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Mom-In-The-Box Cold Case Solved After Nearly a Decade · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, get this picture, Monterey, California, right, twenty fourteen.
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  We're talking seemingly normal apartment and a woman found dead.
• 0:09
  Sounds straightforward so far, except hold on, she's incredibly malnourished,
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  like she's starved. But here's the kicker, a box under
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  the kitchen table with another body inside.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, now that's not something you hear every day. That's
• 0:21
  going to throw a wrench in the open and shut
• 0:23
  theory exactly.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So they start digging. Turns out the woman in the apartment,
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  initially they think it's Francescal Linda Jacobs, around fifty eight
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  years old. The box they find a handwritten will points
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  to her mother, Florence.
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  Speaker 2: So a double tragedy, but no obvious foul play at
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  this point, you'd.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Think so, except get the body in the box that
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  had been there a long long time decompose. We're not
• 0:45
  talking recent passing.
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  Speaker 2: Ah See. Now that's where things get complicated. Decomposition throws
• 0:50
  a whole other level of mystery into the mix. Identifying
• 0:53
  the woman in the box cause of death, it all
• 0:55
  becomes way more difficult.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And as if that wasn't enough, the more they look
• 1:00
  into Francesca, the weirder it gets something about her age
• 1:03
  wasn't adding up. She looked way older than fifty eight.
• 1:05
  Even her driver's license photo same thing.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: That's a huge red flag right there. People usually don't
• 1:11
  just look significantly younger than they are. It throws the
• 1:13
  whole identity thing wide open. Was she living under a
• 1:16
  false name and if so, why?
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Fast forward nearly a decade to twenty twenty two. This
• 1:22
  case lands in the lap of the Cold Case task Force.
• 1:25
  They decided to bring in the big gains Authroom, Inc.
• 1:28
  They're like the rock stars of DNA technology, and for
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  good reason.
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  Speaker 2: What authorm can do with degraded DNA samples is incredible.
• 1:36
  Imagine piecing together a puzzle where half the pieces are
• 1:39
  missing and the other halfs are faded and worn. That's
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  what they're dealing with. But they've got these advanced techniques
• 1:44
  right They can extract these tiny, fragmented pieces of the
• 1:47
  DNA and somehow manage to create a genetic profile. Amazing stuff,
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  and in this.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Case, those DNA results blew the whole thing wide open.
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  Remember Francesca born in fifty five. Turns out her real
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  name was Linda Ray Jacob was born in nineteen forty two.
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  Thirteen years older than she claimed.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, talk about a plot twist, And it gets better.
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  Speaker 1: Remember the body in the box confirmed to be Ida
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  Florence Jacobs, her mother.
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  Speaker 2: So not only was she living under a false identity,
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  but she kept her mother's remains hidden for years. It
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  makes you wonder what she was running from or what
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  she was trying to hide. What could lead someone to
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  go to such lengths.
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  Speaker 1: That's the million dollar question, and sadly we may never
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  know the full story. But with Linda's real identity revealed,
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  investigators they tried to piece together.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Her life, trying to find some explanation for all.
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  Speaker 1: Of this exactly. They found some relatives, even a former
• 2:40
  husband who confirmed yep, that was Linda and her mother.
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  But get this, Linda's paper trail, it's practically non existent,
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  just a few whispers from the nineties onward, mostly in
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  and around Monterey. Like she wanted to disappear, erase.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Her past, a fresh start, except she brought this huge
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  secret with her. Literally it's heartbreaking in a way. Whatever
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  happened in their lives, whatever led to this, it's a
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  powerful reminder, isn't it about how family secrets can shape
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  a person's entire life.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It really is, and it just goes to show you
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  the truth. Sometimes it's stranger than anything we could dream of.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, but this case, with all its tragedy and mystery,
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  also shines a light on the power of forensic science.
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  Even after all these years, it can offer some answers,
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  some closure, maybe even a little bit of justice, and
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  Speaker 1: Maybe a little bit of hope that even the most
• 3:28
  deeply buried truths have a way of coming to light.