Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / STUNNING UGA LAW STUDENT BRUTALLY BEATEN IN SMOLDERING OFF CAMPUS APT

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STUNNING UGA LAW STUDENT BRUTALLY BEATEN IN SMOLDERING OFF CAMPUS APT · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
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Speaker 2: Breaking news tonight, a stunning UGA lawsuit that found brutally
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Speaker 2: beaten and her smoldering off campus apartment. Good evening, I'm
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Speaker 2: Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
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Speaker 2: with us.
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Speaker 1: I want people to know that prayers work.
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Speaker 3: Don't ever stop praying, don't ever stop having a hope
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Speaker 3: in your heart, because it can't happen. And I pray
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Speaker 3: today for the Coleman family and for all the others
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Speaker 3: with cold cases that they will get some answers as well.
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Speaker 3: Please think of our terrans sometimes and the remarkable person
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Speaker 3: she would have become. Hers was a life so full
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Speaker 3: of promise.
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Speaker 2: You know, I thought I knew it all about grief
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Speaker 2: and mourning when my fiance was murdered many years ago,
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Speaker 2: just before wedding. But now that I have children, I
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Speaker 2: cannot imagine the strength it took Virginia Baker to stand
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Speaker 2: behind that podium and talk about her daughter.
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Speaker 1: Oh my stars, beautiful, smart as a whip.
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Speaker 2: She went she had a double major in undergrad that's
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Speaker 2: not easy. Then she goes to law school to become
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Speaker 2: a prosecutor. But then she changes her mind midstream and says,
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Speaker 2: you know, I want to be a lawyer, very badly,
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Speaker 2: but in something happier than violent crime. And then she
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Speaker 2: focused on real estate, just eating it up, just brilliant,
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Speaker 2: crackling with intelligence. And then to see her mother behind
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Speaker 2: that podium talking about trying to solve her murder case again,
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Speaker 2: thank you for being with us. What happened? How did
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Speaker 2: this beautiful first year law student end up dead, brutally
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Speaker 2: attacked and a smoldering apartment?
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Speaker 1: Listen?
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Speaker 4: Just after returning to classes for the spring semester, Tara
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Speaker 4: Baker heads to the law library for a study session
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Speaker 4: with a friend. By seven thirty pm, the friend is
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Speaker 4: ready to give it up and leaves Baker to keep working.
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Speaker 4: At a quarter to ten, Baker calls her friend from
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Speaker 4: the library to make sure she got home safe, also
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Speaker 4: mentioning she plans to leave by ten pm. Baker's off
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Speaker 4: campus apartment is about a fifteen minute drive from campus.
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Speaker 4: Baker's two roommates left earlier that evening for a weekend
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Speaker 4: trip out of town. Friday morning, Baker misses her nine
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Speaker 4: thirty class.
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Speaker 2: Okay, right there, how much time are we losing? Because
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Speaker 2: she is supposed to come home from law school library,
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Speaker 2: but nobody realized something is a miss until she missus
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Speaker 2: class nine thirty am. And can I tell you from experience,
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Speaker 2: you don't want to miss a law school class because
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Speaker 2: if you miss the class, you get so far behind.
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Speaker 1: It moves so rapidly.
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Speaker 2: She misses the class, and right there everybody knows something
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Speaker 2: is horribly wrong with me. An all star panel to
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Speaker 2: make sense of what we know right now, But straight
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Speaker 2: out first to Cheryl McCollum, joining us, director of the
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Speaker 2: Cold Case Research Institute, star of a hit series podcast,
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Speaker 2: Zone seven, more important for my purposes. She is a
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Speaker 2: forensic expert, and it's actually joining us from her patrol card.
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Speaker 2: Thank you for making time, Cheryl McCollums. Cheryl, does it
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Speaker 2: never end? You and I were both just at Uga
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Speaker 2: campus investigating the Lake and Riley case where Lake and
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Speaker 2: was out jogging in.
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Speaker 1: Broad daylight, broad daylight?
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Speaker 2: And why do I emphasize that it shows the brazenness
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Speaker 2: of the defendant to attack in broad daylight. That said
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Speaker 2: Cheryl McCollum. It's like college campuses. I mean, think of
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Speaker 2: Ted Bundy, Okay, in the Cayomega House. It's like they're
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Speaker 2: hunting grounds for killers.
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Speaker 5: Nancy killers know that these kids are normally this the
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Speaker 5: first time they're away from their parents. It's the first
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Speaker 5: time they're away from their home. Chances are they don't
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Speaker 5: have any kind of weapon. Most of them don't have
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Speaker 5: any kind of dog or alarm system. They're either in
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Speaker 5: a dorm or a rental house, so they are somewhat
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Speaker 5: more vulnerable than the rest of society in a way.
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Speaker 5: They also know that a lot of times they stay
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Speaker 5: out late. So now they're coming and going, like in
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Speaker 5: Terra's case, from the library by herself, entering her home
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Speaker 5: by herself. If that house had been under any kind
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Speaker 5: of surveillance, they possibly know she's entering that home now alone.
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Speaker 2: Just this girl's life was just starting. She gets into
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Speaker 2: law school. She's full of hopes and dreams. She's studying.
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Speaker 2: This is not a girl hanging out at a bar,
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Speaker 2: not judging, not on the corner of the street trying
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Speaker 2: to score a five bag of pot or crack. This
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Speaker 2: is a girl studying at ten o'clock at night. And
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Speaker 2: now the next thing we know, she misses class. What
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Speaker 2: happens next?
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Speaker 6: Listen In the mid morning hours of January nineteenth, Athens,
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Speaker 6: Clark County firefighters are called to an apartment fire at
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Speaker 6: one sixty Fawn Drive. Firefighters break down a locked door
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Speaker 6: to access to the unit and find a fire had
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Speaker 6: broken out in the bedroom and burn through the roof.
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Speaker 6: Among the rubble, firefighters discover the body of a young
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Speaker 6: woman later identified as first year law student Tara Louise Baker,
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Speaker 6: again joining me.
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Speaker 2: An all star panel, but in addition to Cheryl McCollum
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Speaker 2: joining US, doctor Angela Arnold is here renowned psychiatrist joining
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Speaker 2: us out of the Atlanta jurisdiction. Just voted my Buckhead's
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Speaker 2: best psychiatric practice of twenty twenty three.
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Speaker 1: Wow.
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Speaker 2: And she worked at Grady Memorial Hospital. Whenever I needed
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Speaker 2: a witness or a defendant, I would go straight to
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Speaker 2: either the Fulton County Jail or Grady, because somebody would
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Speaker 2: have been shot or sliced, have a hole in their legs, something,
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Speaker 2: and they'd be at Grady. My point is never a
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Speaker 2: lack of business at Grady Memorial Hospital. They've saved a
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Speaker 2: lot of lives there. So this doctor has seen her
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Speaker 2: share of cases. Doctor Angela Arnold, you know what's so
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Speaker 2: jarring for me in this case is that maybe I'm projecting.
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Speaker 1: When I learned about Keith's murder.
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Speaker 2: But here is a perfectly normal day, A beautiful young girl,
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Speaker 2: a one l first year law student.
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Speaker 1: She's studying.
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Speaker 2: Everything's fine, and all of a sudden she misses class.
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Speaker 2: Now I find out she's dead and a burned out
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Speaker 2: apartment off campus, and not in a bad area off campus,
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Speaker 2: a good area off campus, low crime rate. The dichotomy,
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Speaker 2: the jarring dichotomy between everything's fine, she's skipping out in
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Speaker 2: the front door of the library and now she's in
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Speaker 2: a burned out apartment.
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Speaker 7: Dead well, and Nancy, I think that what that makes
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Speaker 7: everyone feel is so unsafe. So you know, you go along,
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Speaker 7: like you said. She had started her spring semester. This
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Speaker 7: happened on January the nineteenth, and everybody sort of settled in.
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Speaker 7: They're settled into their routine, they're settled into their new
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Speaker 7: place where they live, and she's going along studying. She
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Speaker 7: felt safe leaving the library at ten o'clock at night
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Speaker 7: and going home. And now there's going to be a
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Speaker 7: sense that no one is safe because this could happen
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Speaker 7: to anyone, regardless of what neighborhood you live in.
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Speaker 2: Angie Arnold, You're right, that's exactly what it is. Because
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Speaker 2: very often, and I've discussed this with you many many times,
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Speaker 2: we as the public, we look at a crime. Let's
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Speaker 2: just take for instance, Molly Tibbets, who is out jogging
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Speaker 2: and was attacked and murdered.
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Speaker 1: People say, oh, she shouldn't.
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Speaker 2: Have been out jogging on a remote rural road. What
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Speaker 2: was she thinking? Or cornavitronto. We say, wow, she should
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Speaker 2: have jog with her dad. Why was she just wearing
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Speaker 2: a jogging bra not a shirt? Why does she have earbudsip?
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Speaker 2: We think of ways to differentiate ourselves from the victim,
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Speaker 2: to make ourselves feel safe in our little bubble.
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Speaker 1: But that's absolutely not true, doctor Angie.
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Speaker 7: Right. And you know people think, well, you know, if
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Speaker 7: I live behind these gates, or if I live in
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Speaker 7: a safe neighborhood, or you know, oh I would never
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Speaker 7: come home at night at ten o'clock by myself from library.
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Speaker 7: Well why wouldn't you. That's what law students do. Law
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Speaker 7: students state this was This was just a crime. She
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Speaker 7: was in the right place at the wrong time. Nancy,
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Speaker 7: And I'm going to tell you something. This is because
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Speaker 7: this is what everyone needs to remember. Sociopaths live amongst us,
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Speaker 7: So we really all we need to have, we need
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Speaker 7: to keep. We always need to keep our eyes and
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Speaker 7: ears open because sociopaths live amongst us and they don't
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Speaker 7: walk around with signs on themselves.
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Speaker 2: Okay, joining me now, Alexisterestchuk crime Ononline dot Com investigative
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Speaker 2: reporter with a unique insight on this case because.
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Speaker 1: She also attended UGA.
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Speaker 2: She knows where the law library is, she knows where
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Speaker 2: the parking lots are, she knows where the off campus
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Speaker 2: housing is. Bring me up to this point, Alexis Terrestchuk.
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Speaker 2: Before we go to our expert firefighter and EMT Cole
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Speaker 2: brought Alexis, bring me up to this point.
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Speaker 1: What happened?
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Speaker 8: So she is studying at the law library. Now, the
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Speaker 8: law library at Georgia is different than the main library.
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Speaker 8: It's smaller, it's much more quiet. They're obviously less students.
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Speaker 8: It's a great place to get your work done. And
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Speaker 8: this is where she was. She calls her her friend
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Speaker 8: was studying with her. That's what you do. You go
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Speaker 8: as partners. You don't do anything alone. The friend says,
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Speaker 8: I need to go. It's time for me to leave.
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Speaker 8: She's even, she's so responsible. She tells her friend, I'm
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Speaker 8: going to contact you when you get home. She calls
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Speaker 8: her friend from the library just to make sure that
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Speaker 8: she got home safely, and then she tells her friend,
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Speaker 8: I'm going to leave here about ten o'clock and that
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Speaker 8: is the last anybody ever heard of her. So she
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Speaker 8: leaves the law library and she goes to her home.
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Speaker 8: As you said, it was about a fifteen minute drive,
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Speaker 8: which isn't that far, and happens a nice neighborhood. She's
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Speaker 8: got a rental home, and that is where the firefighters
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Speaker 8: were called.
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Speaker 1: Several hours later.
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Speaker 8: There was a fire in the apartment. Nothing could have
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Speaker 8: given them a clue that inside that she would have
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Speaker 8: been in their murder.
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Speaker 2: Joining me right now, Arson Expert Firefighter EMT. Nicole brock Nicole,
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Speaker 2: thank you for being with us, having prosecuted many many
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Speaker 2: arsons in Fulton County myself, for they're very difficult, and
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Speaker 2: I'll tell you why, because first you've got to prove
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Speaker 2: a crime even happened. You've got to prove that a
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Speaker 2: fire was intentionally set, that somebody didn't leave a gas
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Speaker 2: stove on or the oven on, or dropped a cigarette
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Speaker 2: on a blanket, and there are ways to determine that.
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Speaker 1: Now, when you find.
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Speaker 2: A dead body dead by other means than by fire
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Speaker 2: or asphyxiation, that's the big red flag that the fire
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Speaker 2: was to cover up a dead body. But very often
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Speaker 2: you cannot get a cost of death a COEOD on
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Speaker 2: a burned body. That's when we're going to go to
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Speaker 2: doctor Kendall Crowns to explain that. But Nicole brought several
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Speaker 2: things jumped down at me. The firefighters had to break
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Speaker 2: down a locked door to access her unit, the fire
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Speaker 2: broke out in her bedroom and burned up through the roof.
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Speaker 2: That tells me based on the accelerant pattern, and where
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Speaker 2: the fire burned more intensely or did the most damaged,
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Speaker 2: that's where the fire started.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Nicole Brock break it down for me. Yes, So absolutely,
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Speaker 1: you're right.
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Speaker 9: Location of the fire is incredibly one of our most
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Speaker 9: i would say intense ways of looking at fires and
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Speaker 9: determining whether it's an arson or nationally created fire. Saying
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Speaker 9: someone's smoking in the bed and she's clearly not a smoker,
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Speaker 9: so that rules that out. There are no space heaters
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Speaker 9: in the room, so that wild rule things out. And
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Speaker 9: you're absolutely right. An accelerant pattern is the key way
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Speaker 9: to determine whether or not a fire has broken out
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Speaker 9: from an arson, you know, if it's an intentionally set fire.
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Speaker 9: So coming into the lot behind the locked door and
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Speaker 9: the fire starting off in the bedroom, it's a telltale
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Speaker 9: sign that this is an arson. This is an arson
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Speaker 9: situation to begin with. And you're here, you're correct too.
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Speaker 9: When go into a building, we don't go in with
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Speaker 9: the intention or the thought that whether or not this
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Speaker 9: is a arson related fire. We just go in, you know,
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Speaker 9: with the job and intent of extinguishing the fire. It's
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Speaker 9: not until after everything is said and done and we're
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Speaker 9: you know, we're concluded and we've extinguished the fire that
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Speaker 9: we're actually now looking for an exact cause. But do
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Speaker 9: know that when we walk in and we know that
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Speaker 9: there is a fire in a particular space in place,
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Speaker 9: it's immediately we und we understand that this is an
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Speaker 9: arsenal related situation.
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Speaker 2: Man Nicole brought would all love to put you on
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Speaker 2: the stand on direct examination. Okay, when you go into
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Speaker 2: a fire seam and you're trying to determine.
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Speaker 1: Was this intentionally set or not?
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Speaker 2: You mentioned accelerant pattern accelerant that could be toiluling like
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Speaker 2: fingernaut policy remover. It could be gasoline, which leaves an
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Speaker 2: intense smell even though.
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Speaker 1: It's burned up.
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Speaker 2: But what do you see with the naked eye if
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Speaker 2: there has been an accelerant port on the floor.
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Speaker 9: So you will see the v pattern, and you will
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Speaker 9: see charring more in one area, and there's just a
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Speaker 9: pattern that goes with the actual fire behavior.
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Speaker 1: That's a part of fire behavior.
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Speaker 9: So you're looking for that, and you're looking for if
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Speaker 9: there's one space that's more intensely burned than others. And
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Speaker 9: also again we're going back to location. A lot of
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Speaker 9: criminals believe that for some reason I don't know, and
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Speaker 9: maybe because it used to work back in the day,
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Speaker 9: but a lot of arsonists believe that if I burned
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Speaker 9: this up, then it erases all sense of evidence, which
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Speaker 9: is incorrect. Even when it comes to DNA, it's been
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Speaker 9: proven that DNA, despite the intense temperatures that a fire
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Speaker 9: will burn at, DNA will still be discovered.
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Speaker 1: Crime stories with Nancy Grace, don't.
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Speaker 10: Let her story be that of the girl that was
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Speaker 10: killed in Athens that day in two thousand and one.
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Speaker 1: She was so much more than that.
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Speaker 10: Let it be about the story of who she was
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Speaker 10: smart loyal, kind and even maybe a tad bitshy. She
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Speaker 10: was a friend, a classmate, a sister, and most importantly,
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Speaker 10: she was a beloved daughter.
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Speaker 2: You are hearing there Tarah Baker's brother speaking the strength
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Speaker 2: that must have taken that family to stand up and speak,
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Speaker 2: specifically the mother who continues to talk about the person
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Speaker 2: Tara could have been had she not been bludgeoned, dead,
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Speaker 2: raped and then set on fire and her off campus apartment.
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Speaker 1: She was a one l a first year law student.
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Speaker 1: What more do we know?
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Speaker 2: We know the frame of the mind of the killer
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Speaker 2: who had the wherewithal to try and hide the evidence
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Speaker 2: by burning it up very often when called red handed,
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Speaker 2: which this guy was not. You will look back and
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Speaker 2: you will see this is a history of murder suspects
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Speaker 2: that they, if they know what they're doing, try to
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Speaker 2: hide the evidence that leaves them in the position of
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Speaker 2: having no way to claim insanity. The insanity test in
16:45
Speaker 2: our country is based on old common law brought here
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Speaker 2: from Great Britain, and it is called the old McNaughton test.
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Speaker 2: Simply put, did the defendant know right from wrong at
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Speaker 2: the time of the incident? And I would argue yes,
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Speaker 2: or why else? Try to dispose of the evidence, joining
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Speaker 2: me an all star panel. But I want to remind
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Speaker 2: you of another and much more famous case, the case
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Speaker 2: of Teresa Halback. I say her name because she was
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Speaker 2: the murder victim. The defendant tried to render down to
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Speaker 2: nothing by burning her. All that was left of her
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Speaker 2: were the studs on the back of her daisy for winds,
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Speaker 2: blue jeans, and some teeth.
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Speaker 1: But guess what those teeth had DNA in them.
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Speaker 2: You may know the name of the killer better because
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Speaker 2: he was made famous eMedia Darling Stephen Avery, may he
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Speaker 2: wrot in Hell, the star of Making a Murderer.
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Speaker 1: That made its debut on Netflix. Listen.
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Speaker 6: Stephen Avery is arrested and charged with the murder of
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Speaker 6: Teresa Halback after investigators find his DNA and bloodstains found
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Speaker 6: in Haulbacks Toyota wrap four and Teresa Halbacks charred bone
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Speaker 6: fragments in a burn pit near Avery's home. Stephen Avery
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Speaker 6: becomes the subject of a documentary project called Making a
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Speaker 6: Murderer that airs on Netflix. Avery claims he's being set
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Speaker 6: up by local officials because of the lawsuit he files
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Speaker 6: against the county and county officials. Stephen Avery is found
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Speaker 6: guilty of intentional homicide and has sentenced to life imprisonment
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Speaker 6: without the possibility of parole in the murder of Teresa Halback.
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Speaker 2: And we've never heard the end of it, thanks Netflix.
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Speaker 2: Her teeth and studs off of her jeans are found
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Speaker 2: in the defendant's backyard of his auto salvage business.
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Speaker 1: His relatives and friends say he burned the fire pit and.
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Speaker 2: Started all night long. Teresa Hallback worked for something like
18:55
Speaker 2: an Auto Trader magazine, and he has specifically requested her
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Speaker 2: creepy to come out and take photos of some of
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Speaker 2: his cars for the Auto Trader. That's the last time
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Speaker 2: she was seen alive after his defense of an elaborate setup,
19:11
Speaker 2: kind of like OJ Simpson did. He was found guilty,
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Speaker 2: but then entered Netflix, who only showed portions of evidence
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Speaker 2: that tended to exonerate him instead.
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Speaker 1: Of the full story.
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Speaker 2: Joining me right now to focus not on Teresa Hallback,
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Speaker 2: but on this case Tara Baker. Doctor Kendall Crowns. I'm
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Speaker 2: sure you know his name, all of you legal eagles.
19:39
Speaker 2: He's a renowned chief medical examiner. That's not easy to
19:42
Speaker 2: become chief medical examiner when you're in charge of a
19:46
Speaker 2: lot of brilliant, MDS, how'd you get to the top
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Speaker 2: of that heap? Doctor Kendall Crown's chief medical examiner, Terrence County.
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Speaker 2: That's Fort Worth and he is a lecturer at the
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Speaker 2: Burnett School of Medicine at TCU, Texas Christian University. Doctor
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Speaker 2: Kendall Crowns, A lot of questions for you before we
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Speaker 2: bring in our DNA expert Sharyl A Point. Doctor Kendall Crowns.
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Speaker 2: How hot does it have to be to totally burn
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Speaker 2: a body, to render it down till there's nothing left teeth?
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Speaker 11: You would have to get the fire extremely hot for that,
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Speaker 11: at several hundred degrees, probably close to one thousand, because
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Speaker 11: you can't really a crematorium can burn down a body.
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Speaker 11: Usually when we see people who try to burn bodies
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Speaker 11: without a crematorium, the ones that are successful get a
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Speaker 11: high amount of heat, usually using tires. The best one
20:38
Speaker 11: I've ever seen is an old newspaper van that was
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Speaker 11: delivering newspapers.
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Speaker 12: They lit that on fire and burn that person up.
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Speaker 11: You have to have a lot of combustible material to
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Speaker 11: overcome the body's water content to be able to burn
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Speaker 11: someone completely down to teeth.
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Speaker 2: Cases I've tried before and correct me if I'm wrong.
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Speaker 2: In Doctor Kendl Crowns, a temperature and a crematorium to
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Speaker 2: totally turn a body to ashes, making it impossible to
21:06
Speaker 2: get DNA from just ashes. Is fourteen hundred to eighteen
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Speaker 2: hundred degrees fahrenheit and fires.
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Speaker 1: I think about your oven.
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Speaker 2: You rarely get over four hundred and fifty degrees in
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Speaker 2: an oven, so it basically has to be at.
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Speaker 1: Crematorium levels and temperature levels.
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Speaker 2: I don't know that that can be duplicated or replicated
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Speaker 2: outside of a crematorium, I mean, can it, Doctor Kendl Crowns.
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Speaker 12: So it's very difficult, but it can be done.
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Speaker 11: But usually you have to dig a pretty good sized
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Speaker 11: pit and have a lot of combustible material and keep
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Speaker 11: working at it to burn everything away.
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Speaker 12: So, like I said, a.
21:47
Speaker 11: Couple of times I've seen them be successful. They've used
21:50
Speaker 11: a lot of tires, newspaper. And then one time it
21:53
Speaker 11: was a bed mattress in a a metal shack, so
21:59
Speaker 11: the shack itself kept the heat in and then the
22:02
Speaker 11: mattress burned so heavily it brought the temperature of the
22:05
Speaker 11: shack up to a very high level.
22:07
Speaker 2: Shout out to Cheryl McCollum joining us who has just
22:10
Speaker 2: returned from the UGA campus where she walked the campus.
22:15
Speaker 1: As it relates to the murder.
22:18
Speaker 2: Of another young and beautiful UGA co ed, listen.
22:24
Speaker 13: On February twenty second, twenty twenty four, at approximately twelve
22:29
Speaker 13: seven pm, the University of Georgia Police Department received a
22:34
Speaker 13: call from an individual concern for a friend who had
22:38
Speaker 13: gone jogging at the inner.
22:40
Speaker 12: Mirror of fields.
22:43
Speaker 13: Our officers responded to that area and immediately began a
22:48
Speaker 13: search of the area to attempt to locate the individual.
22:53
Speaker 13: Officers located the individuals in the area behind Lake Herrick
22:59
Speaker 13: at approx. Twelve thirty eight. The individual was unconscious and
23:07
Speaker 13: not breathing and had visible injuries. Officers immediately began rendering
23:14
Speaker 13: medical Eight emergency medical responders determined that the individual was
23:21
Speaker 13: deceased upon their arrival.
23:24
Speaker 2: You were hearing Chief Jeff Clark at the UGAPG to
23:29
Speaker 2: Cheryl McCollum, We just just lived through Lacnriiley murder. Also,
23:37
Speaker 2: you know, looking on a grad degree, full of potential,
23:44
Speaker 2: her life in front of her, and once again, same
23:49
Speaker 2: mo the victim was attacked, was beaten, was raped, same
23:56
Speaker 2: thing all over again. Victims predators like this defendant.
24:05
Speaker 1: They go to college campuses like their.
24:10
Speaker 2: Wolves out on the serengetti watching the gazelle at the
24:15
Speaker 2: watering hole, and they wait. They wait until one of
24:20
Speaker 2: the victims is alone, like lake and out jogging in
24:23
Speaker 2: broad daylight, like Tara, who's coming out of the law library,
24:28
Speaker 2: right under street lights, in front of God and to everybody,
24:33
Speaker 2: and they pounce.
24:34
Speaker 5: Here's what I want to take away from both of
24:36
Speaker 5: those cases, Nancy. In both of those instances, those women
24:42
Speaker 5: either were checking on somebody or had somebody checking on them.
24:46
Speaker 5: That is really important to me. Lakeland's friend did not wait.
24:51
Speaker 5: She didn't sit around and go well, I guess she
24:54
Speaker 5: decided not to come back or not to go to class.
24:57
Speaker 5: In Tara's case, Tara was actually checking on friend prior
25:01
Speaker 5: to leading the library to make sure she was okay.
25:04
Speaker 5: College campuses, by far, are a safe place. The University
25:10
Speaker 5: of Georgia has their own police department that is outstanding.
25:14
Speaker 5: And if you look at what has happened here two things.
25:17
Speaker 5: In Lakeland's case, they made an arrest so fast, Nancy,
25:21
Speaker 5: everybody was on that thing, as you know, even you
25:24
Speaker 5: you sent me there. In Tara's case, the FBI, the
25:29
Speaker 5: Georgia State Patrol, you know, Athens, Clark County, the UGA Police,
25:34
Speaker 5: the GBI. Everybody came together. And that's what I want
25:38
Speaker 5: perpetrators to, you know, really take witness to they're coming.
25:43
Speaker 5: They're coming for you, whether it's been thirty years or
25:47
Speaker 5: thirty minutes.
25:48
Speaker 2: The comparison between these two young victims, what do we
25:54
Speaker 2: know about Laken to compare to Tara Listen?
25:59
Speaker 4: Lincoln spends four years running cross country track for her
26:02
Speaker 4: high school, River Ridge in Woodstock, Georgia. Her love of
26:06
Speaker 4: running continues during her studies in Athens at the University
26:09
Speaker 4: of Georgia. There, Riley is an active member of Alpha
26:12
Speaker 4: Kyomega sorority, and after earning her undergraduate degree last year,
26:16
Speaker 4: Riley begins her studies to be a nurse.
26:19
Speaker 14: Riley sits out on a morning run. She grabs her phone,
26:22
Speaker 14: telling her roommate that she'll be back after a half
26:24
Speaker 14: run at the UGA campus intermural field. When Riley doesn't
26:28
Speaker 14: return for hours, her roommate calls campus police nine one
26:31
Speaker 14: one at twelve oh seven pm.
26:33
Speaker 2: I mean, Cheryl McCollum, I look for connections. I look
26:36
Speaker 2: for similarities in cases. If you don't know what will happen,
26:42
Speaker 2: look at what has happened. So in this case, you've
26:47
Speaker 2: got two females similar in hairstyle, similar in physicality, they
26:56
Speaker 2: waged about the same, they have many many similarities, both
27:03
Speaker 2: at Uga, both getting a post graduate degree, both of
27:10
Speaker 2: them hard, hard studiers, not partiers. Both of them speak
27:16
Speaker 2: to their roommates to identify where they are when they.
27:21
Speaker 1: Will be back.
27:22
Speaker 2: Both of them in a sorority, which makes me wonder
27:27
Speaker 2: was a sorority house a target Like in the Coyomega
27:32
Speaker 2: killings by Ted Bundy, the first victim, Tara Baker, was
27:39
Speaker 2: an eighty Pi Alpha Delta Pi. Coincidentally the very first
27:44
Speaker 2: sorority ever founded in our country, Lake and Riley ki
27:50
Speaker 2: Omega Alpha Kyomega member. So the so many similarities in
27:57
Speaker 2: this case. Sheryl not necessarily telling me a connection between
28:01
Speaker 2: those two cases, but they're telling me what will happen
28:05
Speaker 2: in the future. Agree, disagree.
28:08
Speaker 5: More than one thing happened to those victims. Blood force, trauma, strangulation,
28:14
Speaker 5: a straight edge weapon was used with Tara. Any one
28:17
Speaker 5: of those things would have and could have killed her.
28:20
Speaker 5: You didn't need to do all three with Lakeland. We
28:24
Speaker 5: believe that she was hit in the head and then
28:26
Speaker 5: strangled again. One of those things could have killed her.
28:29
Speaker 5: It doesn't take both of those things, so it speaks
28:32
Speaker 5: to this type of killer. Both of these victims were
28:35
Speaker 5: also ambushed. They were ambushed doing something that they've done
28:39
Speaker 5: one hundred times. Lakeland jogged all over that city. Tara
28:43
Speaker 5: went in and out of her house a thousand times.
28:46
Speaker 12: But when you.
28:46
Speaker 5: Are ambushed, you are at a disadvantage from the perpetrator
28:51
Speaker 5: because you are not prepared to be in that.
28:54
Speaker 1: Fine crime stories with Nancy Grease.
29:06
Speaker 2: Joining me crime online dot commyvestigator reporter Alexis Terristic. Alexis
29:11
Speaker 2: you and I weren't the Golden State killer case? Do
29:14
Speaker 2: you remember him? And when police came to arrest him
29:18
Speaker 2: so many years later, he goes, wait a minute, I
29:19
Speaker 2: got a roast in the oven.
29:21
Speaker 1: You know what roast?
29:22
Speaker 2: My rear end man, This guy had so many rapes, asdomies, murders.
29:29
Speaker 2: He had actually been a police officer that they wisely
29:33
Speaker 2: got rid of off the force. But what he didn't
29:36
Speaker 2: count on is that decades later, somebody like our expert
29:42
Speaker 2: sheiy LaPoint could.
29:44
Speaker 1: Come in and nail him.
29:46
Speaker 2: Remember him, He would sneeped, wait like this Purp waited
29:51
Speaker 2: on Tara like the purp with lake and Riley waited
29:55
Speaker 2: until the right moment when she was running around that
29:57
Speaker 2: lake at Uga.
29:59
Speaker 1: He waited to to watch to see the husband leave
30:01
Speaker 1: the home, and then he would break in.
30:04
Speaker 2: He never thought that decades later, somebody like Sheryl A.
30:08
Speaker 2: Point could bust him on DNA. Remember Golden State Killer
30:14
Speaker 2: Alexis I do.
30:15
Speaker 8: And the thing that always cared me the most about
30:16
Speaker 8: him is the way that he would climb into bedroom
30:19
Speaker 8: windows that were like on ground level in this summer
30:22
Speaker 8: because people would have their windows open, and then I
30:24
Speaker 8: just find that so terrifying, climb in and then attack
30:27
Speaker 8: like a thirteen year old in the house. He was terrifying,
30:30
Speaker 8: terrorized the whole state. But that's exactly what happened here.
30:35
Speaker 8: Tara had just left law school, left the library, went home,
30:39
Speaker 8: and that's where she was in. She was murdered in
30:42
Speaker 8: her home. Not well, she may have been murdered somewhere else,
30:45
Speaker 8: but it was probably in her home. That's what the
30:47
Speaker 8: police have said.
30:48
Speaker 1: She was murdered and raped there.
30:51
Speaker 2: It does it's not logical to think she was murdered
30:55
Speaker 2: and raped elsewhere. Then she transported to her own off
30:59
Speaker 2: campus apartment and then stage and the place goes up
31:05
Speaker 2: in flames. No, and just as in Golden State Killer,
31:12
Speaker 2: the same methodology was used in this case to Sharyl Lapointe,
31:19
Speaker 2: Tara Baker's body was incinerated.
31:23
Speaker 1: She was burned.
31:25
Speaker 2: Guys with me, Cheryl la Point, forensic investigative genetic genealogist
31:29
Speaker 2: with DNA Labs International, author of The Gene Hunter. As
31:35
Speaker 2: in G E N E. Now, Cheryl Lapointe, you're brilliant,
31:42
Speaker 2: we're not. Could you break it down and regular people talk?
31:47
Speaker 2: How was the Golden State Killer D'Angelo caught after all
31:53
Speaker 2: those years?
31:54
Speaker 15: So he was caught using forensic genetic genealogy. They had
31:59
Speaker 15: to from crime scenes. That was put into sites that
32:05
Speaker 15: we use as genealogists, such as jedmatch, and biological relatives
32:12
Speaker 15: were found and family trees were built. You form clusters,
32:19
Speaker 15: you look for relatives to match each other, and you
32:23
Speaker 15: make connections through a family tree to identify these perpetrators.
32:28
Speaker 2: And that's exactly how this was done. Cheryl A Point,
32:32
Speaker 2: author of The gene Hunter. Okay, you're saying family tree.
32:37
Speaker 2: Everybody has a relative that is all about genealogy, and
32:42
Speaker 2: when you look at the family trees that they create,
32:46
Speaker 2: it goes not just to your parents, grandparents, great grandparents.
32:49
Speaker 1: It goes all the way back.
32:53
Speaker 2: And amazingly, I just found out somebody on the Gray
32:58
Speaker 2: Side fought the Revolutionary War, never any of that. It's
33:03
Speaker 2: very difficult to create this elaborate family tree.
33:07
Speaker 1: Why do you have to do that?
33:08
Speaker 2: Then you follow it all the way down and find
33:11
Speaker 2: out who was in this area at the time of
33:13
Speaker 2: the murder, which person connected to this family tree was there?
33:18
Speaker 1: So I don't understand.
33:19
Speaker 2: Why do you have to go back all the way
33:20
Speaker 2: to the Revolutionary War to catch a guy that murdered
33:23
Speaker 2: Tara Baker.
33:24
Speaker 1: So, Nancy, it really every case is different.
33:28
Speaker 15: It depends on the actual matches that we have to
33:32
Speaker 15: work with, which means who the DNA are connections to
33:37
Speaker 15: the perpetrator in these cases, and you know, I may
33:43
Speaker 15: have a number of matches and their most recent common
33:48
Speaker 15: ancestor may have been a couple back to the early
33:52
Speaker 15: eighteen hundreds. And when that is what happens you have
33:57
Speaker 15: to figure out who that cup those children are and
34:02
Speaker 15: their children are, and it becomes very time consuming. You
34:07
Speaker 15: have a lot of people you put in these trees
34:10
Speaker 15: because ultimately you're looking for the person who committed this crime,
34:16
Speaker 15: who normally is in today's time.
34:18
Speaker 2: To Cheryl mccollumy is joining US forensics expert and star
34:21
Speaker 2: of his own seven podcast, Cheryl. What is also very
34:26
Speaker 2: critical as not just a scientist like Cheryl point to
34:30
Speaker 2: make sense of everything, but how that evidence is initially
34:35
Speaker 2: gathered and kept, gathered and kept.
34:39
Speaker 1: How do you gather it and how do you keep it?
34:41
Speaker 1: You got to gather it legally and scientifically.
34:44
Speaker 5: So in the case of Terra, they clearly had biological evidence,
34:48
Speaker 5: and we know that because the suspect was charged with sodognty.
34:52
Speaker 5: In these cases, when you collect anything biological, whether it's
34:57
Speaker 5: seminal fluid, blood, a sweaty jack, whatever it is, you're
35:01
Speaker 5: going to keep it in some type of paper, not plastic,
35:05
Speaker 5: so it doesn't degrade. They clearly kept it perfectly all
35:10
Speaker 5: of these years, so that when technology caught up they
35:13
Speaker 5: were able to assess it, develop a profile, and subsequently
35:18
Speaker 5: then get to the perpetrate.
35:19
Speaker 10: We hope that the criminal justice system that Cha believed in.
35:24
Speaker 1: Serves justice in the correct way.
35:27
Speaker 10: But again remember that this is just a step Her story.
35:31
Speaker 1: Isn't finished, The book isn't closed on her.
35:35
Speaker 10: If you think about it, the cruel irony is is
35:38
Speaker 10: that she was killed twenty three years ago, just before
35:41
Speaker 10: her twenty fourth birthday. She's been gone abound the same
35:45
Speaker 10: time that she was here.
35:46
Speaker 2: This family has been through hell for twenty plus years,
35:52
Speaker 2: and finally, because of DNA technology, breaking edge DNA technology
36:00
Speaker 2: genetic genealogy, we have an answer. The biological evidence as
36:07
Speaker 2: police GBI are referring to it as and DNA science
36:12
Speaker 2: collaborate with investigation from multiple law enforcement sources. That would
36:19
Speaker 2: be the UGA Police, the GBI, the Athens Clark County Police,
36:25
Speaker 2: and they solve this case amazingly. Alexis Tereschuk much like
36:30
Speaker 2: a Lakenriley Her a defendant had an extensive rap sheet.
36:35
Speaker 1: But here this guy before the case was solved.
36:40
Speaker 2: After he rapes and murders Tara, he then goes and
36:44
Speaker 2: stabs a guy in the neck. I mean his rap
36:46
Speaker 2: sheet is prolific.
36:49
Speaker 8: Alexis, he has spent he has been in prison two
36:52
Speaker 8: separate times. He spent time in prison twice in the
36:56
Speaker 8: last twenty years.
36:57
Speaker 2: Wait, you think he's been behind bars twice. Let's just
37:00
Speaker 2: go all the way back to ninety three battery, battery,
37:04
Speaker 2: trespass two thousand and one that had to be jail time.
37:07
Speaker 1: Aggravated assault, public indecency like I want to see his
37:11
Speaker 1: penis No.
37:12
Speaker 2: Twenty eleven, DUY twenty eleven, possession cocaine, another felony thirteen
37:19
Speaker 2: obstruction of a cop. Man he's got he's got some
37:23
Speaker 2: nerve to attack a cop two thousand and three, another
37:26
Speaker 2: felony that carries twenty to life. Possession cocaine inten to
37:30
Speaker 2: distribute twenty sixteen, DUY twenty eighteen, Terroristic threats twenty nineteen,
37:38
Speaker 2: aggravated stalking. Why I wonder if he was stalking in
37:42
Speaker 2: the Coyomega house or the law library stalking twenty twenty two, battery,
37:50
Speaker 2: And now he's got another line for his resume, Alexis Terschuk.
37:55
Speaker 8: And it was like a revolving door with him.
37:57
Speaker 1: You know that you just said.
37:58
Speaker 8: In March of twenty twenty, he was arrested for battery,
38:01
Speaker 8: disorderly conduct and criminal truspass.
38:04
Speaker 1: He pleaded guilty. Do you know what his punishment was?
38:06
Speaker 8: Fifty hours of community service and twelve months probation.
38:09
Speaker 1: Okay, what was that for on what offense.
38:12
Speaker 8: Simple battery, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass with.
38:15
Speaker 1: A record like that? You know to Cheryl McCollum, did
38:19
Speaker 1: you have that? Did you hear that?
38:20
Speaker 2: After twenty years of violent crimes, some judge, who obviously
38:27
Speaker 2: does not know his own rear n from a hole
38:30
Speaker 2: in the ground, gives him community service? Like you want
38:34
Speaker 2: this guy next to you washing school buses in Athens? George, No, no,
38:40
Speaker 2: you know, don't want that. But that's what a judge
38:43
Speaker 2: thought was Okay. After he murders Tara, he then stabs
38:49
Speaker 2: another guy in the neck. Does it never end?
38:54
Speaker 1: Cheryl and Nancy?
38:56
Speaker 5: This is one of those things that you have to keep,
38:59
Speaker 5: you know, just teaching people. Nobody is gonna rape and
39:03
Speaker 5: sodomize and bludgeon and stab to death one time.
39:08
Speaker 12: They're not.
39:09
Speaker 5: They're not gonna stab this man in the neck and
39:12
Speaker 5: never do anything else. You're gonna keep seeing this guy
39:15
Speaker 5: over and over and over until somebody says that's enough,
39:19
Speaker 5: you're done. You're gonna be put away forever so that
39:23
Speaker 5: you can't hurt anybody else.
39:26
Speaker 2: Let's take a look at his new charges again. Of
39:29
Speaker 2: course there's murder, and now we're learning more about the evidence.
39:33
Speaker 1: This is where the DNA comes from.
39:35
Speaker 2: Aggravated a sodomy that's either oral or anal rape, first
39:41
Speaker 2: degree arson, tampering with evidence that means moving the body
39:44
Speaker 2: around or setting the place on.
39:46
Speaker 1: Fire, concealing the death. That's the fire, possession of a.
39:49
Speaker 2: Firearm or knife during the commission of attempt to commit felonies.
39:54
Speaker 2: So was that cod and aggravated assault to doctor Kendall
39:59
Speaker 2: Crown's now chief Medical Examiner Terran County. If a body
40:03
Speaker 2: has been burned, of all, let me just say soft tissue,
40:08
Speaker 2: and that's a nice way of saying.
40:09
Speaker 1: Skin that muscle.
40:12
Speaker 2: How do you look at skeletonized bones that have been
40:16
Speaker 2: through a fire and determine that a knife or a
40:19
Speaker 2: blunt instrument was used.
40:21
Speaker 11: So there can be marks left by the knives in
40:24
Speaker 11: particular on the bones that match up or tool mark
40:28
Speaker 11: evidence that can be used to match up to a
40:29
Speaker 11: murder weapon. When you see those type of injuries to
40:33
Speaker 11: the bone, you know they're not natural injuries. One problem
40:36
Speaker 11: with burning of the bodies that can cause fractures or
40:41
Speaker 11: fire related fractures. As the body burns, the muscles start
40:44
Speaker 11: kind of pulling in into what they call pugilistic posture
40:48
Speaker 11: which looks like a boxer but that pulls in and
40:51
Speaker 11: that can cause fractures of the long bones.
40:54
Speaker 12: The head itself, as it heats up.
40:56
Speaker 11: Will burst or explode open and you can get fractures
40:59
Speaker 11: that way. So you do have to look at the
41:01
Speaker 11: fracture patterns themselves to determine if it's from the fire
41:06
Speaker 11: or if it's from blunt injury. Tool Marks, on the
41:08
Speaker 11: other hand, are pretty unique, and when you see those, you.
41:12
Speaker 12: Know that that's caused by a tool.
41:13
Speaker 11: But fractures themselves, you have to differentiate between the fire
41:17
Speaker 11: and between blunt force injuries.
41:19
Speaker 2: You know, doctor Kilo Crowns, I could listen to you
41:22
Speaker 2: all day long. I guess I understand about sixty five
41:26
Speaker 2: percent of what you're saying. And I'm going to point
41:29
Speaker 2: out something about our guests that join us here at
41:32
Speaker 2: Crime Stories. They're not just talking heads that you dig
41:37
Speaker 2: up by watching some other network. These are real life heroes,
41:41
Speaker 2: every single one of them.
41:43
Speaker 1: Think about it.
41:44
Speaker 2: Doctor Angela Arnold, renownced psychiatrist who focuses specifically on women
41:51
Speaker 2: and their issues and helping so many people and going
41:56
Speaker 2: behind the scene of a crime to tell us why
41:59
Speaker 2: Sheryl is a world renown geneticist and author. Nicole Brock
42:06
Speaker 2: firefighter arson expert who runs into the blaze, not away
42:12
Speaker 2: from the blaze. Cheryl McCollum, who's literally joining us from
42:17
Speaker 2: the field. Forensic expert doctor Kendall Crown's, Well, what more
42:21
Speaker 2: do I need to say? He's conducted over ten thousand autopsies.
42:25
Speaker 2: Alexis Tereschuk who comes over every detail of a case.
42:29
Speaker 1: Before she reports it. Another case solved? What can we
42:36
Speaker 1: learn from it? Going forward?
42:40
Speaker 2: Our thoughts and prayers with the families of both of
42:43
Speaker 2: these victims, Lincoln and Tara. And now we stop to
42:47
Speaker 2: remember American hero Lieutenant Milton over Sindez Lieutenant Sindez shot
42:53
Speaker 2: and killed during police pursued send Benito, Texas, twenty six
43:00
Speaker 2: year that.
43:01
Speaker 1: Of the police force.
43:02
Speaker 2: He leaves behind a grieving wife, Melissa, and his family
43:07
Speaker 2: in Texas. American hero Lieutenant Milton Rissindez. I want to
43:14
Speaker 2: thank all of our guests, are amazing guests for being
43:17
Speaker 2: with us tonight, and to everyone being with us tonight
43:21
Speaker 2: here on Crime Stories tonight and every night. Nancy Gray
43:25
Speaker 2: signing off, good night, friend,