Latest / Crime and Horror / EVERYONE-was-a-suspect-in-this-Broadway

Transcript

EVERYONE-was-a-suspect-in-this-Broadway · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: In December of two thousand and five, a young woman
0:02
Speaker 1: walked down a sidewalk in New York City. There were
0:05
Speaker 1: Christmas decorations on all the buildings and Christmas lights. I mean,
0:08
Speaker 1: it was very festive. But as she walked along, she
0:11
Speaker 1: glanced over at a newspaper stand and she saw something
0:15
Speaker 1: on the front page of that paper that literally made
0:17
Speaker 1: her stop in her tracks. And not because it was festive,
0:20
Speaker 1: it was awful. Right there on the front page was
0:24
Speaker 1: a picture of the one thing in her life that
0:27
Speaker 1: she'd hoped she would never ever see again. But before
0:31
Speaker 1: we get into today's story, if you're a fan of
0:34
Speaker 1: the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then
0:37
Speaker 1: you've come to the right place, because that's all we do,
0:40
Speaker 1: and we upload two, three, even four times a week.
0:43
Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, on the next
0:45
Speaker 1: extremely hot day, sneak into the like Button's house and
0:49
Speaker 1: jack their thermostat all the way up to the highest setting,
0:52
Speaker 1: and then once it's there, rip the thermistad off the wall.
0:56
Speaker 2: Also, please subscribe to our.
0:57
Speaker 1: Channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss
1:00
Speaker 1: any of our uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story.
1:24
Speaker 1: Early on the evening of Sunday, November twenty seventh, two
1:27
Speaker 1: thousand and five, a twenty one year old woman named
1:29
Speaker 1: Catherine Woods leaned towards the mirror to put on her
1:32
Speaker 1: eyeliner inside the bathroom of her small apartment in New
1:35
Speaker 1: York City. Catherine's phone was sitting on the bathroom counter
1:38
Speaker 1: and she heard it bus, but she didn't even look
1:41
Speaker 1: to see who was calling. She didn't have time to
1:42
Speaker 1: talk to anyone because she had to finish getting ready
1:45
Speaker 1: for her seven o'clock shift at work. So Catherine had
1:48
Speaker 1: moved to New York City from Ohio three years earlier
1:51
Speaker 1: to pursue her dream of becoming a dancer on Broadway.
1:53
Speaker 1: But everything here was so expensive that in addition to
1:57
Speaker 1: chasing her dream, she also had to work three different
2:00
Speaker 1: jobs just to make ends meet. Now, two of those
2:03
Speaker 1: jobs were pretty standard. She worked as a waitress and
2:05
Speaker 1: also taught children's dance classes. But tonight she was getting
2:08
Speaker 1: ready to go to her third job, and this job
2:11
Speaker 1: was not really standard at all. In fact, to her,
2:14
Speaker 1: she was sort of embarrassed about it, and because of that,
2:17
Speaker 1: she was keeping it a secret from almost everybody in
2:19
Speaker 1: her life. Her third job was working as a topless
2:22
Speaker 1: dancer at a strip club near Times Square called Flash Dancers.
2:26
Speaker 1: Catherine honestly hated the work, but it paid really well,
2:30
Speaker 1: and if she wanted to have her shot at Broadway,
2:32
Speaker 1: she needed to pay for voice lessons and dance classes. Now,
2:36
Speaker 1: she did live in Manhattan, which was the most expensive
2:39
Speaker 1: part of the already very expensive city, and she knew
2:42
Speaker 1: that she could save some money if she just moved
2:44
Speaker 1: to a neighborhood where rent was cheaper. But when she
2:47
Speaker 1: had first moved to New York, she had lived in
2:49
Speaker 1: a less expensive neighborhood for that reason, and unfortunately, her
2:54
Speaker 1: landlord had sexually assaulted her. The experience had been so
2:57
Speaker 1: traumatic that Catherine had at the time and just leaving
3:00
Speaker 1: New York and going back to Ohio and just being
3:03
Speaker 1: done with this place. But in the end, she had
3:06
Speaker 1: decided to stay in New York and continue chasing her dream.
3:09
Speaker 1: Now she did move within New York. She'd gotten this
3:12
Speaker 1: apartment in Manhattan because it was a lot safer, and
3:15
Speaker 1: she also got a roommate to help with the cost.
3:17
Speaker 1: His name was David Hahn. He was twenty three, and
3:20
Speaker 1: he was one of Catherine's friends from back home. In Ohio,
3:23
Speaker 1: but at this very moment, David was not inside the apartment.
3:26
Speaker 1: He'd gone outside to get his car so we could
3:28
Speaker 1: drive Catherine to work. Catherine finished her makeup and left
3:31
Speaker 1: the bathroom, and as she walked through the living room,
3:34
Speaker 1: she stepped over a black dog that was sleeping on
3:36
Speaker 1: the floor. The dog was not Catherine's, and it actually
3:39
Speaker 1: was not David's either. David was a part time dog sitter,
3:42
Speaker 1: so this dog was just staying with them while its
3:44
Speaker 1: owners were out of town. Just like Catherine, David also
3:47
Speaker 1: had a bunch of part time jobs to help make
3:49
Speaker 1: ends meet. When he was in dog sitting. He worked
3:51
Speaker 1: as a doorman at a hotel just up the street
3:54
Speaker 1: from their apartment. Now, Catherine and David had actually been
3:57
Speaker 1: romantic at one point. They had dated for a little while,
4:00
Speaker 1: but these days they were just roommates living together to
4:02
Speaker 1: split the bills, although secretly Catherine did sometimes wonder, if,
4:06
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they should give it another shot to
4:08
Speaker 1: try being a couple again. Thanksgiving had been a few
4:11
Speaker 1: days ago, and instead of going home to Ohio like
4:13
Speaker 1: she usually did, Catherine had stayed in New York and
4:16
Speaker 1: celebrated with David, and it had been a really nice time.
4:19
Speaker 2: Plus, David knew about.
4:20
Speaker 1: Catherine's third job of working at Flash Dancers, and he
4:23
Speaker 1: didn't judge her for it, and Catherine felt like a
4:26
Speaker 1: lot of people did, so she liked that about him.
4:28
Speaker 1: But the biggest hurdle that Catherine could see to potentially
4:31
Speaker 1: rekindling their relationship was the fact that David disliked basically
4:36
Speaker 1: every man she met, whether she.
4:37
Speaker 2: Was dating them or not. He just did not like them.
4:40
Speaker 1: Now, some of these guys, she could understand why David,
4:43
Speaker 1: you know, didn't like them, Like there was this guy Joe,
4:45
Speaker 1: that she had dated briefly, who really she'd only met
4:48
Speaker 1: because he was a patron of her strip club. But
4:51
Speaker 1: then there were people like Paul, who was a personal
4:53
Speaker 1: trainer at Catherine's gym, who she'd only seen off and on,
4:56
Speaker 1: and who was nothing but nice to David. And even
4:58
Speaker 1: though Paul and Catherine were dating now and mostly just
5:01
Speaker 1: spoke on the phone periodically, David still insisted that Paul
5:05
Speaker 1: was a creep.
5:05
Speaker 2: He just did not like the guy.
5:07
Speaker 1: But for now, Catherine figured, you know what, I'm not
5:10
Speaker 1: going to figure out my entire romantic life. I just
5:12
Speaker 1: need to finish getting ready and go downstairs so she
5:15
Speaker 1: wouldn't keep David waiting. So Catherine went into her bedroom
5:18
Speaker 1: and began getting dressed, and that's when she heard that
5:21
Speaker 1: dog start barking at something in the living room, and
5:24
Speaker 1: so curious, Catherine walked in that direction to see what
5:28
Speaker 1: was going on. A little while later, Catherine's roommate, David,
5:35
Speaker 1: walked quickly along the sidewalk to get his car, which
5:38
Speaker 1: was parked a ways up the street. He was out
5:40
Speaker 1: of breath by the time he reached it. He knew
5:42
Speaker 1: he had to hurry, so he jumped in and he
5:44
Speaker 1: drove back to the apartment building and he called Catherine
5:47
Speaker 1: as he pulled up out front. When she didn't answer,
5:50
Speaker 1: he threw on his hazards and he climbed back out
5:52
Speaker 1: to go into the building to go get her. And
5:54
Speaker 1: he had just made it up the flight of stairs
5:56
Speaker 1: that led to his second floor apartment, and he was
5:58
Speaker 1: going down the hallway when he saw something that made
6:01
Speaker 1: him come to an abrupt stop. It was that black
6:03
Speaker 1: dog that he was dog sitting. Somehow, it had gotten
6:06
Speaker 1: out of the apartment and was just standing there in
6:09
Speaker 1: the shared hallway outside of his apartment door. David blinked
6:12
Speaker 1: and then realized that his neighbor, a man he rarely
6:15
Speaker 1: interacted with named Brad Stewart, was standing right behind the dog,
6:19
Speaker 1: and Brad was holding a leash that was clearly clipped
6:22
Speaker 1: onto the dog's collar. For a second, Brad looked surprised,
6:25
Speaker 1: and David was just completely confused about why this guy
6:28
Speaker 1: had the dog that he was dog sitting on a leash.
6:31
Speaker 2: But then Brad told David that he had found.
6:33
Speaker 1: The dog wandering around, recognized it as David's, and brought
6:37
Speaker 1: it back to his apartment. Brad said he had just
6:39
Speaker 1: knocked on David's apartment door, but so far nobody had answered,
6:42
Speaker 1: so at this point David understood, you know why Brad
6:45
Speaker 1: has the dog, but he didn't know why the dog
6:48
Speaker 1: was out of the apartment in the first place, but
6:50
Speaker 1: he kept that to himself and just thanked Brad took
6:52
Speaker 1: the leash and then stepped over to the door of
6:54
Speaker 1: his apartment number two D. The apartment door was shut,
6:58
Speaker 1: but when he turned the handle, he found that it
7:00
Speaker 1: was unlocked. David couldn't remember if he had left it
7:02
Speaker 1: unlocked or not, so he just opened it and he
7:05
Speaker 1: called out Catherine's name but there was no answer, which
7:08
Speaker 1: was weird, so he stepped inside. Now he didn't see Catherine,
7:12
Speaker 1: but he did see the door to her bedroom was
7:14
Speaker 1: slightly cracked open, so he walked over to it and
7:16
Speaker 1: he called out to her again, and then when she
7:19
Speaker 1: didn't call back, he tried pushing her door open, but
7:21
Speaker 1: the door didn't really open. It instead swung maybe a
7:25
Speaker 1: few inches and then stopped, and David felt resistance on
7:28
Speaker 1: the other side, like something maybe on the ground was
7:31
Speaker 1: holding the door from.
7:31
Speaker 2: Opening all the way.
7:33
Speaker 1: And so, now with all these strange things happening, David's
7:35
Speaker 1: starting to feel pretty worried, and so the surge of
7:38
Speaker 1: adrenaline came over him and he just shoved the door open,
7:41
Speaker 1: and he stuck his head in and he looked inside,
7:44
Speaker 1: and when he saw what was in there, he immediately
7:46
Speaker 1: pulled back, turned around, ran into the hallway, and he
7:50
Speaker 1: called the police. Half an hour later, around seven thirty PM,
7:57
Speaker 1: an NYPD detective named Stephen Getz walked up a flight
8:00
Speaker 1: of stairs at an apartment building in Manhattan. This part
8:04
Speaker 1: of the city was known to be extremely safe. Homicides
8:07
Speaker 1: never really happened here, but if the nine to one
8:09
Speaker 1: one caller had been telling the truth. Gets knew that
8:13
Speaker 1: a potential grisly murder scene was in fact waiting for
8:16
Speaker 1: him in Apartment two D. When he reached the second
8:19
Speaker 1: floor landing, he saw there were already a few other
8:22
Speaker 1: NYPD officers on the scene, and one of them was
8:25
Speaker 1: speaking to this young, skinny guy standing in the hallway
8:27
Speaker 1: who looked really upset, and he was holding a leash
8:30
Speaker 1: that was connected to a black dog. Another officer walked
8:33
Speaker 1: over to Getz and filled him in. He said the
8:35
Speaker 1: man that was being spoken to was the victim's roommate,
8:37
Speaker 1: David Hawn, and he was the one who had found.
8:40
Speaker 2: The body and called nine to one one.
8:42
Speaker 1: The victim, Catherine Woods, was inside the apartment in the
8:45
Speaker 1: back bedroom. Gets nodded and then walked down the hallway,
8:49
Speaker 1: passed David and the dog toward the apartment door. His
8:52
Speaker 1: plan was to look at the scene himself before he
8:55
Speaker 1: began questioning anyone. Gets put on some disposable rubber gloves
8:59
Speaker 1: and checked out the doorframe to the actual apartment, and
9:02
Speaker 1: then he also looked at the door itself, but he
9:04
Speaker 1: didn't see any damage that could signify forced entry, so
9:07
Speaker 1: he stepped into the apartment and he saw that the
9:10
Speaker 1: small living room was a little bit messy, but it
9:12
Speaker 1: wasn't like it had been.
9:13
Speaker 2: Ransacked or something, you know.
9:15
Speaker 1: The futon was pulled out, and there were some men's
9:17
Speaker 1: clothes strewn around, but it sort of looked.
9:19
Speaker 2: Like a typical place that people lived.
9:21
Speaker 1: And so gets walked through the living room, being careful
9:23
Speaker 1: not to disturb anything, and he went towards what he
9:26
Speaker 1: assumed was the bedroom where the body was. The door
9:29
Speaker 1: was opened just wide enough that Getz was able to
9:31
Speaker 1: get through, and when he stepped through and was inside
9:34
Speaker 1: the room, he saw blood everywhere. It was all over
9:38
Speaker 1: the walls and the furniture, and the room itself looked
9:42
Speaker 1: like it had been completely torn apart. One of the
9:44
Speaker 1: dresser drawers was open, and lots of women's clothing was
9:47
Speaker 1: scattered all over the place, and the mattress had been
9:50
Speaker 1: completely taken off the bedframe and was now lying on
9:53
Speaker 1: the floor. And that's actually what was blocking the door
9:55
Speaker 1: from opening all the way. And then in the middle
9:58
Speaker 1: of the room, in a pool of blood, lay the
10:00
Speaker 1: body of a young woman. Gets new from the nine
10:03
Speaker 1: to one one call that her name was Catherine Woods.
10:06
Speaker 1: He walked over and squatted down next to.
10:08
Speaker 2: Her for a closer look.
10:10
Speaker 1: She was wearing a T shirt and underwear, and the
10:12
Speaker 1: T shirt had a very obvious shoeprint on it, like
10:15
Speaker 1: whoever had killed Catherine had stepped on her. And there
10:18
Speaker 1: were at least a dozen stab wounds all.
10:20
Speaker 2: Over her body.
10:21
Speaker 1: There were also what appeared to be defensive wounds on
10:24
Speaker 1: her hands and arms, which Gets new meant she must
10:27
Speaker 1: have fought back against her attacker. But the worst injuries
10:30
Speaker 1: she sustained were definitely to her neck. Whoever had killed
10:33
Speaker 1: her had slit her throat so deeply that they had
10:36
Speaker 1: almost decapitated her, and so to Gets right away, it
10:40
Speaker 1: seemed like whoever killed Catherine had been in an absolute rage.
10:44
Speaker 1: At that point, Gets heard footsteps coming from behind him,
10:48
Speaker 1: and he stood up and he turned around to see
10:50
Speaker 1: that the NYPD forensics team had arrived. Now, the block
10:53
Speaker 1: door was making maneuvering in and out of this bedroom
10:55
Speaker 1: pretty difficult, so one of the first things the forensics
10:58
Speaker 1: team did was to pick up the mattress and carefully
11:01
Speaker 1: lean it against the wall so the bedroom door could
11:03
Speaker 1: now swing open all the way. Then Detective Gets just
11:06
Speaker 1: stepped back and let the forensics team get to work.
11:09
Speaker 1: He watched as they pulled that shoeprint off the T
11:11
Speaker 1: shirt Katherine was wearing, and then also there was a
11:14
Speaker 1: second identical shoeprint that was on our bedsheets that they
11:17
Speaker 1: also grabbed to Gets. Both of these prints did appear
11:20
Speaker 1: to be from the exact same shoe, and to the
11:22
Speaker 1: naked eye, these prints appeared, at least to Gats, to
11:25
Speaker 1: belong to very likely an average sized man. Detective Gets
11:29
Speaker 1: was immediately curious about something, so he stepped out of
11:32
Speaker 1: the bedroom into the living room, and he quickly found
11:35
Speaker 1: a couple pairs of men's shoes lying on the floor,
11:37
Speaker 1: and although the tread of these shoes did not match
11:40
Speaker 1: the prints he had just seen in the bedroom, they
11:42
Speaker 1: did appear to be the exact same size. An hour later,
11:56
Speaker 1: at about eight thirty pm on November twenty seventh, two
11:58
Speaker 1: thousand and five, Detective Gets sat down at a table
12:01
Speaker 1: inside of an interview room at the NYPD's nineteenth Precinct,
12:05
Speaker 1: and once he did, he handed a bottle of water
12:07
Speaker 1: across the table to David Hahn, the roommate of the
12:10
Speaker 1: murder victim and Detective Gets current number one suspect. There
12:15
Speaker 1: had been no sign of forced entry at the apartment
12:17
Speaker 1: that David and Catherine shared, which meant that Catherine's killer
12:21
Speaker 1: either had access to the apartment or was let inside
12:24
Speaker 1: by somebody who did. And the murder had been committed
12:27
Speaker 1: with a knife in a really savage way that struck
12:30
Speaker 1: Gets as being a personally motivated attack. Even though Catherine's
12:34
Speaker 1: bedroom had been trashed, nothing seemed to have been stolen,
12:37
Speaker 1: and because Catherine had been found partially undressed, there was
12:41
Speaker 1: potentially a sexual motive at play as well. So Gets's
12:44
Speaker 1: working theory here was that this murder was committed by
12:47
Speaker 1: a man who knew the victim well and had easy
12:49
Speaker 1: access to her living space, and David fit that profile
12:53
Speaker 1: to a t. Plus he apparently wore the same size
12:57
Speaker 1: shoe as the killer. Although as detective gets settled into
13:00
Speaker 1: his chair and brought out his notepad, he did a
13:03
Speaker 1: quick scan of David's forearms in his hands, and he
13:06
Speaker 1: saw that David had no visible cuts, scrapes, or bruises.
13:10
Speaker 1: The detective thought that Catherine's killer likely would have some
13:13
Speaker 1: injuries there because she had obviously been fighting for her life,
13:16
Speaker 1: she would have left a mark on them, but Getz didn't.
13:19
Speaker 2: Say anything about this to David.
13:20
Speaker 1: Instead, he just leaned forward and he asked David to
13:23
Speaker 1: walk him through what had happened that day. David's hands
13:26
Speaker 1: were shaking a bit, but he took a deep breath
13:28
Speaker 1: to calm himself, and he said that he had been
13:30
Speaker 1: at the apartment with Catherine that night until about six
13:33
Speaker 1: forty pm. That was when he had left to go
13:36
Speaker 1: get his car so he could come back and drive
13:38
Speaker 1: Katherine to her seven o'clock shift at Flash Dancers. But
13:42
Speaker 1: he said retrieving his car had taken longer than he
13:44
Speaker 1: expected because on the way he had run into some
13:47
Speaker 1: of his coworkers from his dorman job, and he had
13:50
Speaker 1: stopped to chat with them, He said, after he had
13:52
Speaker 1: done that and he had gotten his car and he
13:54
Speaker 1: went back to the apartment, he had expected Catherine to
13:57
Speaker 1: be waiting outside by the curb, but when he got there,
14:00
Speaker 1: there was no sign of her, and she didn't answer
14:03
Speaker 1: when he called her, so David said he'd ultimately gone
14:05
Speaker 1: inside and ran upstairs to the apartment, and in the
14:08
Speaker 1: hallway he had found his neighbor Brad, who was oddly
14:11
Speaker 1: holding the leash of the black dog that David was
14:14
Speaker 1: supposed to be looking after and then David said he
14:16
Speaker 1: went into his apartment and that's when he found Catherine's body.
14:19
Speaker 2: David said he had called.
14:20
Speaker 1: Nine to one one right away. It was right around
14:22
Speaker 1: seven pm. And at this Getz stopped writing on the
14:25
Speaker 1: notepad and just looked up at David. He couldn't believe
14:28
Speaker 1: what he was hearing. David was claiming that he'd only
14:31
Speaker 1: been out of the apartment for twenty minutes, and that
14:34
Speaker 1: in that narrow window of time, Catherine had been brutally
14:38
Speaker 1: murdered and the killer had also escaped. It honestly sounded
14:41
Speaker 1: like one of the worst alibis gets had ever heard,
14:44
Speaker 1: but he didn't want David to know just how close
14:46
Speaker 1: he was to getting arrested for murder because he didn't
14:49
Speaker 1: want David to get scared and stop talking. So Getz
14:52
Speaker 1: kept his tone very sympathetic as he asked how long
14:55
Speaker 1: David had known Catherine for. David said they had met
14:58
Speaker 1: back in Ohio a few years ago while Catherine was
15:00
Speaker 1: visiting her hometown. He had begun dating, and he had
15:03
Speaker 1: ultimately moved out to New York to live with her,
15:05
Speaker 1: but it wasn't long before Catherine broke up with him
15:08
Speaker 1: and then asked him to move out, but David said
15:11
Speaker 1: he had not been able to afford his own place,
15:13
Speaker 1: so he had started sleeping in his car, and Catherine
15:17
Speaker 1: had felt bad about that, so she had ultimately let
15:19
Speaker 1: him move back in on the condition that he slept
15:22
Speaker 1: on the futon out in the living room.
15:24
Speaker 2: By now, Detective Gets His pen.
15:26
Speaker 1: Was flying across the page because David was not just
15:29
Speaker 1: Catherine's roommate, he was her ex boyfriend, an ex boyfriend
15:33
Speaker 1: who was the last person to see Catherine alive and
15:36
Speaker 1: discovered her body. Gets was more confident than ever that
15:39
Speaker 1: he was sitting across from Catherine's killer. He told David
15:42
Speaker 1: that everything he was saying was incredibly helpful, but right
15:45
Speaker 1: now he needed to go check on something. David agreed
15:48
Speaker 1: to wait, and Get stood up to leave, but he
15:50
Speaker 1: stopped at the door and he asked David for one
15:53
Speaker 1: last thing before he left.
15:54
Speaker 2: He asked what his shoe size.
15:56
Speaker 1: Was, and without missing a beat, David answered that he
15:59
Speaker 1: wore a tenant half. Gets jotted this down and then
16:02
Speaker 1: he left. What he hadn't told David was the reason
16:05
Speaker 1: he was stepping out of the room was to go
16:07
Speaker 1: get some information from the NYPD's forensics team and the
16:10
Speaker 1: uniformed officers who were currently questioning David's neighbors, and once
16:15
Speaker 1: Gets had that information, he was going to use it
16:17
Speaker 1: to try to catch David and a lie. About nineteen
16:25
Speaker 1: hours later, so about three pm the next day, Gets
16:28
Speaker 1: was sitting at his desk, feeling completely exhausted, but was
16:32
Speaker 1: pounding yet another cup of coffee. He'd been up all
16:35
Speaker 1: night interrogating David, who was still literally sitting right down
16:38
Speaker 1: the hall in the interrogation room, and also Gets have
16:41
Speaker 1: been going back and forth with the forensics team and
16:43
Speaker 1: other officers and detectives who were out in the neighborhood,
16:46
Speaker 1: and he still had loads more to do before he
16:49
Speaker 1: could finally go to sleep. Right now, Gets was going
16:52
Speaker 1: over a new batch of reports from the uniformed officers
16:55
Speaker 1: who had gone door to door in Catherine and David's
16:57
Speaker 1: apartment building, asking the neighbors if they seen or heard
17:00
Speaker 1: anything unusual, and just like Gets had hoped, the information
17:04
Speaker 1: they were getting did contradict pieces of David's story. David
17:08
Speaker 1: claimed that he had left the apartment at about six
17:10
Speaker 1: forty pm and said that at that time Catherine was fine,
17:14
Speaker 1: but two neighbors said they heard screams coming from the
17:17
Speaker 1: apartment before six forty pm. The man in the unit
17:21
Speaker 1: directly above David and Catherine said he had heard three
17:24
Speaker 1: screams at six twenty eight pm, and the people in
17:27
Speaker 1: the unit next door to David and Catherine said they'd
17:30
Speaker 1: heard screaming, barking, and the sound of furniture moving around
17:34
Speaker 1: even earlier, between five forty five.
17:36
Speaker 2: And six pm.
17:37
Speaker 1: Now, none of these neighbors had done anything about these noises,
17:40
Speaker 1: because the noises had stopped pretty quickly. And then there
17:43
Speaker 1: was Brad Stewart, the neighbor who had said he.
17:45
Speaker 2: Had found the black dog.
17:47
Speaker 1: Brad told police that when he ran into David in
17:49
Speaker 1: the hallway it was sometime between six and six thirty,
17:52
Speaker 1: but David had said that he went back up to
17:53
Speaker 1: the apartment and found Catherine's body at about seven pm,
17:57
Speaker 1: a full half hour later. Now, gets new witness were
18:00
Speaker 1: often bad with time, and in a dense New York
18:03
Speaker 1: City apartment building, there were lots of noises coming from
18:05
Speaker 1: lots of units. But still it looked to him like
18:08
Speaker 1: David's alibi had serious problems, and so the detective sat
18:12
Speaker 1: back and had some more coffee, and then his phone rang.
18:15
Speaker 1: He picked it up and it was the forensics team
18:17
Speaker 1: with an update about those shoeprints that were on Catherine's
18:20
Speaker 1: shirt and the bed sheets, and the prints were indeed
18:24
Speaker 1: left behind by a roughly average sized man. They were
18:28
Speaker 1: Amen's size ten and a half and this was the
18:31
Speaker 1: exact size Gets new David wore.
18:34
Speaker 2: Gets thanked them.
18:35
Speaker 1: Hung up the phone, and then rushed back to the
18:38
Speaker 1: interrogation room to have yet another chat with David Han.
18:42
Speaker 1: This time, though Gets did not offer David a water,
18:44
Speaker 1: He just sat down and he confronted him with all
18:47
Speaker 1: these new facts. He told David that the killer shoe
18:49
Speaker 1: prints were exactly his shoe size, that his neighbors had
18:52
Speaker 1: heard screams before David had supposedly left the building, and
18:56
Speaker 1: that Brad said he'd seen David in the hallway at
18:59
Speaker 1: least a half an hour or earlier than David had
19:01
Speaker 1: claimed he was there. Gets leaned in and told David
19:04
Speaker 1: that there were also security cameras in the apartment building
19:07
Speaker 1: and his officers were already in the process of getting
19:09
Speaker 1: access to that footage. So if David had anything to say,
19:13
Speaker 1: you'd better say it now. Gets watched as David's expression
19:16
Speaker 1: went from exhausted to clearly afraid, it seemed like this
19:20
Speaker 1: might be the first time that David realized the police
19:23
Speaker 1: truly did not believe his story, and after a second
19:26
Speaker 1: of just stunned silence, David insisted that he had not
19:30
Speaker 1: killed Catherine, and he begged Gets to believe him, But
19:33
Speaker 1: when Gets just glared back at him completely unmoved, David
19:37
Speaker 1: launched into a whole news story, one he had not
19:40
Speaker 1: mentioned at all over the last twenty hours of interrogation.
19:45
Speaker 1: David said Catherine knew this guy named Paul Cortes. She
19:49
Speaker 1: had dated him, but David had always thought he was
19:51
Speaker 1: kind of a creep, and David said Catherine had told
19:54
Speaker 1: him that Paul was obsessed with her. So David said,
19:58
Speaker 1: the police really ought to go and bea investigate Paul,
20:01
Speaker 1: not him. To Gets, this seemed like a desperate, last
20:04
Speaker 1: minute attempt to cast suspicion on somebody else, but he
20:08
Speaker 1: knew he did have to follow every lead, so he
20:10
Speaker 1: did write down Paul's name and told David they'd look
20:13
Speaker 1: into it. When Getz finally left the station for the evening,
20:16
Speaker 1: David was still in the interrogation room and reporters from
20:20
Speaker 1: all the daily papers were beginning to assemble right outside.
20:32
Speaker 1: The following morning, the story of Catherine's murder and pictures
20:36
Speaker 1: of her smiling face were all over the news. The
20:39
Speaker 1: front page of the New York Daily News carried a
20:41
Speaker 1: headline that made Getz grimace. It read secret life of
20:45
Speaker 1: slain stripper. Inside the article reported that Catherine's family hadn't
20:50
Speaker 1: known she was working as a topless dancer until they
20:53
Speaker 1: literally flew to the city from Ohio to collect her body.
20:56
Speaker 1: Gets skimmed the article at his desk. He wasn't convinced
20:59
Speaker 1: that Catherine's line of work had anything to do with
21:01
Speaker 1: their murderer, but the papers seemed intent on running with it,
21:05
Speaker 1: and am media circus was like the last thing Gets wanted.
21:08
Speaker 1: His team was already under enough pressure to make an
21:10
Speaker 1: arrest as it was, and it was going to be
21:12
Speaker 1: even harder to do their jobs now that a bunch
21:14
Speaker 1: of tips were going to be flooding in from the
21:16
Speaker 1: public from all this media, Gets put down the newspaper,
21:19
Speaker 1: got up from his desk and walked down the hall
21:21
Speaker 1: to the interrogation room. He'd finished the day yesterday, feeling
21:24
Speaker 1: pretty confident that David was his murderer, so when he'd
21:28
Speaker 1: sent David home, he had given him instructions not to
21:31
Speaker 1: leave the city because he intended to arrest David and
21:34
Speaker 1: soon the first Gets did need to.
21:36
Speaker 2: Follow up on the other leads.
21:38
Speaker 1: He had to hopefully rule them out, and one of
21:41
Speaker 1: those leads was sitting in the interrogation room right now
21:43
Speaker 1: waiting for him. It was Paul Cortes, the man that
21:46
Speaker 1: David had named, who officers at track Down and brought
21:48
Speaker 1: in the man who supposedly was obsessed with Catherine. As
21:52
Speaker 1: soon as Gets entered the room, the first thing he
21:54
Speaker 1: did was look at Paul's schues, and he could see
21:57
Speaker 1: that they were a pretty typical size too. At a glance,
22:00
Speaker 1: they looked like they could also be a ten and
22:02
Speaker 1: a half. Gets also looked for scratches or bruises on
22:05
Speaker 1: Paul's skin, in particular on his forearms and his hands,
22:09
Speaker 1: and he did see one. There was a small injury
22:11
Speaker 1: on one of Paul's fingertips. Gets asked about it and
22:14
Speaker 1: Paul said his finger had just gotten pinched between a
22:16
Speaker 1: couple of weights at the gym. Paul was very calm
22:18
Speaker 1: and soft spoken, and he said he'd heard all about
22:21
Speaker 1: Catherine's death in the papers, and he just wanted to
22:23
Speaker 1: help if he could. When Getz told him that they'd
22:26
Speaker 1: gotten his name from David Hahn, Paul just kind of
22:28
Speaker 1: rolled his eyes and said, you know, David had always
22:30
Speaker 1: been jealous of his relationship with Catherine. Paul explained that
22:34
Speaker 1: he had met Catherine at the gym about a year
22:35
Speaker 1: ago and they'd been dating off and on ever since.
22:38
Speaker 2: At the time of Catherine's death, he.
22:40
Speaker 1: Said they had been off, but Paul said he still
22:42
Speaker 1: cared about her and had hoped that maybe one day
22:44
Speaker 1: they might get back together. Paul told Getz that he
22:47
Speaker 1: hadn't actually seen Catherine on the day of her death,
22:50
Speaker 1: but that he had actually spoken to her on the
22:52
Speaker 1: phone earlier that afternoon, which was not unusual. The two
22:55
Speaker 1: did speak on the phone from time to time, that's
22:57
Speaker 1: all it was. Paul said he actually had tried calling
22:59
Speaker 1: her a second time that day, but she didn't answer,
23:02
Speaker 1: but Paul said he really didn't think much of it.
23:04
Speaker 1: And then Paul said that night he wound up going
23:06
Speaker 1: shopping with some friends and then also to a local.
23:08
Speaker 2: Bar to watch the Jets game.
23:10
Speaker 1: At about eight thirty, gets made a note to follow
23:13
Speaker 1: up on Paul's alibi. Then he asked Paul if he
23:16
Speaker 1: had any idea who might have killed Catherine. Paul thought
23:19
Speaker 1: for a moment, and then his eyes lit up, and
23:21
Speaker 1: he said there had been some stalker guy named Joe
23:23
Speaker 1: who'd been one of Catherine's regulars at the strip club,
23:26
Speaker 1: you know, months ago. He'd somehow gotten Catherine's phone number
23:29
Speaker 1: and had reached out to her outside of the club,
23:31
Speaker 1: And around that same time, Catherine had actually gotten roofied
23:35
Speaker 1: during one of her strip club shifts.
23:37
Speaker 2: A roofie is called the date rape drug.
23:39
Speaker 1: It basically makes you incapacitated and effectively unconscious. You don't
23:42
Speaker 1: remember anything. People will be given a roofie and then
23:45
Speaker 1: be sexually assaulted. That's often its use, and even though
23:48
Speaker 1: he'd never been able to prove this, Paul always suspected
23:51
Speaker 1: it had been Joe who gave Katherine that roofie. Catherine
23:55
Speaker 1: had cut off contact with Joe, but the whole incident
23:57
Speaker 1: had bothered Paul so much that he'd tried to convince
24:00
Speaker 1: Catherine to just quit the exotic dancing scene, but she refused.
24:04
Speaker 1: Paul admitted that he actually went on to call Catherine's
24:07
Speaker 1: father to tell him how worried he was about her,
24:11
Speaker 1: and Catherine had been so mad about that that she
24:13
Speaker 1: stopped talking to Paul for weeks, and so Gets jotted
24:16
Speaker 1: all this down and then asked Paul if he knew
24:18
Speaker 1: how to get in touch with this guy, Joe.
24:20
Speaker 2: Paul said he didn't have Joe's.
24:21
Speaker 1: Number, but it was definitely in Catherine's phone because the
24:24
Speaker 1: last time Paul ever spoke on the phone with Catherine,
24:27
Speaker 1: on the afternoon of her death, she had mentioned something
24:30
Speaker 1: that really surprised him. She said that, after months of silence,
24:34
Speaker 1: Joe had started calling her again, completely out of the blue.
24:37
Speaker 1: And at this Gets studied Paul's face, looking for any
24:41
Speaker 1: hint of deception. This whole Joe's story seemed like it
24:44
Speaker 1: might just be a way to deflect suspicion from Paul himself.
24:47
Speaker 1: But it really didn't feel like Paul was lying here,
24:50
Speaker 1: and besides, Catherine's phone records would be simple enough to verify.
24:53
Speaker 1: Gets hated to admit it, but maybe the newspapers were right.
24:57
Speaker 1: Maybe it was time he started looking seriously into some
25:00
Speaker 1: Catherine's customers at the strip club. The following afternoon, on Wednesday,
25:11
Speaker 1: November thirtieth. Detective Getz was feeling really annoyed as he
25:15
Speaker 1: hung up the phone at his desk. It had been
25:17
Speaker 1: a call from another reporter, but Gets hadn't made an
25:20
Speaker 1: arrest yet, so he was staying tight lipt. But for now,
25:24
Speaker 1: he just turned his focus back to the stack of
25:26
Speaker 1: papers on his desk. They were Catherine's cell phone records,
25:28
Speaker 1: which he'd subpoenaed yesterday, and they showed that Paul.
25:31
Speaker 2: Had been telling the truth.
25:33
Speaker 1: Both he and Joe had called Catherine shortly before she died,
25:37
Speaker 1: so he'd brought in Joe for an interview, and he
25:39
Speaker 1: asked him to explain why, after months of silence, he
25:43
Speaker 1: had called Catherine right before she turned up dead, and
25:46
Speaker 1: Joe had replied he'd only called her to check in
25:49
Speaker 1: to say he hoped she had a nice Thanksgiving. He
25:51
Speaker 1: had claimed that he was really just trying to be friendly,
25:53
Speaker 1: but then Getz just asked Joe point blank if he
25:56
Speaker 1: had ever roofed anyone's drink before, and at this Joe's
25:59
Speaker 1: eyes went wide and he kind of spluttered out that
26:02
Speaker 1: he would never dream of doing anything like that. But
26:05
Speaker 1: based on Joe's tone, Gets really felt like he was
26:09
Speaker 1: lying and so now Gets felt like the entire investigation
26:12
Speaker 1: was wide open. A few days ago, he had been
26:15
Speaker 1: absolutely confident that David was the killer, but men from
26:19
Speaker 1: Catherine's life just kept coming out of the woodwork.
26:21
Speaker 2: He now had three.
26:23
Speaker 1: Main suspects instead of just one. In fact, at this point,
26:27
Speaker 1: his original suspect, David, was actually looking more innocent. Gets
26:31
Speaker 1: his officers had spoken to David's co workers at the
26:33
Speaker 1: hotel where he worked as a dorman, and they confirmed
26:36
Speaker 1: that he really had stopped and talked to them on
26:38
Speaker 1: the evening of Catherine's death, just like he had claimed.
26:41
Speaker 1: And while Getz had hoped that the security camera footage
26:43
Speaker 1: from the apartment building would prove David was lying about
26:46
Speaker 1: his alibi, at least in terms of when he was there,
26:49
Speaker 1: had actually showed David leaving the front entrance of the
26:52
Speaker 1: building at six thirty eight PM, which lined up with
26:55
Speaker 1: David's story because he said he left around six point forty. Now,
26:59
Speaker 1: this did not prove that David was innocent. Based on
27:01
Speaker 1: what the neighbors had heard, she could have been killed
27:03
Speaker 1: before six point thirty eight, but there weren't a lot
27:06
Speaker 1: of cameras in the apartment building and no angle covered
27:09
Speaker 1: the hallway outside of Apartment two D, so the footage
27:12
Speaker 1: couldn't prove one way or another, you know, whether Brad
27:15
Speaker 1: Stewart or anybody else for that matter, had gone into
27:18
Speaker 1: the apartment while David was gone.
27:20
Speaker 2: Just then his phone rang.
27:22
Speaker 1: Gets reached for it, expecting it to be another reporter,
27:25
Speaker 1: but this time he was pleasantly surprised. It was a
27:28
Speaker 1: member of the forensics team, and there was this obvious
27:31
Speaker 1: excitement in their voice. He told Getz that they'd just
27:34
Speaker 1: discovered something big, something they completely missed during their first
27:38
Speaker 1: sweep of Catherine's apartment. The forensics team member explained that
27:42
Speaker 1: when they'd first entered Catherine's bedroom, they had taken that
27:45
Speaker 1: mattress that was stuck behind the door and propped it
27:47
Speaker 1: up against the wall to get it out of the way.
27:50
Speaker 2: But when they'd done that.
27:51
Speaker 1: The mattress had actually covered up something that was right
27:54
Speaker 1: there on the wall, all along, a bloody handprint. It
27:58
Speaker 1: was not until a couple of days later, after they'd
28:00
Speaker 1: carefully gone over everything else in the room, that they
28:03
Speaker 1: moved the mattress back down onto the floor, and that's
28:06
Speaker 1: when they found the handprint. Gets His face lit up
28:09
Speaker 1: when he heard this news because now he knew all
28:11
Speaker 1: he had to do was go get handprints from all
28:14
Speaker 1: of his suspects, which seemed like that would be pretty
28:16
Speaker 1: easy to do, but he quickly realized he had a
28:19
Speaker 1: problem because some of his suspects had already lawyered up
28:22
Speaker 1: at this point, and they were refusing to speak with police,
28:25
Speaker 1: let alone hand over their prints, and Gets really could
28:28
Speaker 1: not force them to give their prints unless he arrested them,
28:32
Speaker 1: and so that meant Gets was now in this weird
28:34
Speaker 1: catch twenty two because he needed the suspects prints in
28:37
Speaker 1: order to make the arrest, but he also couldn't get
28:40
Speaker 1: their prints unless he arrested them. So at this point,
28:43
Speaker 1: the investigation kind of stalled out. Weeks went by, and
28:46
Speaker 1: Detective Gets started to get really frustrated because there was
28:50
Speaker 1: just nothing he could legally do to push the case forward. However,
28:54
Speaker 1: the case was still receiving a ton of coverage in
28:56
Speaker 1: the press, and to a lot of people it looked
28:59
Speaker 1: like the NYP was just sort of dropping the ball here.
29:02
Speaker 1: But then on December sixteenth, so three weeks after Catherine's murder,
29:06
Speaker 1: the news coverage that had annoyed Gets so much actually
29:10
Speaker 1: ended up giving.
29:11
Speaker 2: Him exactly what he needed.
29:13
Speaker 1: That day, a woman called the NYPD because of something
29:16
Speaker 1: she had seen on the front page of one of
29:19
Speaker 1: the newspapers in New York, and what this woman said
29:23
Speaker 1: led gets directly to Catherine's killer. Based on forensic evidence
29:30
Speaker 1: and numerous interviews, this is what police believe happened to
29:33
Speaker 1: Catherine Woods. On the evening of November twenty seventh, two
29:37
Speaker 1: thousand and five, shortly after six forty pm, the killer
29:46
Speaker 1: climbed the stairs inside of Catherine's apartment building. They knew
29:49
Speaker 1: that at that very moment she'd be getting ready for
29:52
Speaker 1: another shift at Flash Dancers, and the fact that she
29:55
Speaker 1: even worked there secretly really bothered the killer way more
29:59
Speaker 1: than they would ever let on. The idea of Catherine
30:01
Speaker 1: dancing and giving her attention to other men made the
30:04
Speaker 1: killer so jealous they couldn't even stand it.
30:07
Speaker 2: Now.
30:07
Speaker 1: The killer had tried to talk with Catherine and win
30:10
Speaker 1: her over, but she had rejected him. So the time
30:14
Speaker 1: for talking was over, and so the killer quietly walked
30:17
Speaker 1: up to the door of Apartment two D and reached
30:19
Speaker 1: down and turned the handle, which was unlocked. As they
30:23
Speaker 1: slipped silently into the apartment, the killer brought out the
30:26
Speaker 1: knife that they had hidden inside of their sweatshirt. But
30:28
Speaker 1: then something they had not anticipated happened. There was this
30:32
Speaker 1: dog lying on the apartment floor that got up and
30:35
Speaker 1: began to bark at them. For a moment, the killer
30:38
Speaker 1: thought about just abandoning the plan and leaving, but then Catherine,
30:41
Speaker 1: alerted by the dog, came out of the bedroom and
30:44
Speaker 1: looked right at the killer and saw the knife in
30:47
Speaker 1: their hand. Catherine screamed and ran right back into her bedroom,
30:51
Speaker 1: the very bedroom that she had made explicitly off limits
30:54
Speaker 1: to the killer, And just thinking about that, the surge
30:57
Speaker 1: of anger suddenly overtook them, and the killer charged into
31:01
Speaker 1: the room after her. Catherine was already on the other
31:04
Speaker 1: side of the bed, lifting up the mattress as a
31:06
Speaker 1: sort of barricade, but the killer just forced their way
31:09
Speaker 1: past it, and they grabbed Catherine from behind. But Catherine
31:12
Speaker 1: she fought back. She began thrashing around, doing everything she
31:16
Speaker 1: could to break free, but she couldn't, and so they
31:19
Speaker 1: struggled and began smashing into the furniture and knocking things
31:22
Speaker 1: down all over the room. And it was around this
31:25
Speaker 1: point that the killer lifted up that knife they had
31:27
Speaker 1: brought and they slit her neck as deep as they could.
31:31
Speaker 1: But even then, even with this fatal wound, Catherine kept
31:35
Speaker 1: on fighting, and she was so vicious that the killer
31:38
Speaker 1: actually had to brace themselves against a wall just to
31:41
Speaker 1: keep their balance. And in the chaos, the killer didn't realize,
31:45
Speaker 1: you know, as they're fighting off Catherine, that they had
31:47
Speaker 1: placed a bloody hand on the wall, leaving a print behind. Finally,
31:52
Speaker 1: when Catherine fell to the floor, the killer was still
31:55
Speaker 1: blinded with their rage, and they just got down.
31:58
Speaker 2: There and began stabbing her over and over again.
32:01
Speaker 1: And then finally, when Catherine stopped moving, the killer just jumped.
32:05
Speaker 2: Up and ran out of the apartment.
32:08
Speaker 1: But when they got into the hallway, they realized that
32:10
Speaker 1: black dog that had barked at them had gotten out.
32:14
Speaker 1: Now the killer wanted the dog back in the apartment,
32:16
Speaker 1: but the dog was clearly on edge they were still
32:19
Speaker 1: barking at the killer, and so instead the killer just
32:21
Speaker 1: shut the apartment door, trapping the dog in the hallway,
32:24
Speaker 1: and then the killer fled the apartment building out the
32:27
Speaker 1: back door, where there was no security camera, and for
32:30
Speaker 1: weeks the killer was not caught until their violent past
32:35
Speaker 1: came back to bite them. Several weeks after Catherine's murder,
32:39
Speaker 1: a young woman who didn't know Catherine was walking down
32:42
Speaker 1: the streets of New York when she noticed a newspaper
32:45
Speaker 1: and on the cover of this newspaper was plastered the
32:48
Speaker 1: face of the killer, who was currently a suspect in
32:51
Speaker 1: a murder case. And this woman was horrified because she
32:55
Speaker 1: knew this person. They the killer had sexually assaulted her
32:59
Speaker 1: at a year earlier, but she had never filed a
33:02
Speaker 1: police report. But after seeing that this horrible person was
33:06
Speaker 1: being actively accused of murder, she called the NYPD and
33:11
Speaker 1: she told them what she knew, and the NYPD's Special
33:13
Speaker 1: Victims Unit used this woman's accusation as the basis to
33:18
Speaker 1: arrest the killer, and finally, once they were under arrest,
33:22
Speaker 1: Getz was able to get their handprint, and those prints
33:26
Speaker 1: did in fact match the bloody handprint found on Catherine's wall.
33:30
Speaker 1: They belonged to Catherine's on again, off again boyfriend, Paul Cortes.
33:36
Speaker 1: David's suspicions of Paul had been right all along. Paul
33:39
Speaker 1: was a creep who had assaulted at least one other
33:41
Speaker 1: woman before he killed Catherine. Data collected from nearby cell
33:45
Speaker 1: towers would prove that Paul was near Catherine's apartment building
33:49
Speaker 1: immediately before her murder, and he had been calling her
33:53
Speaker 1: over and over again when she ignored his calls. Paul
33:57
Speaker 1: waited until he saw David leave the apartment to go
33:59
Speaker 1: get his car, and then he hustled upstairs to the apartment,
34:03
Speaker 1: knowing Catherine would be alone. Even though David was only
34:06
Speaker 1: gone for twenty minutes, that was still long enough for
34:09
Speaker 1: Paul to get inside the apartment, murder Catherine and slip
34:12
Speaker 1: away unnoticed. Paul was arrested about a month after Catherine's
34:17
Speaker 1: murder on Wednesday, December twenty third, two thousand and five.
34:20
Speaker 1: He was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced
34:23
Speaker 1: to twenty.
34:23
Speaker 2: Five years to life. Thank you so much for watching.
34:35
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
34:36
Speaker 1: the comments, and remember, we have a whole playlist of
34:39
Speaker 1: true crime episodes ready for you to binge right now,
34:42
Speaker 1: so click here and give them a watch.
34:45
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see you