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Serial Killer Documentary - William Devin Howell · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: In a deserted, swampy patch of woodland in New Britain, Connecticut.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and seven, the scattered remains of several
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: women were discovered.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I have never had a case where ahead seven possible
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: victims at one crime scene.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: For ten long years, detectives worked to discover who the
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: victims were and who'd killed them.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: After the bones were found, I think it was clear
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: that there was a serial killer.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: The investigations zoned in on a battered blue van belonging
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to local gardener William Devin Howell.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: And they just started to pick that vana part fiber
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: by fiber, droplet by droplet.
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: It is a positive gold mine, a treasure trove of DNA,
• 1:05
  Speaker 5: of all manner of clues.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: When the true nature of Howell's crimes were revealed, they
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: were breathtaking in their brutality.
• 1:19
  Speaker 6: Physical violence, strangulation, probably some of the most violent behavior
• 1:24
  Speaker 6: that I've ever handled as a lawyer.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Fourteen years after the first innocent victim was snatched from
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the street, William Devin Howell was finally confirmed as one
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: of the world's most evil killers in twenty seventeen, a
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: case that had gripped and horrified a quiet corner of
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: New England concluded with one of Connecticut's most prolific serial killers,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: forty seven year old William Devin Howell, being locked away
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: for life. But when the story began fourteen years earlier,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it had gone largely unnoticed.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: The media hadn't really covered it very much. No one
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: had really put together that we had of his missing women.
• 2:38
  Speaker 7: If she was a drug taker with addictions, if she
• 2:42
  Speaker 7: was a sex worker, it's not unusual for them to
• 2:48
  Speaker 7: go missing and not be reported for quite a long time.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: When stories of the missing women's fate were finally told,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: it exposed a dark underbelly many in this leafy part
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: of Connecticut did not know existed.
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: Central Connecticut was more of a manufacturing area back in
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: the thirties, forties, fifties, and over time drugs has infiltrated
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: those areas and with drugs as prostitution.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: But above all, the story showed the world that truly
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: monstrous people are sometimes able to hide in plain sight.
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: Bill Howe is one of those individuals that was convicted
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: of committing horrific acts of violence, and yet he's a
• 3:38
  Speaker 6: likable man that you think about and you say, how
• 3:43
  Speaker 6: could he have done this?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: This killer's story begins on the eleventh of February nineteen seventy.
• 3:58
  Speaker 6: He grew up in a New News, Virginia, which is
• 4:02
  Speaker 6: a population of about two hundred thousand people.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: His mother was fourteen his father was forty five when
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: Howe came along.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: William Devin Howell, known as Bill, was the youngest of
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: four children. Despite a stable childhood, in his late teens,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Howell began to take the wrong path.
• 4:30
  Speaker 6: He went to school, he dropped out of school.
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: Towards the end of his adolescence, Bill Howell drifted into
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: drugs and he then got drawn into petty crime.
• 4:45
  Speaker 6: He had some motor vehicle violations that ultimately caused his
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: license to be suspended, and it became a vicious cycle.
• 4:55
  Speaker 6: He continued driving, kept getting arrested, and it resulted in
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: jail time.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: By his mid twenties, Howell had collected convictions for drink driving, forgery,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: reckless driving, and public drunkenness. In two thousand and one,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: age thirty one years old, he left Virginia.
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: He met a woman and she was from Connecticut, and
• 5:28
  Speaker 6: he ended up coming to Connecticut.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Moving in with his girlfriend, Dorothy in New Britain, William
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: Howell took on of a near respectability.
• 5:39
  Speaker 7: Howell appeared to be quite settled. He had a relationship
• 5:43
  Speaker 7: a girlfriend, He had a job.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: He had this landscaping business that he seemed to be
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: doing okay with.
• 5:55
  Speaker 6: He cut people's lawns. It was not the kind of
• 5:58
  Speaker 6: lawnmowing service that you see landscapers and affluent communities, just
• 6:03
  Speaker 6: a small twenty two inch one more And it was
• 6:06
  Speaker 6: in the more urban areas of older people that stayed
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: in those communities. They and they hired him, and they
• 6:13
  Speaker 6: said he was very nice, reliable. He'd come on a
• 6:16
  Speaker 6: weekly basis.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: He had a dark blue nineteen eighty five for Dy
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: color Line van, pretty smashed up. It had plywood over
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: some of the windows. He had on the side quality
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: lownwork called Devin and his cell phone.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: But criminality was never far away. In two thousand and two,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Howell picked up more convictions for minor offenses. By this time,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: he was a frequent visitor to the Berlin Turnpike area,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a ten minute drive from the home he shared with Dorothy.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: The Berlin Turnpike has met many commercial establishments, restaurants, hotels, hotels,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: different shopping centers, well.
• 7:09
  Speaker 6: Le Brulin Turnpike was one of the main roads that
• 7:13
  Speaker 6: used to go between New York and Boston, so there
• 7:15
  Speaker 6: were a lot of little hotels, and over time those
• 7:18
  Speaker 6: hotels stopped being used by conventional travelers and end up
• 7:23
  Speaker 6: being used by hookers and john's and more nefarious type
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: of activity.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: William Devin Howell was drawn to the area where drugs
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: and prostitution went hand in hand.
• 7:40
  Speaker 6: Many people who are females who are drug addicts, they
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: end up prostituting themselves in order to get the money,
• 7:46
  Speaker 6: and mister Howell was able to get some drugs and
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: party with these women.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: In April two thousand and three, a young woman was
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: reported missing from a town some twenty five miles from
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the Berlin Turnpike.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: Melanie Ruth Cameline issues from Seymour, Connecticut. She went missing
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: from the city of Waterbury. She was the mother of
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: two dearly loved by her family.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: When twenty nine year old Melanie's mother reported her missing
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: to Waterbury police, she hadn't seen her daughter for several months.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: WATERBURYPD was taken point on and the missing person report
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: terrific investigators.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Despite an investigation, there were no leads into Melanie's disappearance.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: A month later, there was another missing person's report in
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the same town.
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: Marilyn Gonzalez was twenty six. She too was a mother
• 8:55
  Speaker 5: of two.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Last scene on the fifteenth of May two than three,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Marilyn was reported missing by her mother. A few days later.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: Her loved ones or just frantically trying to what happened
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: to her.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: On the twenty fourth of June, another desperate mother went
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to the police, this time in New Britain.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: Janice Roberts is a transgender woman. She was in her
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: forties at the time. Her family thought that she went
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: to New York City and possibly ran into some trouble
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: down there. They just didn't know.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: No one knew if the missing women had chosen to
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: leave the area or if something more sinister had befallen them.
• 9:53
  Speaker 7: Even when all of these women were reported missing, they
• 9:57
  Speaker 7: weren't linked by the police. Things are made more complicated
• 10:03
  Speaker 7: when people go missing from different police jurisdictions because they
• 10:07
  Speaker 7: don't necessarily always share that information. They won't be looking
• 10:12
  Speaker 7: at the missing personal lists from neighboring jurisdictions.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: By the summer of two thousand and three, three women
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: were missing from towns in the Berlin Turnpike area. There
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: was no uproar, no panic. Women weren't safe on the streets,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: but they had no idea. In July two thousand and three,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: thirty three year old William Devin Howell was living with
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend in New Britain, Connecticut. On the thirty first
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: of July, the mother and sister of thirty three year
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: old Nilsa Arismendi walked into Weathersfield Police department nine miles
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: away and reported that they hadn't seen Nilsa for almost
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a week.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: Nielsa Arasmendi had an on and off relationship with her
• 11:24
  Speaker 5: childhood sweetheart, was always known as Ace, and they were
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: living in a motel in New Britain.
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: She was a drug user, might have engaged a some
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: prostitution or so.
• 11:37
  Speaker 7: She had quite a stable life actually, so her disappearance
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: was flagged up as this is out of the ordinary.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Vanilsa, Nilsa's boyfriend, as a convicted drug dealer, was first
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: on the list of people to question, insisting he had
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: no idea what had happened to Nilsa. Ace passed a
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: polygraph test. Worried sick about his girlfriend's disappearance, Ace was
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: desperate to help.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: He gave the police all the information he had.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Ace told detectives about the last time he'd seen Nilsa.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: It was late at night after the couple had been
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: hanging out with a man they knew only as Devin.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Nilsa, her boyfriend and this guy were doing drugs in
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: a parking lot at a supermarket in Weathersfield. After that,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: and her boyfriend saw her get into this weird looking
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: van that was partly blue, partly black and had wood
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: boards where the side windows should have been.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It was the first solid lead into working out what
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: had happened to Nilson.
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: The blue van became a target of the Weathersfield Police
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: Department's investigation.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: The name Devin and the description of a van where
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: all police had to go on in the search for Nilsa.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: But two months later, a sharp eyed patrol officer spotted
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the vehicle in Weathersfield.
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: So they traced the van. The van is traced back
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: The owner is Dorothy Holcombe.
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: And that's when they went to as Holcombe's residents trying
• 13:37
  Speaker 6: to interview her.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Police records showed a man had been living at Dorothy's address,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: one with an outstanding warrant for an assault on his girlfriend.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: His name was William Devin Howell.
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: When the police arrived to talk to Dorothy, she said, oh, well,
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Bill has the van and most of the time it's
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: just registered my name.
• 14:04
  Speaker 6: He tried to dodge the interviews and she kind of
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: protected him from the police. You know, they'd come in
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: the front door to go out the back door type
• 14:12
  Speaker 6: of thing.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Detectives were desperate to interview the man last scene with Milsa,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: but he kept evading them. Meanwhile, they turned their focus
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: on the van Miltsa had climbed into the night she disappeared.
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: They got a search warrant for the vehicle, but.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: When they returned in November to seize the battered blue van,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: neither Howell nor the vehicle were anywhere to be seen.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: In January two thousand and four, Weathersfield police finally caught
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: up with William Devin Howell. The gardener denied any involvement
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in Nilsa Alice Mendi's disappearance, and his van, which they
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: hoped might hold some clues, was still nowhere to be found.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Parlor problem was they didn't have her body. They didn't
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: know what happened to her. She could have taken off
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: no one knew that she was dead. At that point.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: With no van, no evidence, and nothing to tie him
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: to Nilsa beyond the word of her boyfriend, detectives had
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: no choice but to let Howell go. Weeks later, another
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: young woman was reported missing by her family.
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: Joy Veleen, also known as Joy Martinez. She's twenty four.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: Joiveleen was a popular girl at school. She was a
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: track star.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Born into a large and loving family. Somewhere between her
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: late teens and early twenties, Joyveleen had fallen into drugs.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: She'd last been seen in October two thousand and three.
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: She doesn't appear for her birthday, which mother finds quite strange,
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: and then she doesn't appear at Thanksgiving.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: On the twenty ninth of March two thousand and four,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Joy's mother reported her missing to police in East Hartford.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Two days later, in Weathersfield, the team who were searching
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: for Nilsa Aris Mendy finally had some luck. Six hundred
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: miles away from Connecticut.
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: They've found the vehicle in North Carolina, the blue van.
• 16:41
  Speaker 6: They then got a search warrant and then they have
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: the van towed back.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: The van had been hidden on a property belonging to
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: one of Howell's associates, eight months after Nilsa Aris Mendy vanished,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: would it hold any clues about what had happened to her?
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: The crime scene investigation is are let loose. On the
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: Fordy icon Line van.
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: They noticed that the back seat the cushions had been replaced,
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: and they ended up pulling those cushions back, and then
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: they found what they believed was blood and then reddish
• 17:17
  Speaker 6: brown stains on the carpeting.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: This disturbing find suggested that someone had lost a large
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: amount of blood in the back of the battered work van.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: The question was who.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: The police department submitted a piece of the car seatback
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: and a piece of the carpet from the van to
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the laboratory.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Forensic science examiner Kristen Maydell was part of the team
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: at the State Forensic Lab tasked with analyzing the stains
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: on the upholstery. The first set of tests confirmed the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: stains were in fact human blood. The next step was
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to find out who the blood had belonged to. When
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the results came back, there was a shock.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: From the initial testing of those two samples. They were
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: two different DNA profiles.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: It appeared that at least two people had come to
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: harm in Howell's Van, as is common in missing persons
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: cases in the US. Nilsa aris Mendi's mother had given
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the police a DNA sample when her daughter disappeared.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: DNA gets passed from parent to childs where you get
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: half your nuclear DNA from your mother and half your
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: nuclear DNA from your father.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: If human remains were found, the authorities would be able
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: to say if the victim was likely to be a
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: close relative of Nilsa's mother. For Nils's family, there was
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: a match.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: The mother of the missing person did match the DNA
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: profile from the van.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: It was an important breakthrough for the case, but a
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: body blow for Nilsa's anxiously waiting family.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: The medical examiner said she couldn't have survived that much
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: blood loss.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: It seems certain that Nilsa aris Mendi was dead. Police
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: had no idea who the second DNA profile belonged to.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: With more questions and answers about what had happened in
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Howell's Van, investigators needed to tread carefully.
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: It takes a long time for the prosecutors to be
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: absolutely sure that they can charge how with Nielsa's killing.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: Blood in the van, opportunity, the fact that they had
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: seen her getting into the van, but the difficulty this
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: is nobody.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: On the fourteenth of May two thousand and five, William
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Devin Howell was arrested in connection with Nilsa Alice Mendi's death.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Three days later, he was charged with her murder. But
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the police knew getting a conviction would be tough.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: The problem was they didn't know what happened to her.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: They knew something bad happened in the man, but there
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: was no weapon, There was no trace of the body.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Howell was reminded in custody until his trial. For now
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a suspected killer was off the streets, but would it
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: be for good. Almost four years after Nilsa Alice men
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and his disappearance, thirty six year old William Devin Howell
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: stood in the dock at New Britain Superior Court in Connecticut.
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: On the twenty fourth of January two thousand and seven.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: William Devin Howell stands trial for the murder of Nielsa Arismendi.
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: The DNA evidence is produced, witnesses, including Ace, are produced.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Howell's defense was that it was her boyfriend Ace who'd
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: detacked Milsa arguing the couple had fought in the back
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of the van. The prosecution highlighted the amount of blood
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: spilled in the van and the fact that Nilsa hadn't
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: been seen since that night. On the fifth day of
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the trial, Howell changed his plea.
• 21:49
  Speaker 7: He did a plea bargain and he used something called
• 21:52
  Speaker 7: the Alford plea.
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: What the Alfred doctrine stands for is you'd say, I
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: understand if I got a trial, there was a significant
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: chance I'll be convicted and face harsher punishments. So in
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: order to avoid that, I'm going to plead guilty, even
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: though I'm not admitting my guilt.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: On the thirtieth of January, Howell pleaded guilty to first
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: degree manslaughter, still refusing to give any information about what
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: had happened to Nilsa alis Mendy, all where her remains
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: could be found. Howell was jailed for fifteen years. Just
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: months later, on the twentieth of August two thousand and seven,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: local police got a phone call that had the potential
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to shed light on Niels's fate.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: The Umbritan Police Department got a call from a resident
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: who was walking through some woods off of Hartford Road
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: in New Britain, and he said he found what he
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: thought were human remains. I was a lieutenant in the
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: bureau at that point, so we responded, we canvass a scene.
• 23:14
  Speaker 6: That area is very commercial. It was like a little
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: strip mall, and in the back is a little parking area,
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: and right below that is a steep drop off, and
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: then there's a wooded area.
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: It's really not a place you would easily walk through
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: because of the brier, some of the wildlife that's there
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: or completely swampy. It gets goes underwater quite a bit.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: It's not where someone would want to walk and go
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: have a picnic.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: More offices were brought in to search the densely wooded area.
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: Found a few more remains that evening and into the
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: next day, and that when we discovered it wasn't remains
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: of one person, but it was remains of two phoenix.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Confirming that they had found the partial remains of two
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: adult women, The state Medical Examiner gave an estimat as
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: to how long the scattered bones had laid there.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: Give us a very wide range with the carryat is
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: depends on whether depends on the animal activity. So we
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: knew they were one hundred years old. We knew that
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: they were a year old.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: A couple of days later, a third partial skeleton was recovered.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: There was nothing with the bodies to identify them, but
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: one conclusion seemed inevitable. The women had all likely been murdered,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and almost certainly by the same assail.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: We're certainly working on the strong possibility that we had
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: a serial killer.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: With William Devin Howell's conviction fresh in the minds of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: local law enforcement, the question on everyone's lips was could
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: any of the bodies be Nilsa Aris Mendes. The State
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: forensic Lab was brought in once again.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: They submitted a sample from the three different possible bodies
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: for us to do DNA testing on.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: DNA profiles were developed from the bones, but when they
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: were run through the DNA database, there was more disappointment
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: for Nilsa's family.
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: We did try to make a connection with Nilsa, but
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: there were no matches eric.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: In fact, there were no matches in the system for
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: any of the women. Without knowing who they were investigating
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the women's deaths would prove difficult.
• 26:09
  Speaker 7: If you don't know who the person is that has
• 26:13
  Speaker 7: been killed, it's near on impossible to identify your suspects.
• 26:21
  Speaker 7: There's always a motive for every murder. You're never going
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: to find out what that motive is unless you identify
• 26:27
  Speaker 7: the body.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: New Britain police threw themselves into working out who the women.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: Were, looking at unsolved missing persons reports and just try
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: to chase them all down. The FBI down in quantico
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: operator services to create an approximation of tour or victims.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: You would put it in the newspapers, gave it to
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: the media.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: It was a slow and frustrating process, and as James
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Wardwell and his team worked to identify the victims, they
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: couldn't shake the suspicion there might be more bodies lying
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: in the woods.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Never stopped believing there was more in there, still believed
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: in our heart of hearts, Nilsa was in there, still
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: believing that there might be more victims.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Were police on the right track. Was William Devin Howell
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: in fact a serial killer with Nilsa just one of
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: his victims.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: We certainly were keeping all options open because we don't
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: know yet, but that was definitely a working theory that
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: there was a connection, and Nilsa was also connected to
• 27:48
  Speaker 4: our say.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: In December twenty ten, New Britain PD got their first
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: breakthrough when a woman called, introducing herself as the sister
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in law of New Britain residents Diane Cusack. She'd seen
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: the photo in the papers of the facial reconstruction of
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: one of the unidentified women.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: She said, by the face show looks like Diane. The
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: hair's wrong, but the face looked white.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Diane Cusack alone in New Britain. I don't think she
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: really was in contact with her family. She wasn't reported
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: missing right away.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: So we were ultimately able to make that connection through
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: DANEL records and DNA and made our first positive idea.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: I remember going sitting down at their kitchen table ensuring
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: that news with them. I know it brought them pain,
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: but I could see it also brought them some relief.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: I remember it like yesterday, that part, because it's a
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: company deserves what happened to her.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: The tragedy for Diane Cusack and her family was nonetheless
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: an important step forward in the investigation.
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: Really started opening everything because then we could start retracing
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: her steps, placing her in places.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Fifty three year old Diane hadn't been seen since July
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three. She'd lived in the same neighborhood
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: as William Devin Howell, and the police believed they may
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: have crossed paths, but there was no proof or evidence
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: to link Diane to Howl. The mistigation went cold until
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen.
• 30:11
  Speaker 6: Connecticut State's Attorney's Office has a cold case unit, and
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: they put a task force together.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: DNA from the remains in the woods was resubmitted to
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: the state forensics lab, and in September twenty thirteen, there
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: was another positive ID.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: Joy Veleen Martinez. She was actually the first remains that
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: were found that first day in two thousand and seven.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: The breakthrough also provided crucial evidence that William Howell had
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: killed more than once. The second person's blood found along
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: with Nils's in the back of Howell's van, was proven
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to be twenty three year old Joy Vialene's. The case
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: was building, but detectives suspected there was much they still
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: did not know. In twenty fourteen, they tried something new.
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: One of the things that State's Attorney's Cold case squad
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: did was make playing cards or unsolved homicides that they
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: distributed in all the prisons.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: The free for the inmates to use and be as asked.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: If anyone has information, please call to spark conversations.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: One inmate couldn't believe the hand he'd been dealt. William
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Devin Howell, who was a decade into his sentence for
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: the manslaughter of Nilsa Aris Mendi, was about to blow
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the investigation wide open. At Connecticut's Cheshire Correctional Institution in
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, forty five year old William Devin Howell opened
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: up to his cellmate Jonathan Mills, revealing what had really
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: happened to Nilsa Alice Mendy twelve years earlier. Around three
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: am that night in July two thousand and three, Nilsa
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: and her boyfriend, who sometimes took drugs with Howell, met
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: him in a supermarket car park.
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: Ace's Neilsa climb into Bill Howell's GARB blue Fordiconline van
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: and drive off.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: Shortly after Nilsa entered Howell's van, he attacked her, punching
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: her in the face, causing her nose to bleed heavily.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: He then grabbed her round the throat.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: She is strangled and she is dumped behind the shopping.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Mount But Nilsa had not been his first victim.
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: He tells Mills that I didn't just kill Nielsa, I
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: killed six other people as well.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Howell told Mills his first victim early in two thousand
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and three had been Melanie Ruth Camerini. Howell had raped
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and strangled her in the back of his van.
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: It was too cold to bury her body, and so
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: he literally drove around with her body in the van
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: for several weeks.
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: He used to sleep next to her, calling her his baby.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: And he cut off her fingertips and tore off the
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: bottom of her jaw to take her bottom teeth out,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: and put him in a garbage bag and threw him
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: in a dumpster. He told Mills that once he had
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: killed the first woman, that was like a cross on
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: the rubicon, and became easier after that, and he perfected
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: his method, and I think Howie put it.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: Over the next ten months, William Devin Howell had targeted
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: women on the fringes of society.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Also, all these focused around drugs, whether Howell was providing
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: them or people they were getting in his van, because
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: they were into drugged women.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Once in the back of the vehicle that Howell called
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: his murder mobile, the women were brutally attacked.
• 34:36
  Speaker 6: There was a lot of violence, physical violence, strangulation, hitting
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: them with objects a hammer for instance.
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: She controlled these women. He was a big guy.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: With his second victim, twenty six year old Marilyn Gonzales,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: restrained through the night in the back of his van,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Howell drove around the local area.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: We actually went to drive through to buy her a
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: last meal. She ate the meal and raped her and
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: killed her.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Referring to himself as a sick ripper. In his disturbing
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: confession to his cellmate, Howell also shed light on the
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: fate of a woman who'd been reported listening in June
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three.
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: Howell said victim who picked up on the eighteenth of
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: June two thousand and three was Janice Roberts, but actually
• 35:32
  Speaker 5: she was transgender.
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: While a sexual act was being performed, as how realized
• 35:39
  Speaker 6: it was a trans person doing it, which caused him
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: become very angry.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Howell strangled forty four year old Janice to death. After
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the orgy of violence, how dispose of his victims' bodies.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: Howell told them about what he called his garden, and
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: Mills realized what he was talking about was where he
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: buried victims.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: The victims were just discardens, like objects and not as
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: people like yesterday's rubbish, just awful.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Howell told Mills that after Melanie, Marilyn and Janice, he'd
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: murdered Diane Cusack. The next victim was Nilsa Aris Mendi,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: followed by joy Veline Martinez. Then Howell confessed to a
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: final victim from October two thousand and three, a forty
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: year old woman from Waterbury who'd never been reported missing.
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: Mary Jane Maynard, went out of my cigarettes and I
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: suspect she just encountered how who was often driving around
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: the area, possibly looking for victims. Mary Jane's daughter was
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: serving overseas at the time, so nobody noticed that Mary
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: Jane had gone missing.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Mary's partial remains were amongst those found in two thousand
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and seven, and had finally been identified in September twenty fourteen.
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: One of the tragedies of Mary Jane Maynard is that
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: although she'd had a substance abuse problem, she turned her
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: life around, and she in fact become a counselor, making
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: her death all the more tragic and all the more cruel.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Having heard William Howell's horrifying story, Jonathan Mills hoped it
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: might gain him some good will with the authorities.
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: Mister Mills contacted his lawyer. Lawyer contacted the prosecutors.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Howell had boasted of six murders in addition to Nils's deay.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: The problem for the police was that they only had
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: three bodies, all of them had been identified, and none
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of them were Nilson. Incredibly, Jonathan Mills had the information
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: the police needed.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: He showed him this map at what he believed where
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Howell's garden was. Howell had described like there were electrical
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: wires and telephone paws and certain things in the air
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: where he had buried there.
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: Between April Maine twenty fifteen, twelve years after the killings,
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: they returned to the.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: Swamp with the assistance of this amazing cadabrodog. Within days
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: we had found the burial sites of Aliva victims.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: They found an additional four different human remains.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Once again, the State Forensics Lab played a crucial role.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: So they submitted a sampling from each of the four
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: different bodies in order to try and determine who they were.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: By doing DNA testing on those bones, DNA profiles were developed.
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: They tracked down family members got their DNAs and then
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: compared those DNAs to the bones that were recovered, and
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: they were able to identify the individuals.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: By June twenty fifteen, the bodies had been identified as
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Janice Roberts, Melanie Ruth Camerini, Marilyn Gonzales, and the one victim,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Howell had been convicted of killing, Nilsa alis Mendy. After
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: more than a decade, the families of the women were
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: learning of their fate.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: They we free answers, praying that these were not the
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: answers they were going to get. You couldn't change what
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: was done, but we couldn't change the way and their
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: loved ones were treated from then on out, and that
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: justices brought for them.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: But to get justice, detectives needed to build a case
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: against William Devin Howell, the only suspect in the six murders.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: They believed the key to the case was Howell's battered
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: blue work.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: Van, so we got search warrant, got the van that
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: was held in storage by the Weathersfield Police Department, so
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: it was still just sitting there like as in a
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: time capsule. We brought in the state Police evidence technicians
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: because their skill level is just tremendous, and they just
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: started to pick that vana part fiber by fiber, drop
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: by droppler.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Police submitted a whole bunch more evidence from le van
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: that consisted of cigarette butts, hairs, hairbrush.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: There was a rock that appeared to have blood on it,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: as well as six graphic homemade videotapes.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: There was over two hundred pieces of evidence obmitted from
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: the van at this point.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: The results of the DNA analysis were damning. Blood, hair
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: and other traces were found in the back of the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: van that matched with six of the seven victims.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: In September twenty fifteen, Howel is charged with the six murders.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: For the next two years, the police and prosecution prepared
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: their case against Howell.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: We wanted convict, We wanted absolutely whoever was responsible for
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: what happened to these ladies to be brought to justice.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: We wanted to make sure every tea was crossed, every
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: eye was dotted, so it was meticulous work.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: William Petzols was appointed as Howell's defense attorney, faced with
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the mammoth task of defending Howell against the prosecution's claims.
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: So they put the case together and it was a
• 42:30
  Speaker 6: mountain of evidence. It was, in my opinion, an insurmountable
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: mountain to overcome.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Presented with the evidence against him, Howell and his attorney
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: came to a decision.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: He ultimately pled guilty and was sentenced to three hundred
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: and sixty years. Families were emotional, certainly some belief that
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: justice is being served, but anger to sadness. No matter what,
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: none of what the court system was going to do
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: was going to bring their loved ones back.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Forty seven year old Howell's statement at the sentencing hearing
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: at New Britain Superior Court was the first time any
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: of the families had heard him speak.
• 43:30
  Speaker 7: He started to cry and he said, I'm going to
• 43:33
  Speaker 7: stay in prison. I'm not a well man. I'm going
• 43:37
  Speaker 7: to die a slow, painful death. In no way was
• 43:41
  Speaker 7: he actually trying to give any comfort to the victims' families.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: So he was thinking of himself. You know, we were
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: sitting with the families. Maybe some thought should have him
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: for them. That's not where he went.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: In fact, one of Howell's comments to his cellmate had
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: betrayed his true feelings about the seven victims.
• 44:11
  Speaker 7: Howell said that his victims should have known that they
• 44:15
  Speaker 7: were going to die, you know, just because of the
• 44:18
  Speaker 7: kind of lives that they led.
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: He didn't think of these beautiful people as people. This
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: is my take on it.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: In a ten month killing spree across two thousand and three,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Howell abducted, brutalized, and killed seven women in the van
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: he callously called his murder mobile, before dumping their bodies
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: where he hoped they'd never be found. His victims loved
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: ones waited fourteen years for justice, but when it finally came,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: they were left with no doubt that William Devin Howell
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: is one of the world's most evil killers.