Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Aspiring Model Raped, Murdered, Body Discarded Behind Warehouse

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Aspiring Model Raped, Murdered, Body Discarded Behind Warehouse · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, a gorgeous young girl, an
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Speaker 1: aspiring model, takes a bus and has never seen alive again.
0:23
Speaker 1: What happened to Mary Jane Thompson. I mean, I see
0:27
Speaker 1: Grace and this is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
0:30
Speaker 1: with us here at Fox Nation and Serious X one eleven.
0:34
Speaker 1: I hate that never seen alive again, and it brings
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Speaker 1: to mind the stark dichotomy of us going through our
0:45
Speaker 1: regular lives. I'm sitting here at this microphone. You're somewhere
0:49
Speaker 1: on your device, watching or listening. Got Jackie Media here
0:54
Speaker 1: in the studio with me. Everything's normal, tick tick, and
0:59
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, it's not all of a sudden.
1:04
Speaker 1: It will never be the same again. I've lived through
1:08
Speaker 1: that with the death of my fiancee, his murder. I'm
1:13
Speaker 1: thinking about this young girl, she's twenty one, beautiful on
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Speaker 1: the inside and the outside. That's rare, going about her life,
1:25
Speaker 1: hopping on a bus, and then she's never seen alive again.
1:35
Speaker 1: With me and All Star panel to make sense of
1:37
Speaker 1: what we know. First of all, Matthew Mangino, renowned attorney,
1:41
Speaker 1: former prosecutor, author of The Executioners, told doctor Angela Arnold
1:47
Speaker 1: esteem psychiatrists joining us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction and
1:50
Speaker 1: you can find her at Angela Arnold MD dot com.
1:54
Speaker 1: Lisa daddy O, former police lieutenant, and you have IMPD
1:58
Speaker 1: and now the senior lecturer and director for Center for
2:02
Speaker 1: Advanced Policing, doctor Kendall Crowns. We know him well, the
2:07
Speaker 1: chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County. That's Fort Worth again, never
2:12
Speaker 1: a lack of business there. But also Lecture University Texas,
2:17
Speaker 1: Texas A and M Faculty University Texas Medical School. Dave
2:22
Speaker 1: mac joining us on this story for the longest Dave
2:27
Speaker 1: joining us from Crime Online dot com. And a special
2:30
Speaker 1: guest joining us, a genetic genealogist, Shara La Pointe, author
2:37
Speaker 1: of the Gene Hunter, and I'm not talking about the denim.
2:41
Speaker 1: I'm talking about gne the gene Hunter and founder of
2:46
Speaker 1: the gene Hunter dot com. As you can see, this
2:50
Speaker 1: is going to take a village, a lot of people
2:53
Speaker 1: to make sense of what happened to Mary Jane Thompson.
2:56
Speaker 1: But first of you, doctor Angela Arnold, Psychiatrists joining us
2:58
Speaker 1: out of the Atlanta jurisdiction, Doctor Angie. The stark dichotomy,
3:04
Speaker 1: the contrast between this girl hopping on a bus minding
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Speaker 1: your own business. I did it a million times in
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Speaker 1: New York, going from court TV to home, from court
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Speaker 1: TV to a shell in I had a triangle, and
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Speaker 1: I would never think anything about it my my own business.
3:25
Speaker 1: Try to read, if I could, the dichotomy of that
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Speaker 1: moment that's so ordinary, and then suddenly she's never seen again.
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Speaker 1: There's something very jarring about that, doctor Angie. It's very
3:41
Speaker 1: jarring to everyone, because Nancy, we none of us can
3:44
Speaker 1: live our lives in the fear of thinking that every
3:49
Speaker 1: time we go about our daily activities, something could possibly
3:52
Speaker 1: happen to us. And it's only when we're reminded that
3:57
Speaker 1: something could happen like this, so unex expected and out
4:00
Speaker 1: of the ordinary, that we all pause and take a
4:04
Speaker 1: deep breath and think, oh my god, it's so horrendous.
4:09
Speaker 1: Thank god it didn't happen to me. But our minds
4:12
Speaker 1: protect us, and we and we mourn that, and then
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Speaker 1: we go about our daily lives again without being fearful
4:21
Speaker 1: every day. So I am quite sure that this young
4:23
Speaker 1: girl who was just starting off her life never got
4:27
Speaker 1: on and off of her bus with the fear that
4:30
Speaker 1: something that someone was going to take her life to
4:33
Speaker 1: Matthew Mangino joining me, high profile lawyer, former prosecutor. You know,
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Speaker 1: I disagree with a lot of what Dodger Angie just said,
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Speaker 1: because I don't think you always live in fear after
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Speaker 1: case murder, my fiance's murder. I don't live in fear.
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Speaker 1: I just assume there's something really horrible can and will happen,
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Speaker 1: and I'm going to do everything they have on earth
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Speaker 1: to make it not happen. And if it does happen,
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Speaker 1: I will rip the throat out of whoever cost it.
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Speaker 1: So I don't know that I would call that fear.
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Speaker 1: Matthew Mangina, Well, I think you make a good point, Nancy.
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Speaker 1: He said that because I'm angry right now just hearing
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Speaker 1: Dodger Angela Arnill go on. Yes. So I think it's
5:22
Speaker 1: important to recognize that, you know, maybe it's not necessarily fear,
5:28
Speaker 1: but people have generally gone out of their way to
5:33
Speaker 1: protect themselves, and I think that that in some ways
5:36
Speaker 1: has had an impact on crime, because people are extra careful,
5:41
Speaker 1: people take a route that they might normally take if
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Speaker 1: they have to go through a bad neighborhood. I think
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Speaker 1: that people generally have given up some liberty, whether we
5:52
Speaker 1: like it or not, to protect ourselves and to provide
5:55
Speaker 1: ourselves with some security. Now this was back in nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighty four. In crime rates, we're certainly high in the eighties.
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Speaker 1: But you know again, tmomies are high right now, man,
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Speaker 1: GINO go online, man, yes they are. Look, crime rates
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Speaker 1: are skyrocketing and multiple cities across our country. And think
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Speaker 1: about again, I was talking about the dichotomy. Okay, to
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Speaker 1: doctor Angela Arnold. I didn't agree with I didn't disagree
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Speaker 1: with everything you just said, but one thing is especially
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Speaker 1: poignant in that we protect ourselves. And you did say this,
6:30
Speaker 1: so I'm echoing you because sometimes the only way you
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Speaker 1: can go through life, or some people anyway, is to
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Speaker 1: differentiate yourself and your children from all the crime victims.
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Speaker 1: It's not going to happen to me because fill in
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Speaker 1: the blank. I don't get on the interstate, I don't
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Speaker 1: go to bad areas. I don't this. I lock my car,
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Speaker 1: nobody can get in. Nothing's going to happen. I lock
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Speaker 1: my windows, I turn on the alarm. You can fill
6:53
Speaker 1: in any blank you want, with any explanation you want,
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Speaker 1: because some people can't go forward knowing that this bad
7:01
Speaker 1: thing could happen. They have to differentiate themselves from the
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Speaker 1: people that do become crime victims, or they just can't function.
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Speaker 1: But this girl did nothing. She worked at a florist
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Speaker 1: shop for Pete's sake. How dangerous is that? And a restaurant.
7:18
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you, and I think that I
7:20
Speaker 1: think that either I misspoke or I was misunderstood, because
7:24
Speaker 1: I don't believe that people walk around in fear, even
7:28
Speaker 1: with all of the crime that we have right now
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Speaker 1: in all of the different cities where we live. I
7:32
Speaker 1: think you have to suspend the fear. Can I tell
7:35
Speaker 1: you what happened the other night? The other night, I
7:37
Speaker 1: walk around in fear unless something actually happens to you.
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Speaker 1: The other night, my husband where did he have to
7:44
Speaker 1: He had to go somewhere and trust but confirm. I went, sure,
7:50
Speaker 1: enjoy your dinner, and then immediately looked him up on
7:52
Speaker 1: Life through sixty to make sure where he really was.
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Speaker 1: He was there, just so you know. But I thought, wow,
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Speaker 1: let's go out and have dinner. I'll go out and
8:02
Speaker 1: have supper with the twins. So we go out, and
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Speaker 1: of course I had no cash, so I couldn't ask
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Speaker 1: the valet guy to part the car, so I'll let
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Speaker 1: the children off, and at night, in the dark, alone,
8:15
Speaker 1: I go into a parking deck and I against every
8:19
Speaker 1: single thing I put in my book, Don't be a Victim,
8:22
Speaker 1: And I had to guess what park in a canyon?
8:25
Speaker 1: That's what I call parking between two tall SUVs. There
8:28
Speaker 1: was nowhere else I can hardly get in there. So
8:32
Speaker 1: I got in there and I thought, Wow, this is
8:35
Speaker 1: contrary to every single thing I have written in my book.
8:38
Speaker 1: But I did it why because of what you just said.
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Speaker 1: I suspended all logic and continued on without fear, thinking, oh,
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Speaker 1: it's not going to happen to me. It did cross
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Speaker 1: my mind. How long would the twins sit there in
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Speaker 1: the restaurant alone before they figured out Mommy's there? Time?
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Speaker 1: So yes, is that what you're saying? We she used
9:04
Speaker 1: to go forward thinking it's not going to happen to us,
9:07
Speaker 1: or else we can't go forward? Exactly, That is exactly
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Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Dave Matt Who is Mary Jane Thompson
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Speaker 1: twenty one years old? What can you tell me about her?
9:16
Speaker 1: Mary Jane Thompson actually grew up in a suburb of Buffalo,
9:21
Speaker 1: New York called cheek Tawaga. Right after she graduated high school,
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Speaker 1: she took off. Her dream was to be a model,
9:29
Speaker 1: and her sister said that was her dream from being
9:31
Speaker 1: a very little girl that when she was seven, eight
9:33
Speaker 1: nine years old, touching her clothes was a big no no.
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Speaker 1: She was a girly girl who had dreams of being
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Speaker 1: a model. And you mentioned she was a beautiful young woman.
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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, yeah, really really pretty. She leaves the Buffalo
9:47
Speaker 1: area and ends up going to Houston, Los Angeles, and
9:52
Speaker 1: she had moved to Dallas, and she, as you mentioned,
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Speaker 1: she was working at a florist shop and working at
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Speaker 1: a restaurant. So you've got a twenty one year old
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Speaker 1: young woman. She's got a real drive. She wants to
10:02
Speaker 1: be a model. She leaves her family and friends in Buffalo,
10:05
Speaker 1: New York. She's now in Dallas working two jobs making
10:08
Speaker 1: it happen when she hops on a bus to go
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Speaker 1: to a medical clinic for a medical procedure, so she
10:16
Speaker 1: is supporting herself working at a florist shop and a restaurant,
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Speaker 1: takes a bus and again is never saying alive after that.
10:25
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our cut three. This Aliante stuck
10:28
Speaker 1: w GRZ two. Her pictures are everywhere, her memory says
10:32
Speaker 1: for us with the family. Mary Jane Thompson grew up
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Speaker 1: in Cheektowaga. After graduating from Cleveland Hill High School, she
10:39
Speaker 1: moved to Dallas to pursue her dreams. Mary Jane was may.
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Speaker 1: She definitely minded be a model. Even being younger, she
10:47
Speaker 1: was always dressing up. Touching her clothes would be like
10:51
Speaker 1: a no no. On February thirteenth, twenty one year old
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Speaker 1: Mary Jane was going to a clinic for medical treatment
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Speaker 1: when she got the day we clothe and Nancy has
11:01
Speaker 1: taken the bus a bad Crime Stories with Nancy Grace
11:19
Speaker 1: Dave Matt with US Crime online dot Com investigative reporter.
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Speaker 1: So she gets on a bus. Where is this Houston?
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Speaker 1: Actually in Dallas, I'm sorry, Dallas. And she's just going
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Speaker 1: for a minor procedure and a clinic gets there and
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Speaker 1: the clinic is closed. Where is this exactly? It's actually
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Speaker 1: in an area of Dallas that has like it's like
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Speaker 1: a big warehouse district where not everything is full. There
11:45
Speaker 1: are a lot of empty warehouses and things like that.
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Speaker 1: Geographically speaking, when you get there, it doesn't look like
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Speaker 1: it's an abandoned area, Nancy. But there's a lot of
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Speaker 1: inactivity in and around this Trinity Medical Center where back
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Speaker 1: at when this was taking place, understood, I wonder when
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Speaker 1: she was first missed, Dave mac Do we know who
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Speaker 1: missed her first? Oh, we don't because in reality, Nancy,
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Speaker 1: as I mentioned before you, she grew up outside of
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Speaker 1: Buffalo and her she was in contact with her family
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Speaker 1: members and they know when she went to the clinic
12:21
Speaker 1: and in the time since they found out that the
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Speaker 1: clinic was closed and she was headed back to the
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Speaker 1: bus stop to get on a bus to go back home.
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Speaker 1: Two days pass no one realizes this gorgeous young girl
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Speaker 1: is even missing. Take a listen to our friend's w
12:39
Speaker 1: GRZ to Buffalo. On February thirteenth, twenty one year old
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Speaker 1: Mary Jane was going to a clinic for medical treatment.
12:47
Speaker 1: When she got there, they were closed and Dan she
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Speaker 1: was taken the bus back and that's very crack to
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Speaker 1: a bus stop. Two days later, Mary Jean's body was
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Speaker 1: found behind a Dallas warehouse. She'd been sexually assaulted and
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Speaker 1: murdered unerving Boulevard. To Dave Matt Crime online dot Com
13:04
Speaker 1: investigative reporter. So two days pass, nobody really even I guess,
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Speaker 1: notices she's missing or knows she's missing. Do they just
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Speaker 1: find her body? That's what police are saying. Her body
13:20
Speaker 1: was found and as I mented, it was behind an
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Speaker 1: empty warehouse. Nancy, So you've got an area that at
13:27
Speaker 1: one point in time had been very active, now not
13:30
Speaker 1: so much so the body was there for two days,
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Speaker 1: joining me, Doctor Kendall Crowns, Chief Medical Examiner, Tyrant County.
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Speaker 1: That is in Texas, Doctor Kendall Crowns. Mary Jane goes missing,
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Speaker 1: her body found in the middle of February. What's the
13:49
Speaker 1: temperature in mid February they're in Texas currently in the
13:54
Speaker 1: Fort Worth area, it is around thirty degrees and sleeting
14:00
Speaker 1: thirty degrees and sleading. We've pulled up the year and
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Speaker 1: the date Mary Jane's murder and most of the evidence
14:10
Speaker 1: reveals it was around forty degrees. You're saying it's lower
14:14
Speaker 1: than that and sleading her body lies there? And how
14:19
Speaker 1: was she killed? Dave mac She was strangled with her
14:22
Speaker 1: own leg warmers, Nancy. That reminds me of Seandre Levy,
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Speaker 1: the Washington intern who goes missing and years pass and
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Speaker 1: her remains are found at Rock Creek Park and she
14:40
Speaker 1: was strangled ligature style with her own leggings, her own tights.
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Speaker 1: Same thing here, Doctor Kendall crowns the fact that her
14:53
Speaker 1: body would have been in the elements at that temperature,
14:58
Speaker 1: what would you expect to find. So usually with the
15:00
Speaker 1: colder weather, the decomposition rate that is slowed a little bit.
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Speaker 1: But she would probably still have some changes of decomposition
15:09
Speaker 1: consisting of green discoloration, of some bloating and skin slippage,
15:14
Speaker 1: but she wouldn't have any of the insect activity. Okay, well,
15:18
Speaker 1: could you just repeat that slowly? Sure? So at that temperature,
15:22
Speaker 1: her rate of decomposition would be slowed. She wouldn't have
15:27
Speaker 1: a lot of changes, but she would have some green
15:30
Speaker 1: discoloration of her skin, maybe a little skin slippage. But
15:34
Speaker 1: the insect activity that you standardly see with bodies that
15:38
Speaker 1: are outside would be non existent because the flies aren't
15:42
Speaker 1: active in the cold weather. You know that just rolls
15:45
Speaker 1: off the tip of your tongue talking about fly activity.
15:52
Speaker 1: I do it too, because our job we're trying to
15:55
Speaker 1: look at evidence. Mind legal, and you're medical. But when
16:02
Speaker 1: you think about it being a twenty one year old
16:03
Speaker 1: girl who works at a florist shop, and we're talking
16:06
Speaker 1: about fly and insect activity on our body is very
16:10
Speaker 1: upsetting and disconcerting. How would we know, doctor Kendall Crowns,
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Speaker 1: that she was sex assaulted? Usually when someone has been
16:19
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted, there's evidence of injury around the genital regions,
16:24
Speaker 1: usually abrasions and lacerations because the forced penetration. Well, the
16:30
Speaker 1: way you said that, I don't even know you're talking
16:32
Speaker 1: about rape. So you look for tissue tearing and the
16:40
Speaker 1: vaginal and anal area, and you look for seamen sperm.
16:47
Speaker 1: Can I make it any more plain? That would be
16:49
Speaker 1: very accurate and very plain, Nancy. And the reason I
16:53
Speaker 1: break it down is because having dealt with grars for
16:56
Speaker 1: so many years and myself a lot of times would
17:00
Speaker 1: doctors say, I don't know what they said they finished,
17:03
Speaker 1: and it sounds really smart, but it's sometimes hard to
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Speaker 1: interpret no offense, Doctor Kendall Crowns, you're just smarter than
17:09
Speaker 1: all of us, simply put. So you're saying they would
17:13
Speaker 1: have known she was raped or sex assaulted because you
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Speaker 1: would expect to find vaginal or anal tearing or bruising
17:22
Speaker 1: or laceration coupled with the presence of semen sperm? Correct?
17:29
Speaker 1: Is that what you just said? Correct? Lisa Daddy, a
17:31
Speaker 1: former police lieutenant, director of Center for Advanced Policing. Let's
17:36
Speaker 1: just pretend, let's hypothesize the was wearing a rubber Okay,
17:47
Speaker 1: then we wouldn't find sperm, we wouldn't find semen. What
17:53
Speaker 1: if there's any number of ways to sex assault somebody,
17:57
Speaker 1: So if that evidence didn't exist, and because the possible
18:03
Speaker 1: use of a condom, what about she's undressed from the
18:07
Speaker 1: waist down? What about that? So you know you have
18:11
Speaker 1: all these other things to look at that would be
18:14
Speaker 1: indicative of a sexual assault. If you wore a condom,
18:19
Speaker 1: you're still gonna look for DNA that me be left
18:22
Speaker 1: on her, whether or not there's any fingernail scrapings from
18:27
Speaker 1: her that contained the suspects DNA from scratching from defending
18:32
Speaker 1: herself from the attack. You're gonna look at maybe saliva.
18:36
Speaker 1: I'm looking at evidence said there was a sex attack.
18:39
Speaker 1: If I don't have if I don't have simon, how
18:42
Speaker 1: do I know you're gonna look to see if there's
18:44
Speaker 1: any other damage to her vaginal or you're gonna look
18:48
Speaker 1: at her clothing. You're gonna look at whether or not
18:52
Speaker 1: you know, where are her underwear, where are you know,
18:55
Speaker 1: her pants? Well, she had leaguings on, so you know
18:59
Speaker 1: you're gonna look at all that part of it, and
19:01
Speaker 1: you're to see if there's any ripped clothing or anything
19:03
Speaker 1: on the victim that's going to be indicative of a
19:06
Speaker 1: possible sexual assault. You would look at the position of
19:09
Speaker 1: the body. Does it look like she had been raped.
19:12
Speaker 1: We know she was declothed because her leg warmers were
19:17
Speaker 1: tied around her neck, so somewhere along the way she
19:22
Speaker 1: lost her leggings. In my mind, that's enough circumstantial evidence
19:29
Speaker 1: to prove that she was assaulted in some way. For
19:32
Speaker 1: Pete's sake, we heard doctor Kendall crowns State's thirty degrees
19:36
Speaker 1: and sleeping right now in Texas mid February, so in
19:41
Speaker 1: that year, we also know it was very cold. Why
19:45
Speaker 1: else would she take off our leg warmers on the
19:47
Speaker 1: way to the bus for Pete's sake, no reason. I
19:51
Speaker 1: don't need to have somebody tell me two and two
19:53
Speaker 1: equals four. I can figure that out. My only hope
19:58
Speaker 1: is that there could be DNA of some sort, and
20:02
Speaker 1: I want to go back to you, Lisa Daddio, the
20:05
Speaker 1: director of Center Forida Advanced Policing. Even if there's not semen,
20:10
Speaker 1: you mentioned looking under her nails, because I guarantee you
20:15
Speaker 1: she did not have her leggings taken off her body
20:19
Speaker 1: voluntarily on a day that cold, on the way to
20:22
Speaker 1: a bus. That didn't happen. I think she fought. How
20:27
Speaker 1: else could we find evidence, Lisa Daddio, You're gonna look
20:31
Speaker 1: at her fingernail scrapings. You're gonna look at parts of
20:34
Speaker 1: her body where there may be hair fibers, something that
20:38
Speaker 1: connects the suspect to her and her body. There's other
20:43
Speaker 1: types of evidence that can be present on her body
20:46
Speaker 1: or around the area that directly link him to the scene.
20:49
Speaker 1: If we don't have seminal fluid like saliva, hair from him,
20:55
Speaker 1: whether it's pubic hair, chest hair, arm hair, lag hair,
20:59
Speaker 1: head hair, if it contains a follicle, you can get
21:02
Speaker 1: DNA from that. Now you can back then you were
21:04
Speaker 1: not illable too. You mean, if it has a nucleus,
21:07
Speaker 1: you can extract DNA. If you don't have a nucleus,
21:09
Speaker 1: you'll have to stick with mitochondrial DNA that can be
21:12
Speaker 1: extracted from the hair without a nucleus. Yes. Yes. Matthew Mangino,
21:17
Speaker 1: high profile a lawyer joining US and author of the Executioners,
21:21
Speaker 1: told Matthew he ever had a purp that actually shaved
21:27
Speaker 1: his body so he would not leave behind hair. I
21:32
Speaker 1: haven't dealt with that directly, but certainly I am aware
21:37
Speaker 1: of the situations where that was done. Yeah, it's happened,
21:41
Speaker 1: especially with serial rapists. They don't want to get caught
21:45
Speaker 1: and they want to keep on raping and killing. They
21:49
Speaker 1: will remove all the hair from their body from the
21:52
Speaker 1: neck down. They especially in the pubic area, they will
21:57
Speaker 1: wear a condom and very often, even where rubber gloves
22:03
Speaker 1: a sensitive type, they're very thin. Yes, that's right, and
22:08
Speaker 1: so you cannot always expect to find DNA from a
22:12
Speaker 1: crime scene. Would you agree with that, Matthew Mangina, Yes,
22:14
Speaker 1: well I would agree. You're talking Nancy about, you know,
22:19
Speaker 1: a serial rapist. This is someone who's gone to great
22:22
Speaker 1: lengths to to keep his identity from being unveiled, either
22:29
Speaker 1: by pair or by DNA or some other subs. I
22:35
Speaker 1: don't I think that most rapists are acting on impulse
22:41
Speaker 1: and that they're not going through this strategy of how
22:44
Speaker 1: they can hide their identity. Certainly they may be aware
22:48
Speaker 1: that they don't want to be caught, but but often
22:51
Speaker 1: it's it's an opportunity. Here. Here's an attractive young woman
22:54
Speaker 1: walking in a neighborhood by herself, and somebody comes along
22:58
Speaker 1: and grabs her off the street and sexually assaults here,
23:01
Speaker 1: and none figures well. I gues my only way of
23:04
Speaker 1: not getting caught here is to kill her so she
23:07
Speaker 1: can identify. And I think that's more likely the circumstance
23:12
Speaker 1: in this case. Matthew Maino, I think you're absolutely correct.
23:17
Speaker 1: We watch a lot of crime stories and movies and streaming.
23:23
Speaker 1: I don't think most criminals are as smart as the
23:26
Speaker 1: way they are portrayed in the media. I think you're right,
23:30
Speaker 1: although those I don't know if I would call them
23:33
Speaker 1: smart Doctor's Yarnal are just evil. They do exist, and
23:38
Speaker 1: they do strike, and they're never caught. What kind of
23:41
Speaker 1: a mind does that take? I mean, Nancy, I don't
23:43
Speaker 1: believe that we can necessarily distinguish this point if they're smart.
23:48
Speaker 1: You know, if they're smart and or evil. I don't
23:50
Speaker 1: think those two things negate each other. They're horribly evil.
23:54
Speaker 1: I didn't know psychilotrists like you even believed in evil. Oh,
23:57
Speaker 1: he believe thought everybody was just had a bad childhood. No, Nancy,
24:02
Speaker 1: there are people that are evil. Yeah, it could be
24:05
Speaker 1: from their childhood, but there are there are evil people
24:07
Speaker 1: that cannot be treated. Time stories with Nancy Grace now
24:28
Speaker 1: joining us, a so called genetic genealogist and author of
24:33
Speaker 1: The Gene Hunter, founder of the gene hunter dot com.
24:37
Speaker 1: Shara l a point high profile geneticist. Shara, thank you
24:42
Speaker 1: for being with us. Thanks for having me, Nancy, Shara,
24:46
Speaker 1: this case languishes for thirty eight years. What was missing? Well,
24:57
Speaker 1: why couldn't they solve the case? Nancy? When she was
25:01
Speaker 1: raped and murdered, The autopsy that was done preserved evidence.
25:06
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty four, we didn't have the tools and
25:12
Speaker 1: the information that we have now. There was no such
25:14
Speaker 1: thing as CODUS, which is the combined DNA indexing system
25:20
Speaker 1: that came to be in nineteen ninety four, and in
25:25
Speaker 1: that system we now have access to DNA that has
25:29
Speaker 1: been taken from known perpetrators. But in nineteen eighty four,
25:35
Speaker 1: they had nothing to compare it, nor did they have
25:37
Speaker 1: the tools to even know that they could do that.
25:41
Speaker 1: You're hearing Cheryl a point in genetic genealogist and author,
25:44
Speaker 1: so doctor Kendall Crowns, we could only hope that the
25:47
Speaker 1: correct DNA swabbing was done at the time of Mary
25:53
Speaker 1: Jane Thompson's autopsy. Describe what that would have been had
25:58
Speaker 1: it been done. Okay, standardly, when a sexual activity KID
26:02
Speaker 1: is taken at the time of autopsy, Why did you
26:05
Speaker 1: say sex activity? It's a rape kit. You think Mary
26:10
Speaker 1: Jane Thompson wanted to have sex with a stranger in
26:13
Speaker 1: the snow behind a warehouse. No, Nancy, I don't think
26:17
Speaker 1: that she desired to have sex with a stranger d
26:20
Speaker 1: a warehouse. That's right, gape. But in our vernacular, sexual
26:24
Speaker 1: activity KID is what we're calling them because rape implies
26:29
Speaker 1: something that lawyers don't like. So that's what I've always
26:32
Speaker 1: been told to refer to the ass If you would
26:34
Speaker 1: prefer me to call the rape, well, upon, don't you
26:36
Speaker 1: just call it what it is? If you think that
26:39
Speaker 1: you're even doing an autopsy or you have to swap
26:43
Speaker 1: somebody's rear end with a Q tip and you think
26:46
Speaker 1: that was what did you say sex activity? That's certainly
26:50
Speaker 1: putting perfume on the pig. Don't you think, well, your
26:53
Speaker 1: friends in the defense attorney world preferred us not. Luckily
26:58
Speaker 1: we're not in that world. You're in Nancy Land now.
27:02
Speaker 1: So how do you do the swab? So? How I
27:04
Speaker 1: do this? Swabs usually with a sexual activity kit aka
27:08
Speaker 1: a rape kit. We do oral, anal and vaginal swabs.
27:14
Speaker 1: There's two Q tips that have wooden long wooden handles
27:18
Speaker 1: on them. Their placed in each of those cavities and
27:22
Speaker 1: then moved around and then they're taken out and placed
27:25
Speaker 1: into a sterile paper box that has been sealed, initialed,
27:30
Speaker 1: and handed to a law enforcement officer or a crime
27:34
Speaker 1: scene individual to take to the crime lamb. We'll also
27:40
Speaker 1: scrape the fingernails, will cut all the fingernails off and
27:44
Speaker 1: remove them as well, and then we'll swab any areas
27:48
Speaker 1: that are potential DNA aspects like bruises on the neck
27:52
Speaker 1: or bite marks. Can I ask you your preference regarding
27:56
Speaker 1: bagging of the hands? The lord place help us that
28:00
Speaker 1: they did bag her hands at the scene before she
28:04
Speaker 1: was moved. That means you put a bag over the
28:08
Speaker 1: hands and then a rubber band or secure it at
28:11
Speaker 1: the wrist so that her hands won't touch the sheets
28:16
Speaker 1: or the medical medical examiner investigators, or the gurney or
28:21
Speaker 1: the bag they put her in. You don't want to
28:24
Speaker 1: destroy what may be under her nails, and you don't
28:28
Speaker 1: want to add fiber from somebody's scrubs. So do you
28:35
Speaker 1: prefer a paper or a plastic bag? Because I've only
28:39
Speaker 1: ever seen paper bags. The paper bag is what's preferred
28:43
Speaker 1: because if you put a plastic bag on there, it
28:45
Speaker 1: can cause condensation, which can result in mold growth, and
28:48
Speaker 1: it can also cause disruption of the DNA evidence. So really,
28:52
Speaker 1: plastic should never be used. Have you ever seen it used?
28:55
Speaker 1: I have, and it's unfortunate when it is used. Why
28:58
Speaker 1: do people still do that? I think because it's what's
29:01
Speaker 1: convenient or what someone has at the scene. Sometimes, as
29:04
Speaker 1: the smaller police agencies, they don't carry as a little
29:07
Speaker 1: kid in their car and they just use what they've have.
29:10
Speaker 1: I've seen the individuals come in with sonic bags wrapped
29:13
Speaker 1: around their hands. You know what. God bless them for
29:17
Speaker 1: wrapping the hands. God bless them even though they used
29:21
Speaker 1: to fast the burger bag to Sheryl A point our
29:26
Speaker 1: genetic genealogist. Why is it so important the hands be
29:31
Speaker 1: your rap Look power to them for wrapping them with
29:35
Speaker 1: a sonic bag or a plastic bag or any bag,
29:38
Speaker 1: because if you don't wrap the hands and secure them,
29:42
Speaker 1: bad things happened. Sara explain Nancy, I have never been attacked,
29:49
Speaker 1: but if I was to be attacked, the first thing
29:52
Speaker 1: that I think I would do would be use my
29:56
Speaker 1: hands to grab the person who's attacking me. I would
30:00
Speaker 1: want to scratch their eyeballs out. And I know now
30:04
Speaker 1: I want to get DNA under my fingernails. I think
30:07
Speaker 1: that's just a human response. When you're attacked, you want
30:11
Speaker 1: to attack back. And the hand or a wonderful place
30:16
Speaker 1: for us to be able to find DNA, to be
30:18
Speaker 1: able to solve these crimes, you know, Matthew Mangino. I
30:23
Speaker 1: remember I had been prosecuting maybe oh gosh, maybe five
30:28
Speaker 1: years when I got a call from the elected DA,
30:32
Speaker 1: who's like your grandfather to me, a very stern grandfather.
30:35
Speaker 1: And I actually picked an office. It was very small
30:40
Speaker 1: by the stairs in the DA's office because the DA's
30:44
Speaker 1: office so had so many, you know, eighty lawyers, investigators,
30:48
Speaker 1: a Pellette crew, just the worst. And I did not
30:53
Speaker 1: like waiting on an elevator. So I remember hearing mister
30:57
Speaker 1: Slayton thirty seven years the elected d say, Nancy, report
31:03
Speaker 1: to my office. I'm like I shot out of that
31:06
Speaker 1: little office. And the reason I liked it is by
31:08
Speaker 1: the stairs the emergency exit, and would run in heels
31:14
Speaker 1: down to the third floor to get to his office immediately.
31:19
Speaker 1: And he gave me a case that had been tried
31:23
Speaker 1: I think when I was still in college. Conviction went
31:27
Speaker 1: all the way on appeal Georgia's Supreme Court, then I
31:33
Speaker 1: guess the Fifth or it may have been the Eleventh
31:35
Speaker 1: Circuit by that time, then all the way to the
31:37
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court. It was about interlocking statements. The defendants
31:42
Speaker 1: each gave his statement and then they were tried together,
31:46
Speaker 1: which means a lot. You know, I don't want to
31:49
Speaker 1: go too far down the rabbit hole, but you can't
31:52
Speaker 1: bring in this guy's statement against this guy because you
31:55
Speaker 1: can't cross examine him. You can't cross examine a defendant
31:59
Speaker 1: that never takes to stand, So this guy doesn't get
32:03
Speaker 1: the right to cross examine a witness, which is unconstitutional
32:06
Speaker 1: under the sixth Amendment. Simply put. So, my point is
32:11
Speaker 1: when I tried to try that case again, this was
32:15
Speaker 1: sixteen years later, I had one x ray of the
32:22
Speaker 1: dead victim and a hat that said kiss my bass.
32:29
Speaker 1: That was my evidence. I had to start at the
32:32
Speaker 1: beginning and do the whole case all over again. Here
32:35
Speaker 1: you've got a thirty eight year old case. You got
32:40
Speaker 1: to pray for a miracle, Mangino, a miracle. Well, yes,
32:43
Speaker 1: I mean, you know thirty eight years of past. You
32:46
Speaker 1: don't have any witnesses, so to speak, eyewitnesses, people who
32:51
Speaker 1: who saw anybody around her or or actually saw the
32:56
Speaker 1: sexual assault. So all that you're going to have in
32:59
Speaker 1: this case is at physical evience. So this case may
33:02
Speaker 1: may have some more physical evidence than you had, you know,
33:06
Speaker 1: kids my bass hat. But but and there's more to work.
33:10
Speaker 1: And technology has evolved over time that puts us in
33:14
Speaker 1: a position where we can better evaluate and analyze physical evidence. So, well,
33:20
Speaker 1: you certainly have a long passage of time, and you
33:23
Speaker 1: don't have these witnesses. You do have, it appears physical
33:29
Speaker 1: evidence that in time, technology is going to unseal for us.
33:35
Speaker 1: Lisa Daddy joining me for a police lieutenant, What was
33:38
Speaker 1: the training like in eighty four versus today? Can you
33:44
Speaker 1: shed light on that for us? I mean, the techniques
33:48
Speaker 1: have evolved immensely. Yeah, I mean back in eighty four
33:53
Speaker 1: and honestly prior to the mid nineties, it was pretty basic.
33:58
Speaker 1: You know, you pret the crime saying you package all
34:02
Speaker 1: your evidence the same. That hasn't changed. So paperbags nine
34:06
Speaker 1: times out of ten, if you don't have them, you
34:08
Speaker 1: go get them, even if you have to hit McDonald's
34:10
Speaker 1: or Sonic or whichever. You take your pictures, you do
34:15
Speaker 1: your video, and you package everything separately so you don't
34:18
Speaker 1: cross contaminate. That hasn't changed. The preserving of the fingers
34:24
Speaker 1: and the hands hasn't changed. We've always done it. What
34:29
Speaker 1: has now changed as we're here in twenty twenty two
34:34
Speaker 1: is we now can do so much with DNA and
34:38
Speaker 1: swab surfaces looking for touch DNA trace amounts of DNA,
34:44
Speaker 1: where before, when DNA was first discovered, we needed a
34:47
Speaker 1: lot of it and it had to be in the
34:48
Speaker 1: form of blood initially. Yeah, yeah, it's advanced incredibly. As
34:56
Speaker 1: the years pass and no resolution to Mary Jane Thompson's case,
35:02
Speaker 1: suddenly a glamour of hope. Take a listen to our
35:05
Speaker 1: cut one CBS. Does anybody remember the Golden State killer
35:11
Speaker 1: Joseph D'Angelo. Listen and cuff to a wheelchair. Joseph D'Angelo
35:15
Speaker 1: was arraigned on charges for two murders in nineteen seventy eight.
35:18
Speaker 1: He was barely audible answering the judge. Investigators found de'angelo
35:24
Speaker 1: using DNA from crime scenes decades ago, which they submitted
35:27
Speaker 1: to a publicly shared genealogy website called Jetmatch. Cold case
35:32
Speaker 1: investigator Paul Holes, we were able to do this without
35:35
Speaker 1: seeking the legal authority in terms of getting the federal
35:39
Speaker 1: grand jury subpoena or the search warrant that we would
35:41
Speaker 1: need if we wanted to search the other types of
35:44
Speaker 1: genealogy sites. Jetmatch users submit DNA profiles they buy from
35:49
Speaker 1: sites like ancestry, dot com and twenty three and me.
35:52
Speaker 1: They plug their data for free into Jetmatch, searching for
35:56
Speaker 1: distant relatives. Within days, investigators found distant cousins of the
36:00
Speaker 1: suspected Golden State killer. We literally went back to the
36:03
Speaker 1: great great great grandfather with individuals that were born in
36:08
Speaker 1: the early part of the eighteen hundreds. I've had Paul
36:12
Speaker 1: holl the detective on that case. One of them explained
36:15
Speaker 1: it to me. It's very, very involved. But how did
36:20
Speaker 1: they get DeAngelo's DNA listen Our cut two CBSMs. It
36:26
Speaker 1: took four months to identify DeAngelo as a likely suspect,
36:29
Speaker 1: but to prove it, investigators followed him to collect his
36:32
Speaker 1: DNA from something he threw away. District attorney and Marie
36:36
Speaker 1: Schubert it could be he left a tissue. Who could
36:39
Speaker 1: be that he put his hands on a door handle,
36:42
Speaker 1: but it was what I call a bandoned DNA. That
36:45
Speaker 1: abandoned DNA solved a forty four year old mystery in
36:48
Speaker 1: four months, but also raises concerns about the privacy of
36:52
Speaker 1: DNA collection. Isn't it almost certain that a defense attorney
36:55
Speaker 1: is going to call this an illegal search? We would expect,
37:00
Speaker 1: we anticipated, We're fully prepared to deal with that through
37:03
Speaker 1: the court process. Jed Match says law enforcement never approached them.
37:07
Speaker 1: In a statement, jed match tells users, if you are
37:09
Speaker 1: concerned about non genealogical uses of your DNA, you should
37:14
Speaker 1: not upload your DNA to the database. Under the inspiration
37:19
Speaker 1: of the Golden State Killer case movement, in the case
37:24
Speaker 1: of Mary Jane Thompson listened to our friends WGRZ In
37:28
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, forensic genetic genealogy analysis was done sixty year
37:33
Speaker 1: old Edward Morgan's DNA matched the unidentified profile from the
37:38
Speaker 1: swab taken in the nineteen eighty four autopsy, and on Friday,
37:44
Speaker 1: Morgan was arrested and charged with capital murder, a person
37:49
Speaker 1: the family says is unfamiliar to them, but he lived
37:53
Speaker 1: right near the crime scene. In fact, as I said,
37:56
Speaker 1: and look out my office window right now, I can
37:59
Speaker 1: not only see the area where the crimes he was,
38:01
Speaker 1: It's only about a mile from my office, but you know,
38:05
Speaker 1: our suspect lived about just a mile further past that.
38:09
Speaker 1: And to think, all this time working on the case
38:11
Speaker 1: and he was just right into our nose, right under
38:15
Speaker 1: their nose. This guy take a listen to Steve Pickett,
38:18
Speaker 1: CBS eleven. Nearly thirty eight years an unsolved murder. A
38:23
Speaker 1: Dallas woman killed, her body found behind a warehouse tonight
38:28
Speaker 1: decades later and arrest. The Dallas County District Attorney's office
38:33
Speaker 1: has this man, Edward Morgan, now in custody. He has
38:36
Speaker 1: charged with capital murder for the death of Mary Jane Thompson.
38:40
Speaker 1: She was killed back in nineteen eighty four. Thompson's body
38:44
Speaker 1: was actually found on the Irving Boulevard. Investigators say she
38:48
Speaker 1: was also sexually assaulted so back in two thousand and nine,
38:52
Speaker 1: Dallas Police reopened the unsolved case with DNA testing from
38:56
Speaker 1: swabs taken during the victim's autopsy. They identified male DNA
39:03
Speaker 1: but never had a match until new technology led to
39:06
Speaker 1: the arrest of this man, mister Morgan. He is now
39:09
Speaker 1: sixty years of age. He is also now in the
39:12
Speaker 1: Dallas County Jail on one count of capital murder. Capital murder.
39:17
Speaker 1: That means there is a chance to see the death
39:19
Speaker 1: penalty to Shara. The point joining us genetic genealogists what
39:24
Speaker 1: happened Sharah. We didn't have an eyewitness in this case, Nancy,
39:30
Speaker 1: but we had something much more important than that. We
39:32
Speaker 1: had genetic witnesses. That DNA that was taken at that
39:37
Speaker 1: autopsy can now be put in the site that we
39:42
Speaker 1: use for genealogy purposes, and we can find relatives of
39:47
Speaker 1: the perpetrator. We can work on finding the common ancestors
39:53
Speaker 1: and build a family tree, just like you would do
39:56
Speaker 1: for an adoptee, and find the person who may have
40:01
Speaker 1: been responsible for this crime, someone who've lived in the area,
40:06
Speaker 1: someone who may have been the right age a male.
40:10
Speaker 1: Of course, it takes a lot of work. It takes
40:13
Speaker 1: a lot of manpower. It takes collaboration between law enforcements, labs, genealogists,
40:21
Speaker 1: but the tool is amazing. Thirty eight years later they
40:25
Speaker 1: found who did this crime. Without this tool, I doubt
40:28
Speaker 1: that it could have been found here referring to quote
40:31
Speaker 1: this tool, Well, what are you talking about, Sia, I'm
40:35
Speaker 1: talking about genetic genealogy. I'm talking about talking about using
40:40
Speaker 1: autosomal DNA testing from direct to consumer test like Ancestry
40:46
Speaker 1: twenty three and meat family tree DNA, using that along
40:52
Speaker 1: with traditional genealogy tools like birth certificate. Since this records
41:00
Speaker 1: put it all together. Once you find these common ancestors
41:06
Speaker 1: amongst the DNA matches of the perpetrator, you build a
41:11
Speaker 1: tree and you find who's who's responsible. And now he
41:17
Speaker 1: Edward Morgan is sitting behind bars awaiting trial. And now
41:23
Speaker 1: Mary Jane's sister speaks out. Thirty eight years went by
41:28
Speaker 1: without an arrest. Thirty eight years Mary Jane's sister will
41:32
Speaker 1: never forget Yeah, for her life to be end, it's
41:34
Speaker 1: so fast and so look. No, before he made a
41:39
Speaker 1: chance to become a mother, I mean he took it
41:42
Speaker 1: away from her. We wait as justice unfalls. Nancy Grace
41:48
Speaker 1: Crimes story, signing off goodbye friend,