Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Freshman girl interns at Denver radio station 2 weeks, snatched from bus, raped & murdered. WHO KILLED HELENE PRUSZYNSKI?

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Freshman girl interns at Denver radio station 2 weeks, snatched from bus, raped & murdered. WHO KILLED HELENE PRUSZYNSKI? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: A college student in an intern with her life before her.
0:09
Speaker 1: Helene Paschynski gets off the bus. How many times have
0:13
Speaker 1: I taken the bus back and forth to work in
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Speaker 1: New York. You get off, your hands are full, you
0:20
Speaker 1: had a backpack, a pocketbook, sometimes tons of working your hands,
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Speaker 1: and then suddenly, out of nowhere, you're attacked, likely from behind.
0:31
Speaker 1: I can just see somebody grabbing her by her backpack
0:34
Speaker 1: and slinging her around. And then she's raped, raped, brutally
0:40
Speaker 1: raped in the outdoors in the elements. And she wasn't
0:44
Speaker 1: just murdered. This young girl was murdered nine times over,
0:49
Speaker 1: as I recall from the medical examiner's report, stabbed nine
0:54
Speaker 1: times in the back. I mean, see, Grace, this is
0:58
Speaker 1: crime stories. Thank you for being with us. And let
1:01
Speaker 1: me tell you something. How many years Helene's family Endura
1:15
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. As snow began to fall
1:22
Speaker 1: in the field where the body of young Helen Pasinski
1:24
Speaker 1: was found, obliterating any clues, authorities called off their search
1:28
Speaker 1: of the area. Douglas County Sheriff's officers and investigators from
1:31
Speaker 1: the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, aided by volunteers from the
1:34
Speaker 1: Arapaho County search and rescue units spent much of the
1:37
Speaker 1: morning combing the area, hoping to turn up something to
1:39
Speaker 1: lead them to the girls murderer, but found nothing. Miss
1:43
Speaker 1: Puskenski's body was found early Thursday. She'd been sexually assaulted
1:47
Speaker 1: and stabbed a college student working as an intern in
1:49
Speaker 1: the news department at KHOW Radio. She was last seen
1:53
Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon when she left work. Inglewood police also and
1:57
Speaker 1: on the case have been concentrating their efforts near this
1:59
Speaker 1: bus stop on South Broadway. It's believed that miss Passynski
2:02
Speaker 1: got off her bus after work here Wednesday night. She
2:05
Speaker 1: was abducted sometime after that. They've been talking with people
2:09
Speaker 1: in the area looking for some clue, but so far
2:12
Speaker 1: nothing and they're afraid if they don't find something soon,
2:15
Speaker 1: they may not find anything at all. You are hearing
2:17
Speaker 1: our friends at KUSA nine News. That was general reporter
2:21
Speaker 1: Kevin Roberts. It's such a euphemism to say sex assaulted, abducted.
2:29
Speaker 1: This is what happened. This young girl, a college student
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Speaker 1: in an intern with her life before her. Helene Passeynski
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Speaker 1: gets off the bus and then she's raped and murdered.
2:41
Speaker 1: Joining me an all Star panel to break it down,
2:43
Speaker 1: put it back together again. Mark Tate, renowned attorney, joining
2:47
Speaker 1: me out of the Savannah jurisdiction. Bruce Johnson, the owner
2:53
Speaker 1: of ESP Investigations, Master Sergeant, Region one Crime Scene Commander, Chicago,
2:58
Speaker 1: and let me tell you, in Chicago, they've never got
3:00
Speaker 1: a lack of business. Karen Stark, psychologist, joining me out
3:03
Speaker 1: of Manhattan. You can find her at Karen Stark dot com.
3:06
Speaker 1: Doctor Katherine Maloney, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Erie County Medical
3:12
Speaker 1: Examiner's Office in Buffalo and New York. Nickel City Forensics.
3:17
Speaker 1: But right now straight out to Levi Page, investigative reporter
3:21
Speaker 1: with Crime online dot Com. Levite, let's just start where
3:25
Speaker 1: every investigation starts, and that is I already know she's
3:30
Speaker 1: at a bus stop right there. That gives me a
3:32
Speaker 1: whole bus load of potential suspects. And everybody around that
3:36
Speaker 1: bus stop. That's a lot of suspects. Not only that
3:39
Speaker 1: she was an Internet khow how many nuts know about
3:45
Speaker 1: her through the radio where she was working. Nancy she
3:50
Speaker 1: twenty one years old. She's a senior at Wheaton College
3:53
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, and she moved to Colorado in nineteen eighty
3:58
Speaker 1: to be an intern at KHOW Radio. It's located in Denver,
4:03
Speaker 1: and she wanted to be a journalist and she was
4:05
Speaker 1: on the road to becoming when Nancy she'd been in
4:08
Speaker 1: Colorado for two weeks and she stayed with her and uncle.
4:14
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, she'd only been there two weeks. Yes,
4:19
Speaker 1: two weeks, oh man, Okay, did you say she's living
4:23
Speaker 1: with her aunt and uncle. Yes, they lived about forty
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Speaker 1: miles south of Denver, so she would use the bus
4:29
Speaker 1: to commute to and from her internship. Okay, wait a minute,
4:32
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, Karen Stark a forty mile bus ride
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Speaker 1: each way to work, you know, and then she gets
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Speaker 1: off the bus after work after a what an hour
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Speaker 1: plus commute because you know, the buses stop and every
4:48
Speaker 1: you know, taken many a greyhound bus, and then this happens.
4:52
Speaker 1: This was probably the furthest thing from her mind. You know,
4:55
Speaker 1: a young girl have this job, to be successful, to
4:59
Speaker 1: lose to a different place, ambitious, and she's getting off
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Speaker 1: of bus, totally innocent and winds us brutally murdered, raped
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Speaker 1: and did okay, hold on, you know, LEVI, I may
5:13
Speaker 1: have missed it. But where did you say she was from?
5:17
Speaker 1: She was from Massachusetts. That's where she was originally from,
5:20
Speaker 1: away from everything she knew. Okay, back to the story,
5:23
Speaker 1: So do you know what time of the day or
5:25
Speaker 1: night it was? It was in the evening. She just
5:27
Speaker 1: gotten off work, so it was around six pm and
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Speaker 1: she had got off the bus stop Nancy, and she
5:33
Speaker 1: had to walk five blocks to get to her aunt
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Speaker 1: and uncle's home and she never made it up. Okay,
5:38
Speaker 1: five blocks is not that far, But that brings me
5:41
Speaker 1: to another issue. To Bruce Johnson, owner ESP Investigations, a
5:45
Speaker 1: scene commander in Chicago Metro, that's not easy, Bruce, five
5:51
Speaker 1: blocks now, right now, we have a whole haystack for
5:55
Speaker 1: them to dig through looking for that needle, which is
5:58
Speaker 1: our suspect. Five blocks. While it's not really a long
6:03
Speaker 1: way to walk, I remember walking home from Court TV
6:07
Speaker 1: was about am almost a twenty block walk one way,
6:13
Speaker 1: but a five block walk actually is plenty of time
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Speaker 1: for someone to be waiting if someone had been watching
6:21
Speaker 1: her and her route. But also, Bruce, she only had
6:24
Speaker 1: been there two weeks, so I don't know how much
6:28
Speaker 1: someone could have been watching her movements. It sounds more
6:31
Speaker 1: like a crime of opportunity exactly. That's what I think
6:34
Speaker 1: too that from the crime scene to where she's getting
6:38
Speaker 1: off the bus. You know, when you're first initially looking
6:41
Speaker 1: at this whole thing, that's a lot of area to cover.
6:43
Speaker 1: But once you focus from where she gets off the bus,
6:46
Speaker 1: if you can narrow it down to where she gets
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Speaker 1: off and that five block area, then it becomes manageable.
6:54
Speaker 1: Now you could manage that area, and you could find
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Speaker 1: out her short routine in that two week time frame,
7:01
Speaker 1: and you could get narrowed in on a specific area. Okay,
7:06
Speaker 1: are you saying that five blocks it shouldn't be too
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Speaker 1: hard for police? Did you charm of her exact path? Exactly? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: that should be. That's not a lot area to cover.
7:15
Speaker 1: But remember back then they didn't have cameras, they didn't
7:17
Speaker 1: have all the technology that we have there, So you
7:19
Speaker 1: would be knocking on doors, you would be doing different
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Speaker 1: things than you would today. And did I get this right?
7:25
Speaker 1: LEVI page joining me investigate a reporter with crime online
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Speaker 1: dot Com. LEVI, I understand that snow obscured her body
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Speaker 1: for a period of time. This is a yes? No?
7:35
Speaker 1: Is that correct? You're correct? So what about that? Joining me?
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Speaker 1: As I mentioned? Doctor Katherine Maloney, Deputy Chief Emmy and
7:43
Speaker 1: Erie County. Also at New York Nicols City Forensics doctor
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Speaker 1: Katherine Maloney, how would that affect the not only the
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Speaker 1: discovery of her body, but would it preserve her body
7:56
Speaker 1: or would it hurt in some way the autopsy that's
8:01
Speaker 1: to come. Well, anytime there's a delay between a person's
8:05
Speaker 1: death and when an autopsy happens, it always makes it
8:08
Speaker 1: more difficult in order to terminique the cause and manner
8:11
Speaker 1: of death. Take a listen to our friends at KUSA nine.
8:14
Speaker 1: This is Kevin Roberts first forty forty eight hours. I'd
8:18
Speaker 1: say are probably very critical in terms of the kinds
8:20
Speaker 1: of information that you receive and the amount of it
8:24
Speaker 1: may very well be just that information which will identify
8:28
Speaker 1: a suspect or identify an individual who was in the area.
8:32
Speaker 1: It's kind of difficult, I guess. You know, you might
8:35
Speaker 1: try to liken it to anyone who's asked to say, well,
8:39
Speaker 1: what did you see around noon two days ago? And
8:43
Speaker 1: that's a very difficult thing to try to remember. So
8:46
Speaker 1: we make as many contacts as we can immediately after
8:50
Speaker 1: a thing like this in an effort to try to
8:52
Speaker 1: talk with people when their memories are still in focus.
8:56
Speaker 1: And that they can remember substantial information. The radio station
9:00
Speaker 1: where missus Pasinski worked has offered a reward for information
9:03
Speaker 1: leading to the conviction of her killer, and law enforcement
9:05
Speaker 1: officers are asking that anyone with any information called the
9:08
Speaker 1: Colorado Bureau of Investigation. Time Stories with Nancy Grace. Here's
9:26
Speaker 1: a twenty one year old girl who left college a
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Speaker 1: small little town of Massachusetts to come to Colorado to
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Speaker 1: internship at KIHAU Radio and was only here two weeks
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Speaker 1: and was abducted at some time coming home from work,
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Speaker 1: raped and murdered in Douglas County, and left. This is
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Speaker 1: a young girl who was just starting her life, came
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Speaker 1: to Colorado to have an opportunity to make a difference.
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Speaker 1: She wanted to be in journalism. She wanted to be
10:01
Speaker 1: a part of a bigger story. She was involved in
10:04
Speaker 1: her choir at home, and from all accounts and everyone
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Speaker 1: had anything to say about her, it was just a wonderful, decent,
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Speaker 1: nice young lady, and it's important that we talk about
10:16
Speaker 1: her as much as we can. You're hearing the Douglas
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Speaker 1: County Sheriff Tony Spurlock speaking very disturbing a young girl
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Speaker 1: just starting her life, only in the New City two
10:28
Speaker 1: weeks before she's snatched off a public bus, raped in
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Speaker 1: the elements, and stabbed nine times in the bat and
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Speaker 1: then to add insult to injury, no arrest is made.
10:43
Speaker 1: Back to crime online dot Com investigative reporter Levi Page,
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Speaker 1: Levi now, I heard the sheriff earlier say they were
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Speaker 1: questioning witnesses, potential witnesses. Where were you at noon? But
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Speaker 1: I thought you said this happened in the evening. Yes,
10:58
Speaker 1: it happened in the evening when she out off of work. Okay,
11:02
Speaker 1: so maybe he was just speaking about the mechanics of
11:04
Speaker 1: an investigation. The first thing you do an investigation is
11:08
Speaker 1: you search for the body, of course, and apparently, as
11:12
Speaker 1: I was going to point out, her body was obscured
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Speaker 1: by snow, how many days passed before her body was found? Well, Nancy,
11:20
Speaker 1: it was snow in the area, but it didn't actually
11:23
Speaker 1: take them that long to discover the body. It was
11:26
Speaker 1: discovered the next day, So within twenty four hours her
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Speaker 1: body was discovered and wasn't, in fact, on the walk
11:32
Speaker 1: from the bus to the aunt's home. Yes, it was
11:35
Speaker 1: in a field, in a field. Hunt. That tells me
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Speaker 1: a lot, actually. Bruce Johnson, owner ESP Investigations. So when
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Speaker 1: we say five blocks, we're not talking about city blocks
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Speaker 1: where you're passing one apartment building after the next, after
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Speaker 1: the next, and then you pass at a Gastinos and
11:49
Speaker 1: then you pass this, and then you pass that. We're
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Speaker 1: talking about walking a rural route. Now, in my mind,
11:55
Speaker 1: that makes it actually easier and more difficult. Easier because
11:58
Speaker 1: there are less people and more difficult because there are
12:02
Speaker 1: less people, less witnesses that's correct, yeah, to see what happened,
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Speaker 1: but also less people to identify as a suspect. So
12:12
Speaker 1: what do you think about that, Breece Johnson. Yes, with
12:14
Speaker 1: the being in a in a rural area, as you said,
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Speaker 1: it's going to be less congested, less traffic. It'd be
12:21
Speaker 1: easier to look at normal routines of you know, how
12:26
Speaker 1: busy it is there their rush hour traffic in their
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Speaker 1: downtown area or in this area, versus in the city,
12:31
Speaker 1: in a highly populated area where traffic and people are
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Speaker 1: coming going more rapidly, more people are coming on buses
12:37
Speaker 1: and transportation. Out in the rural area, you may only
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Speaker 1: have the bus routes coming, you know, once an hour,
12:43
Speaker 1: where in the city they may be every every twenty minute,
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Speaker 1: dury fifteen minutes, so you'll be able to get those
12:48
Speaker 1: patterns of the bus of you know, rural area type
12:52
Speaker 1: activity a lot easier. Another question, to you leave ipage,
12:56
Speaker 1: climb online dot com invest to get every reporter. So
12:59
Speaker 1: it took a full twenty four hours before her body
13:02
Speaker 1: was found. I find that significant and I don't understand
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Speaker 1: why because she was only five blots as the crow
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Speaker 1: flies for the bus stop to her home. So was
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Speaker 1: her body in route or had she been abducted and
13:16
Speaker 1: taken away? Where was her body found? As it relates
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Speaker 1: to the bus stop, The body was found in a field.
13:21
Speaker 1: It was away from the bus stop and away from
13:24
Speaker 1: the route that she would take to get home. Interesting, Okay,
13:27
Speaker 1: that's telling me a lot. Joining me, Mark Tay, renowned
13:29
Speaker 1: attorney joining me out of the Savannah area. You can
13:32
Speaker 1: find him at Tate Law dot com. Mark, you have
13:35
Speaker 1: defended many, many cases. But what this is telling me,
13:39
Speaker 1: if her body really was a distance away from the
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Speaker 1: route between the bus stop and the home, is that
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Speaker 1: the person had a vehicle, a vehicle that she was
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Speaker 1: put in and taken. This isn't somebody standing behind a
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Speaker 1: tree that jumps out when she goes by and she's
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Speaker 1: dragged off in the bushes. This is somebody that got
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Speaker 1: her in a vehicle based on where her body was found.
14:00
Speaker 1: That changes things. What's a car enters the picture? You're
14:03
Speaker 1: really up the creek without a paddle, because she could
14:06
Speaker 1: have been taken anywhere by anybody, not somebody that lived
14:10
Speaker 1: or worked along the route. See what I mean. It's
14:12
Speaker 1: opening up a plethora of possibilities regarding suspects, right, And
14:16
Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right that this appears to me
14:20
Speaker 1: to be more of a crime of opportunity. And I
14:24
Speaker 1: think the thing that makes it more difficult here as well,
14:27
Speaker 1: as we have a young girl who was fresh to
14:29
Speaker 1: the community. It was still getting her bearings about where
14:33
Speaker 1: to be, where it's okay to be, what may or
14:35
Speaker 1: may not be suspicious, especially getting off smart te Hold
14:40
Speaker 1: your horses. Are you trying to say it somehow her
14:43
Speaker 1: fault because she didn't know the right way to walk home,
14:45
Speaker 1: because it kind of sounds at absolutely not no, no,
14:48
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's it all takes It takes
14:50
Speaker 1: us all time to learn our new location. I mean,
14:53
Speaker 1: starting ninth grade in high school, you have to learn
14:57
Speaker 1: and it takes you a moment to understand and to
14:59
Speaker 1: get your bearings, saying anyway, she walked into a into
15:02
Speaker 1: a situation that she should have known as dangerous. Well,
15:05
Speaker 1: now you're not. You got to get used to where
15:07
Speaker 1: you're going. You're bearing what I mean, you make a
15:09
Speaker 1: lot of oral arguments because you just slithered out of
15:12
Speaker 1: that one really really well, I guess you've argued in
15:15
Speaker 1: front of the Georgia Supreme Court and the Georgia a
15:17
Speaker 1: Pellet Court. Right. Well, we've done a lot of different
15:19
Speaker 1: appeals work, but not usually on behalf of criminal defendants.
15:23
Speaker 1: You know, if they're not guilty and they're inappropriately accused,
15:26
Speaker 1: we generally have been successful in demonstrating that to prosecutors
15:30
Speaker 1: and they don't continue with their efforts passed and indictment.
15:34
Speaker 1: But you know, you know what, Mark's Hey, Okay, I'm
15:36
Speaker 1: just gonna leave that where it is because I got
15:38
Speaker 1: bigger I got bigger fish to fry. Back to Helene
15:41
Speaker 1: Prasinski just twenty one years old, Leavi Page joining me
15:45
Speaker 1: from crime online. So now I believe that the got
15:48
Speaker 1: her in a car? How could nobody see that happen?
15:51
Speaker 1: But okay, that is a whole nother canon worms for
15:54
Speaker 1: me to figure out. But I want to talk about
15:56
Speaker 1: her body now. Her body was covered in snow. And
16:00
Speaker 1: although you tell me the snow was intermittent, Levi, Page
16:03
Speaker 1: I have been told that the snow concealed her body.
16:06
Speaker 1: She was out in the elements over twenty four hours.
16:09
Speaker 1: We believe now it's all that, correct, Levi. You're correct, Nancy.
16:13
Speaker 1: And when she was discovered, Nancy, she was stabbed nine times,
16:17
Speaker 1: partially clothed, and she had her hands tied together behind
16:21
Speaker 1: her back, obviously to restrain her. Okay, hold on. Every
16:24
Speaker 1: time I taught you, I'll learned something new. I mean
16:26
Speaker 1: something significant, Levi, Because Karen Start, now that I know
16:29
Speaker 1: her hands are tied behind her back. This guy came
16:32
Speaker 1: loaded for bear. It's not that he just saw her
16:35
Speaker 1: walking along and got an urge to rape somebody. I'll
16:38
Speaker 1: never forget, Karen Start. And I told you about this
16:41
Speaker 1: when we were sitting on the set at Court TV.
16:43
Speaker 1: There was a burglary that turned into a rape, or
16:46
Speaker 1: at least that's what the defense would have me believe.
16:48
Speaker 1: But the defendant gave a statement and he said, well,
16:53
Speaker 1: miss Grace, I went in to steal a TV and
16:57
Speaker 1: this she came in and you know what, can I say,
17:00
Speaker 1: a little nature got up. I think he was trying
17:03
Speaker 1: to say he got an erection and he raped the woman.
17:07
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is, I don't I think every
17:11
Speaker 1: rape is planned. I don't think it just happens the
17:15
Speaker 1: way defendants would have you believe. But that's always stuck
17:17
Speaker 1: in my mind. He said that, looking right at me
17:19
Speaker 1: with a straight face. Too. Now this guy karen bound her,
17:24
Speaker 1: I think LEVI I just said her hands were still
17:25
Speaker 1: bound behind her back. This guy came with zip ties
17:30
Speaker 1: or robes or our hosiery or something to bind her,
17:34
Speaker 1: torture her, rape her, and kill her. What's the mindset
17:37
Speaker 1: of a guy like this? Well, I agree with you.
17:41
Speaker 1: I think every rape is planned. And the reason that
17:44
Speaker 1: I'm agreeing with you is I think that the personality
17:47
Speaker 1: of someone who is going to commit that crime is
17:50
Speaker 1: such that they are just ready and waiting for their victim.
17:54
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen that all of the k of course,
17:57
Speaker 1: he's ready awaiting. But what I'm saying is the mindset.
18:01
Speaker 1: This is a guy. And this is classic example. I've
18:03
Speaker 1: told it to a jury. When you are walking along,
18:07
Speaker 1: let's just pretend. Let's say you're joining me from a
18:09
Speaker 1: hat and you're walking along Central Park with your husband,
18:12
Speaker 1: and you see a little rabbit hop across the path
18:15
Speaker 1: in front of you. Your instinct is what to go
18:18
Speaker 1: chase it down and tear it's neck out with your teeth. No,
18:21
Speaker 1: your instinct would be to try to pet the little guy. Right,
18:24
Speaker 1: this guy, this killer, this rapist is different than all
18:30
Speaker 1: of us crime stories with Nancy Grace Helene Prusinski, just
18:54
Speaker 1: twenty one years old, moves away from home, crosses the
18:59
Speaker 1: country for her big break in media. She is working
19:02
Speaker 1: at a local radio station, khow only living with her
19:07
Speaker 1: aunt and uncle. Two weeks before she is kidnapped, brutally raped,
19:13
Speaker 1: tied up, murdered, her body lining the snow overnight before
19:17
Speaker 1: it was discovered the next day. Why and how in
19:21
Speaker 1: the hey did the killer get away? Right now to
19:24
Speaker 1: doctor Katherine Maloney, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Erie County in Buffalo.
19:29
Speaker 1: You can also find her at Nicols City Forensics. Doctor Maloney, again,
19:33
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. When you see nine
19:36
Speaker 1: stab wounds to the back, can you even tell which
19:40
Speaker 1: one was the mortal wound? Generally, when you do the autopsy,
19:45
Speaker 1: you can see on the inside which organs were injured,
19:47
Speaker 1: and so based on the organs that are injured, that
19:50
Speaker 1: will let you know which wound is the fatal stab wound.
19:53
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised in a case like this if
19:55
Speaker 1: multiple vital organs ended up being injured, So probably more
19:59
Speaker 1: than one of the STA was potentially fetled. Question, do
20:02
Speaker 1: you believe Helene was targeted or was this a random act?
20:07
Speaker 1: Now keep in mind what we know so far. He
20:10
Speaker 1: drove to the location, he was prepared with either zip tized, rope, stalking,
20:15
Speaker 1: something like that to tie her up. He threw her
20:19
Speaker 1: body out in a field. What does that say? Why
20:23
Speaker 1: a field? Why that field? Because I mean, you know,
20:26
Speaker 1: doctor Karen Stark, as we always say, perfect example Scott Peterson.
20:31
Speaker 1: People go where they are familiar. For instance, Scott Peterson
20:35
Speaker 1: murdered his wife Lacy. Then what did he do. He's
20:38
Speaker 1: a fisherman. He dumps her body in the San Francisco
20:41
Speaker 1: Bay where he fishes. He knows where to go. This
20:44
Speaker 1: person may have had an intimate knowledge of this field.
20:47
Speaker 1: But do you think she was targeted or was he
20:50
Speaker 1: looking for anybody to rape and murder? There? It was
20:52
Speaker 1: a chance Nancy because she was taking that same bus
20:56
Speaker 1: that he was focused on her. But there's no doubt
21:00
Speaker 1: that it could have been anybody that he found because
21:03
Speaker 1: he came prepared, he had whatever he bound her with.
21:06
Speaker 1: So he has a personality where he can only enjoy
21:11
Speaker 1: sex that way, he's looking for anybody to do this with.
21:16
Speaker 1: Did you just say enjoy sex? How can you put
21:19
Speaker 1: the words enjoy sex and the same sentence with bind torture? Right? Murder?
21:25
Speaker 1: Because that's that's his particular illness that you think it's
21:29
Speaker 1: an illness. He's not like most people. This is something
21:32
Speaker 1: that he does enjoy or he wouldn't be able to
21:35
Speaker 1: do it. What would you call that? What's the psychiatric
21:39
Speaker 1: or the psychological term for that? Sato mass psychopathic happened?
21:44
Speaker 1: He has a sex a sexual perversion, and his perversion
21:49
Speaker 1: is killing. Would you call him a sadistic killer? Is
21:52
Speaker 1: he a sadist? And what is a sadist? Yes, a
21:54
Speaker 1: sadist is someone who enjoys in swifting pain. So yes,
21:58
Speaker 1: he's a sadistic killer. Mrk Tate, you represent clients of
22:02
Speaker 1: all sorts. I'm telling you right now, this is not
22:06
Speaker 1: his first time at the rodeo, because you don't show
22:09
Speaker 1: up in a car with zip tides or whatever he
22:11
Speaker 1: used managed to kidnap person, do her, take her to
22:15
Speaker 1: another location, and go this many years without being caught.
22:18
Speaker 1: I'm telling you he knew what he was doing. Yeah,
22:21
Speaker 1: I completely agree with that. Absolutely. I represented a number
22:26
Speaker 1: of young women here in Savannah, one of whose case
22:30
Speaker 1: went to trial and we got a ten million dollars
22:32
Speaker 1: verdict against the place where she was raped. But one
22:35
Speaker 1: thing that I disagree with all of the sexual abuse
22:39
Speaker 1: cases that I've had representing victims of priest abuse victims
22:44
Speaker 1: and the boy scouts, these poor ladies who were kidnapped
22:46
Speaker 1: and raped here off of college campuses and out of
22:49
Speaker 1: hospital parking lots, is that in dealing with the perpetrators,
22:55
Speaker 1: it's more about dominance and control than it is about
23:00
Speaker 1: sexual gratification. And of course there are exceptions to every
23:04
Speaker 1: you know, stated rule or perception, but in general, I'm
23:09
Speaker 1: I think you got to be careful in concluding that
23:12
Speaker 1: this is the guy's the way he's sexually I guess aroused. Actually, wait,
23:19
Speaker 1: I want to say that I agree with you, but
23:21
Speaker 1: I think that that's part of it as well. Okay,
23:24
Speaker 1: So Mark in a nutshell, you agree disagree in the
23:28
Speaker 1: sense that what we all agree he's a serial rapist.
23:31
Speaker 1: So what are you disagreeing about. I'm disagreeing that this
23:33
Speaker 1: is about about sexual intercourse. I believe that, based on
23:38
Speaker 1: my experience, that this is about dominance, control, domination. Yeah.
23:43
Speaker 1: I don't even all on Karen start because she said
23:46
Speaker 1: enjoy sex in the middle of all this, in the
23:48
Speaker 1: middle of a brutal murder, in rape, she managed to
23:50
Speaker 1: work those two words in, And I agree with you,
23:52
Speaker 1: Mark Tay. I also agree with her first time Nancy. Okay, wait, wait, wait,
23:57
Speaker 1: scratch that, get get rid of that. Get that off
23:59
Speaker 1: the record quickly. I don't want that on my resume.
24:02
Speaker 1: Another thing I don't understand is how the case has
24:06
Speaker 1: gone this long, this many decades without being solved. Bruce,
24:13
Speaker 1: do you think this particular woman was targeted or do
24:16
Speaker 1: you think this was just a guy out looking for
24:18
Speaker 1: anybody that he could snatch off the street rape and murder.
24:22
Speaker 1: I've actually had a case that was very similar to this,
24:25
Speaker 1: except it was in a hotel room, but found in
24:28
Speaker 1: arms tied behind her back and propped up. And in
24:32
Speaker 1: these type of cases, it's usually targeted. I think he
24:35
Speaker 1: knew his victim, he targeted her and was ready to
24:38
Speaker 1: go and just waiting for the right opportunity. To keep
24:41
Speaker 1: in mind, it was also dark at six pm. In
24:43
Speaker 1: the winter, with snow, it's dark a lot earlier, so
24:47
Speaker 1: his stalking is a lot easier. And in a rural community. Again,
24:53
Speaker 1: when you get into traffic patterns and things of that nature,
24:56
Speaker 1: I think she's definitely targeted. So you think she was targeted,
25:00
Speaker 1: and your number one reason for saying that is what
25:04
Speaker 1: position of the body at death is a big factor.
25:08
Speaker 1: That she was bound with her hands held behind her,
25:12
Speaker 1: but he could have done that to anybody he wants,
25:14
Speaker 1: any woman that was walking by. Was she specifically targeted?
25:18
Speaker 1: I think that she was. Usually in these type of cases,
25:21
Speaker 1: when you get all the way to the end of it,
25:23
Speaker 1: ends up that they are almost all the time that
25:25
Speaker 1: they're targeted. The chance of it being just a rural
25:29
Speaker 1: happenstance that he just seen a girl get off the
25:31
Speaker 1: bus and was determined that day to get it is
25:34
Speaker 1: highly unlikely versus plotting it out and waiting for the victim.
25:39
Speaker 1: I think you're right, And the fact that I believe
25:41
Speaker 1: he's a serial rapist indicates he's done this before, and
25:44
Speaker 1: he has a plan and he stalks his victim like
25:48
Speaker 1: a hunter would prey. After many, many years of the
25:53
Speaker 1: family suffering nearly forty years, the murder of this young
25:57
Speaker 1: co ed Helen Praczynski baffle old Colorado detectives. It languished
26:03
Speaker 1: so long and their cold case filed that practically everybody
26:07
Speaker 1: in her family died. But then one Thursday morning, her
26:12
Speaker 1: sister Janet Johnson, gets a phone call. A prosecutor says,
26:16
Speaker 1: homicide investigators had made a breakthrough thanks to genetic genealogy
26:23
Speaker 1: and good old fashion police work. Take a listen to this.
26:29
Speaker 1: It was a combination of DNA existing technology that was available.
26:33
Speaker 1: But then the dogged police work work that brought them
26:35
Speaker 1: to Clanton and his present day home. But they needed
26:38
Speaker 1: a sample of his DNA. Fortunately, they quickly learned that
26:41
Speaker 1: he was a regular at the Full House lounge in
26:43
Speaker 1: Lake Butler on Fourth Avenue. We had been working with
26:47
Speaker 1: Douglas County, Colorado surveyor this guy for some time and
26:52
Speaker 1: their laboratory advised us, hey, y'allki grabbed his up and
26:56
Speaker 1: we believe that we could get a DNA comparison detectives
26:59
Speaker 1: follow Clanton into the full house no Up, getting his
27:03
Speaker 1: beer boat and package, and senate to Colorado, a match
27:08
Speaker 1: leading to his arrest outside his trailer on this property.
27:11
Speaker 1: I believe once he saw us that he had he
27:14
Speaker 1: felt lucky. Noticed past crime stories with Nancy Grace. Investigators
27:32
Speaker 1: have had the killer's DNA for years, but with no
27:35
Speaker 1: matches in the FBI's national database, they recently turned to
27:38
Speaker 1: a new process known as genetic genealogy. We found people
27:42
Speaker 1: that shared a lot of the same DNA former Denver
27:45
Speaker 1: da Mitch Morrisey's company, United Data Connect started with those relatives.
27:50
Speaker 1: Once we started working, the genealogy got coming down his
27:54
Speaker 1: family tree. It appeared that his mother was a dead end,
27:58
Speaker 1: which he wasn't found her two sons ruled one out,
28:02
Speaker 1: then went to Florida and followed the other after surreptitiously
28:05
Speaker 1: snagging his beer mug at a local bar. They had
28:08
Speaker 1: it tested for DNA and those results led to the
28:11
Speaker 1: arrest of James Curtis Clanton. You are hearing our pens
28:15
Speaker 1: at KUSA nine, Denver. That was Kevin Vaughan we are
28:20
Speaker 1: talking about as co ed senior at Wheaton College, Massachusetts,
28:24
Speaker 1: going to her aunt's home after a long day at
28:27
Speaker 1: work at a Denver radio station. She Will had crossed
28:31
Speaker 1: the country, leaving Massachusetts traveling to Denver for a big
28:35
Speaker 1: break in media. Her body, nude from the waist down,
28:41
Speaker 1: her arms tied behind her, was discovered the next day
28:46
Speaker 1: in a field that is now known as Highland Ranch, Colorado.
28:51
Speaker 1: Years pass until finally a break in the case through
28:57
Speaker 1: familial DNA Mailial DNA is only allowed in a handful
29:03
Speaker 1: of states right now across our country. Typically, when prosecutors
29:08
Speaker 1: try case is based on DNA evidence, which is true
29:13
Speaker 1: like one in five trillion, that the perp is not
29:18
Speaker 1: the one who belongs to this DNA. Familial DNA is.
29:22
Speaker 1: Let's just do an example. Let's just say Jackie Howard
29:26
Speaker 1: stabs LEVI page nine times in the back, and then
29:31
Speaker 1: on that last stab, the hilt of the knife slips
29:37
Speaker 1: and she cuts herself. Her DNA is found at the
29:41
Speaker 1: crime scene. But Jackie Howard is not in the data bank,
29:46
Speaker 1: she's not in codis, she's not in a fist. She's
29:49
Speaker 1: nowhere to be found. So this is what cops do.
29:53
Speaker 1: They run a familial DNA test. This is what happened
29:57
Speaker 1: in the Golden State killer case, and they find all
30:00
Speaker 1: kind of matches, let's just pretend through ancestry dot Com,
30:04
Speaker 1: but it's not quite the match. So what they have
30:07
Speaker 1: found or Jackie Howard's cousins, her aunts or uncles, anybody
30:12
Speaker 1: blood related to her. Then they go start talking to
30:15
Speaker 1: those people and one by one they figure out it's
30:19
Speaker 1: Jackie Howard. That's what familial DNA is. And right now,
30:24
Speaker 1: the Innescence Project, the Civil Liberties, they're all angry about
30:30
Speaker 1: familial DNA. They say it's unconstitutional. But here's the reality.
30:36
Speaker 1: Those relatives willingly. Police did not make them give their
30:41
Speaker 1: DNA to ancestry dot com. The constitution protects you and
30:46
Speaker 1: me against unreasonable force by police, not by you trying
30:52
Speaker 1: to find out where your great grandparents came from. If
30:54
Speaker 1: they came over from Ireland after the potato blight, that's
30:57
Speaker 1: on you. If the cops make you do something without
31:00
Speaker 1: a want is thrown out of court. But if you
31:02
Speaker 1: sign up volunteerly to ancestry dot Com, constitution is not
31:07
Speaker 1: protecting you. So all the challenges to familial DNA I
31:11
Speaker 1: predict are going to be defeated. And that is how
31:15
Speaker 1: this guy is found to Leavi Page, what do we
31:19
Speaker 1: know about this guy in the eighties, he lived just
31:22
Speaker 1: blocks from where the victim, Helene got off at the
31:27
Speaker 1: bus stop. And his name is James Curtis Clinton. And
31:31
Speaker 1: he actually has a criminal record in Arkansas, Nancy. In
31:36
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, he played guilty to raping a woman
31:40
Speaker 1: at gunpoint. I knew her own phone. I knew it.
31:43
Speaker 1: And when was that? It was in nineteen seventy five, Nancy,
31:47
Speaker 1: And he had just got out of prison. He had
31:49
Speaker 1: been out for a year when he killed Helene. Take
31:52
Speaker 1: a listen to our friends at KUSA. This is Kevin Vaughn.
31:56
Speaker 1: This is a young girl who was just starting her life.
32:00
Speaker 1: Helene Prazynski had dreams of becoming a journalist. She was
32:04
Speaker 1: living temporarily in Colorado for an internship at a radio
32:07
Speaker 1: station when she disappeared nearly forty years ago. Helene's body
32:12
Speaker 1: was found this morning in a field in Douglas County,
32:15
Speaker 1: five miles away from a bus stop. Her body was
32:18
Speaker 1: found beaten and raped. No one was ever arrested for
32:21
Speaker 1: her death until now today. Authorities announced sixty two year
32:26
Speaker 1: old James Curtis Clanton, who had been living in Florida
32:30
Speaker 1: is charged in Helene's murder. It was a combination of
32:33
Speaker 1: DNA existing technology that was available, but then the dog
32:37
Speaker 1: and police work that was done that helped put the
32:39
Speaker 1: pieces together for us to find that missing piece of
32:42
Speaker 1: evidence to tie it all together. Helene was a student
32:45
Speaker 1: at Wheaton College. She'd grown up in Hamilton. Her high
32:48
Speaker 1: school boyfriend says she was a beautiful human being who
32:52
Speaker 1: continues to inspire us, and after so many haunting uncertainties,
32:57
Speaker 1: this is welcome news. DNA finally did the trick and
33:01
Speaker 1: investigators didn't give up. They first identified this guy Clanton,
33:06
Speaker 1: they convicted rapist through familial DNA. Then they started tracking
33:10
Speaker 1: his every movement. They followed him. They knew it was
33:13
Speaker 1: not going to submit to a DNA search warrant by
33:18
Speaker 1: asking him, so what they did was follow him around
33:21
Speaker 1: to surreptitiously get his DNA. And if you don't think
33:24
Speaker 1: that's constitutional, let me tell you it is. First they
33:28
Speaker 1: saw him discard a milk carton, but they couldn't get
33:32
Speaker 1: any DNA from it. Then they followed him to a
33:34
Speaker 1: bar where they said they were able to get his
33:37
Speaker 1: DNA off of a beer mug that he had been
33:40
Speaker 1: drinking and it matched up with the DNA he left
33:45
Speaker 1: when he raped Prashynski Straight out to you, Mark Tate,
33:49
Speaker 1: SAVINNA lawyer joining us, could you please explain why something
33:53
Speaker 1: that has been abandoned, like a milk carton or a
33:56
Speaker 1: beer mug at a bar, is that that's not a foul.
34:01
Speaker 1: Cops can go and they can seize that abandoned item
34:05
Speaker 1: and get your DNA off of it. Yeah, absolutely can.
34:10
Speaker 1: And you know there's it's whether the questioning or investigation
34:15
Speaker 1: involves something in which you have a reasonable expectation of privacy,
34:20
Speaker 1: and you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy for
34:23
Speaker 1: the things that you do in public. Just like an
34:26
Speaker 1: officer can see the tag on your car and run
34:29
Speaker 1: it and get who's driving that car and who's registered
34:31
Speaker 1: to you don't have a reasonable expectation. Can I give
34:34
Speaker 1: you a more relatable in my mind example? Did you
34:38
Speaker 1: ever read the Inquirer? And one of my favorite articles
34:42
Speaker 1: would be where they line up, for instance, Michael Jackson
34:45
Speaker 1: or Elizabeth Taylor, whoever, doesn't matter. I just remember there's
34:49
Speaker 1: all their trash and they take a picture of it
34:51
Speaker 1: and say, oh, look, whoever ate ten cartons of ben
34:57
Speaker 1: and Jerry's in one night. Yeah, no one, do you
35:00
Speaker 1: abandon it? They can grab it. So long story short,
35:05
Speaker 1: A sixty two year old truck driver arrested in Florida
35:10
Speaker 1: for the rape and murder of this Colorado radio intern
35:13
Speaker 1: just twenty one years old. This is after police used
35:17
Speaker 1: ancestry dot com to find a suspect forty years later
35:24
Speaker 1: to leave page leavi by. What happens now to this
35:28
Speaker 1: sixty two year old truck driver, Well, Nancy, he has
35:31
Speaker 1: been extradited to Colorado, and here's the charges that he's facing.
35:35
Speaker 1: Felony murder predicated on an underlying crime of robbery and
35:40
Speaker 1: felony murder predicated on an underlying crime of sexual assault.
35:44
Speaker 1: This is what I know. This guy deserves the death penalty,
35:48
Speaker 1: a serial rapist who murdered this young girl. If we're
35:51
Speaker 1: gonna have the death penalty, he's a perfect candidate. Nancy
35:54
Speaker 1: Gray's crime story, signing off, Goodbye friend,