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GIRL, 5, WALKS ALONE TO SCHOOL, MURDERED · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A five year old little
0:16
Speaker 1: girl on her way to school, walking alone, but school
0:24
Speaker 1: was only a few blocks away. What could go wrong? Right?
0:31
Speaker 1: A lot? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank
0:35
Speaker 1: you for being with us here at Fox Nation in
0:37
Speaker 1: series X one eleven. What happened to Anne? First of all,
0:43
Speaker 1: take a listen to this two days after she went missing,
0:47
Speaker 1: two days and just two miles from her family's home,
0:50
Speaker 1: FAM's little body was found, as fate would have it.
0:53
Speaker 1: Sergeant Matthew Doza, who is helping lead this case, is
0:57
Speaker 1: the son of one of the Army CID investigators who
1:00
Speaker 1: stumbled on the child's body off of what is now
1:03
Speaker 1: South Boundary Road that a couple of years ago. We
1:06
Speaker 1: opened this case and we examined every single report, We
1:08
Speaker 1: examined every item of evidence, and have since partnered with
1:13
Speaker 1: the Audition Attorney's Office Cold Case Unit and they are
1:16
Speaker 1: running with this case and falling up on every lead,
1:19
Speaker 1: every piece of information, every bit of evidence. FAMS cases
1:22
Speaker 1: one where looking at all the DNA can bring closure
1:25
Speaker 1: and justice to victims families. Here we're just hearing our
1:28
Speaker 1: Francy Kio N forty six. How can there be a
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Speaker 1: five year old little girl that goes missing, her body
1:37
Speaker 1: found murdered as sex assaulted, and yet no arrest. Again,
1:43
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories
1:46
Speaker 1: on Fox Nation in series one eleven with me and
1:49
Speaker 1: all start panel to make sense of what we know
1:51
Speaker 1: right now and the disappearance and death murder of a
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Speaker 1: five year old little girl walking to kindergarten. First of all,
2:00
Speaker 1: to Scott Rights news writer anchor k io N forty six,
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Speaker 1: Scott five years old. I guess I should throw this
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Speaker 1: to our shrink, Karen Start. But to you, what horrible
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Speaker 1: devil walking amongst us would snatch a five year old
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Speaker 1: little girl? This is beautiful. She looks like a China
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Speaker 1: doll off the side of the street walking to school
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Speaker 1: on a rainy California morning. Murder her at sex assault her.
2:34
Speaker 1: To tell me what happened that morning. You know, it
2:38
Speaker 1: was just it was a regular morning walking to school,
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Speaker 1: Highland Elementary School and Seaside Seaside just just slightly north
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Speaker 1: of Monterey, California, and she wouldn't make it. And you
2:51
Speaker 1: know it was the community at the time was shocked.
2:55
Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of news coverage on her. At
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Speaker 1: the time. Nancy. In fact, she's gorgeous. Chief Nick gorgeous
3:01
Speaker 1: with the Seaside Police told me because it was dismal
3:03
Speaker 1: as far as the news coverage, So I really didn't
3:05
Speaker 1: get out there and that case went cold. No idea
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Speaker 1: what happened to little Antie fan walking to school and
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Speaker 1: just disappeared. Scott Race joining me Kio in forty six.
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Speaker 1: Tell me about Seaside, California. Big town, small town, rural,
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Speaker 1: industrial tourist. What is it? It's just two miles north
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Speaker 1: of Monterey, California, about thirty three thousand people. That was
3:29
Speaker 1: a population as of twenty twenty, just over thirty three
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Speaker 1: thousand people, mixed of people. These are These are working
3:35
Speaker 1: class people. These are These are folks who work in
3:37
Speaker 1: the area. It's not big on tourism like Monterrey would
3:41
Speaker 1: be or Pebble Beach, but it's more than people who
3:44
Speaker 1: live here that working class. Like I said, well, I
3:47
Speaker 1: can tell you this, Scott Race. It's two point two
3:50
Speaker 1: five miles away from Monterey and I just happened to
3:55
Speaker 1: be familiar with that area. My sister lives in California
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Speaker 1: with her family, and I covered the Scott Peterson trial
4:03
Speaker 1: and lived in Redwood City for so long. Just recently coincidental.
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Speaker 1: Scott rates my daughter out of the blue, said, what
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Speaker 1: is Carmel by the Sea? I said, sweetheart, that's where
4:17
Speaker 1: your aunt lives out in that area, and that's where
4:20
Speaker 1: we went during COVID because we didn't want to stay
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Speaker 1: in the hotel, we didn't want to fly, took an
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Speaker 1: RV and went to Carmel and Monterey and Monterey is
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Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, Scott.
4:40
Speaker 1: The water comes crashing in, there are sea otters, all
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Speaker 1: sorts of marine life. There is actually an old Franciscan
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Speaker 1: monk outpost that was one of the first outposts it was.
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Speaker 1: I guess the Spanish monks came and founded it to
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Speaker 1: serve the area. We went there. It's so beautiful. And
5:08
Speaker 1: the point I'm making to you, Karen Stark, high profile
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Speaker 1: psychologist joining us out of New York, is that the
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Speaker 1: dichotomy of this beautiful, natural, serene setting and then knowing
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Speaker 1: a five year old little girl on our way to
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Speaker 1: kindergarten it's snatched off the side of the street, sex
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Speaker 1: assaulted and murdered. It somehow in my mind doesn't fit together.
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Speaker 1: Yet yet I know that it happens, unfortunately, want to
5:42
Speaker 1: it happens a lot in the most ideaic settings and
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Speaker 1: in the worst settings. That had nothing to do with
5:49
Speaker 1: the fact that you had people out there, the pedophiles
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Speaker 1: who are searching for young children for a sexual purposes.
6:01
Speaker 1: That appears to have been what happened in this case.
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Speaker 1: It's reality. That is the reality that we have to
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Speaker 1: contend with. In addition to Scott Rates, news director and anchor,
6:14
Speaker 1: Kio n forty six and Karen Start psychologists joining us
6:19
Speaker 1: out of New York with me is the founder and
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Speaker 1: director of the Cold Case Research Institute. We met in
6:27
Speaker 1: the trenches fighting crime, Cheryl McCombs with me, Cheryl, I
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Speaker 1: think it's very probitive that she was sex assaulted, strangled,
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Speaker 1: then pulled out into the bushes hidden there. The person
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Speaker 1: took the time to hide her body, which is staging
6:46
Speaker 1: and we'll have a lot to say about that. And
6:48
Speaker 1: it was also at a now shuttered US Army post
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Speaker 1: Fort Ord correct and Nancy, you and I both know
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Speaker 1: perpetrators like this gold places they know that they're familiar with,
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Speaker 1: they know there's not going to be anybody on an
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Speaker 1: outpost there. They know that they're not marching or exercising there.
7:07
Speaker 1: They're not going to run any kind of you daily
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Speaker 1: trainings there. So this person had knowledge of that base
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Speaker 1: and specifically the area where she was found. What do
7:18
Speaker 1: you make of the fact that she had been pulled
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Speaker 1: in the bushes? Now, think about it, Sharan McCollum's Seaside
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Speaker 1: which was formerly east of Monterey now Seaside, very very
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Speaker 1: small population about thirty thousand people, not far from Monterey,
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Speaker 1: but still I would call it rural. How does that
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Speaker 1: play into it in your mind, scharl McCollum. Well, again,
7:40
Speaker 1: the perpetrator selected this area. He selected where he placed her,
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Speaker 1: where he tried to hide her. This was his doing.
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Speaker 1: So he made every decision from who he snatched. So again,
7:53
Speaker 1: given her age, the distance from her home to her school,
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Speaker 1: this was quick. This was somebody that was out hunting
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Speaker 1: and seize an opportunity when he saw this baby alone.
8:04
Speaker 1: So again, when he attempted to hide her, it was
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Speaker 1: a location I believe he not only was familiar with,
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Speaker 1: but knew he would go unseen and had the time
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Speaker 1: to take to try to hide her. When we talked
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Speaker 1: to you about this, Cheryl McCollum and everybody, everybody in
8:20
Speaker 1: our panel, feel free to jump in. This is not
8:22
Speaker 1: a tea party at High Grove with the Queen. Okay, Cheryl,
8:27
Speaker 1: do you remember the case that you and I are
8:29
Speaker 1: still working. It's coal case of Debbie Randall, a little
8:33
Speaker 1: Georgia girl. She went I would say seven non seven,
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Speaker 1: maybe eight ten twelve ish. She went to the laundry
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Speaker 1: mat catty corner to where they lived and was collecting
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Speaker 1: you soap and playing with the doll. This is why
8:50
Speaker 1: I'm getting at. She was horribly, horribly raped and murdered,
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Speaker 1: this little girl. But my point is where she was found.
9:00
Speaker 1: Remember that like a rock quarry area and a rock gosh, look,
9:08
Speaker 1: I'm a JD. I'm not a contractor, but where rocks
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Speaker 1: are processed to use in buildings. And her body was
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Speaker 1: ultimately found in woods by a volunteer near that rock
9:24
Speaker 1: quarry and processing plant. And I've always said the two
9:28
Speaker 1: are connected. Who would know to go to that rock
9:32
Speaker 1: quarry processing plant late at night to murder a little
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Speaker 1: girl and dump her body somebody the same thing here,
9:39
Speaker 1: the same thing, the same person that would know on
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Speaker 1: that army base they would be unseen and would have
9:45
Speaker 1: the time to do to this little girl what he
9:48
Speaker 1: wanted to do. They would not hear her scream, they
9:52
Speaker 1: would not see his vehicle, they would not see him
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Speaker 1: pulling her out of the vehicle, of faulting her and
9:58
Speaker 1: then leaving. So again, Nancy, you and I both know
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Speaker 1: when a child is taken those first three hours or
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Speaker 1: when they're most likely going to be killed. This is
10:08
Speaker 1: this is a fast, horristic crime. But it's quick, it's
10:13
Speaker 1: not It doesn't take two days. So again, this person
10:17
Speaker 1: knew he could get in and out unseen, and you're
10:20
Speaker 1: talking about in plain sight. So it's going to reduce
10:24
Speaker 1: your suspect Poll time stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, I
10:44
Speaker 1: know it's easy and maybe almost natural to blame the
10:48
Speaker 1: parents for letting this little girl five years old walked
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Speaker 1: to kindergarten Scott Race. She was just five years old.
10:54
Speaker 1: It had to be kindergarten right kindergarden. She was walking
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Speaker 1: to kindergarten Iland the elementary right and Scott Race. How
11:01
Speaker 1: far from her home was it to the kindergarten. It
11:05
Speaker 1: was under a mile. It was right there. It was
11:07
Speaker 1: right around the corner. And obviously port Orton was not
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Speaker 1: that far either. And let me just say, Scott Race
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Speaker 1: our friends joining us from Kio, and he's been on
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Speaker 1: this case trying to help get it solved for so long. Scott,
11:20
Speaker 1: I was a latchkey kid. My mom and dad left
11:22
Speaker 1: before I even woke up in the morning, and we
11:25
Speaker 1: walked home from school let ourselves in. If we couldn't
11:28
Speaker 1: find the key, we had to pick the lock and
11:30
Speaker 1: get in the house ourselves, or crawling a window. That
11:33
Speaker 1: happened a couple of times. So you know, I'm not
11:36
Speaker 1: gonna blame the parents, but it's easy to point the
11:40
Speaker 1: finger at parents for letting a five year old little
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Speaker 1: girl walk alone to school. It brings to mind a
11:50
Speaker 1: little boy now famous Aton Pats taking us and our
11:55
Speaker 1: friends at CBS Warriors Before. Did Karen Start joining me
12:09
Speaker 1: from Manhattan where the Aton Pat's case seemingly just took over, Cheryl.
12:16
Speaker 1: Wasn't he the first child ever put on a milkbox? Yes? Absolutely, yeah,
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Speaker 1: Karen Start, that has been a cloud over New York
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Speaker 1: City forever. And remember, Karen, that was the first day
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Speaker 1: they had practiced and practice him walking to school in
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Speaker 1: New York City. It would be over my cold dead
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Speaker 1: body that I'd let the children go anywhere in New
12:34
Speaker 1: York City, but right now with this crime wave, it's insane.
12:38
Speaker 1: But they practiced and practice for him to walk a
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Speaker 1: couple of blocks. He wanted to be independent to school.
12:44
Speaker 1: They let him do it. First day, as I recall,
12:48
Speaker 1: he was kidnapped, sex tortured and murdered. That's correct. Fancy,
12:52
Speaker 1: I'm watching those days. It was a long time ago.
12:55
Speaker 1: And I remember, like dad, that I could walk to
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Speaker 1: school and come home to school by my stuff when
13:00
Speaker 1: I was really young, growing up in New York, and
13:04
Speaker 1: it used a different time. People were not aware if
13:08
Speaker 1: they are now. There wasn't the same kind of media coverage. Well,
13:12
Speaker 1: I don't know, Karen, start we keep saying it was
13:14
Speaker 1: a different time. It was okay, then this little girl
13:17
Speaker 1: we're talking about and saying, fam that was a long
13:21
Speaker 1: time ago. Yeah, And bottom line, I don't know that
13:24
Speaker 1: it is different. We took my brother or sister or
13:28
Speaker 1: I would take the school bus to school because we
13:31
Speaker 1: were the last pickup before the school, you know, less
13:36
Speaker 1: than two miles to the school, and then we would
13:40
Speaker 1: be the last to get dropped off, so we would
13:42
Speaker 1: have been on the bus for like an hour. And
13:44
Speaker 1: a half before we get home, so we would walk
13:47
Speaker 1: home from school. We did that every day. We always
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Speaker 1: walked in the pack. All the neighbor children went to
13:54
Speaker 1: the same public school, so there was safety in numbers.
13:58
Speaker 1: It's easy to boy the parent. And let me tell
14:02
Speaker 1: you something. Darryll Cohen. Daryl Cohen was a felony prosecutor
14:06
Speaker 1: in the same office as I prosecuted. He is now
14:09
Speaker 1: a high profile civil attorney and defense attorney. Darryl joining
14:14
Speaker 1: us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. You have seen my children.
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Speaker 1: There is no way in h e double l even
14:22
Speaker 1: now that I would let my daughter go and walk
14:27
Speaker 1: by herself. I pretend to let her, but I carefully
14:31
Speaker 1: follow at a distance and a very You know if
14:35
Speaker 1: you knew the maneuverings I go through trying to make
14:39
Speaker 1: sure Lucy is safe without her knowing. Oh, dear Lord Daryl,
14:43
Speaker 1: But I've got people like Anne in my mind, a
14:46
Speaker 1: little five year old Anne, Nancy. I always have these
14:49
Speaker 1: things in my mind. And as you know, I have
14:52
Speaker 1: three daughters. They're all older now. The youngest is twenty.
14:55
Speaker 1: But I am beautiful and one. I will work for
14:58
Speaker 1: you for a while. And I tell I'm always never
15:01
Speaker 1: by yourself, Always have your head on a swivel. Now, yes,
15:05
Speaker 1: it's easy to blame these parents from so many years ago,
15:08
Speaker 1: and in some ways they are culpable because they didn't
15:11
Speaker 1: take care of their child the way they should have.
15:14
Speaker 1: Five year old little girl. Oh, I would never another
15:17
Speaker 1: fifteen year old of that. But having said that all
15:21
Speaker 1: the time, all the time, you can't say that this
15:26
Speaker 1: evil human being who did this to this child would
15:29
Speaker 1: not have done it to someone else. Unfortunately, he found
15:32
Speaker 1: a way to do it to her. You know, Daryl Cohen,
15:36
Speaker 1: as I've always had to tell juries, you may resent
15:40
Speaker 1: the parents for this, and they may be wrong, but
15:43
Speaker 1: they're not the ones that rate and murdered a five
15:46
Speaker 1: year old little girl then, who had hid her body
15:49
Speaker 1: in the bushes to rot. That's the truth, guys. For
15:54
Speaker 1: those of you just joining us, we're talking about I
15:56
Speaker 1: mean a gorgeous little girl, five year old and saying
16:01
Speaker 1: fam walks on a rainy California morning in January to
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Speaker 1: kindergarten and she has never seen alive again. Scott Ray's
16:12
Speaker 1: joining me, Kio and forty six tell me how her
16:16
Speaker 1: body was found. It was found two days later after
16:21
Speaker 1: she was reported missing and it was found their right
16:26
Speaker 1: near forward and uh, you know, talking to the police
16:31
Speaker 1: seat there and see thought about it. She was strangled, murdered, raped.
16:37
Speaker 1: It was just a horrific scene for the investigators at
16:40
Speaker 1: the time. And it was right there near that for
16:43
Speaker 1: ord base, that base since his closed closed in nineteen
16:46
Speaker 1: ninety four. But that's what investigators stumbled upon two days
16:50
Speaker 1: after she was reported missing. Agency Dartner. Michelde pre joining
16:53
Speaker 1: me forensic pathologist, former medical examiner and detective and she
16:58
Speaker 1: is the author of Homicide Investigation Field Guide and importantly
17:03
Speaker 1: Investigating Child Abuse Field Guide. Got to dupri thank you
17:08
Speaker 1: as always for joining us. How can you look at
17:11
Speaker 1: this child's body? And number one, till she was strangled.
17:15
Speaker 1: We always examine the body for any type of injuries,
17:18
Speaker 1: and so there may be actual physical marks around the neck.
17:22
Speaker 1: And then of course when we do an autopsy examination,
17:24
Speaker 1: we look at the soft tissue and when there is
17:27
Speaker 1: blood in the soft tissue, that's where it shouldn't be
17:30
Speaker 1: and that indicates enough pressure or strangulation to have caused
17:34
Speaker 1: the blood to come out of the vessels into that
17:36
Speaker 1: soft tissue around the neck, indicating strangulation. We also often
17:40
Speaker 1: look at something called a highowoid bone, which is a
17:43
Speaker 1: small bone in the neck but oftentimes is fractured or
17:46
Speaker 1: broken when there is a strangulation, where exactly as the highoid,
17:49
Speaker 1: the highwaid is right in the middle of your neck.
17:51
Speaker 1: If you look at sort of your atoms apple, it's
17:53
Speaker 1: very near there. It's a C shaped bone. It is
17:56
Speaker 1: the only bone in the body that doesn't articulate or
18:00
Speaker 1: that up against another bone. And it's very fragile. When
18:02
Speaker 1: you say is very fragile, How would you describe it
18:06
Speaker 1: if you looked at the hyoid bone? What does it
18:08
Speaker 1: look like? And how delicate is it? It looks like
18:11
Speaker 1: it's a C shaped sort of a backward C shape,
18:14
Speaker 1: and it has two we call them horns or a
18:18
Speaker 1: little separate pieces that are attached. It's squeezeable, you can
18:22
Speaker 1: actually squeeze it. It's flexible, and so that when it's broken,
18:26
Speaker 1: there was again significant pressure to break that bone because
18:29
Speaker 1: it is a flexible bone. How delicate is it compared
18:32
Speaker 1: to something? For me? What does it look like? Is
18:34
Speaker 1: it the size of a drinking straw? Is it like
18:37
Speaker 1: dental floss? I mean? How big is it a toothpick.
18:40
Speaker 1: It's a little bit larger than a toothpick, maybe two
18:42
Speaker 1: toothpicks together or so, it's about that width, and again
18:46
Speaker 1: about the size a little bit larger than a quarter
18:48
Speaker 1: and a child this age. Okay, let me think, Let
18:51
Speaker 1: me think, so, Cheryl, help me out. Here is the
18:54
Speaker 1: size of the thickness of two toothpicks put together. It's
18:58
Speaker 1: in the shape of a sea. But you also said backwards.
19:03
Speaker 1: So the two prongs of the sea, doctor dupree, are
19:07
Speaker 1: they facing your back or your front? Okay, so you've
19:11
Speaker 1: got the two prongs of the sea, and you're saying
19:13
Speaker 1: it's right behind, above or below the Adam's apple. Well,
19:18
Speaker 1: it's right at the level about of the atoms apple.
19:20
Speaker 1: Is it in front of the Adams apple or is
19:22
Speaker 1: it behind the Adams apple? No, it's above it, a
19:24
Speaker 1: bit a little bit above it. Right. So would you
19:27
Speaker 1: be able to feel it if you were touching above
19:29
Speaker 1: your atoms apple? No, you cannot feel it. Okay, why
19:33
Speaker 1: is it there? I don't know the answer that question.
19:35
Speaker 1: But what does it do? It doesn't really do anything,
19:38
Speaker 1: but I know, but I can tell you this. I
19:40
Speaker 1: know one thing it does. It tells me Sharyl McCollum
19:42
Speaker 1: if somebody's been strangled, because if that delicate little highoid
19:47
Speaker 1: bone it's fractured or broken, I know enough pressure was
19:52
Speaker 1: put upon it, and we hear about it a lot.
19:55
Speaker 1: Many people believe the highoid is down at the base
19:58
Speaker 1: of your neck where a necklace would rest. It's not.
20:03
Speaker 1: It's up higher. And the significance of that share why
20:06
Speaker 1: that's so important to know where it is, is that
20:08
Speaker 1: when you were strangled, that is where the finger marks
20:12
Speaker 1: would be exactly right there. That's about where you're thumbed
20:16
Speaker 1: going to hit so that bone, you know. Whereas it
20:19
Speaker 1: may not serve a medical purpose that we know of,
20:22
Speaker 1: it certainly serves a forensic one. And it's one of
20:25
Speaker 1: the best indicators we have of somebody being strangled. Guys,
20:30
Speaker 1: what happened to this little girl? Take a listen to this.
20:33
Speaker 1: Any fam of Seaside was just five years old when
20:36
Speaker 1: she disappeared on her way to school more than four
20:39
Speaker 1: decades ago. You cannot find a case that's more traumatic
20:42
Speaker 1: than this. We're talking about a five year old girl
20:44
Speaker 1: who was walking to school to go to kindergarten. I
20:48
Speaker 1: was kidnapped, specially assaulted and smothered to death and then
20:51
Speaker 1: thrown on the side of the street in the former
20:54
Speaker 1: four door property as though she was trashed. But then
20:57
Speaker 1: as the years pass, the case goes cold. Even with
21:02
Speaker 1: DNA from the perpetrator, DNA from the little girl, the
21:07
Speaker 1: five year old girl, and doctor dupri how do you
21:09
Speaker 1: extract the rapist, the murderer's DNA off the little girl's body.
21:14
Speaker 1: We look at places where it's most likely to be.
21:16
Speaker 1: We can also use something called an alternate light source
21:20
Speaker 1: where different bodily fluids reflect at different collars, and we
21:24
Speaker 1: know better swab, so we'll take a swab of that
21:27
Speaker 1: material and run it for the DNA. Guys. Take a
21:30
Speaker 1: listen to our cut one, our friend Veronica macsk io
21:35
Speaker 1: n Well. Now to a story that has said in
21:37
Speaker 1: so many for so many years. In the city of Seaside,
21:40
Speaker 1: a family who fled Vietnam arrived a Seaside in the
21:43
Speaker 1: mid seventies full of hope and new beginnings, only to
21:46
Speaker 1: have their dreams shattered police. It's very unusual for a
21:50
Speaker 1: child to be abducted and then nobody see anything. Forty
21:53
Speaker 1: years later, investigators still have hope that someone can give
21:56
Speaker 1: them that missing piece of information that will help solve this.
21:59
Speaker 1: K Any Fam was described as a shy and very
22:03
Speaker 1: responsible young girl. She dressed herself and was allowed to
22:07
Speaker 1: walk to school three blocks away to Highland Elementary, all alone.
22:11
Speaker 1: On the morning of January twenty first, nineteen eighty two.
22:14
Speaker 1: Seaside police say that Fam waited for the rain to
22:17
Speaker 1: stop before heading out to school. The five year old
22:20
Speaker 1: walked out her door here along Sonoma Avenue that day,
22:23
Speaker 1: and it's believed that she was abducted somewhere near this
22:26
Speaker 1: neighborhood market because she never made it to her school
22:29
Speaker 1: just a few blocks up the road here, so something
22:33
Speaker 1: very bad happened between her making a right turn from
22:36
Speaker 1: her house on the way up the zover. But then
22:38
Speaker 1: a major break in the case, to Scott Rice joining
22:42
Speaker 1: me KO n forty six, the case was reopened. Why so,
22:48
Speaker 1: the Monterey County District Attorney formed a new DNA task
22:53
Speaker 1: force in twenty twenty, and that's when they started to
22:56
Speaker 1: open up some of these cold cases. There's currently over
22:58
Speaker 1: four hundred cold cases in Monterey County right now. They
23:02
Speaker 1: started looking at all of them, including the case of
23:05
Speaker 1: little Annie Fam, and that's something started to connect the
23:07
Speaker 1: dots Bronkamasius. Our main anchor did that report, shedding new
23:12
Speaker 1: light on it in January, and then that leads us
23:15
Speaker 1: to where we are now with this major break in
23:17
Speaker 1: the case. NA. So you guys start stirring it up
23:20
Speaker 1: at kio N and then take a listen to our
23:24
Speaker 1: cut six, our Frandfield all Ridge. Today we have justice
23:27
Speaker 1: for this little girl. It's an incredible feeling. It's a
23:30
Speaker 1: great day for Seaside, It's a great day for our county.
23:33
Speaker 1: It's a great day for everyone. I mean, this little
23:36
Speaker 1: girl finally has justice. She had no justice for forty
23:39
Speaker 1: plus years and today she does. Case closed. Good job, guys,
23:43
Speaker 1: investigators A Tata Warren for the news. Arrest that was
23:47
Speaker 1: on Wednesday. He's now in custody in Nevada pending extradition
23:50
Speaker 1: back to California. He charges one count of first degree
23:53
Speaker 1: murder with allegations of kidnapping and lud X of a
23:56
Speaker 1: child under fourteen. Now to special guests joining us. Doctor
24:01
Speaker 1: Ed Green, the founder of Asked Your Forensics, professor of
24:04
Speaker 1: Biomolectual or Engineering University, California, Santa Cruz. You can find
24:09
Speaker 1: him at Astria Forensics dot com. Doctor Green no offense
24:15
Speaker 1: to the other guests, but saving the best for a
24:17
Speaker 1: last How was the case cracked? Well, we played a
24:22
Speaker 1: part in that that I'm happy to discuss, but the
24:27
Speaker 1: bigger role is the police work that was done, and
24:31
Speaker 1: the detective Bill Clark who got us involved, was extremely instrumental.
24:39
Speaker 1: I want to be clear about you know what we
24:42
Speaker 1: did do and what we didn't do. And um, we
24:45
Speaker 1: did some exciting DNA work that would love to describe
24:48
Speaker 1: to you, but that is a small piece of the puzzle,
24:53
Speaker 1: a little cog and a bigger machine, most of which
24:56
Speaker 1: we don't see. We just do this. This new DNA
24:59
Speaker 1: work can that as I understand it was able to
25:03
Speaker 1: generate some leads and is some good evidence that helps
25:08
Speaker 1: a jump start the case and ultimately identify a subject
25:12
Speaker 1: that they feel pretty good about. And so that that's
25:16
Speaker 1: the big story. The our involvement in this began when
25:21
Speaker 1: m Detective Clark contacted us and said that they had
25:26
Speaker 1: piece of evidence forensics evidence of a rootless hair. Our technology,
25:32
Speaker 1: at astray of forensics, is new technology that can extract
25:38
Speaker 1: DNA from rootless hair, which for a long time was
25:41
Speaker 1: thought to not be a good source for DNA For
25:45
Speaker 1: the miochondrial DNA. Well, that is the conventional wisdom that
25:50
Speaker 1: one can only get mitochondrial DNA from rootless hair, and
25:56
Speaker 1: it turns out in a bit of a giant face palm.
26:00
Speaker 1: I guess for forensic science that there's plenty of nuclear
26:04
Speaker 1: DNA in rootless hair. It's just that it exists in
26:08
Speaker 1: fragments that are too short for the assay that is
26:12
Speaker 1: commonly done in DNA based forensics, which is amplification of
26:16
Speaker 1: codas markers or str markers. In the field of forensics, generally,
26:20
Speaker 1: when someone says they made a DNA fingerprint or a
26:24
Speaker 1: DNA profile or a genetic profile, what they mean is
26:28
Speaker 1: they assayed these sixteen specific positions in the genome that
26:35
Speaker 1: vary in their length, and then you can compare this
26:37
Speaker 1: to the CODIS database of this specific genetic profile and
26:42
Speaker 1: ask is there's somebody in this database or not? And
26:45
Speaker 1: if there is, great, you've got your bad guy in
26:48
Speaker 1: the case is over. And if not, you really didn't
26:51
Speaker 1: learn anything other than your bad guys not in that database.
26:55
Speaker 1: What we are doing now the DNA, the fragments that
26:58
Speaker 1: are in rootless hair shafts, even as they sit on
27:01
Speaker 1: your head right now they're too short, they're too small
27:06
Speaker 1: to be useful for that assay. They can't be amplified.
27:10
Speaker 1: The regions that that assay is looking for requires DNA
27:14
Speaker 1: that's two hundred base pairs are so long, two hundred
27:18
Speaker 1: stretches of ACGNT and the fragments that are in rootless
27:22
Speaker 1: hair shafts are about fifty base pairs long. So all
27:26
Speaker 1: the many times that this assay has been tried from
27:29
Speaker 1: DNA extracted from rootless hair, you see nothing. The assay fails,
27:34
Speaker 1: and the general conclusion has been that there's no DNA,
27:38
Speaker 1: no nuclear DNA in rootless hair, and it's simply not true.
27:43
Speaker 1: There is, it's just present and very short fragments. An
27:48
Speaker 1: assay is just something that you would you would do,
27:51
Speaker 1: a test that you would do, so you might have
27:54
Speaker 1: an assay for strep throat, or an assay for you know,
27:58
Speaker 1: cognitive ability, or an assay for any thing, a test
28:00
Speaker 1: that you would do to measure something. The assay that
28:05
Speaker 1: is normally done in DNA based forensics is this str
28:09
Speaker 1: amplification to get a CODAS profile. So in this case,
28:14
Speaker 1: to you, Cheryl McCollum, they did get a CODAS profile
28:18
Speaker 1: based on the ACG and T and running the test
28:25
Speaker 1: over and over and determined what Cheryl determined who's going
28:30
Speaker 1: to be responsible for this case. So once they get
28:33
Speaker 1: that profile and they run it more than once. Is
28:36
Speaker 1: to show you know cousins, is to show you know
28:40
Speaker 1: close relationships or that specific person. Here's a good example
28:44
Speaker 1: that everybody can relate to the Golden State Killer, rapist
28:49
Speaker 1: and killer Dangelo. Somehow the cops got DNA off one
28:57
Speaker 1: of the bodies, and it's very difficult, like in a
28:59
Speaker 1: case here with five year old Anne. Her body's been
29:02
Speaker 1: laying out in the rain in the elements for several days,
29:06
Speaker 1: but a great medical examer like you, doctor Dupree, managed
29:09
Speaker 1: to get some DNA, some DNA probably left there like
29:13
Speaker 1: sperm when he raped this little girl. Years later. They
29:20
Speaker 1: use the technology that doctor ed Green is telling us about.
29:24
Speaker 1: Asked your forensics specifically, and as in the Golden State
29:28
Speaker 1: killer case, you don't get the actual person. You get
29:33
Speaker 1: a family tree and then you start going down, down, down,
29:37
Speaker 1: down down. Who related to this family tree lives in
29:41
Speaker 1: the area, who was there at the time. Long story short.
29:45
Speaker 1: Scott Rates, who was ultimately arrested in the murder of
29:49
Speaker 1: Anne They ultimately arrested Arena resident seventy year old man
29:53
Speaker 1: John Leneux, and he had been on parole for crimes
29:58
Speaker 1: against children and right now they're waiting to bring him
30:01
Speaker 1: back to Monterey County to answer for the crime. Here wait,
30:04
Speaker 1: he was already on parole for crimes against children. He
30:09
Speaker 1: was Okay, what can you tell me about this guy, Scott.
30:12
Speaker 1: We don't know much about him. We did talk to
30:15
Speaker 1: him and who said that he was his brother yesterday
30:19
Speaker 1: and this guy was very remorseful to the family and
30:22
Speaker 1: to the friends into the community. But we don't know
30:26
Speaker 1: much about him other than he's been living in Reno
30:28
Speaker 1: and you know, he's on parole all these years. He's
30:32
Speaker 1: been hiding and playing site time stories with Nancy Grace. Guys,
30:53
Speaker 1: how did it happen? In addition to awesome police work,
30:57
Speaker 1: that doctor ed grain At asked your friends was so
31:01
Speaker 1: kind enough to point out, you know, I really respect
31:04
Speaker 1: that doctor not hogging all the credit and saying, look
31:08
Speaker 1: what all the police did. When h you guys, ask
31:11
Speaker 1: your forensics that manage to perform all these highly highly
31:16
Speaker 1: innovative DNA testing. Nancy, you flatter me that this is
31:21
Speaker 1: you know, a very nice to hear, and we're very
31:24
Speaker 1: proud of the technology. But the just to point out
31:28
Speaker 1: what we do when we get this DNA out and
31:32
Speaker 1: develop a genotype file similar to what you would get
31:35
Speaker 1: from like twenty three and meter ancestry. The we then
31:40
Speaker 1: hand that over to the police and they build out
31:44
Speaker 1: the family trees and they do this investigative work to
31:49
Speaker 1: develop suspects, and eventually they came with a suspect and
31:55
Speaker 1: compelled to DNA sample, and we were able to compare
31:58
Speaker 1: that then directly. So there are actually two stages. The
32:02
Speaker 1: first stage is to find the relatives, find the cousins
32:06
Speaker 1: and do the police work and the investigative work. And
32:09
Speaker 1: then once they were able to find someone who they
32:14
Speaker 1: know with evidence that I can't be privy to compeled
32:20
Speaker 1: to DNA sample, we could then do another analysis, another
32:25
Speaker 1: comparison now where we're not searching a database trying to
32:28
Speaker 1: find relatives, but we're doing a direct comparive comparison. Now,
32:32
Speaker 1: you said you compel a suspect, in other words, you
32:35
Speaker 1: get a search warrant. And now under the constitution, Darryl Cohen,
32:40
Speaker 1: a target a suspect cannot be forced to give a statement,
32:45
Speaker 1: all right, or it's thrown out if they were forced,
32:48
Speaker 1: if they weren't given their rights. But with a search warrant,
32:52
Speaker 1: you can compel a target, a suspect to give DNA.
32:57
Speaker 1: And it's very simple. You either give a sample or
33:01
Speaker 1: you get a bugle swab which is a really long
33:04
Speaker 1: que tip and think of a COVID test except in
33:08
Speaker 1: your mouth, and you get saliva. That's the DNA right there.
33:13
Speaker 1: So the state can compel, as doctor Green pointed out,
33:17
Speaker 1: a defendant to submit to a DNA test and that
33:22
Speaker 1: defendant is giving a statement against him or herself blah
33:26
Speaker 1: blah blah, or the person, and that's say should be
33:30
Speaker 1: blah blah blah nothing. That's exactly what it should be
33:33
Speaker 1: if they're giving a DNA and it matches. And by
33:36
Speaker 1: the way, what are the odds it's the wrong DNA?
33:40
Speaker 1: I please, doctor ed Green, these numbers are like one
33:42
Speaker 1: in four hundred billion that you have the wrong person.
33:46
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not going to happen, that's right, Well
33:49
Speaker 1: higher than that. Please tell me and make sure that
33:52
Speaker 1: Darryl Cohen hears this well. I've recently learned from Cohen
33:56
Speaker 1: that DNA stands for does not apply, but that aside,
34:02
Speaker 1: the match probabilities are very easy to calculate in this case,
34:07
Speaker 1: and there are numbers that would make astronomer's blush. They're
34:11
Speaker 1: in the hundreds of trillions, one in hundreds of trillions.
34:14
Speaker 1: But what we're able to do is now compare at
34:19
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of positions across the genome, because with
34:24
Speaker 1: this new technology, we're not just looking at codus markers
34:27
Speaker 1: where the numbers were already astronomical. Give me a figure
34:32
Speaker 1: like one in how many over one hundred trillion? Oh,
34:36
Speaker 1: dear Lord in Heaven. Okay, Darrel Cohen, good luck arguing
34:39
Speaker 1: DNA DEOXYI bony clay acid really stands for does not apply.
34:43
Speaker 1: But I will tell you funny story. Cheryl mccolloughy may
34:45
Speaker 1: have been in the courtroom when this happened. I can't remember.
34:48
Speaker 1: I was trying one of my well, my very first
34:50
Speaker 1: DNA case, because prior to this, I'd have to prove
34:53
Speaker 1: ripe and murder without DNA. We didn't have it, So
34:58
Speaker 1: I was all about DNA and I went to the
35:01
Speaker 1: crime lab and insisted the scientist who gave me a
35:04
Speaker 1: sideways Harry Eyeball look said it wasn't a good idea,
35:08
Speaker 1: of course, any better. I insisted they bring the slide
35:12
Speaker 1: of the DNA and show them to the jury. Cheryl,
35:16
Speaker 1: it looked like a big poster of undeveloped film with
35:19
Speaker 1: a lot of little dots on it. I took, well,
35:21
Speaker 1: look at it. I'm like, thank you, and immediately took
35:24
Speaker 1: it down and I'm like, please, jury, do not remember that,
35:29
Speaker 1: because if you look at it, unless you know what
35:32
Speaker 1: you're looking at, you know, think of an ultrasound or
35:35
Speaker 1: a sonogram. Unless you know what you're looking at, it
35:38
Speaker 1: just looks black. It's like a black screen with squiggles.
35:41
Speaker 1: It means nothing, but to the trained eye, it means everything.
35:46
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about DNA's highly highly technical, and
35:50
Speaker 1: you've got to have somebody like Ed Green to break
35:54
Speaker 1: it down in a way that even I or a
35:57
Speaker 1: jury could understand it. Right, you're right, Nancy, but let's
36:00
Speaker 1: break it down even more. Oh, dear, go ahead. When
36:03
Speaker 1: that comes back to a suspect, you can then place
36:06
Speaker 1: that suspect in that area. You mayn't like an army
36:09
Speaker 1: sargeant station at Fort Ord when Anne was murdered, order
36:13
Speaker 1: like that sort of something like that. You got him
36:17
Speaker 1: in the right age bracket. You got him in the
36:20
Speaker 1: right race. You've got him in in this case, he's
36:23
Speaker 1: got a background in sexual assault. I mean, convicted child molester.
36:28
Speaker 1: What the hey was he doing in the army? Can
36:30
Speaker 1: somebody answer that? Hayden move and you got a conviction
36:34
Speaker 1: for child molestation? And how did he get in the
36:37
Speaker 1: army a convicted child molester out on parole stationed at
36:42
Speaker 1: Fort Ord. Wow, I mean it's like taking out a
36:46
Speaker 1: knee on sign. Arrest me, Cheryl. It's horrible, Nancy. But
36:51
Speaker 1: again they did get him. He did twenty years in prison.
36:55
Speaker 1: The sad thing is if he had been caught earlier,
36:57
Speaker 1: that second you know crime that we know of WNA happened.
37:00
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our friend Veronica mass at Kio
37:04
Speaker 1: in forty six r cut four forty years ago, a
37:07
Speaker 1: little girl disappeared on her way to school and she
37:10
Speaker 1: was walking to kindergarten at Highland Elementary School. That was
37:13
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty two when she vanished. Her body, though,
37:17
Speaker 1: was discovered at ford Ord, but her killer was never found.
37:21
Speaker 1: Little Annie fam was described as a shy, sensitive girl.
37:26
Speaker 1: She was so responsible that her mother allowed her to
37:29
Speaker 1: walk to school alone. Her body was found two days
37:32
Speaker 1: after she disappeared in the former Ford Ord area, and
37:35
Speaker 1: investigators say she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.
37:40
Speaker 1: The case was being investigated by Seaside PD and the
37:43
Speaker 1: FBI when it went cold. However, new leaves have now
37:47
Speaker 1: surfaced which led them to reopen this case. Seaside Police
37:51
Speaker 1: are announcing a partnership with Monterey County District Attorney's Office
37:55
Speaker 1: their Cold Case Task Force, So if anyone has information
37:59
Speaker 1: that can help, you're asked to contact CSA police. It
38:03
Speaker 1: was appeals like that one that led to the ultimate
38:08
Speaker 1: arrest of this pos technical legal term Robert Leneux now
38:14
Speaker 1: seventy then twenty nine. Turns out he was a sergeant
38:19
Speaker 1: in the Army stationed at Fort Ord, whereas where five
38:24
Speaker 1: year old little Anne's body was hidden at the time.
38:30
Speaker 1: Now in retrospect, that looks like an easy, easy puzzle
38:34
Speaker 1: to solve, but not always true. If it had not
38:38
Speaker 1: been for that partnership you just heard our fens at
38:41
Speaker 1: KIO and discussing this case would never have been solved.
38:46
Speaker 1: And there's nothing more heartbreaking, Well, there are very few
38:50
Speaker 1: things more heartbreaking, Karen start than a family who has
38:56
Speaker 1: blamed themselves for forty years for them of their five
39:01
Speaker 1: year old child, but now have at least an answer.
39:05
Speaker 1: They have been Lenswer though though I'll never really get
39:07
Speaker 1: over it, man suggest the us of the child to
39:10
Speaker 1: begin with, and devastating something that it's always with you.
39:15
Speaker 1: And then you think about the circumstances and the guilt
39:20
Speaker 1: that they have for having allowed her to walk to school,
39:24
Speaker 1: even though they're not to blame. I can't imagine that
39:28
Speaker 1: this is something that they don't live with every day
39:31
Speaker 1: to Scott Race, joining US News director and anchor Kio
39:35
Speaker 1: n forty six, who played a really big role in
39:39
Speaker 1: helping bring awareness to the mystery of five year old
39:44
Speaker 1: and disappearance and murder. What next for this poc another
39:50
Speaker 1: technical legal term, Robert LENEU. Next for him is to
39:54
Speaker 1: come back here to Monterey County and the district attorney here,
39:59
Speaker 1: the prosecutor, and she's you know, I've been talking to her,
40:03
Speaker 1: Jenny Pacciani, and she says, you're going to prosecute to
40:06
Speaker 1: the full extent and they're going to lay out all
40:08
Speaker 1: the evidence. So that's that's what's next. It's going to
40:09
Speaker 1: be a process and it's going to be You know
40:11
Speaker 1: it's going to take some time, but that's the next
40:14
Speaker 1: steps for for for the suspect her Fancy. You know,
40:17
Speaker 1: many people would argue he's too old for the death penalty,
40:20
Speaker 1: but isn't it also true conversely that five year old
40:25
Speaker 1: Anne was too young for the death penalty. We waite
40:31
Speaker 1: as justice and falls Fancy Grace Crime Stories, signing off, Goodbye,
40:36
Speaker 1: Frien