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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: The Homicide of Sasha Krause · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Bodybacks with Joseph Scott Morgan. I guess, like many people
0:21
Speaker 1: my age, we grew up going to vacation Bible school
0:26
Speaker 1: during the summer, going to Sunday school on Sundays, and
0:32
Speaker 1: unlike being in school, there was something different about a
0:35
Speaker 1: Sunday school teacher. They weren't there for the pay. They
0:39
Speaker 1: were there because they felt as though that it was
0:41
Speaker 1: a calling and they wanted to teach kids right from wrong, essentially,
0:47
Speaker 1: and I have fond memories of those that taught me
0:50
Speaker 1: as a small child. But today we're going to talk
0:56
Speaker 1: about a woman who had essentially devoted her entire life
1:03
Speaker 1: to God and to the education of children in her community.
1:09
Speaker 1: Today we're going to talk about the homicide of Sasha Cross.
1:16
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks. Joining me
1:26
Speaker 1: today is Jackie Howard, executive producer of Crime Stories with
1:30
Speaker 1: Nancy Grays. I can't fathom why anyone in the world
1:36
Speaker 1: would want to just randomly set about destroying such a
1:44
Speaker 1: beautiful life. But I'm beginning to think about what happened
1:50
Speaker 1: to Sarah Krauss out there in that cold desert in
1:55
Speaker 1: northern Arizona, and it conjures up images of monsters rising
2:01
Speaker 1: up out of the dark, and I think that that
2:03
Speaker 1: is probably what happened in the case of Sarah, just
2:06
Speaker 1: living her life, not a care in the world other
2:09
Speaker 1: than taking care of these kids that were in her charge,
2:11
Speaker 1: and then suddenly she vanishes from her Mennonite community. There
2:15
Speaker 1: are so many facts in this case, Joe, that really
2:20
Speaker 1: are difficult to understand. The first thing for me that
2:24
Speaker 1: struck me twenty seven year old Sasha Kraus was a
2:28
Speaker 1: Sunday school teacher and she worked in the publishing industry,
2:33
Speaker 1: and she was shot in the head and left in
2:36
Speaker 1: the cold. She disappeared from New Mexico in January of
2:41
Speaker 1: twenty twenty and her body was found by a camper
2:44
Speaker 1: in Arizona. Remember it's January. Her body was left out
2:48
Speaker 1: in the cold. But what's surprising about this case is
2:55
Speaker 1: the man who was charged with Kraus's death, Mark Gooch,
3:00
Speaker 1: and Sasha Krause, didn't know each other. Yet there is
3:05
Speaker 1: no sex assault that can be verified. The autopsy says
3:08
Speaker 1: it could not be conclusive, and there's no other outside
3:14
Speaker 1: relationship that can be verified between these two people. That's
3:18
Speaker 1: a curious thing, because you know, it's not like Sasha
3:23
Speaker 1: lived in an environment that was heavily populated, like where
3:26
Speaker 1: you think that there's going to be an opportunity for
3:30
Speaker 1: some stranger to cross her path that meant her harm.
3:35
Speaker 1: In some big urban area or perhaps in her little community,
3:40
Speaker 1: would be very easy to narrow down anyone that might
3:43
Speaker 1: have held a grudge against her. In let's face that
3:47
Speaker 1: she was a Mennonite. The Mennonites, by their nature are pacifist,
3:52
Speaker 1: and so you think who in the world would pertrate
3:55
Speaker 1: this kind of violence as level of violence on this
3:58
Speaker 1: poor young woman who had lived her life by the
4:02
Speaker 1: tenants of the Bible essentially, and the tenants of her
4:05
Speaker 1: community educating small children, who would seek to target her.
4:10
Speaker 1: And that makes this case all the more horrible because
4:14
Speaker 1: it's Yeah, I think for the people that lived around her,
4:17
Speaker 1: lived within this community, and her family that lived back
4:20
Speaker 1: in Texas, the moment that they realized that she was missing,
4:23
Speaker 1: I'm sure that they were sitting around scratching their heads
4:26
Speaker 1: wondering where in the world could she be. She didn't
4:29
Speaker 1: light out in her car, Her car was still there.
4:31
Speaker 1: It's almost as if she had just vanished into thin
4:35
Speaker 1: air at their community in New Mexico. So your investigative
4:39
Speaker 1: skills are going to have to be top notch one
4:41
Speaker 1: this one because when we look at what happened, as
4:44
Speaker 1: you pointed out, she just disappeared. So when Sasha Krauss
4:49
Speaker 1: went missing, the investigators really had to bring their a game,
4:53
Speaker 1: as we obviously know they always do. But there was
4:57
Speaker 1: very very little to go on. As you just said,
5:00
Speaker 1: her car was still there, They had little information to
5:04
Speaker 1: go on. So when this is the case, what do
5:06
Speaker 1: you do, Joe, Well, you have to start at the beginning,
5:10
Speaker 1: where she was last seen and who her intimate circle is.
5:14
Speaker 1: And we've talked about this before on bodybacks. It's not
5:18
Speaker 1: like you're looking for someone that is a stranger to
5:21
Speaker 1: the individual, someone that has this level of hatred, and
5:25
Speaker 1: this is a sign of hatred. And you're bringing about
5:28
Speaker 1: the death of this young woman that hasn't the best
5:31
Speaker 1: rine knowledge, done any significant harm to anybody. So who
5:34
Speaker 1: would lash out at her? Is there someone in the community?
5:38
Speaker 1: You know? From that point, tom becomes certainly an issue
5:41
Speaker 1: because you know initially and you look at this, this
5:44
Speaker 1: is not a homicide. It's not you're looking for a
5:47
Speaker 1: member of your group that has gone missing. So the
5:52
Speaker 1: human brain does not necessarily the default position is not homicide. Okay,
5:57
Speaker 1: they just think missing. They're going to think, well, maybe
6:00
Speaker 1: she wandered off in the scrub. Maybe she's off somewhere
6:04
Speaker 1: out in the distance and she hadn't been able to
6:06
Speaker 1: find her way back. Maybe she's injured somewhere. We want
6:09
Speaker 1: to go try to put together a team and find her.
6:12
Speaker 1: And that's generally how these things start out. The problem is,
6:15
Speaker 1: many times when things start out as a missing person's case,
6:21
Speaker 1: evidence for instance, that could be essential to a homicide
6:26
Speaker 1: investigation might be overlooked or might be disturbed in some manner.
6:31
Speaker 1: Let me give you an example. Let's say, for instance,
6:34
Speaker 1: you've got somebody that was last known to be in
6:37
Speaker 1: a building, okay, like in a structure, they have an office,
6:40
Speaker 1: or maybe it's their home or whatever the case might be,
6:43
Speaker 1: and the individual vanishes, they disappear, well immediately if you
6:48
Speaker 1: begin to search that area in which they dwell, that
6:51
Speaker 1: space that they occupied, normally you're going to be in
6:54
Speaker 1: a fever to try to find them. You're not going
6:56
Speaker 1: to be thinking about trace evidence necessarily. You'll be looking
6:59
Speaker 1: for things. So as you kind of make your way
7:02
Speaker 1: through a dwelling. For instance, you're throwing open doors, you're
7:05
Speaker 1: touching door handles, you're scuffing on the floor. Maybe you're
7:09
Speaker 1: outside and the bushes adjacent to the entrance and the
7:12
Speaker 1: exit to a building. You might be trampling on footprints
7:15
Speaker 1: for all you know, you might be trampling on cigarette butts,
7:19
Speaker 1: anything that might give you an indication later on that
7:22
Speaker 1: someone had kind of interjected themselves into Sasha's environment and
7:27
Speaker 1: had removed her from that location, somebody that may perhaps
7:31
Speaker 1: had brought about her death. At that moment time, all
7:34
Speaker 1: you want to do is find her safe and secure,
7:37
Speaker 1: and of course, as we know, that turned out not
7:40
Speaker 1: to be the case. When Kraus's car was found in
7:43
Speaker 1: the investigative teams went through it. She disappeared after eating
7:48
Speaker 1: dinner with her roommates, and she didn't have her wallet,
7:52
Speaker 1: she didn't have money, she didn't have her driver's license,
7:55
Speaker 1: and obviously she didn't have her car. So that was
7:59
Speaker 1: a fur clue, wasn't it. That's that first step that
8:02
Speaker 1: you're talking about in setting up a timeline of when
8:06
Speaker 1: she went missing. Yeah. Yeah, it is all of those
8:10
Speaker 1: little elements that make up who we are. They come
8:13
Speaker 1: into play those things that we have very specific and
8:18
Speaker 1: intimate control over in our lives, identifiers id for instance,
8:22
Speaker 1: a driver's license or sub security card, or maybe a purse,
8:26
Speaker 1: a pocketbook, or maybe a backpack that we are known
8:29
Speaker 1: to carry. Either an absence or presence of those is
8:33
Speaker 1: going to play into the investigation. It's going to be
8:36
Speaker 1: a significant finding. If you find, say, for instance, a
8:39
Speaker 1: pocketbook that is just laying on the ground, and you
8:42
Speaker 1: can't find the person that's associated with it, then that's
8:45
Speaker 1: going to be a big tell. Conversely, if the pocketbook
8:49
Speaker 1: is gone, you would make this kind of logical assumption, well,
8:53
Speaker 1: they might not have taken their card, but they left
8:56
Speaker 1: with their pocketbook, for instance, or left with keys, or
9:00
Speaker 1: left with money, that sort of thing, And so it
9:03
Speaker 1: paints it in a different light depended upon what you
9:06
Speaker 1: find for your initial investigation into a case like this.
9:28
Speaker 1: I like to camp. I camp with my family a
9:30
Speaker 1: couple of times a year, I say, I like to
9:33
Speaker 1: My wife likes to do it more than I do,
9:35
Speaker 1: but I try to indulge her and be a good husband,
9:37
Speaker 1: so I'll go out and camp. But one of the
9:38
Speaker 1: things that we do is we go out and we
9:40
Speaker 1: gather firewood if we haven't brought our own. And I
9:43
Speaker 1: cannot imagine what it's like to be in a peaceful
9:46
Speaker 1: environment where you're trying to recharge your batteries, you're out
9:49
Speaker 1: picking up firewood, and then all of a sudden you
9:52
Speaker 1: look down and you see a body. I can't imagine
9:57
Speaker 1: what that would be like. I think that probably my
9:59
Speaker 1: gut ray action, at least initially, would be is the
10:03
Speaker 1: person alive? And then I would begin to think, well,
10:05
Speaker 1: if they're deceased, is there a chance that harm's going
10:08
Speaker 1: to come to me. The person who found Sasha Krause
10:12
Speaker 1: probably felt exactly the same thing, given what could be seen.
10:16
Speaker 1: Sasha's body was found near Sunset Crater of volcano and
10:21
Speaker 1: the National Monuments. They're outside Flagstaff. That's more than two
10:25
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy miles from the place where Sasha was
10:29
Speaker 1: last seen. She had on the same clothes that she
10:33
Speaker 1: was wearing when she was taken, and she had several
10:37
Speaker 1: injuries to her head, and her hands were duct taped.
10:42
Speaker 1: So just seeing the duct tape around somebody's hands would
10:46
Speaker 1: be frightening enough. So investigators come and they start to
10:52
Speaker 1: process the scene. Walk me through that. Joe because there's
10:56
Speaker 1: a lot of things going on here that they have
10:59
Speaker 1: to make note of. Yeah, it certainly is duct tape.
11:03
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you brought that up, because it's one
11:05
Speaker 1: of those things that it gives you pause. It's unreasonable
11:09
Speaker 1: to think that anyone would obviously duct tape their own wrist.
11:13
Speaker 1: So you know from Jump Street that something is a
11:16
Speaker 1: miss here. And this young woman who according to the police,
11:22
Speaker 1: when they observed her body, she appeared to be dressed
11:26
Speaker 1: in homemade clothing. Now keep in mind, they have no
11:29
Speaker 1: idea who this is. All they know is that a
11:32
Speaker 1: camper is reported finding a body out here in this
11:35
Speaker 1: wilderness area in this national park, and she's laying there
11:40
Speaker 1: on the ground. Hands are visible, duct tape is visible,
11:43
Speaker 1: and kind of an interesting thing. They look down and
11:48
Speaker 1: they see one of the things that kind of stands
11:50
Speaker 1: out to them. They notice that not only is she
11:52
Speaker 1: wearing kind of this homespun dress, but her hair, which
11:57
Speaker 1: is brown, is tied up in a neat bun the
12:00
Speaker 1: back of her head. And of course that comes into
12:03
Speaker 1: play later, but it's just one of those identifying factors.
12:07
Speaker 1: A young lady like this that appears, I would imagine
12:10
Speaker 1: so very passive in her appearance out there would wind
12:13
Speaker 1: up in a state like this, and this is a
12:16
Speaker 1: dirt kind of a loose dirt surface that you're looking
12:19
Speaker 1: at here, and you know, you have to think, were
12:22
Speaker 1: they thinking at that moment time did she actually walk
12:25
Speaker 1: to this spot herself, because you would be looking certainly
12:29
Speaker 1: for footprints of any kind that might say matchup would
12:32
Speaker 1: that she wear that she is currently wearing. But one
12:36
Speaker 1: of the things that they found immediately adjacent to her
12:39
Speaker 1: body that is significant are what they termed as drag marks. Now,
12:44
Speaker 1: drag marks can come about in any number of ways,
12:47
Speaker 1: and they can present in kind of a number of ways.
12:51
Speaker 1: But if you are essentially dragging someone along, let's say
12:55
Speaker 1: you're dragging them in a supine position, which means face up,
12:59
Speaker 1: and you're dragging them by the collar, there's a high
13:02
Speaker 1: probability that the drag marks that will be left behind
13:05
Speaker 1: are going to be generated from the heels of the feet,
13:08
Speaker 1: because the pressure is going to adjust so that the
13:11
Speaker 1: heels make contact and the ground will kind of furrow out,
13:14
Speaker 1: if you will. Now, conversely, if you think about flipping
13:19
Speaker 1: person over and having them almost in a prone posture
13:22
Speaker 1: as you're dragging them, of course they would be bent
13:24
Speaker 1: at the hips. The presentation of the marks themselves will
13:28
Speaker 1: be more broad because more than likely your legs will
13:32
Speaker 1: be contacting periodically the ground from your kneecaps all the
13:36
Speaker 1: way down to the tips of your toes, so those
13:39
Speaker 1: are going to have a different appearance. I think that
13:43
Speaker 1: what is important is you have to think about how
13:46
Speaker 1: delicate these marks are, because when I say delicate, I'm
13:51
Speaker 1: talking about the level of fragility that might exist. You
13:55
Speaker 1: have to be very careful as you begin to kind of,
13:57
Speaker 1: you know, march back from maybe their origin. If they're
14:02
Speaker 1: found immediately adjacent to her body, you have to think
14:04
Speaker 1: about the point of origin. Is there, say, for instance,
14:07
Speaker 1: a parking pad that's not too far away that you're
14:11
Speaker 1: going to drag somebody from, and are there other marks?
14:15
Speaker 1: Maybe she was able to walk part of the way,
14:18
Speaker 1: and you'll see footprints that kind of fall in line
14:21
Speaker 1: with these drag marks, and then suddenly the drag marks
14:24
Speaker 1: pick up. Maybe you have footprints again, and then you
14:27
Speaker 1: have more drag marks, and that will tell you a
14:29
Speaker 1: lot as well, because you would be thinking, well, if
14:32
Speaker 1: she's walking, she's still alive, so maybe the place where
14:36
Speaker 1: she died was where the body is found, as opposed
14:40
Speaker 1: to having been killed somewhere else and drug to that location.
14:44
Speaker 1: So not only are you looking for her drag marks,
14:47
Speaker 1: you're looking for her footprints, but also one thing you
14:50
Speaker 1: have to consider, you would be looking for the footprints
14:53
Speaker 1: of the person that drug her, and they're going to
14:56
Speaker 1: look obviously completely different than hers. Wood. She's not a
15:00
Speaker 1: large person, so her footprints would appear rather diminutive, and
15:04
Speaker 1: you would be looking for somebody perhaps that has the strength,
15:07
Speaker 1: you know, those footprints would be more robust in appearance.
15:11
Speaker 1: There's any number of different types of evidence that could
15:14
Speaker 1: be associated with this. As I'd mentioned earlier, you would
15:17
Speaker 1: be looking for things that are associated with her. If
15:22
Speaker 1: there's any kind of scrub brush that's along the way,
15:25
Speaker 1: you can look for fiber evidence. I mentioned her dress
15:28
Speaker 1: as homespun, Okay, so that's going to be a very specific,
15:33
Speaker 1: homemade creation. It's not like it's not like you walk
15:36
Speaker 1: into a big department store and find this item that
15:40
Speaker 1: she's wearing. These things, these dresses that she is wearing
15:44
Speaker 1: their handmaid. This is something that is unique to her
15:47
Speaker 1: and it has a very specific fabric. It has a
15:50
Speaker 1: very specific pattern. So let's just say, for instance, you're
15:54
Speaker 1: moving her through this brush and you happen to catch
15:58
Speaker 1: a bit of this fiber on a twig sticking out. Well,
16:01
Speaker 1: that from a fiber trace evidence perspective, which is one
16:04
Speaker 1: of the practices in forensic science, we can actually marry
16:08
Speaker 1: that up with a clothing that she is wearing. You know,
16:11
Speaker 1: you look for things like threadcount and all these sorts
16:13
Speaker 1: of things, and the twist in the actual weave, which
16:16
Speaker 1: is significant. All of these things play in. We have
16:20
Speaker 1: fiber evidence that is to be considered. We have hair
16:23
Speaker 1: evidence that is to be considered. Remember when they found her.
16:27
Speaker 1: When they found her, her head was bare, and we
16:30
Speaker 1: can get into that a little bit more. But her
16:33
Speaker 1: hair was exposed. It was up in a bun. So
16:36
Speaker 1: if there's hair that you're careful to collect, maybe that's
16:39
Speaker 1: caught up in some of the brush. And again that
16:42
Speaker 1: is a specific biological tie back to her. And I
16:45
Speaker 1: think finally, if you begin to talk about assessment of injuries.
16:49
Speaker 1: For instance, in Sausha's case, we do know that she
16:53
Speaker 1: had sustained injuries to her head, and if that had
16:57
Speaker 1: occurred somewhere back up the trail, for instance, you would
17:01
Speaker 1: have to be very very careful that you look for
17:03
Speaker 1: traces of say, for instance, blood evidence in any particular
17:07
Speaker 1: spot that might be along that kind of marries up
17:10
Speaker 1: with this path that's being followed, which of course terminates
17:13
Speaker 1: in the discovery of her deceased person. A couple of
17:16
Speaker 1: points here. When Sasha was found it was January in Arizona.
17:24
Speaker 1: The other point is she was laying face down in
17:29
Speaker 1: the clearing in the forest. What does that position do
17:34
Speaker 1: combined with the temperature to the decomposition factor. Obviously it
17:38
Speaker 1: was more than a month from her disappearance when her
17:42
Speaker 1: body was found. And if it was on an average
17:45
Speaker 1: day in Arizona, say three o'clock in the afternoon, you're
17:48
Speaker 1: going to have average temperatures. But it was cold and
17:53
Speaker 1: her body was face down, what's that going to tell us?
17:57
Speaker 1: And how does that impact the auto seeing what was
18:00
Speaker 1: done to her head injuries? She's found in Arizona. And
18:04
Speaker 1: I think that many people that have not spent much
18:06
Speaker 1: time in Arizona, which I'm proud to say that I have.
18:09
Speaker 1: I was there stationed in the army at for to
18:11
Speaker 1: get down the southern part of the state, and I've
18:14
Speaker 1: traveled over a goodly portion of the state beautiful place.
18:18
Speaker 1: And most people associate Arizona with desert Okay, and there
18:22
Speaker 1: is a lot of desert. People don't realize how cold
18:24
Speaker 1: the desert can be. When you get up in the
18:25
Speaker 1: northern portion of the state, which is near Flagstaff. In
18:28
Speaker 1: that area, it gets very cold. As a matter of fact,
18:31
Speaker 1: I think if I'm not mistaken near Flagstaff to actually
18:34
Speaker 1: have ski resorts up there, all right, And I might
18:35
Speaker 1: be mistaken, but I think that's accurate. The average temperature
18:39
Speaker 1: in January for that particular area is at the low
18:42
Speaker 1: rather the low average low is about twelve degrees just
18:46
Speaker 1: that's colder. That's colder obviously than we keep our refrigerators
18:50
Speaker 1: at home. That's colder than our freezers from most people.
18:53
Speaker 1: So to your point, Jackie, the idea that yes, she
18:57
Speaker 1: had been out there a month and there will be
19:00
Speaker 1: some decompositional changes in her body. However, you have to
19:06
Speaker 1: consider because there is such a low temperature over this
19:10
Speaker 1: period of time, perhaps on average, that is going to
19:13
Speaker 1: retard the decompositional process. It's going to slow it. And
19:18
Speaker 1: as we've said on body bags before, and I will
19:21
Speaker 1: continue to say, heat speeds things up and when you
19:24
Speaker 1: have an absence of heat and you replace the ambient
19:28
Speaker 1: air temperature with cold air, it's going to slow this
19:32
Speaker 1: process down. When we begin to think about the position
19:36
Speaker 1: that she was found in, and this is quite tragic,
19:39
Speaker 1: I think, because that could be the position she was
19:42
Speaker 1: last in in life. This is, at least in my assessment,
19:47
Speaker 1: what you would term as a classic execution style homicide.
19:53
Speaker 1: Sasha unfortunately was shot in the back of the head
19:57
Speaker 1: execution style. This is something where you begin to think
19:59
Speaker 1: about We've talked before about asymmetrical positioning relative to a
20:04
Speaker 1: victim and the perpetrator. So you have an individual that
20:08
Speaker 1: is dominant over her that is literally firing into the
20:13
Speaker 1: back of her head. So she would be in a
20:14
Speaker 1: submissive position, laying on the ground, perhaps hands restrained with
20:19
Speaker 1: the duct tape, and then this single round is fired
20:23
Speaker 1: into the back of her head, which of course ends
20:26
Speaker 1: her life in that isolated spot away from everybody else,
20:30
Speaker 1: And you think about it, and that's so sad because
20:33
Speaker 1: here this woman was that had devoted herself to living
20:35
Speaker 1: in this community, these people that she loved, and she
20:38
Speaker 1: loved these kids, and she's out in the middle of
20:42
Speaker 1: this wilderness and she dies all alone in fear, with
20:45
Speaker 1: her hands bound. It's a horrible thing to consider. The
20:50
Speaker 1: further examination of her reveal that she had sustained blunt
20:54
Speaker 1: forced trauma to her head, and that's in addition to
21:00
Speaker 1: the gunshot one. Okay, so what does that say. Well,
21:03
Speaker 1: if there's evidence of blunt force trauma, that means that
21:06
Speaker 1: this is going to be anti mortem trauma. That means
21:09
Speaker 1: that there would be in dwelling hemorrhage that is the
21:13
Speaker 1: body's response to any kind of impact injury she may
21:16
Speaker 1: have sustained. So you'll have a bruise that sets in,
21:19
Speaker 1: for instance, and that's the body's response to being struck.
21:24
Speaker 1: You wouldn't have that in death. And at least I
21:29
Speaker 1: think that in cases like this, where you're trying to
21:31
Speaker 1: get somebody to submit, where you, as a perpetrator have
21:35
Speaker 1: made the decision that you're finally going to end their life,
21:41
Speaker 1: you have to get them to submit. And maybe that
21:44
Speaker 1: blow or blows to her head was an attempt to
21:48
Speaker 1: get her to submit, to lay down in that cold,
21:51
Speaker 1: cold dirt out there in the middle of that high desert,
21:55
Speaker 1: and it was at that moment time he shot her
21:57
Speaker 1: in the back of the head. But what about Sasha
22:00
Speaker 1: being faced down in the clearing that contact with the ground.
22:06
Speaker 1: How does that impact knowing what happened to her? First off,
22:12
Speaker 1: we go back to the idea of preservation, and not
22:15
Speaker 1: only do we have an ambient environmental temperature of the air,
22:19
Speaker 1: the air temperature that we're talking about, but you have
22:23
Speaker 1: to think about the temperature of the earth that is
22:26
Speaker 1: underlying her body. That space would be cold as well,
22:30
Speaker 1: which again would to a certain degree promote perhaps the
22:34
Speaker 1: preservation of the remains. You think about her contacting her
22:39
Speaker 1: surfaces of her body, which if she's faced down, that
22:42
Speaker 1: means that she's in a prone position. So one of
22:44
Speaker 1: the things I think would be significant here is if
22:48
Speaker 1: she was in this prone position when she was found,
22:51
Speaker 1: you have to ask the question what she drug out
22:53
Speaker 1: there in kind of a facedown position. Just imagine if
22:56
Speaker 1: she had been grabbed by the scruff of the neck
23:00
Speaker 1: is they used to say, maybe by the shirt collar,
23:02
Speaker 1: and she's drug out there and placed in this position
23:06
Speaker 1: out there, Think about that and think about the marks
23:09
Speaker 1: that that would have left on the soil, and then
23:11
Speaker 1: concurrently the soil the earth contacting her body, and you
23:15
Speaker 1: begin to look for trace elements there relative to the
23:18
Speaker 1: soil that will present on the surface of her clothing
23:22
Speaker 1: on the front, in particular, if she was brought out
23:24
Speaker 1: there in a prone position, and you'll get an idea
23:26
Speaker 1: if those fibers have been scraped across their leading surfaces
23:31
Speaker 1: as a result of being drug and at that time
23:34
Speaker 1: of the year as well, one of the other things
23:37
Speaker 1: from an entomological standpoint, you have to understand that at
23:41
Speaker 1: that point in time, when it's so cold, there's going
23:44
Speaker 1: to be quite a bit of dormancy in insect activity
23:47
Speaker 1: out there, so that's not going to play as big
23:49
Speaker 1: a factor that it would, say, for instance, if you
23:52
Speaker 1: were getting into the warmer months, they're going to be
23:54
Speaker 1: in a period of dormancy because it is so very
23:57
Speaker 1: cold out there, So insect activity that might come up
24:00
Speaker 1: from the surrounding earth is not going to be as
24:03
Speaker 1: prevalent at this time of the year because they're going
24:05
Speaker 1: to be in a period of dormancy compared to what
24:08
Speaker 1: it would be like, say, for instance, when we get
24:09
Speaker 1: into the warmer months like March, in April and May.
24:32
Speaker 1: When the local authorities up in northern Arizona got this
24:35
Speaker 1: phone call, I can only imagine their response, You've got
24:39
Speaker 1: the remains of a young woman that are found out
24:42
Speaker 1: there in homespun clothing in the depth of wintertime out there.
24:49
Speaker 1: I can only imagine they're scratching their heads and they're saying,
24:52
Speaker 1: where did she come from? Because there are no cars
24:55
Speaker 1: that are associated with her out here. She's just laying
24:59
Speaker 1: here in this wilder, in this area and just was
25:01
Speaker 1: happened upon by a total stranger that was out gathering firewood.
25:05
Speaker 1: Police connected an Air Force member by the name of
25:09
Speaker 1: Mark Gooch to the death of Sasha Krause, and they
25:13
Speaker 1: did that through surveillance video and cell phone records. There
25:18
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be any connection, as we said earlier,
25:21
Speaker 1: between these two individuals, other than the information that was
25:26
Speaker 1: revealed in texts between Mark Gooch and his brother. We
25:31
Speaker 1: find out that Mark Gooch was raised with a connection
25:34
Speaker 1: to the Mennonite community. There seemed to be a real
25:38
Speaker 1: disdain for this faith in this community. But there still
25:43
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be a motive for this murder. And
25:48
Speaker 1: that's the riddle, isn't it. As a try to make
25:52
Speaker 1: a point of up to this point, who she harmed?
25:54
Speaker 1: But what great harm has Sasha Krause wrought upon this
25:58
Speaker 1: earth that would cause her to end up in the state,
26:02
Speaker 1: And from an investigative standpoint, I can only imagine that
26:06
Speaker 1: that's what then the police were dealing with from the beginning.
26:10
Speaker 1: When they finally did track down Gooch and determine that
26:13
Speaker 1: he was responsible, you know, the pieces began to kind
26:17
Speaker 1: of fall into place, and he had an intimate knowledge
26:22
Speaker 1: of the Mennonite faith and the community. He had apparently
26:25
Speaker 1: grown up around the Mennonite community, but he chose not
26:30
Speaker 1: to join the particular group that he was associated with
26:33
Speaker 1: and went into the US Air Force instead, you know,
26:36
Speaker 1: And that's what I was saying earlier, that Mennonites are pacifist.
26:40
Speaker 1: You're not going to find them signing up to go
26:42
Speaker 1: and fight necessarily or to join the armed forces. It's
26:45
Speaker 1: not what they do. It's not part of who they are.
26:49
Speaker 1: And so he made this decision that runs completely contrary
26:54
Speaker 1: to the life he was brought up around. And I
26:57
Speaker 1: think that that goes to a bigger idea here. Why
27:00
Speaker 1: is it that your life is on track, you're not
27:02
Speaker 1: part of the Men of Knot community. Why is it
27:04
Speaker 1: that you would choose and go and completely destroy the
27:07
Speaker 1: life of someone who is doing the best you possibly
27:11
Speaker 1: can and is actually helping people. And I think that
27:14
Speaker 1: when you begin to think about motivations and for someone
27:17
Speaker 1: that commits a horrible act like that, I think that
27:21
Speaker 1: you begin to do a deeper exploration of what might
27:24
Speaker 1: have been his reasoning. It took police almost two months
27:28
Speaker 1: to put together the pieces of this to track down
27:31
Speaker 1: the culprit, Mark Gooch. It was cell phone records and
27:36
Speaker 1: video surveillance. Video witnesses reported seeing a white suv outside
27:42
Speaker 1: the church where Kraus was involved and worked. We also
27:48
Speaker 1: know that his cell phone and her cell phone pinged
27:51
Speaker 1: in the same vicinities off the same towers. So these
27:56
Speaker 1: pieces of digital evidence is what it took for police
28:00
Speaker 1: to put this together. And it's the whole fact that
28:04
Speaker 1: there is no apparent motive other than a grudge against
28:09
Speaker 1: a faith, except there were pieces of clothing that would
28:14
Speaker 1: have been important to a Mennonite woman that were missing.
28:19
Speaker 1: There was no, according to the autopsy, conclusive evidence of
28:24
Speaker 1: a rape, although they did not completely release those details
28:28
Speaker 1: to pay respect to the family, but the autopsy did
28:32
Speaker 1: say that it could not be confirmed that there was
28:34
Speaker 1: a rape, yet she had no underwear and her head
28:39
Speaker 1: covering was missing, which we know is really important to
28:43
Speaker 1: the Mennonite faith. Yeah, it is. And when you see
28:46
Speaker 1: you know, these ternam it and I'm probably using the
28:49
Speaker 1: wrong term, but I teram it as kind of a
28:51
Speaker 1: small bonnet, if you will, And it covers the back
28:54
Speaker 1: of the head. They're white, their homemade, and it's probably
28:58
Speaker 1: something that's created a lot of affection because it's meant
29:02
Speaker 1: to symbolize something. It's meant to symbolize modesty, and that's
29:06
Speaker 1: something when you begin to think about that, and you
29:08
Speaker 1: do not see women of the Mennonite faith going in
29:12
Speaker 1: public without wearing a head covering. And the fact that
29:17
Speaker 1: this individual Gooch had a knowledge of the Mennonite faith.
29:22
Speaker 1: Out of everything you could have taken from her other
29:24
Speaker 1: than her life, why is it that you would essentially
29:29
Speaker 1: go after two of the most intimate pieces of clothing
29:33
Speaker 1: she possesses. You'd mentioned earlier that Jackie that her underwear
29:39
Speaker 1: was missing, and then you take this head covering away.
29:42
Speaker 1: You don't want to read too much into it, but
29:45
Speaker 1: out of everything that could have been taken from her,
29:47
Speaker 1: it's almost like that there's this shaming that's going on
29:50
Speaker 1: by him of her. I just thought of something here
29:55
Speaker 1: that's kind of significant. Her hands were bound with duct tape,
30:00
Speaker 1: and they didn't find one wit one sample of DNA
30:07
Speaker 1: evidence on the surface of that duct tape. They didn't
30:10
Speaker 1: find a fingerprint. And if you look at duct tape
30:12
Speaker 1: or any kind of tape, when you look at the
30:14
Speaker 1: attacky surface of it, one of the things that happens
30:18
Speaker 1: many times in cases involving tape is that you will
30:21
Speaker 1: leave behind what's referred to as an adhesive or plastic
30:24
Speaker 1: print on the surface of that adherent of the adhesive side.
30:28
Speaker 1: You can't help but do that if you're touching it.
30:31
Speaker 1: Because we have friction ridges. We don't have fingerprints on
30:33
Speaker 1: the ends of our fingers. We leave fingerprints behind. You
30:37
Speaker 1: have friction ridges on the tips of your fingers, all right,
30:41
Speaker 1: So a fingerprint is something that you leave behind. It
30:44
Speaker 1: is literally a negative image of your friction ridges on
30:48
Speaker 1: the tips or the pads of your fingers. So when
30:52
Speaker 1: investigators and forensics experts talk about fingerprints and they say
30:57
Speaker 1: there was so many points that match, that's what investigators
31:01
Speaker 1: are talking about. Kind of there's multiple ways to classify fingerprints.
31:07
Speaker 1: You have broad patterns which you hear about whirls, fingerprint whorlds.
31:12
Speaker 1: That's a particular type of pattern. You have pocket center worlds.
31:17
Speaker 1: There's these multiple classifications that you have, but when you
31:21
Speaker 1: get specific, you have these little specific identifiers that are
31:25
Speaker 1: contained within the print that's left behind. Those are referred
31:29
Speaker 1: to as minutia, and you have all kinds of things
31:33
Speaker 1: that are in there. You've got dots, pores, ending ridges,
31:36
Speaker 1: you have bifurcations, you have deltas. There are all these
31:40
Speaker 1: things in almost an infinite combination. And that's the reason
31:45
Speaker 1: fingerprints have been used for so long, because they are
31:47
Speaker 1: unique to us. Even though there's never been like a
31:52
Speaker 1: definitive scientific study that says no two fingerprints are the same.
31:57
Speaker 1: That's been the adage for years and years that there
31:59
Speaker 1: are new two fingerprints that are the same. There have
32:02
Speaker 1: been cases though out there, famously the Madrid train bombing case,
32:07
Speaker 1: where you know fingerprints weren't mistaken for somebody else. So
32:10
Speaker 1: you have this thing that makes you unique and you
32:13
Speaker 1: leave a print behind. Now, most of the time, if
32:16
Speaker 1: you think about touching the non poor surface, and the
32:19
Speaker 1: best example of that is like glass. The reason your
32:23
Speaker 1: fingerprint is visible on the class is because you have
32:27
Speaker 1: oil on the tips of your fingers. Okay, fatty lipids
32:30
Speaker 1: are excreted through your pores in your fingers, and so
32:33
Speaker 1: you leave this pattern behind based upon the friction rich
32:38
Speaker 1: pattern you have on your fingertips, so that pattern will
32:41
Speaker 1: show up. But in this case, the oil doesn't necessarily
32:45
Speaker 1: make the difference. When you begin to talk about adhesive,
32:49
Speaker 1: it's almost like you know, when you're a kid and
32:51
Speaker 1: you're playing around with silly putty. If you take your
32:55
Speaker 1: thumb perhaps and press it down into the silly putty
32:58
Speaker 1: and you remove it, that what's referred to as a
33:01
Speaker 1: plastic print. That means you're literally leaving an impression behind
33:04
Speaker 1: of your finger friction ridges, and your print comes off
33:09
Speaker 1: in the putty itself. It's the same principle with tape adhesive.
33:13
Speaker 1: And another thing that you'll find in tape adhesive as
33:17
Speaker 1: well is you'll shed hair and you'll shed skin cells
33:21
Speaker 1: as well, which is where we get a touch DNA
33:24
Speaker 1: From touch DNA is only a partial sample of DNA,
33:27
Speaker 1: and it's because it's coming off of dead skin cells.
33:30
Speaker 1: It's an incomplete DNA molecule. But in this case they
33:34
Speaker 1: found none of that, and this leads me to a conclusion, Jackie.
33:38
Speaker 1: It leads me to the conclusion that in this particular case,
33:40
Speaker 1: I think that there is a high probability that Gooch
33:44
Speaker 1: probably wore cloves the entire time he was engaged in
33:47
Speaker 1: that And if in fact he did wear cloves, that
33:50
Speaker 1: goes to a broader legal issue. That means that he
33:54
Speaker 1: had an awareness. He had an awareness that he had
33:57
Speaker 1: to impede the authority's ability to be able to track him.
34:01
Speaker 1: Relative to physical evidence, he went prepared to do harm
34:06
Speaker 1: to Sasha. Prepared it is probably the right word to use,
34:11
Speaker 1: knowing that he went to an effort afterwards to hide
34:17
Speaker 1: his movements that night. He tried to delete the cell
34:22
Speaker 1: phone service records on his phone, the location history, he
34:27
Speaker 1: had his card detailed, and he asked a friend to
34:30
Speaker 1: hold on to his twenty two caliber gun. So, as
34:36
Speaker 1: they put this case together, there may not have been
34:38
Speaker 1: a motive, but there was plenty of circumstantial evidence. There
34:43
Speaker 1: certainly was, And as our friend Nancy Grace likes to say,
34:45
Speaker 1: you know, it's not incumbent upon the court or upon
34:49
Speaker 1: the prosecutor to prove motive. That's that's not necessarily what's
34:52
Speaker 1: what's here, But it is the totality of the circumstances
34:55
Speaker 1: in this particular case. And another fascinating aspect of this
35:00
Speaker 1: is that back out at the scene, you know, one
35:02
Speaker 1: of the things that we're always looking for, it see,
35:04
Speaker 1: and particularly when it comes to gunfire, is ejected shell cases.
35:08
Speaker 1: And you know what, they didn't find one out there.
35:10
Speaker 1: They did not find any ejected shell cases. And I
35:13
Speaker 1: can only imagine that when they showed up to process
35:16
Speaker 1: the scene where Sasha was found, that they brought a
35:19
Speaker 1: metal detector with them. I can almost guarantee it's like
35:21
Speaker 1: standard fare now and any kind of crime scene response team,
35:25
Speaker 1: they will have a metal detector and they're going to
35:27
Speaker 1: sweep that area. Particularly once they begin to do the
35:30
Speaker 1: exam on the body and they note that she has
35:33
Speaker 1: a whole or a defect as we like to call it,
35:36
Speaker 1: in the back of her head. That gives you an
35:38
Speaker 1: indication that she is sustained a firearms related injury. At
35:42
Speaker 1: Sasha's autopsy, one of the things that they discovered, I
35:46
Speaker 1: think probably if there's something fortunate that can come out
35:49
Speaker 1: of this, was fortunately they actually recovered the projectile. The
35:53
Speaker 1: projectile was actually still there inside of her skull. And
35:57
Speaker 1: what we refer to as cranial vault. And the reason
36:01
Speaker 1: that's fortunate is because when they finally they being the investigators,
36:07
Speaker 1: finally got their hands on Gucha's weapon, they were able
36:12
Speaker 1: to marry that up with the round that they recovered
36:15
Speaker 1: from Sasha's body, and there was a ballistic match. So
36:19
Speaker 1: the farm's examiner came to that conclusion within a reasonable
36:22
Speaker 1: scientific certainty. You know, lawyers have us say that we're
36:26
Speaker 1: on the stand that round was actually fired from this
36:30
Speaker 1: specific weapon that was owned by Gouch. Again, that is
36:33
Speaker 1: a bit of physical, circumstantial evidence that he owns the
36:36
Speaker 1: weapon and that that weapon more than likely brought about
36:40
Speaker 1: her death or him utilizing that weapon brought about her death.
36:44
Speaker 1: But again that brings us back to the spent cartridge.
36:46
Speaker 1: What happened to it? Did he make an attempt out
36:49
Speaker 1: there in the middle of the night. Did he search
36:53
Speaker 1: around and find that cartridge and take it with him
36:56
Speaker 1: and maybe dispose of it in some way? Again, this
36:58
Speaker 1: goes to preparation. You begin to think that he showed
37:00
Speaker 1: up with gloves, he showed up with a weapon, He
37:02
Speaker 1: showed up with duct tape of all things, and took
37:05
Speaker 1: her out there in the middle of nowhere, I guess where.
37:07
Speaker 1: He just kind of thought that no one would find her,
37:10
Speaker 1: but you know, she was found within a month. One
37:13
Speaker 1: last note talking about Gouche's older brother, Samuel. He was
37:18
Speaker 1: arrested after he flew to Arizona from Wisconsin to pick
37:23
Speaker 1: up that rifle from Gouche's friend, and again it was
37:27
Speaker 1: the rifle thought to be used in the killing, and
37:29
Speaker 1: he was indicted by a grand jury on a single
37:32
Speaker 1: felony charge of attempting to hinder prosecution. Mark Gooch ultimately
37:39
Speaker 1: was convicted in the kidnapping and first degree murder of
37:42
Speaker 1: Sasha Krause. He has been sentenced to life in prison.
37:51
Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybacks.