: something like that where someone's coming in covered up with
23:49
Speaker 1: this white thing over their head, and on top of that,
23:52
Speaker 1: it's somebody who doesn't belong there. So terror, absolute terror
23:57
Speaker 1: and paralysis. It's kind of when you're in a situation
24:02
Speaker 1: like that, it's fight or a fight, and you just
24:05
Speaker 1: free a lot of the times and can't defend yourself.
24:08
Speaker 1: What's amazing is that someone who was eighty two years
24:11
Speaker 1: old was able to fight him off. Yeah, and with
24:14
Speaker 1: a dish towel dispenser. She fought him off with that,
24:18
Speaker 1: and that tells me a lot about him right there.
24:20
Speaker 1: What about it, Joe Scott Morgan, I mean, an eighty
24:22
Speaker 1: two year old woman scared him off. This is after
24:25
Speaker 1: he's raped that we know of forty plus women. But
24:29
Speaker 1: this lady ran him off with a dish towel dispenser.
24:33
Speaker 1: What does that tell you? Well, this guy's sitting on pins,
24:37
Speaker 1: he's he's very cowardly obviously that he would attack, you know, this,
24:43
Speaker 1: this helpless woman in the first place, and he doesn't
24:46
Speaker 1: want to be found out and Nancy as a like
24:49
Speaker 1: a thunderbolt. It's just kind of hit me. Just a
24:51
Speaker 1: few moments ago, I'm you know, we talk about how
24:55
Speaker 1: how young he was. I think that LEVI I had
24:57
Speaker 1: mentioned that earlier when all of this started. Let's reflect
25:01
Speaker 1: back just a second. As he has gotten older, as
25:04
Speaker 1: with you know, a lot of men, he's probably experienced
25:08
Speaker 1: some level of impotence and those things that are driving
25:10
Speaker 1: in his mind that get him so sexually excited, he's
25:13
Speaker 1: not physically capable of carrying out to act. And I
25:16
Speaker 1: think that one of the wait, wait, stop, what did
25:19
Speaker 1: you just say. I've never known you once in life
25:21
Speaker 1: to pause or stutter, but could you repeat what you
25:24
Speaker 1: just said? He's unable to perform? Who's that unable to perform?
25:29
Speaker 1: The rapists that we're talking about? Okay, I thought he
25:32
Speaker 1: left semen. Obviously he performed, Okay, So okay, Joscott, maybe
25:36
Speaker 1: you and I have a different idea about performance. I
25:39
Speaker 1: don't know what you mean by performance. You mean raping
25:42
Speaker 1: somebody getting interaction? What are you talking about a performance?
25:45
Speaker 1: Jo Scott? See you messed with the wrong woman right now.
25:48
Speaker 1: What do you mean he was unable to perform? You
25:50
Speaker 1: make it sound like I'm watching halftime at Super Bowl. Yeah.
25:53
Speaker 1: I'm specifically referring to his inability to perform physically, and
25:58
Speaker 1: that's one of the ominous cloud. It's hanging over this,
26:01
Speaker 1: as was mentioned earlier, because he is incapable probably a
26:05
Speaker 1: performance the same level that he had. He's now begun
26:08
Speaker 1: to work on a dungeon in his home because now
26:12
Speaker 1: he wasn't taking people captive. If he is entertaining this thought,
26:15
Speaker 1: he has to spend more time with him, and he's
26:18
Speaker 1: developing this area in his house. This gives it a
26:21
Speaker 1: much more ominous tone where he's at a point where
26:24
Speaker 1: he'll have to spend more time with him in order
26:26
Speaker 1: to facilitate this act as he's attempting to go through.
26:29
Speaker 1: Joe Scott, you just made perfect sense now that you
26:32
Speaker 1: you know, Jackie. Why does you interrupt him? You're so rude. See,
26:34
Speaker 1: if you'd let him finish, then we would have known
26:37
Speaker 1: what he was talking about. But no, you had to
26:38
Speaker 1: jump in like a steam locomotive and like cut him off.
26:41
Speaker 1: Are you sorry you interrupted like that? Okay? Good? Yeah,
26:44
Speaker 1: don't let that happen again. So, Joe Scott, I've been
26:46
Speaker 1: thinking about this. Excuse me, Joseph Scott, Morgan, Professor Forensics,
26:51
Speaker 1: Jacksonal State University. Joe Scott, I've been thinking a lot
26:53
Speaker 1: about this dungeon, and I'm sure, Jason Oceans is just
26:56
Speaker 1: like trembling with rage because a jury is going to
26:59
Speaker 1: think the same thing. Why in the hay is he
27:02
Speaker 1: building a dungeon under his house? Yeah, the neighbors had
27:07
Speaker 1: a freaky feeling, that's right, and we know why. So
27:10
Speaker 1: now I get it. Joe Scott, you're saying that he
27:12
Speaker 1: no longer wanted to break into somebody's apartment and rape them.
27:18
Speaker 1: He wanted to kidnap them, bring them there, and then
27:22
Speaker 1: what are you going to do with him at the end?
27:24
Speaker 1: Just drop him off at the supermarket. He would have
27:27
Speaker 1: had to have killed them, Joe Scott. Yeah, you're right,
27:29
Speaker 1: and he would have to spend a tremendous amount of
27:32
Speaker 1: time and energy. You know, you go back to this
27:34
Speaker 1: idea of what he's fysically capable of, incapable of at
27:38
Speaker 1: this point in his life. Can you imagine trying to
27:41
Speaker 1: kidnap somebody, force them into a vehicle, transport them to
27:44
Speaker 1: this location, and then keep them bound up. We've covered
27:48
Speaker 1: hundreds of cases together, Nancy, and we know that many
27:51
Speaker 1: times that this whole tying people up thing doesn't work out. Well,
27:55
Speaker 1: you think about somebody that's advanced in years now how's
27:58
Speaker 1: he going to facilitate this? And so it's a real
28:00
Speaker 1: head scratcher that, you know, you have a lot of
28:03
Speaker 1: these serial events that I've worked on throughout my career
28:06
Speaker 1: where you know, these people they're kind of actively learning
28:10
Speaker 1: as they go. It's like this guy just went to
28:12
Speaker 1: this dead space, this paused, and then now he's going
28:15
Speaker 1: to make this big physical leap, And it kind of
28:18
Speaker 1: gives you an idea of how just voracious he was.
28:21
Speaker 1: He wanted to satisfy these urges crime stories with Nancy Grace.
28:39
Speaker 1: He terrorized, literally terrorized women from south of Florida throughout Florida.
28:47
Speaker 1: He assaulted them from South Miami all the way up
28:50
Speaker 1: to Deerfield Beach. Robert Kohler is accused of raping over
28:53
Speaker 1: forty women in the eighties throughout the state of Florida.
28:56
Speaker 1: Known in the news as the Pillowcase Rapist, police say
28:59
Speaker 1: he used a pillowcase, sometimes a shirt or towel to
29:02
Speaker 1: hide his face and his victims. Now, more than thirty
29:06
Speaker 1: years later, detectives are tying him to the crimes by
29:09
Speaker 1: using his own son's DNA. The key break in this
29:12
Speaker 1: case came when Kohler's son was arrested last year, and
29:17
Speaker 1: his DNA provided a close familiar match for the unknown rapists.
29:22
Speaker 1: Police say DNA from a rape kitch from one of
29:25
Speaker 1: the cases matched his son's DNA. Although the sixty year
29:28
Speaker 1: olds Pombay resident was a convicted sex offender, the state
29:31
Speaker 1: attorney says his crime was committed before there was a
29:34
Speaker 1: mandatory collection of DNA from felony criminals joining us from
29:37
Speaker 1: CBS Miami that was ambered Diaz. A lot of confusion
29:41
Speaker 1: surrounding the pillowcase rapists. We know of at least forty victims.
29:45
Speaker 1: And what's amazing is you should see the composite. You
29:48
Speaker 1: can look at it yourself at crime online dot Com.
29:52
Speaker 1: There is a composite drawing of him given by a
29:54
Speaker 1: thirty six year old victim, and it looks identical to
29:58
Speaker 1: him at that time, right down to the thin mustache
30:02
Speaker 1: over the top of his lip, the no structure, the eyebrows,
30:05
Speaker 1: the hair, the everything. Another question I've got, INDI why
30:10
Speaker 1: they couldn't find him with that awesome composite is what happened?
30:15
Speaker 1: Levipage Crime online dot Com investigative reporter. Isn't it true
30:19
Speaker 1: they had Cohler in their colutches? And they let him
30:22
Speaker 1: go with no jail time for a ninety one sex
30:25
Speaker 1: battery conviction. What they yes, Nancy. In nineteen ninety he
30:29
Speaker 1: was actually arrested for raping a woman and played guilty
30:34
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety one after DNA matched him to that rape,
30:40
Speaker 1: and he was sentenced to probation, and his record indicates
30:43
Speaker 1: that he violated the probation. He failed to complete a
30:46
Speaker 1: psych exam, and he served one hundred and twenty days
30:49
Speaker 1: behind bars. Nancy. But here's the details of that rape case,
30:52
Speaker 1: and here's why some people are kind of pissed off.
30:55
Speaker 1: At three am October fourteenth, nineteen ninety a woman in
31:00
Speaker 1: Palm Beach called nine one one. She said she'd been
31:02
Speaker 1: raped in her apartment, and she told law enforcement she
31:06
Speaker 1: fell asleep. She woke up at three am by a
31:09
Speaker 1: man in her bedroom and he threatened to kill her
31:13
Speaker 1: and said, if you don't struggle, you won't get hurt.
31:16
Speaker 1: He removed her clothing, put her arms behind her head,
31:19
Speaker 1: placed something over her face, very similar to the other attacks,
31:23
Speaker 1: and he raped her. And this account, like I said,
31:26
Speaker 1: very similar to the other victims. And Broward and Miami
31:30
Speaker 1: Dade counties, And at three thirty am, a police officer
31:34
Speaker 1: pulled over Kohler. He was driving a white Camaro. He
31:37
Speaker 1: made an illegal U turn and they let him go
31:41
Speaker 1: because there was no physical description of the rapist at
31:44
Speaker 1: that time. They questioned him at a later date when
31:47
Speaker 1: they said, wow, this is weird. When we pulled him over,
31:50
Speaker 1: he was sweating, he was nervous, he was acting fidgety.
31:53
Speaker 1: He could be this rapist. So they questioned him. They
31:56
Speaker 1: got his DNA. The DNA matched. But here is where
31:59
Speaker 1: people are mad. He was never connected to the other
32:02
Speaker 1: rapes in the eighties because they did not enter his
32:06
Speaker 1: DNA into a database. And people there say it was
32:10
Speaker 1: mandatory that they had to do, so they dropped the ball.
32:13
Speaker 1: Oh dear lord, and I assume after that ninety one
32:18
Speaker 1: case where he was convicted on sex battery, he committed
32:22
Speaker 1: more rapes after that, it is believed. So Nancy, oh
32:26
Speaker 1: my stars to add insult to injury, Cheryl a point,
32:30
Speaker 1: get genealogist, the gene hunter. Isn't it mandatory? That? I mean,
32:34
Speaker 1: that's why we have a DNA database. We've got a
32:38
Speaker 1: fingerprint database, we have a DNA database, we have a
32:42
Speaker 1: firearm database. Chara, that's the whole point of it. When
32:45
Speaker 1: there's a rape, you enter the DNA profile into the database. Nancy, Yes,
32:50
Speaker 1: that is the point of it. But unfortunately, there seems
32:54
Speaker 1: to be situations when things fall through the cracks, and
32:58
Speaker 1: this evidently was one of. You know, if it had
33:02
Speaker 1: been mandatory in ninety one, he would have been caught
33:05
Speaker 1: then for sure, and again in this situation, and it
33:11
Speaker 1: proves how important it is that all of these violent crimes,
33:15
Speaker 1: when we have these situations, it needs to be mandatory.
33:21
Speaker 1: There needs to be a better protocol. I believe things
33:24
Speaker 1: are improving, but through the years, we definitely have had
33:28
Speaker 1: situations where things have fallen through the cracks, and this
33:31
Speaker 1: is one of them. Unfortunately, you know, I want to
33:32
Speaker 1: circle back to something off DNA to leave page. What
33:37
Speaker 1: can you tell us about the dungeon? Why do they
33:41
Speaker 1: think it was a dungeon and not just him building
33:45
Speaker 1: a basement? Well, you don't, Nancy, in Florida, they don't
33:47
Speaker 1: have basement, so that's what's so odd. And it was
33:51
Speaker 1: described as a dungeon in progress and it was a
33:55
Speaker 1: hollowed out space under his home. Why are you saying,
34:00
Speaker 1: or no basements in Florida, they don't have basements in Florida.
34:03
Speaker 1: It's not like other other places because you know it floods, hurricanes.
34:08
Speaker 1: Let's go out to Oceans one, Jason, Oceans joining me
34:11
Speaker 1: out of New York, Jason for a New Yorker, you
34:14
Speaker 1: seem to know a lot about basements in Florida. My
34:16
Speaker 1: brother lived in Orlando for over a decade and a
34:19
Speaker 1: half and we've had property down in South Florida for
34:22
Speaker 1: many years in the family. No basements based on the
34:24
Speaker 1: water table. They're just not built as part of the structure.
34:29
Speaker 1: You don't have them. Water table too close to the ground.
34:31
Speaker 1: And you know that's why, that's why there are no
34:34
Speaker 1: basements in Florida. Did not know that little known fact.
34:37
Speaker 1: Now I can add that into my you know, my
34:39
Speaker 1: encyclopedia facts that I can just pull out whatever I
34:42
Speaker 1: need to. Wow. So he's down there digging a dungeon
34:47
Speaker 1: that conjures up a lot of horrific images for those
34:51
Speaker 1: of you just joining us. After years of investigation, finally
34:56
Speaker 1: an arrest of the Pillowcase rapist. And I gotta tell you,
34:59
Speaker 1: I know those victims are spitting mad right now because
35:03
Speaker 1: this guy was arrested years into his decades of terror
35:09
Speaker 1: with a sex battery and he was convicted, but the
35:13
Speaker 1: cops did not put his DNA into the database. Wow,
35:18
Speaker 1: you know what about it, Karen start? Why do serial
35:21
Speaker 1: offenders collect mementos? It's like, Karen, you've seen some of
35:26
Speaker 1: my many, many, many scrap bucks I've made for the twins,
35:31
Speaker 1: and I put mementos in their tickets, photos, just all
35:35
Speaker 1: sorts of memorabilia. Why does serial offenders do that? For
35:39
Speaker 1: the same reason that you did it, Nancy, Only yours
35:42
Speaker 1: is harmless. It's actually a wonderful thing to recall what happened,
35:47
Speaker 1: to have good memories so they'll know in the future.
35:50
Speaker 1: That's why serial killers and rapists do the same thing.
35:54
Speaker 1: They want to remember what happened, to relive it, actually
35:58
Speaker 1: enjoy it, and feel good about their conflict. You know,
36:03
Speaker 1: I think it's a way of reliving it and being
36:06
Speaker 1: able to not forget any of the details. So, Levi Pace,
36:10
Speaker 1: let me ask you, after the ninety one conviction on
36:12
Speaker 1: sex battery, did he go on to rate more people
36:14
Speaker 1: after that? There's no reported rapes after that, Nancy, But
36:19
Speaker 1: law enforcement in South Florida thinks that it's a possibility,
36:22
Speaker 1: and they've created a hotline asking any other victims from
36:26
Speaker 1: the eighties or nineties or even after to come forward
36:29
Speaker 1: because they're trying to collect as many rape victims as
36:33
Speaker 1: they can to bring as many rape cases forward as possible.
36:36
Speaker 1: Just fyi, anyone sentenced to prison for sex battery is
36:41
Speaker 1: ineligible for good time, and you have to serve the
36:44
Speaker 1: entirety of your prison sentence day for day. What does
36:48
Speaker 1: that mean, Jason Nations day for day relative to the
36:52
Speaker 1: time back out from when it first happened. So he's
36:55
Speaker 1: not going to get any credit for any good time
36:57
Speaker 1: though now and so it's going to be a full sentence.
37:02
Speaker 1: They're not going to cut it short. Good time is
37:05
Speaker 1: usually an incentive for those inside too, you know, work
37:09
Speaker 1: their sentence off. So it's in a Bureau of Prisons,
37:13
Speaker 1: it adds to you know, control and of of the prisoners,
37:17
Speaker 1: and here it's don't care. So there'll be a lot
37:19
Speaker 1: of isolation and any infractions will be dealt with, you know, severely.
37:25
Speaker 1: We wait as justice unfolds. The so called pillowcase rapist
37:31
Speaker 1: Robert Eugene Cohler now behind bars where he belongs. Nancy
37:35
Speaker 1: Grace Kron's story signing off Goodbye friend,