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MUSALO MURDERS UNSOLVED: COUPLE MURDERED IN OWN HOME · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

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Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The Mussalo murders unsolved. A
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Speaker 1: beautiful couple murdered in their own home, Ela law enforcement
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Speaker 1: begging for tips. Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This is
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Speaker 1: Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 2: A happy and healthy couple look forward to retirement in
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Speaker 2: their beautiful neur Reno home, but their quiet retirement is
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Speaker 2: quickly shattered by violence.
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Speaker 1: In their own home. This beautiful couple murdered. How did
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Speaker 1: the discovery of this crime begin? Listen?
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Speaker 3: Ahead of their April plans to visit family in New York,
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Speaker 3: Joanne Coles wants to invite her parents to dinner. Joanne
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Speaker 3: calls the Mussalis's landline, but the phone rings and rings
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Speaker 3: with no answer. Joanne assumes her parents' power maybe out,
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Speaker 3: a common occurrence in snowy months. Joanne calls the Montrose
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Speaker 3: Secure to check on them. The guard reports back that
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Speaker 3: no one answered his knocking. While it's odd for Joan
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Speaker 3: and Albert to ignore the door, Joanne theorizes her parents
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Speaker 3: may be laid up in bed with a cold.
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Speaker 1: Joining me right now, the woman that made that faithful
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Speaker 1: phone call Joanne Coles, Joanne, thank you for being with us.
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Speaker 1: Could you describe that phone call and what went through
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Speaker 1: your mind?
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Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting that I lived in so much denial
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Speaker 4: at that moment, But I thought for sure that maybe
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Speaker 4: they were sick, had the flu, something else was going on.
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Speaker 4: So I called them the first time and they went
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Speaker 4: to the door. The second time, I asked them to
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Speaker 4: please look through the garage window and tell me whether
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Speaker 4: or not their car was in the garage. So I
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Speaker 4: knew that their car was in the garage. They only
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Speaker 4: had one car, and I knew that they were not
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Speaker 4: answering the door and all the lights were off, so
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Speaker 4: my husband and I drove out to to check on them.
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Speaker 1: Joanne, when you called and no one answered, you assumed
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Speaker 1: that they were in bed with a cold. Is that correct, yes?
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Speaker 1: Or the flu?
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Speaker 4: Or that they were sick. Yes?
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Speaker 1: And what led you to get in the car and
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Speaker 1: drive to check on your parents? What inner voice told you?
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Speaker 1: You could not just rely on them not picking the
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Speaker 1: phone up. You had to drive there and find out
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Speaker 1: for yourself.
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Speaker 4: My parents moved to Reno to be near me and
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Speaker 4: for me to help them, so I took that responsibility
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Speaker 4: very seriously. And when the answering machine didn't pick up,
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Speaker 4: and they didn't respond to knocks on the door. It
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Speaker 4: was snowing that night, and I knew that my father
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Speaker 4: did not like to drive in the snow anymore, and
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Speaker 4: with the car in the garage, I felt compelled to
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Speaker 4: go out and find out what happened.
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Speaker 1: Listen.
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Speaker 5: Joanne and her husband decide to check on her parents themselves.
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Speaker 5: They make the drive to Montreux as a snowstorm blows in.
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Speaker 5: Joanne unlocks the front door and calls for her parents.
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Speaker 5: When there's no answer, Joanne steps into the home but freezes.
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Speaker 5: There's mud tracked through the entryway and dining room. Joan
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Speaker 5: would never let a mess like that sit. Joanne's husband
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Speaker 5: walks toward the primary bedroom and, to his horror, finds
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Speaker 5: Joan and Albert shot to death in their bed.
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Speaker 1: At this hour, law enforcement begging for tips. If you
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Speaker 1: know or think you know anything about the murders of
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Speaker 1: this beautiful couple, please I'll seven seven five three two
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Speaker 1: eight three three two zero repeat seven seven five three
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Speaker 1: two eight three three two zero. Joan, I do not
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Speaker 1: enjoy asking you to relive that moment for people that
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Speaker 1: are not familiar with your parents' story. Could you describe
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Speaker 1: what happened when you finally get to their home. What happened.
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Speaker 1: I'd also like to hear what was going through your
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Speaker 1: mind en route as you made that drive.
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Speaker 4: We had left our two sons at home alone. They
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Speaker 4: were fourteen and ten at the time, and as we
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Speaker 4: were driving over, it was about seven point fifteen, and
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Speaker 4: I was thinking, oh, you know, getting home in time
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Speaker 4: to put them to bed, because given on their own,
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Speaker 4: they would have stayed up later than they should on
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Speaker 4: a school night.
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Speaker 1: So I looked at the clock when.
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Speaker 4: We were driving down the street to their house and
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Speaker 4: thinking I'll be home in time for them to go
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Speaker 4: to bed. When we got to the house, and when
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Speaker 4: in the garage door, because I had the garage door
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Speaker 4: opener and I knew the alarm code. When I walked
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Speaker 4: through the garage and got into the kitchen and then
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Speaker 4: into the dining room, I saw the mud on the floor,
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Speaker 4: and I have to say, at that point, my heart
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Speaker 4: kind of stopped because I knew that my mother would
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Speaker 4: not have gone to bed with mud on the floor.
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Speaker 4: That was just not her. She was a fastidious house
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Speaker 4: cleaner and always kept a beautiful home.
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Speaker 1: I'm just wondering what went through your mind when you
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Speaker 1: saw that mud on the floor. Like Joanne, my mom
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Speaker 1: lives with us, and I remember just recently I walked
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Speaker 1: in her room and I saw her walker just sitting
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Speaker 1: there without her and that never ever, ever happens, and
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Speaker 1: I knew immediately something was wrong, and sure enough, something
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Speaker 1: was very wrong, and I ended up taking her to
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Speaker 1: the emergency room. There's that when you know someone so
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Speaker 1: well and you know their behavior. When you saw that
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Speaker 1: mud on the floor, you said your heart stopped.
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Speaker 4: Yes, And I told my husband that I couldn't go
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Speaker 4: any further, and he went into the room and saw
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Speaker 4: them both. I stayed in the dining room, and then
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Speaker 4: when he came out, he said they were dead. And
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Speaker 4: I asked him if he was sure, and he said yes,
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Speaker 4: And then we went into the kitchen to try and
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Speaker 4: call nine one one. Their phone line had been cut,
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Speaker 4: so their phone did not work, and at that time,
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Speaker 4: in that area, cell phone reception was terrible and I
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Speaker 4: had ended up having to make multiple calls to nine
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Speaker 4: one one on two phones in order to get through.
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Speaker 1: Joining Me now is another special guest. In addition to
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Speaker 1: Albert and Jones' daughter, Joanne, Tom Green is joining US
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Speaker 1: US former chief Deputy with the Washoe County Sheriff's Office,
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Speaker 1: the detective on this case, now private investigator and owner
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Speaker 1: of Nevada Investigative Services, Tom, thank you for being with us,
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Speaker 1: and thank you for your continued diligence and dedication to
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Speaker 1: solving this case. You know, Tom, two things just off
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Speaker 1: the top of my head. Number one, how small details
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Speaker 1: may mean nothing to some people, but to other people
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Speaker 1: they mean everything. I recall investigating the case of a
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Speaker 1: beautiful young teacher that was murdered, Tara Grinstead, And when
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Speaker 1: her mother and I went into Tara's home, she was,
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Speaker 1: as Joanne is describing her parents, fastidious. Her home looked
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Speaker 1: like a magazine ad for home decor. But when we
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Speaker 1: went into her bedroom, a lamp was askew and the
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Speaker 1: bed was off center. It was supposed to be up
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Speaker 1: against the wall, but it was off center. And also,
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Speaker 1: I'm sure you've been in people's cars where you get
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Speaker 1: in the car, they've had the car ten years and
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Speaker 1: it still smells brand new, and it looks brand new.
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Speaker 1: She was like that. And Tara's car on the sides
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Speaker 1: were covered in mud, and her mother said, the moment
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Speaker 1: I saw that, I knew that she was gone, isn't
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Speaker 1: that odd? Probative. Probative is a better word that When
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Speaker 1: joe Ann walked in, and I'm hung up on this fact,
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Speaker 1: she knew immediately when she saw mud on the floor,
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Speaker 1: she saw like my heart stopped. I knew what about that?
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Speaker 1: Tom Green?
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Speaker 6: Well, I think to the layperson that's not involved in
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Speaker 6: the case, they might think that's unusual or weird that
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Speaker 6: that would catch her eye. But being in their home,
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Speaker 6: I can see exactly why that did catch her eye.
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Speaker 6: And you know, the patterns of your parents, somebody that
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Speaker 6: you know very very well are super important in cases
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Speaker 6: like this because it helps us develop timelines. It helps
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Speaker 6: us develop areas to look that we might not have
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Speaker 6: otherwise looked at. You know, we had to we had
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Speaker 6: to rule out that that that, you know, other muddy
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Speaker 6: footprints within the house weren't the police that came in
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Speaker 6: and did searching. So, you know, we photographed every officer
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Speaker 6: that went in that house. We photographed all their all
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Speaker 6: their shoe prints to make sure the other footprints that
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Speaker 6: we found in there were not.
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Speaker 1: Artifacts of the police going on. Oh my goodness, Tom Green,
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Speaker 1: as a whole other can of worms. A probative in
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Speaker 1: other words, what if anything, does it prove a probative
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Speaker 1: can of worms, Because when you do get your killer,
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Speaker 1: and you will, you're going to have to rule out
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Speaker 1: every other person that walked into that home, including jo
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Speaker 1: Anne and her husband. Everybody's got to be ruled out
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Speaker 1: on those on that mud and any footprints that were
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Speaker 1: found crime stores. With Nancy Grace curious Tom Grain, Joanne
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Speaker 1: tells us that the first of all, the sale reception
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Speaker 1: was horrible in that area, but that the phone line,
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Speaker 1: the landline, had been cut.
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Speaker 6: We had one other case that a phone line was
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Speaker 6: cut here in Washoe County and all the murders that
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Speaker 6: I looked at from nineteen sixty until the current time,
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Speaker 6: and so it is a super unusual tactic for a
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Speaker 6: killer to use, and somewhat risky in that area because
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Speaker 6: a cut phone line could signal an alarm company that
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Speaker 6: there's a problem at a house, and the alarms up
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Speaker 6: there are are radio based, so there's a radio receiver
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Speaker 6: close by that would receive such a cut phone line
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Speaker 6: or low power alert.
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Speaker 1: So it was a risk to cut those phone lines.
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Speaker 6: And that's one of the reasons that we feel that
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Speaker 6: the Maslos were targeted This wasn't some random spree killer
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Speaker 6: that happened across their house.
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Speaker 1: They were killed for a purpose. Curiosity. When are you
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Speaker 1: saying that they had a burglar alarm system that was
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Speaker 1: connected to the phone line, so when the line was cut,
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Speaker 1: it should have alerted the alarm service. No, what I'm saying.
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Speaker 6: Yeah, they didn't have it set so, but my point
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Speaker 6: is that a random killer in the neighborhood would assume
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Speaker 6: that there's an alarm system based on the homes in
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Speaker 6: that neighborhood, and so cutting the phone line would be
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Speaker 6: a risk if you did not know certain things about
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Speaker 6: the home.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you don't know.
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Speaker 6: It could set off a local alarm, It could set
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Speaker 6: off a siren on the house, right, You just don't know.
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Speaker 6: Cutting a phone line is a risky business. But Tom Green,
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Speaker 6: I agree with you. Guys. Tom is a former chief.
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Speaker 1: Deputy in the Wash County Sheriff's Office who worked this
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Speaker 1: case as a detective. You're really giving criminals a lot
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Speaker 1: of credit for them to know. Hey, if I cut
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Speaker 1: the phone line, I may set off an alarm. But
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Speaker 1: that said, you're completely right. So let me understand, Joanne.
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Speaker 1: Did they have an alarm that wasn't set or did
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Speaker 1: they not have a home alarm.
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Speaker 4: They had a home alarm, but it was not set.
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Speaker 4: They tended to only set it when they left town,
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Speaker 4: not when they were home. When I went into the house,
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Speaker 4: the alarm was not set. I did not have to turn.
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Speaker 1: It off, Joanne. Was it comeon knowledge that your parents
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Speaker 1: only turned on their alarm when they left or out
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Speaker 1: of town.
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Speaker 4: No, no one would have known that. Only their children
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Speaker 4: would have known that, and probably only my sister and
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Speaker 4: I would be aware of that.
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Speaker 1: Bank to Tom Green joining us, who investigated the case
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Speaker 1: as a detective. Tom, when you say the lines to
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Speaker 1: the alarm were cut from outside from inside? What where
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Speaker 1: were the alarms cut? Where was the line cut?
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Speaker 6: The lines come from underground, and there's a like a
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Speaker 6: PVC tube that comes out of the ground that goes
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Speaker 6: into the house and into the into the phone box.
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Speaker 6: So both the phone line and the cable line were
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Speaker 6: cut there. They're right next to each other, so I
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Speaker 6: could see how that would happen. You just cut them both.
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Speaker 6: And on top of that, we found mail DNA on
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Speaker 6: the phone line in the same general area in which
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Speaker 6: the phone line was cut, indicating that somebody probably touched DNA,
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Speaker 6: held that while they cut it and left behind their DNA.
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Speaker 1: So you're telling me the phone line was cut from outside, yes, ma'am,
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Speaker 1: and mail DNA was found on the wire that was cut.
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Speaker 1: Is that correct, yes, ma'am.
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Speaker 7: The Mussolo's home is quickly crawling with detectives from Washoke
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Speaker 7: County Sheriff's Office. There's no sign of forced entry to
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Speaker 7: the home and nothing of value is missing. Joanne Coles
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Speaker 7: tells deputies her parents it's never hired any outside help
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Speaker 7: and no one outside of family had intimate knowledge of
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Speaker 7: the home. Investigators initial thought is that the Musalos are targeted,
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Speaker 7: but no one has any idea why.
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Speaker 1: Joining me an all star panel to make sense of
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Speaker 1: what we know. A beautiful, married couple murdered in their
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Speaker 1: own home. Some believe experts believe it was a targeted attack.
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Speaker 1: Joining me the All Star panel, led by Alexis teresschut
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Speaker 1: Crime Online dot Com investigative reporter. We just heard no
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Speaker 1: sign of forced entry, nothing of value missing. Is that correct, Alexis?
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Speaker 4: It is no.
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Speaker 8: So there wasn't a broken window, the door wasn't broken.
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Speaker 8: Those sliding glass doors are not broken open, and nothing
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Speaker 8: really is missing.
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Speaker 1: It wasn't.
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Speaker 8: There wasn't a safe with thousands of dollars taken, not
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Speaker 8: even a car, jewelry, nothing significant taken from this home.
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Speaker 8: And what you did just say. They never had help
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Speaker 8: come in from outside the home. They took care of
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Speaker 8: the home themselves, So there wasn't somebody they could say, Oh,
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Speaker 8: it was this person, this handyman that was always in
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Speaker 8: the house, or this housekeeper's family, anything like. There was
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Speaker 8: nobody that they can pinpoint as a suspect because nobody
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Speaker 8: came in there except their family.
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Speaker 1: I'm still intrigued by the fact that the killer obviously
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Speaker 1: cut the phone line outside. That takes a certain degree
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Speaker 1: of planning and preparation to know where the line is
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Speaker 1: to go cut it, to bring the instrument, the cutting
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Speaker 1: instrument with you. I'm curious about the DNA, the male
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Speaker 1: DNA left on that cable cord Tom Green. Was the
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Speaker 1: DNA maintained? Is it still at the lab?
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Speaker 6: It is The reason we know it was contemporarious with
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Speaker 6: the crime scene is it is a full thirteen low
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Speaker 6: SI DNA. It's a strong profile. There's no question that
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Speaker 6: was left contemporaneous to the cutting of the phone line.
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Speaker 6: Based on whether the elements temperatures. All those kinds of
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Speaker 6: things joining me.
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Speaker 1: In addition to Joanne Cole's Tom Green and Alexis Tereschuk,
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Speaker 1: Doctor Eric Asen certified a forensic pathologist and consultant Doctor Ason,
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Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. Question, isn't it true
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Speaker 1: that there is a procedure, very delicate procedure by which
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Speaker 1: DNA can be replicated? In other words, you have a
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Speaker 1: little DNA, you can turn it into more DNA enough
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Speaker 1: to potentially put it through the familial DNA genetic genealogy database.
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Speaker 1: It's called PCR, the polymerase chain reaction.
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Speaker 9: It got invented back in the early nineties when I
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Speaker 9: was in college. I learned about it right in my
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Speaker 9: last semester of a college, right before I started medical school.
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Speaker 9: And all you need is just a small sample of
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Speaker 9: DNA and you can run it through these reactions that
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Speaker 9: utilize an enzyme that will just amplify all the DNA
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Speaker 9: and you can make multiple copies of it and then
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Speaker 9: run it through the genealogy, which is what I think
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Speaker 9: is going to happen here. And so what will probably
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Speaker 9: happen is that the tests will be run and we're
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Speaker 9: probably going to find a sibling or a cousin or
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Speaker 9: a distant cousin of the individual who left his DNA
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Speaker 9: on the phone lines, and hopefully that can be used
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Speaker 9: to figure out who this person was. It's something that
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Speaker 9: was not around back in two thousand and six, but
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Speaker 9: it is a recent development. That's what was used in
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Speaker 9: the Brian Coburger case too.
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Speaker 1: You know, I'm very curious to Joe Anne Coles who
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Speaker 1: went in with her husband to discover the bodies of
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Speaker 1: mom and dad. Are you familiar with any updates on
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Speaker 1: the investigation? For instance, we very often consult with a
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Speaker 1: lab called author Ram Labs, and their specialty is degenerated
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Speaker 1: or compromised DNA or small amounts of DNA, and I'm
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Speaker 1: wondering if this male DNA that, as Tom Green tells us,
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Speaker 1: was left contemporaneously with the cutting of your parents phone line,
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Speaker 1: has that been sent to an advanced lab to try
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Speaker 1: to get a match.
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Speaker 4: I've spoken to the head pathologist at the lab at
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Speaker 4: Washoe County Sheriff's Office, and my understanding from her is
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Speaker 4: that they have done as much as technology is able
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Speaker 4: to to try and do a genealogical study on the DNA.
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Speaker 4: We've reached out to a couple different labs that do
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Speaker 4: that kind of work and put them in touch with
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Speaker 4: Washa County, and my understanding is that there is not
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Speaker 4: adequate DNA to do that.
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Speaker 1: I'm curious, Joanne, if I could hook up off ram
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Speaker 1: with the crime lab there in wash It absolutely be
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Speaker 1: willing for them to try. Absolutely joining me is Karen Stark,
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Speaker 1: aronoun psycholo, TV radio trauma expert at Karenstark dot com.
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Speaker 1: That's Karen with a sea if you search for her
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Speaker 1: Karen Stark. As the days go by, and the weeks
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Speaker 1: go by, and the months go by, and it goes
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Speaker 1: on and on and on, how do people deal with
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Speaker 1: the fact that first their parents are murdered brutally and
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Speaker 1: second no justice.
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Speaker 10: It's really heartbreaking because your parents are murdered, you have
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Speaker 10: to deal with that shock and knowing that you won't
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Speaker 10: see them again. And yet it wasn't a natural depth
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Speaker 10: And here they are without any kind of a solution,
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Speaker 10: and all these years have passed and it never gets resolved.
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Speaker 10: She keeps trying to find out about it. She wants
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Speaker 10: to know more. There's new DNA results, and yet she's
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Speaker 10: still not getting an answer, So you are left with
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Speaker 10: this huge hole of what happened to my parents? What
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Speaker 10: will I ever know? Will I ever be able to
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Speaker 10: get an answer to the death of them. It's just terrible, terrible.
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Speaker 1: For what happened to Albert and Joan Maslow. Their daughter
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Speaker 1: finds them dead in their own home, the phone line
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Speaker 1: cut from the outside with mel DNA on that wire,
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Speaker 1: mel DNA that as of tonight, has not been matched
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Speaker 1: to anyone. Immediately people start the blame the victim game.
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Speaker 6: Listen, the Mussolos were not involved in any nefarious activities.
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Speaker 6: They had no criminal history. You know, there's been rumors
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Speaker 6: flowing around that they were in the Witness Protection programmer
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Speaker 6: that they'd been involved with the mafia because they were
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Speaker 6: from New York. Those are totally in substantial. We've vetted
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Speaker 6: them thoroughly through the FBI.
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Speaker 1: Witness Protection program, the mafia. That was from our friends
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Speaker 1: over a KRNV news for Joanne. Rumors flying your parents
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Speaker 1: were in the mafia or the witness protection That's insane,
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Speaker 1: it's absurd.
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Speaker 4: I think that in a situation like this, their neighbors
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Speaker 4: were scared and it gave them some security To blame
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Speaker 4: my parents, or to blame me and my husband just.
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Speaker 1: Thinking about your parents dying as they did and now
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Speaker 1: that type of rumors. Nothing could be further from the truth. Listen.
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Speaker 3: After thirty three years with pan Am, the Mussalos are
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Speaker 3: quite comfortable after years of savvy investments and settle in Wild, Nevada.
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Speaker 3: The couple is very active. They take daily walks and
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Speaker 3: golf together. Albert enjoyce skiing while Joan prefers tennis. The
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Speaker 3: grandparents spend most of their time together sharing a single
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Speaker 3: link in town car. They continue to travel frequently to
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Speaker 3: see their children.
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Speaker 5: As they get older, Joan and Albert eventually decide to
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Speaker 5: move closer to their daughter, joe Anne Coles and her family.
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Speaker 5: The couple settles on the exclusive gated Montroux neighborhood in
22:01
Speaker 5: a rural area south of Reno. While the country club
22:04
Speaker 5: neighborhood boasts multimillion dollar houses, the Massalos move into one
22:08
Speaker 5: of the more modest homes on the block. They quickly
22:11
Speaker 5: make friends with neighbors on their daily walks using the
22:13
Speaker 5: public hiking trail bordering their home. Joan Massolo is known
22:17
Speaker 5: for hosting home cooked dinner parties and her immaculately kept home.
22:22
Speaker 1: Joanne, how did your parents meet?
22:27
Speaker 4: They both worked at the Gas and Electric Company in Brooklyn,
22:34
Speaker 4: New York, and that's where they met. They were both
22:36
Speaker 4: from Brooklyn.
22:37
Speaker 1: Tell me about your family. How many siblings?
22:42
Speaker 4: I have three siblings, I'm the third, two boys and
22:46
Speaker 4: two girls. They have seven grandchildren and now they have
22:52
Speaker 4: four great grandchildren. They have never met, Joanne.
22:56
Speaker 1: I know you may not like this question, but I
22:59
Speaker 1: have to ask. Tell me about any potential life insurance proceeds.
23:06
Speaker 4: My dad did take out a life insurance policy, I
23:12
Speaker 4: think a couple of years before they died, and us
23:16
Speaker 4: four children were the beneficiaries, and the policy was for
23:20
Speaker 4: a million dollars.
23:21
Speaker 1: And Tom Green, I'm sure that you, as a detective,
23:25
Speaker 1: verified all the children's alibis correct.
23:30
Speaker 6: We did, of course. The family was the first, the
23:34
Speaker 6: first people we had to focus on, and I remember
23:37
Speaker 6: very clearly having that conversation with all four of them
23:39
Speaker 6: and explaining to them that before we can move out,
23:43
Speaker 6: we need to we need to, you know, rule them
23:47
Speaker 6: in or out immediately. And so that's what that's what
23:50
Speaker 6: we attempted to do. We did a deep dive into
23:54
Speaker 6: their finances, all of them, we saw nothing that that
23:57
Speaker 6: read flagged us at all.
23:59
Speaker 1: Alexa to us to that crime online dot Com invest
24:01
Speaker 1: to get every reporter. What was the cause of death
24:06
Speaker 1: of this couple?
24:07
Speaker 8: They were shot in multiple times to gunshot wounds. And
24:11
Speaker 8: the one piece of evidence that we haven't spoken about
24:14
Speaker 8: is they had ballistic evidence. So the bullets were found
24:17
Speaker 8: and this was a huge piece of evidence, but that
24:20
Speaker 8: has never matched with anything else.
24:23
Speaker 1: Tom Green, what type of weapon was used?
24:25
Speaker 6: Well, that would be hold back information that we've held
24:29
Speaker 6: And just so your viewers understand, hold back information is
24:33
Speaker 6: critical to these kind of cases because if at some
24:37
Speaker 6: point we develop or they develop a suspect, it's going
24:40
Speaker 6: to be imperative that there are details that only the
24:43
Speaker 6: investigators and the perpetrator would know. And so that's one
24:48
Speaker 6: of the items that that we've held back. I released
24:51
Speaker 6: a lot of information, more information than some people thought
24:53
Speaker 6: I should have when I talked about the phone lines
24:57
Speaker 6: and the mud on the floor or and some of
25:00
Speaker 6: the other items. But you know, this case isn't getting
25:04
Speaker 6: any warmer.
25:05
Speaker 1: And you know, I.
25:07
Speaker 6: Saw them dead in their beds, I saw them at
25:12
Speaker 6: the funeral, and I saw their gravesites and I will
25:18
Speaker 6: see that until the day I take my last breath.
25:21
Speaker 6: So I hope, I hope that someone here's this information
25:25
Speaker 6: comes forward. Somebody knows something, somebody has a suspicion about
25:29
Speaker 6: someone being involved in this, and that's the tip that
25:32
Speaker 6: the police need to move this case forward.
25:35
Speaker 1: Let's piece it together, Tom Green. There is no sign
25:39
Speaker 1: a forced entry, nothing was taken from the home. This
25:44
Speaker 1: couple was involved in no sort of nefarious activity. All
25:49
Speaker 1: those ideas and rumors about them being a witness protection
25:53
Speaker 1: and tied to the mob, that's BS. It's exactly what
25:57
Speaker 1: Joe Anne said. It's people want to feel safe themselves
26:01
Speaker 1: and going, oh yeah, I right, they're in the witness
26:03
Speaker 1: protection that's all BS. None of that's true. This is
26:06
Speaker 1: a beautiful couple with children, grandchildren, asleep in bed in
26:13
Speaker 1: their home, and they were brutally murdered, multiple gunshot wounds
26:19
Speaker 1: on a couple parents, grandparents asleep in their own bed.
26:24
Speaker 1: I'm curious, Joanne, did those muddy footprints lead to any
26:30
Speaker 1: other room in the home.
26:31
Speaker 4: No, they were only in that one spot, in the
26:34
Speaker 4: kitchen or in the dining room. I didn't see any
26:38
Speaker 4: other mud. But to be honest, when I saw the
26:41
Speaker 4: first bit I stopped. I froze. I couldn't go any further.
26:47
Speaker 1: Tom, what about it, Tom Green? Did the muddy footprints
26:51
Speaker 1: go to any other area of the home.
26:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, So we obviously saw the same mud that Joanne saw,
26:58
Speaker 6: and we did what's called jel lifts, and those jeel
27:01
Speaker 6: lifts were sent to the FBI laboratory, who's really the
27:03
Speaker 6: best at doing footprint evidence, and they were inconclusive because
27:07
Speaker 6: it was basically ridge detail from the shoe print. There
27:11
Speaker 6: was mud on the carpeted stairs that went upstairs, but
27:17
Speaker 6: again we were not able to develop any kind of
27:18
Speaker 6: a footprint pattern, size, style, anything like that.
27:23
Speaker 1: This is driving me crazy. We have DNA, we have
27:27
Speaker 1: muddy footprints, we have ballistics. Nothing is matching up in
27:34
Speaker 1: the DNA database. Nothing is matching up in the ballistics database.
27:39
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. And a lot of the fact
27:42
Speaker 1: that the phone was cut it almost is striking me
27:45
Speaker 1: as being a professional hit and I don't understand that. Also,
27:51
Speaker 1: we know that this was a private neighborhood Listen.
27:55
Speaker 7: Montrose hoapes cover a large security team for the neighborhood.
27:58
Speaker 7: A security guard ANNs Montro's front gatehouse twenty four seven
28:02
Speaker 7: three sixty five and as service entrances man twelve hours
28:05
Speaker 7: a day, all visitors must provide identification to the security
28:09
Speaker 7: team and be approved by the homeowner for access to Montreal.
28:12
Speaker 7: Contract workers are even required to obtain entrance passes for
28:15
Speaker 7: each day they expect to be in and out of
28:17
Speaker 7: the neighborhood.
28:18
Speaker 1: One thing that struck me about that, Alexis Tereschak, is
28:21
Speaker 1: that the service entrance is only manned twelve hours a day.
28:26
Speaker 1: Is that right? That is right?
28:27
Speaker 8: That because during the daytime, because they wouldn't expect to
28:30
Speaker 8: have service soaks come in in the middle.
28:32
Speaker 4: Of the night.
28:33
Speaker 8: Usually that wouldn't be a thing that you would when
28:34
Speaker 8: you would have your dishwasher fixed or anything like that.
28:38
Speaker 4: But they did.
28:39
Speaker 8: Track down that the path that they believe the person took,
28:43
Speaker 8: so they live in a wooded area behind them, and
28:48
Speaker 8: that the person went through like out their backyard and
28:52
Speaker 8: through an area and out into the woods. So that
28:56
Speaker 8: is where they feared they went in and out was
28:58
Speaker 8: through the wooded area behind their home.
29:00
Speaker 1: And how did you deduce that, Tom green Well, The
29:02
Speaker 1: way we deduce that is that it had rained significantly
29:06
Speaker 1: in the days preceding the murder.
29:09
Speaker 6: The night that Joanne drove to the home, it had
29:12
Speaker 6: started snowing. During the time that the murder occurred, it
29:17
Speaker 6: had not been snowing, it had been muddy and wet,
29:20
Speaker 6: and so the area that the perpetrator had a step
29:23
Speaker 6: to to cut the phone line was just a muddy
29:26
Speaker 6: dirt area. We found muddy footprints on the pavers. Once
29:31
Speaker 6: the snow melted, those same muddy footprints were tracked by.
29:35
Speaker 1: A man tracker.
29:35
Speaker 6: We actually had a man tracker come out and track
29:38
Speaker 6: those muddy footprints up and over the back fence that
29:41
Speaker 6: led to.
29:41
Speaker 1: A walking path and a parking area off the Mount
29:44
Speaker 1: Rose Highway.
29:46
Speaker 6: So we're pretty convinced that that's the route the person
29:48
Speaker 6: would have taken. It's also the route of it's the
29:51
Speaker 6: safest route for a perpetrator. You know, this is a
29:54
Speaker 6: higher risk event for them going into a gated community
29:57
Speaker 6: full of homes with alarms, security patrol that drives around,
30:01
Speaker 6: but that area was the safest, least risky.
30:05
Speaker 1: Area to enter from us from the back. When you
30:07
Speaker 1: try to determine what happened, you must look at establishing
30:10
Speaker 1: a timeline. You can't always deduce the time of the
30:14
Speaker 1: murder based on the condition of the body, such as
30:16
Speaker 1: body temperature. Very often you must look at extrinsic evidence,
30:20
Speaker 1: and they did just that. Listen.
30:23
Speaker 3: Investigators find March twenty seven's newspaper inside the home, and
30:26
Speaker 3: a furniture salesman says he met with the Mussalas around noon.
30:29
Speaker 3: Their computer shows Internet activity until late into the evening
30:33
Speaker 3: on the twenty seventh. Detectives theorized that the couple was
30:36
Speaker 3: attacked while they slept in the early morning hours of
30:39
Speaker 3: March twenty eighth. Investigators are stumped on how the perpetrator
30:43
Speaker 3: gained access to the home. Montrose Security Team reports that
30:47
Speaker 3: no one came through either gate around the estimated time
30:50
Speaker 3: of the murders.
30:51
Speaker 1: So the killer did not enter through the security gate,
30:55
Speaker 1: which corroborates Tom Green's theory as to the access and
31:01
Speaker 1: entrance to the home. I'm curious, Tom Green, have you
31:08
Speaker 1: ever considered, as we are considering in the Brian Coburger
31:13
Speaker 1: case where four beautiful young Idaho students were murdered in
31:18
Speaker 1: their beds, the possibility of a thrilled kill Because this
31:24
Speaker 1: couple has no background. They don't even have a traffic fine.
31:30
Speaker 1: For Pete's sake, they are loving grandparents who try to
31:34
Speaker 1: move closer to be to their children, all right, and
31:38
Speaker 1: they're murdered in their beds. Question why it's not. It's
31:45
Speaker 1: not a professional hit, all right by the mob. So
31:50
Speaker 1: could it be a thrill kill like that alleged in
31:53
Speaker 1: the Brian Coburger case.
31:54
Speaker 6: You know, it's definitely not out of the realm of possibility,
31:58
Speaker 6: and it's one of the things we looked at that
32:00
Speaker 6: look at.
32:00
Speaker 1: You know, you cannot rule out a.
32:03
Speaker 6: Thrill kill, a spree kill, and those are the scariest
32:08
Speaker 6: ones because they're the hardest to solve, and especially at
32:11
Speaker 6: that time, we didn't have the ability to dump a
32:14
Speaker 6: cell tower and figure out everybody this is in the neighborhood.
32:17
Speaker 6: You know, we didn't have a lot of those investigative techniques.
32:20
Speaker 6: So if it was somebody who had, you know, taken
32:23
Speaker 6: a fancy to these to these people and decided, you
32:25
Speaker 6: know what, I'm gonna kill them for no particular reason,
32:29
Speaker 6: it's gonna be a tough one to solve. It's going
32:30
Speaker 6: to be a tough one to solve unless they get
32:32
Speaker 6: caught for something else. And we get a DNA comparison.
32:41
Speaker 1: Crime stores with Nancy Grace.
32:47
Speaker 5: While many try to write off the murders as a
32:49
Speaker 5: random attack or robbery. Investigators are convinced them as sallows
32:53
Speaker 5: we're targeted. Montro is not a neighborhood stumbled on by accident,
32:58
Speaker 5: and nothing of significance was founding from the couple's home.
33:01
Speaker 5: Detectives eventually reveal a chilling piece of evidence supporting their theory.
33:05
Speaker 5: The Masalo's phone lines were cut.
33:07
Speaker 1: Listen to our friends at k Aren't in.
33:10
Speaker 6: The since nineteen sixty, we've only had one other case
33:13
Speaker 6: where phone lines were cut, and that case bears no
33:17
Speaker 6: resemblance to this case at all. We think it tells
33:19
Speaker 6: us some things about the offender that it's quite probably
33:23
Speaker 6: the offender had prior knowledge of the home, possibly even
33:28
Speaker 6: knew the victims that this wasn't a random act that
33:30
Speaker 6: they were targeted.
33:31
Speaker 1: Joanne Coles is joining us. Joe Anne, what is your theory?
33:36
Speaker 4: Given the information that's available and knowing my parents, I
33:43
Speaker 4: believe that they were the unintended targets. I've never thought
33:49
Speaker 4: of it being a thrill kill, because my thought would
33:54
Speaker 4: be if someone did that for thrill, they would do
33:56
Speaker 4: it to someone else with the same method and means.
34:02
Speaker 4: So my feeling has been that it's a professional hit
34:06
Speaker 4: and they have the wrong people.
34:07
Speaker 6: Is that possible, Tom Green, Well, I'm assuming it's possible,
34:11
Speaker 6: But you know, when we looked at that looked we've
34:14
Speaker 6: looked at this extensively because of other reporting of threats
34:19
Speaker 6: being received by another family within that same gated community. However,
34:28
Speaker 6: it becomes somewhat of a rabbit hole because the homes
34:31
Speaker 6: are so much different.
34:32
Speaker 1: But it's clearly someone that knows that they have to
34:34
Speaker 1: come through the woods to get into the home. They
34:37
Speaker 1: know enough to cut the phone lines. It's clearly targeted.
34:41
Speaker 1: I think Jones' idea could be on point, But with
34:46
Speaker 1: that ballistics evidence, DNA evidence, footprint evidence, is very difficult
34:53
Speaker 1: for me to believe that we can't solve this case.
34:58
Speaker 1: Joe Anne, how has this affected your life?
35:01
Speaker 4: Sometimes you have an event in your life that happens
35:06
Speaker 4: and you look at life as before and after. Usually
35:11
Speaker 4: it's marriage or having children or grandchildren. For me, it's
35:15
Speaker 4: the death of my parents. It gives you a whole
35:20
Speaker 4: new perspective on life. You treasure relationships more and worry
35:28
Speaker 4: less about little things. It's very difficult. It's very difficult
35:34
Speaker 4: to live with the last eighteen and a half years
35:38
Speaker 4: in many ways have been just hell. I'm lucky to
35:44
Speaker 4: have my faith and that has helped me in many moments,
35:49
Speaker 4: but it's been tremendously difficult and difficult not only for me,
35:53
Speaker 4: but for my entire family, for my husband, for my siblings,
35:59
Speaker 4: for their families as well. It's been devastating.
36:03
Speaker 1: Tom Green, you study the footprints went off into the
36:06
Speaker 1: woods into a trail.
36:08
Speaker 6: What was on the other end of that trail, Well,
36:10
Speaker 6: that trail actually crosses the Mount Rose Highway and it's
36:13
Speaker 6: a hiking trails, common hiking trails called the Gleena Creek Trail.
36:17
Speaker 1: And a lot of people use it in biking, walking,
36:21
Speaker 1: dog walking.
36:22
Speaker 6: I would also note that we brought in the FBI
36:26
Speaker 6: pretty early on and asked their Behavioral Sciences unit to
36:29
Speaker 6: send out a team, and they did, and we met
36:32
Speaker 6: with that team, and they developed a neighborhood canvas questionnaire
36:37
Speaker 6: under the theory that somebody in the neighborhood may know something,
36:40
Speaker 6: and so we canvassed a lot of homes and we
36:42
Speaker 6: did a DNA dragnet where we DNA swabbed everybody that
36:46
Speaker 6: we could think of if they sat still long enough,
36:49
Speaker 6: and it would tolerate it.
36:50
Speaker 1: We swabbed them. Was another bedroom tampered with? We're not sure.
36:55
Speaker 6: I will tell you this that there was a bed
36:58
Speaker 6: there was she's such a such a housekeeper that all
37:02
Speaker 6: of the beds, everything that wasn't used was covered with
37:04
Speaker 6: a sheet, and in the upstairs bedroom a sheet was
37:08
Speaker 6: pulled back as if somebody was potentially checking to see
37:11
Speaker 6: if someone else was in bed. That sheet was submitted
37:14
Speaker 6: to for evidence and testing was done on it. They
37:17
Speaker 6: were not able to get any kind of forensic results
37:19
Speaker 6: from that.
37:20
Speaker 1: Doctor Ason, obviously, this is not a murder suicide. Could
37:27
Speaker 1: you explain how we know that? Number one, the gun's
37:31
Speaker 1: not there.
37:32
Speaker 9: There was no gun found at the scene, and so
37:34
Speaker 9: if this was a situation where somebody shot the other
37:37
Speaker 9: individual then shot his or herself, there would still be
37:40
Speaker 9: a gun at the scene, and there was not. The
37:42
Speaker 9: other way to find out is during the actual autopsy.
37:46
Speaker 9: Both of them supposedly had multiple gunshot wounds, and so
37:50
Speaker 9: it would be as possible to commit suicide with multiple
37:53
Speaker 9: gunshot wounds, but it's usually going to be a single
37:55
Speaker 9: gunshot wound and the wound's going to be contact after
37:59
Speaker 9: the autopsies done, the death certificates would have been signed
38:02
Speaker 9: and the manner of death would have been homicide for both.
38:05
Speaker 9: And so if this was a homicide suicide situation, then
38:07
Speaker 9: one of the de certificates would.
38:09
Speaker 1: Have said suicide. That's not what we had.
38:11
Speaker 9: And those are the main reasons why this is not
38:14
Speaker 9: consistent with a homicide suicide. It's a double homicide.
38:18
Speaker 7: Washok County Sheriff's believe new tips hold the answer to
38:21
Speaker 7: the question of who killed Joan and Albert Massalo. Sergeant
38:24
Speaker 7: Urban West says the key must lie outside of the
38:27
Speaker 7: seventeen binders of evidence in the case, as too many
38:30
Speaker 7: good investigators have poured over it to have missed something.
38:33
Speaker 7: Detectives are asking the public to look back and try
38:36
Speaker 7: to remember if anyone made odd comments or had a
38:39
Speaker 7: noticeable shift in behavior after that fateful, frosty March night.
38:44
Speaker 6: We continue to sporadically get pseudo witness tips that may
38:49
Speaker 6: point to us in the direction, and we immediately follow
38:52
Speaker 6: up on every lead.
38:55
Speaker 4: It is my hope that I will know what happened
38:59
Speaker 4: before or I leave this earth, and I certainly don't
39:04
Speaker 4: want my children or my nieces and nephews to face
39:10
Speaker 4: the killer after I'm gone, and I hope that someone
39:16
Speaker 4: will come forward with whatever information they have, no matter
39:20
Speaker 4: how small, no matter how much it may seem insignificant,
39:25
Speaker 4: to help us to solve this.
39:28
Speaker 10: I think it's really important, first of all, to go
39:30
Speaker 10: along with what Joe ansaid, which is help this family
39:34
Speaker 10: to get some answers because they have lived with this
39:37
Speaker 10: for too long, and obviously Tom has as well. Nobody
39:42
Speaker 10: wants to die not understanding what happened to your parents
39:46
Speaker 10: or your grandparents.
39:47
Speaker 1: Someone somewhere knows something. They may not.
39:53
Speaker 6: They may not have the knowing that you're one hundred
39:56
Speaker 6: percent positive, but you have an inkling, you have a suspicion,
39:59
Speaker 6: you have a feeling, and that's all we need. The
40:02
Speaker 6: police need a nudge in the right direction, and the
40:04
Speaker 6: science will do the rest of it. Just a nudge,
40:08
Speaker 6: and that's what That's what I hope for. And as
40:11
Speaker 6: far as what Joanne said, if Joanne leaves this earth
40:16
Speaker 6: before I do, I will persist and I will be there.
40:20
Speaker 6: I don't care if I'm eighty five years old, even
40:23
Speaker 6: though I already look eighty five. I will be there
40:26
Speaker 6: to see this. Whoever this, whoever did this, go through
40:31
Speaker 6: a trial and have justice served. So you know, it
40:35
Speaker 6: seems like yesterday that I sat in Johanne's living room
40:38
Speaker 6: had a family meeting about this case. And I can't
40:41
Speaker 6: believe it's been eighteen and a half years. Wow.
40:45
Speaker 1: If you know or think you know anything about the
40:49
Speaker 1: brutal murders these two beautiful people, Albert and Joan Masamo,
40:57
Speaker 1: please we asked that you call seven seven five three
41:01
Speaker 1: two eight thirty three twenty repeat seven seven five three
41:05
Speaker 1: two eight thirty three twenty Nancy Grace signing off, goodbye friend,