Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / CHEERLEADER, 15, KIDNAPPED, MURDERED FROM SCHOOL BUS: WHO KILLED LARALEE

Transcript

CHEERLEADER, 15, KIDNAPPED, MURDERED FROM SCHOOL BUS: WHO KILLED LARALEE · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A gorgeous young cheerleader just
0:09
Speaker 1: fifteen years old, kidnapped then murdered straight off the school
0:16
Speaker 1: bus in broad daylight. Who killed Laura Lee? Good evening,
0:21
Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for
0:25
Speaker 1: being with us. The tragic slaying of a young fifteen
0:28
Speaker 1: year old girl haunts a small Florida town. Kidnapped from
0:32
Speaker 1: her school bus and shot dead. Who killed Laura Lee's spear?
0:38
Speaker 1: This rural area Deerfoot Road had been insulated from crime
0:45
Speaker 1: in fear since his inception for decades until this beautiful
0:53
Speaker 1: young girl. And I've got to tell you, this girl
0:57
Speaker 1: was everybody's dream. She sang in the church choir shoes
1:01
Speaker 1: with the keynotes, beautiful voice, straight a's cheerleader, you name it.
1:09
Speaker 1: This girl was it, the it girl. So how is
1:13
Speaker 1: it that she steps off her bus, her school bus,
1:17
Speaker 1: a public school bus with all the other children, and
1:21
Speaker 1: within minutes she's gone. First of all, take a listen
1:26
Speaker 1: to this.
1:29
Speaker 2: Don't you even to stay.
1:30
Speaker 1: In the end?
1:31
Speaker 3: I don't know what something, Laarlie? What's what's your birthday?
1:37
Speaker 2: Jean Paper's name set?
1:45
Speaker 4: How do you feel anything?
1:47
Speaker 1: The car.
1:51
Speaker 2: That one's word.
1:53
Speaker 5: Yes, I need the first department.
1:55
Speaker 2: What's the problem.
1:57
Speaker 5: My daughter got off the box.
2:00
Speaker 6: The job on left her card.
2:01
Speaker 5: Get off the bus, my neighbor's car. Get off the
2:04
Speaker 5: bus and start down the road. It's seven tenths of
2:07
Speaker 5: a mile to our own. You've always like clockwork at
2:11
Speaker 5: home at three thirty, my child is not at home.
2:14
Speaker 7: List okay, how old is she?
2:16
Speaker 5: Fifteen years old?
2:17
Speaker 1: You can hear a mom's voice starting to crack there
2:20
Speaker 1: at the end. She calls nine to one one to
2:23
Speaker 1: report her child missing, her little girl missing within the hour,
2:29
Speaker 1: within the hour of her stepping off that bus, doing
2:33
Speaker 1: everything right? How can nobody see anything? Nobody hears, nobody knows,
2:39
Speaker 1: nobody tells anything about the disappearance and the murder of
2:44
Speaker 1: Laura Lee. Listen to more of that nine to one
2:47
Speaker 1: one call.
2:47
Speaker 2: How long has she been missing?
2:50
Speaker 5: So got a little left to three this afternoon? I
2:55
Speaker 5: would say approximately between three ten and three fifteen.
2:59
Speaker 8: The sets to glass of come.
3:06
Speaker 2: Okay, where's your bus?
3:07
Speaker 9: Stout?
3:08
Speaker 5: Her boss stop is at Wing Garden Road and dem
3:11
Speaker 5: Foot Row. We live on dem Foot Row.
3:14
Speaker 1: You're hearing moms staying calm, cool and collected that she
3:17
Speaker 1: gives the information to nine one one, but I can
3:20
Speaker 1: hear her voice cracking with me at All Star Pedel
3:23
Speaker 1: to make sense of what we know right now. I
3:25
Speaker 1: always like to start with a nine one one call,
3:27
Speaker 1: as I do when prosecuting a case, because it's unlike
3:31
Speaker 1: anything else. It's not a witness telling a jury what
3:35
Speaker 1: happened through their own vision, through their own glasses. It's
3:42
Speaker 1: what did happen in the moment. And we learn so
3:46
Speaker 1: much again with Me at All Star Pedel. But first
3:49
Speaker 1: two special guests Virginia Jenny Bissell. This is Laura Lee's sister, Jenny.
3:56
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us, Thank you for having me.
3:59
Speaker 1: Can you remember day that Laura Lee went missing?
4:02
Speaker 2: Definitely, it's hard to forget. Well. I remember.
4:12
Speaker 10: Getting off the school bus that day and walking down
4:15
Speaker 10: the road, and typically what I do is I just
4:19
Speaker 10: look at the footprints in the in the on our
4:24
Speaker 10: dirt road, just to see It's kind of it was
4:27
Speaker 10: a game that I would use to play where I
4:29
Speaker 10: would try to figure out Larley's outfit because she would
4:32
Speaker 10: always walk right before I would. Because I was in
4:35
Speaker 10: middle and she was in high school, and I saw
4:40
Speaker 10: that there was multiple sets of footprints, and so I
4:43
Speaker 10: figured that my mom walked up to the bus stop
4:46
Speaker 10: to come get her, which was not uncommon. And as
4:50
Speaker 10: I made my weight down, I encountered one of my
4:55
Speaker 10: neighbors that told me that I really need My mom
4:57
Speaker 10: had been looking for me and she didn't know where
5:00
Speaker 10: I was, which I thought was odd because it was.
5:04
Speaker 2: My normal time.
5:06
Speaker 10: And so I hurried home to find her on the
5:10
Speaker 10: phone with the Sheriff's department, and she was in hysterics
5:13
Speaker 10: at that point, and she was asking me to check
5:17
Speaker 10: the house, go upstairs to check her room to see
5:19
Speaker 10: if she was there, and maybe she had missed her,
5:22
Speaker 10: like she may have taken a nap or something and
5:25
Speaker 10: she just didn't hear her come in. So I went
5:28
Speaker 10: and I looked, and I couldn't find her, and I
5:32
Speaker 10: relead the information to my mom, and shortly thereafter we
5:36
Speaker 10: had a deputy come to the house to assist. Then,
5:44
Speaker 10: I want to say a few hours later, maybe time
5:49
Speaker 10: kind of stood still, we had a chaplain come to
5:56
Speaker 10: the house. I didn't know at the time why.
6:02
Speaker 5: But.
6:05
Speaker 10: When he related the information to my parents, that had
6:15
Speaker 10: to be the hardest thing to watch. At first, I thought, oh,
6:20
Speaker 10: she's hurt, she's somewhere, she's at the hospital. We'll go
6:24
Speaker 10: and get her. I think goes in shock, but then
6:34
Speaker 10: realizing that she wasn't going to come home. That's what
6:39
Speaker 10: it hit hard.
6:40
Speaker 1: When Ginny did you discover that she had been killed?
6:46
Speaker 10: At that time, when the chapelain came and my mom
6:53
Speaker 10: was in hysterics when he told her the news.
6:59
Speaker 1: When you say his Derek's what do you mean, she.
7:05
Speaker 10: Was crying and yelling out, my baby, think they killed
7:10
Speaker 10: my baby.
7:12
Speaker 1: Guys with me is Jenny Bissell. This is Laura Lee's sister,
7:17
Speaker 1: recounting the moment a chaplain showed up at their home
7:22
Speaker 1: to tell them laure Lee wasn't just missing, she was
7:27
Speaker 1: dead and someone had killed her. In addition to Virginia
7:35
Speaker 1: Jenny Bissell is Sheriff Mike Chitwood from the Vlusha County
7:40
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office and Detective Cordell LeMay. Gentlemen, thank you for
7:46
Speaker 1: being with us, along with Cheryl McCollum and Alexis Terreschuk.
7:50
Speaker 1: To Sheriff Chitwood, I want to thank you gentlemen so
7:54
Speaker 1: much for being with us. Sheriff. I've seen that over
7:58
Speaker 1: and over and it happened to me as well when
8:00
Speaker 1: I became a victim of violent crime. The families trying
8:05
Speaker 1: to think of any alternative other than she's dead and
8:10
Speaker 1: someone killed her. We just heard Jimmy stating, Oh, well,
8:14
Speaker 1: she's at the hospital, we can go get her. Are
8:17
Speaker 1: we're going to fix it or she's going to be okay,
8:20
Speaker 1: And then that moment when they're told, for instance, in
8:25
Speaker 1: this case, this child is never coming home and that
8:30
Speaker 1: someone killed her.
8:32
Speaker 10: Yeah.
8:32
Speaker 11: I think Jinny hit it right on the head when
8:34
Speaker 11: she said that she was in shock and it doesn't
8:37
Speaker 11: sink in the finality of what has occurred. And I
8:43
Speaker 11: think most crime victims, you know, they leave the room
8:46
Speaker 11: of their loved one intact the way it was the
8:49
Speaker 11: last time they sold them forever because that losing a
8:53
Speaker 11: loved one and having that piece of you cut out,
8:55
Speaker 11: there's no way that's ever going to get put back there.
8:58
Speaker 11: It's never going to come back, and you kind of
9:00
Speaker 11: disassociate yourself from the reality of it because you don't
9:03
Speaker 11: want to believe that this actually happened.
9:06
Speaker 1: To understand a kidnap murder, to begin to even try
9:11
Speaker 1: to solve it, you have to understand who is your
9:16
Speaker 1: victim listens, Laura.
9:18
Speaker 7: Lee Spear, fifteen in her freshman year at DeLand High School,
9:21
Speaker 7: is over the moon to learn she's made Junior varsity
9:24
Speaker 7: cheer squad. Many other hobbies keep her busy, piano lessons,
9:27
Speaker 7: church choir practice, and volunteering with the Keiettes, a school
9:31
Speaker 7: service organization. David and Barbara Spear are immensely proud of
9:35
Speaker 7: their model student, and Laura Lee's punctuality and stellar grades
9:39
Speaker 7: make her a great role model for her younger sister, Jenny.
9:49
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace straight out to another special
9:57
Speaker 1: guest joining us attadive Cordell LeMay, Major case homicide detective
10:02
Speaker 1: in Volusia County Sheriff's Office. Detective, thank you for being
10:05
Speaker 1: with us. I also think, detective, that the start the
10:11
Speaker 1: harsh dichotomy, the trying to get your mind around the
10:17
Speaker 1: fact that you just saw your daughter a couple of
10:20
Speaker 1: hours ago when she left to go to school, and
10:23
Speaker 1: everything was fine. I've heard that phrase one hundred times
10:28
Speaker 1: from crime victim's families. Everything was fine, and then suddenly
10:33
Speaker 1: they learn not only is the little girl dead, kidnapped
10:38
Speaker 1: off the school bus after she takes a few steps
10:41
Speaker 1: from a school bus, but that someone killed her. It
10:44
Speaker 1: wasn't a car accident, it wasn't some other type of mishap.
10:48
Speaker 1: Someone actually targeted a little teen cheerleader getting off the
10:53
Speaker 1: school bus and murdered her.
10:56
Speaker 8: Yeah, just to look at the facts of the case
10:59
Speaker 8: like that, it's it's horrible, obscene even and it's a
11:06
Speaker 8: it's a terrible situation. You have Laurley Spear here, fifteen
11:11
Speaker 8: year old girl, like you said, a model student, a
11:15
Speaker 8: model daughter, and she's a true victim. Didn't have a
11:22
Speaker 8: bad bone in her body, just minding her own business,
11:25
Speaker 8: going about her life getting off the school bus. From
11:29
Speaker 8: what I understand, she wanted to be a doctor, I
11:32
Speaker 8: think a veterinarian when she grew up, and that all
11:37
Speaker 8: that was taken away from her, she never got that chance.
11:40
Speaker 8: All that was taken away from her family by some
11:46
Speaker 8: you know, awful person out there that probably got most
11:48
Speaker 8: likely free, you know.
11:50
Speaker 1: And knowing the entire time that he and I guarantee you,
11:53
Speaker 1: of course I'm not an eyewitness, but it is a
11:57
Speaker 1: he knowing he has little really gotten away with the murder.
12:03
Speaker 1: Well not if we have anything to do it. Let's
12:05
Speaker 1: go back to the moment that Mom realizes Laura Lee
12:11
Speaker 1: is not coming home. She hasn't made it home off
12:13
Speaker 1: that school bus.
12:14
Speaker 5: And she was.
12:15
Speaker 1: Very, very punctual. We hear that throughout. She doesn't go
12:19
Speaker 1: meander around the neighborhood. She doesn't go to a friend's
12:22
Speaker 1: house without telling mom. Nothing like that. No trips to
12:26
Speaker 1: the mall after school. She walked straight home. That's how
12:29
Speaker 1: Mom knew in her core that something was horribly wrong.
12:34
Speaker 5: Listen, start walking home, Yeah, my neighborhood. Start down the road.
12:41
Speaker 9: Start walking towards the house.
12:43
Speaker 5: Yeah.
12:47
Speaker 2: And she's not today neighbor's house or anything we have.
12:49
Speaker 2: You know, if you're checking the.
12:50
Speaker 5: Neighbors, call all the neighbors, they all say that.
12:54
Speaker 1: Well, but.
12:57
Speaker 5: May said the next compty not fear at their house.
13:04
Speaker 8: Okay, hold on one second.
13:05
Speaker 5: Okay, So she got on about three three fifteen. He
13:08
Speaker 5: got off the books for approximately three tens of Previousteen, okay,
13:12
Speaker 5: hold lot of seconds.
13:13
Speaker 1: Joining me In addition to Laurlee's sister Jenny Bissell, Detective LeMay,
13:19
Speaker 1: and Sheriff Chitwood, Cheryl McCollum is joining US forensics expert,
13:24
Speaker 1: the founder of the Cold Case Research Institute and star
13:27
Speaker 1: of a hit podcast Zone seven. Cheryl, thank you for
13:30
Speaker 1: being with us. You and I have seen a lot
13:33
Speaker 1: of missing person cases. We've seen a lot of homicide
13:36
Speaker 1: cases as a matter of fact, the last seven to
13:39
Speaker 1: eight years, and the District Attorney's office I handled strictly
13:44
Speaker 1: and exclusively murder, serial murder, cerial rape, cyril child, mola
13:49
Speaker 1: station and any type of arson. So we have certainly
13:53
Speaker 1: seen a lot of cases. But a child getting kidnapped
13:59
Speaker 1: and murder straight off the school bus, and of course
14:05
Speaker 1: everybody looks at the school bus driver. It wasn't the
14:07
Speaker 1: school bus driver. The driver just kept going with the children,
14:11
Speaker 1: was still driving the bus by the time that Laurale's
14:15
Speaker 1: body was found. Cheryl, here is a stark and jarring
14:21
Speaker 1: statistic that I learned from Mark Class Victims' Rights Champion.
14:27
Speaker 1: Over well over thirty percent of child strangers stranger abductions
14:34
Speaker 1: occur on a school route, going to school, walking to school,
14:39
Speaker 1: walking to the bus, coming back home, getting off the bus,
14:42
Speaker 1: drop off, pickup. That right there, and that should shake
14:47
Speaker 1: the shoulders of everybody in Congress if they could look
14:51
Speaker 1: up for their money making ventures and realize that that's
14:55
Speaker 1: where money needs to go in policing, school bus trouts,
15:00
Speaker 1: school bus stops, school buses. But that's a whole nother
15:04
Speaker 1: can of worms. Let me get back to something that
15:06
Speaker 1: I can actually affect, and that is finding Laura Lee's killer.
15:12
Speaker 4: Jump in Nancy from where the bus dropped her off
15:18
Speaker 4: the walk to her home. When I walked the scene
15:22
Speaker 4: and drove it with Detective le May, what leaped out
15:27
Speaker 4: at me is from where she was dropped off to
15:30
Speaker 4: the crime scene, she literally had to pass her house.
15:35
Speaker 9: This person in broad daylight.
15:38
Speaker 4: Knew a remote location of a house that had been
15:41
Speaker 4: burned down a year before half law Lee's home to
15:46
Speaker 4: drive her to that location. So to me, that tells
15:50
Speaker 4: me this killer was familiar with that area.
15:53
Speaker 12: Spears daily routine is to walk home from her bus
15:57
Speaker 12: stop on the corner of Deerfoot Road out Spring Garden.
16:01
Speaker 12: The one half mile walk usually takes about ten minutes.
16:04
Speaker 12: Laura Lee always meets her mother at home by three
16:06
Speaker 12: point thirty, even if she stops to watch the neighbor's horses.
16:10
Speaker 12: When laur Lee is a half an hour late, Barbara
16:12
Speaker 12: Spear calls nine to one one in a panic, reporting
16:16
Speaker 12: her daughter missing.
16:17
Speaker 6: Laura Lee's Spear only fifteen years old, abducted, shot just
16:22
Speaker 6: yards away from her home. Her body found in a
16:25
Speaker 6: burned down, abandoned house.
16:27
Speaker 1: I've been listening very carefully to all the nine one
16:29
Speaker 1: one calls, and I want you to hear something that
16:32
Speaker 1: is integral and every parent should know this. Listen.
16:36
Speaker 5: Could I'd come back out and look she would be
16:38
Speaker 5: carrying or she would have had the room her.
16:42
Speaker 4: Back back back.
16:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Mom knows exactly what Laura Lee is wearing.
16:48
Speaker 1: She can describe the backpack. I can describe my children's shoes,
16:53
Speaker 1: their socks, what they're wearing. The works eggsists exactly every day.
17:03
Speaker 1: I know my children wore today and summer break. Did
17:08
Speaker 1: you hear the mom? She is that attentive to her
17:12
Speaker 1: child that she knows exactly what Laura Lee's even her
17:15
Speaker 1: backpack looks like joining me in All Star panel, But
17:19
Speaker 1: I want to go back to Laurreley's sister, Virginia Jenny
17:22
Speaker 1: Bissell and speaking to Jenny. As I have discovered with
17:28
Speaker 1: so many other crime victims of violent crime, it never
17:32
Speaker 1: goes away. It's always just beneath the surface and anything
17:37
Speaker 1: much less somebody asking you a direct question about it,
17:41
Speaker 1: anything can trigger it. It never goes away. Would you
17:46
Speaker 1: agree with that, Jenny.
17:47
Speaker 2: That's absolutely correct.
17:50
Speaker 1: How that affected your life? What makes you remember, Like
17:54
Speaker 1: in the middle of a day, You'll be having a
17:56
Speaker 1: perfectly fine day and all of a sudden, somebody brings
17:59
Speaker 1: it up up or something reminds you. What triggers that
18:03
Speaker 1: Laura Le's the memory of Laura Lee's disappearance and murder.
18:08
Speaker 10: Anything can really trigger a memory, like just going about
18:14
Speaker 10: my day, or even like talking.
18:19
Speaker 2: To my parents.
18:22
Speaker 10: It's it can be anything, to be quite honest, like
18:26
Speaker 10: even hearing a song from back in the day. It's
18:29
Speaker 10: it can be a multitude of things. Even driving around
18:33
Speaker 10: town because I still live in DeLand and stay close
18:37
Speaker 10: to my parents, So just even driving to the house
18:41
Speaker 10: because they still live in the same house, so taking
18:46
Speaker 10: that road every day, it just reminds me.
18:49
Speaker 1: I understand, your parents, particularly your mom has never quote
18:55
Speaker 1: gotten over Laura Lee's murder.
18:58
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, It's significantly impacted her.
19:05
Speaker 10: All of our lives really, but definitely for her, she
19:10
Speaker 10: feels the guilt.
19:12
Speaker 2: I think it's survivor's guilt for.
19:14
Speaker 10: Us because for me, just walking down knowing that I
19:19
Speaker 10: took the same step so she did that same day
19:24
Speaker 10: and thinking why her it should have been me, you know,
19:28
Speaker 10: like I wish it was me, you know, I mean,
19:30
Speaker 10: those thoughts happened a lot.
19:32
Speaker 1: One thing I know is that the moment that nine
19:36
Speaker 1: on one call was made, Ellie, law enforcement jumped into
19:40
Speaker 1: action Lessen.
19:41
Speaker 7: Just sixteen minutes after Barbara Spear reports fifteen year old
19:44
Speaker 7: Laura Lee missing, the Lucia County Sheriffs are on the
19:47
Speaker 7: ground searching for the teen. Air one the Sheriff's helicopter
19:51
Speaker 7: is already in the air and begins scanning the neighborhood
19:53
Speaker 7: for Laura Lee. At five point thirty five pm, the
19:56
Speaker 7: pilot spots a body lying behind an abandoned home, while
20:00
Speaker 7: from the Spear home, officers on the ground find Laura
20:03
Speaker 7: Lee Spear lying crumpled on a concrete slab behind the
20:06
Speaker 7: burned out home, shot to.
20:08
Speaker 1: Death and shot multiple times. This girl, this teen cheerleader,
20:14
Speaker 1: an honor student, shot multiple times, her body only spotted
20:20
Speaker 1: by helicopter flying over. It was so far back in
20:25
Speaker 1: a burned out home that only a local would have
20:29
Speaker 1: known about. In addition to our all star panel, including
20:33
Speaker 1: laur Lee's sister, Jenny, Alexis Terschak is joining us investigative
20:37
Speaker 1: reporter crimeonline dot Com Alexis, thank you for being with us.
20:42
Speaker 1: For those just joining us, give me a recap about
20:46
Speaker 1: how Laura Lee went missing that afternoon.
20:49
Speaker 13: So Laurlee, fifteen years old, freshman in high school, gets
20:52
Speaker 13: off her school list. She lives kind of on a
20:54
Speaker 13: whirl road. This is Florida, in DeLand, Florida. It's a
20:58
Speaker 13: little bit east in a little bit south of dayt
20:59
Speaker 13: Ti a beach, very leafy. This isn't right on the water.
21:03
Speaker 13: And she normally walks home less than a mile point
21:06
Speaker 13: seven tenths of a mile takes her about ten minutes.
21:09
Speaker 13: She walks every single day. She comes home from the
21:12
Speaker 13: school on the school bus. She does not arrive at home.
21:15
Speaker 13: She gets off the bus between three and three fifteen pm.
21:18
Speaker 13: She is always home by three thirty. The neighbors in
21:21
Speaker 13: between the school bus and her house they have horses.
21:24
Speaker 13: She loves to stop there and look at the horses
21:27
Speaker 13: and then we'll make her way home. So she does
21:30
Speaker 13: not arrive at home, and her mom panics. She starts
21:33
Speaker 13: calling around. She calls her friend. The friend says, nope,
21:36
Speaker 13: I saw her get off the bus. She calls the
21:39
Speaker 13: neighbor the next do her neighbor. There's one house between them.
21:41
Speaker 13: The neighbor says, no, she is not here, and then
21:44
Speaker 13: the mom calls the police immediately, right away, doesn't wait
21:50
Speaker 13: two hours, doesn't think, well, maybe she stayed at school
21:53
Speaker 13: or a friend picked her up or anything. Because this
21:55
Speaker 13: girl is so punctual. She's a straight A student. She
21:58
Speaker 13: just made the JV cheerly squad. She volunteers at school.
22:02
Speaker 13: She never give she as you can see, she plays
22:05
Speaker 13: the piano. She does everything by the book. So her
22:09
Speaker 13: mom knew immediately that something was wrong.
22:11
Speaker 1: Exactly how was Laureley found tilled, because, as we all know,
22:17
Speaker 1: details matter.
22:19
Speaker 6: Laura at least Spear is found lying in a pool
22:21
Speaker 6: of her own blood, shot in the back of the
22:24
Speaker 6: head three times. Spear's hands had been tied together, and
22:27
Speaker 6: much of her clothing is missing or torn away. Spear
22:32
Speaker 6: has bruising across her body, leading investigators to believe she
22:36
Speaker 6: was beaten. It appears Spears's attacker attempted to sexually assault her,
22:40
Speaker 6: and the teen fought back in her final moments. Remnants
22:44
Speaker 6: of Spear's clothing are found scattered along Deerfoot Road in
22:47
Speaker 6: the days after her death, The tragic slaying of a
22:51
Speaker 6: young fifteen year old girl haunts a small Florida town.
22:55
Speaker 6: Kidnapped from her school bus and shot dead. Who killed
22:59
Speaker 6: La relieve spear what clues were left behind?
23:05
Speaker 7: Listen immediately after Laura Lee's spear has found shot. It's
23:09
Speaker 7: all hands on deck to find out what happened to
23:11
Speaker 7: the teen in her short walk home from the bus.
23:13
Speaker 7: Detectives believe Laura Lee only made it about two hundred
23:16
Speaker 7: yards from the bus stop when she was attacked and abducted.
23:20
Speaker 7: They estimate Laura Lee was dead within twenty five minutes
23:22
Speaker 7: of getting off the bus. The bus driver says, nothing
23:25
Speaker 7: seemed out of the ordinary as you watched Laura Lee
23:27
Speaker 7: start her walk home, and a small group of people
23:29
Speaker 7: selling plans along the route also don't recall seeing anything
23:33
Speaker 7: or anyone suspicious as Laura Lee passed by.
23:36
Speaker 1: To Cheryl McCollum, a forensics expert who has personally investigated
23:41
Speaker 1: this case as well, along with Sheriff Chipwood and Detective
23:44
Speaker 1: le May, Cheryl, two hundred yards, it's all over in
23:48
Speaker 1: two hundred yards. That tells me the purp had to
23:51
Speaker 1: be in a vehicle, who would know about that area
23:54
Speaker 1: and that burned out house other than a local. The
23:57
Speaker 1: house was not right on the street. And it all
24:00
Speaker 1: happened within two hundred yards that's not even a football field.
24:05
Speaker 1: That also tells me this was not just a crime
24:09
Speaker 1: of opportunity. Somebody knew about that bus stop. Somebody had
24:13
Speaker 1: targeted Laura Lee. That opens me up to who. Okay,
24:17
Speaker 1: I know where mom and dad are, so they can
24:19
Speaker 1: be ruled out, But who had seen her at one
24:25
Speaker 1: of the games where she was a cheerleader, Who had
24:28
Speaker 1: seen her at some of her many activities she took
24:32
Speaker 1: part in, of course, And you've got to look at
24:34
Speaker 1: those closest to her. Although I mentioned the parents have
24:37
Speaker 1: been ruled out, but beyond that, you've got to look
24:40
Speaker 1: at uncles. You've got to look at family. Somebody that
24:44
Speaker 1: knew she was getting off that bus stop. Then what
24:49
Speaker 1: do you make of just two hundred yard Cheryld Nancy?
24:52
Speaker 4: You make bus stops. They are a pattern built in
24:55
Speaker 4: for kidnappers. They know exactly when that bus is going
24:59
Speaker 4: to be at the intersection, and they don't have to
25:01
Speaker 4: follow it more than one day to know that only
25:04
Speaker 4: one student gets off there from the high school.
25:07
Speaker 9: I believe this person is local.
25:09
Speaker 4: I believe they did know her in some way, and
25:12
Speaker 4: I absolutely know they knew that area, no doubt about it.
25:16
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Cheryl, I don't disagree with you, but
25:19
Speaker 1: that's just a bald assertion. Explain why again.
25:23
Speaker 4: That house is way off the road, it had been
25:25
Speaker 4: burned out a year before. Local teenagers went there to
25:30
Speaker 4: drink and smoke pot and hang out.
25:33
Speaker 9: It's a very narrow group that would know.
25:36
Speaker 4: That house, be familiar with that house, know that Laura
25:39
Speaker 4: Lee would get off the bus by herself, be able
25:42
Speaker 4: to grab her, control her, because they did have a firearm,
25:45
Speaker 4: drive her to the house, tie her up, assault her,
25:49
Speaker 4: get rid of her book bag, and drive away.
25:51
Speaker 9: This was very fast. This was not a long drawn
25:55
Speaker 9: out crime by any means.
25:57
Speaker 1: To Sheriff Mike Shipwood, the elected sheriff in Volusia County Sheriff,
26:02
Speaker 1: thank you for being with us. Listening to Cheryl speak,
26:06
Speaker 1: it jumps out at me that if this was a
26:08
Speaker 1: teen hangout, then a natural assumption, not a leap of logic,
26:13
Speaker 1: would be that a teen, an older teen did this.
26:18
Speaker 1: And of course we know the killers typically not always,
26:22
Speaker 1: but typically kill within their own race. That tells me
26:27
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a white male between I know we
26:30
Speaker 1: can drive between sixteen and to really push it, I
26:35
Speaker 1: go to twenty five to twenty nine max. What do
26:39
Speaker 1: you make of that?
26:40
Speaker 11: That's exactly what the investigators focused on in the yearly goings.
26:44
Speaker 11: You know, this killer brought a firearm, and the killer
26:47
Speaker 11: brought a ligature to be able to fasten her hands
26:50
Speaker 11: together and tie her up. And again, as everybody keeps saying,
26:54
Speaker 11: this burned down house, when you if you go see
26:57
Speaker 11: the topography, you don't know about that unless you're from
27:01
Speaker 11: that area. You're back there drinking, you're back there smoking weed.
27:05
Speaker 11: It's got to be somebody that can drive. It's somebody
27:07
Speaker 11: that's familiar with the comings and goings there, And that's
27:10
Speaker 11: what the investigation has focused on through all of these years.
27:13
Speaker 1: And it's somebody to detective of Cordell Lea May. It's
27:16
Speaker 1: somebody that's not at work in the middle of the
27:20
Speaker 1: day that strikes me. I grew up in one of
27:23
Speaker 1: those homes where everybody either went to school or they
27:26
Speaker 1: went to work, and nobody ever laid out. Nobody even
27:29
Speaker 1: dared say, ooh, I feel bad today. No, everybody goes
27:33
Speaker 1: to work. And I walked home every day from school
27:38
Speaker 1: on a dirt road, just like Jenny is describing where
27:43
Speaker 1: crime nobody ever even heard of it, just like around
27:47
Speaker 1: the time when she Laura Lee goes missing. Hey, Detective
27:53
Speaker 1: le May, I'm curious about the ligature, and the Sheriff's
27:58
Speaker 1: brought up a really good point. This person came prepared,
28:00
Speaker 1: they had ligatures, they had a gun, they were in
28:03
Speaker 1: a vehicle, they wanted at work, and they knew about
28:06
Speaker 1: this hideout and this old burned out house where tane smoked.
28:09
Speaker 1: And did pot So question what type of ligatures were used?
28:16
Speaker 8: So it's it was.
28:17
Speaker 1: It was rope.
28:18
Speaker 8: It was a thin rope like twine almost, and it
28:22
Speaker 8: was loosely tied around her wrists. So it's not like
28:26
Speaker 8: this person was, you know, an expert or you know,
28:29
Speaker 8: a boy scout or something like that where they were
28:32
Speaker 8: familiar with tighten note knots. I was looped around a
28:36
Speaker 8: couple of times, not super tight, but uh, you know,
28:39
Speaker 8: it was enough to bind her hands and keep keep
28:42
Speaker 8: her from using them. And you know, unless at some
28:45
Speaker 8: point during during what happened, she managed to loosen up
28:49
Speaker 8: herself and for herself a little bit, there's no way
28:52
Speaker 8: to know that.
28:52
Speaker 1: You know Sherylan colem Based on what Detective Cordell Lea
28:55
Speaker 1: May just said, it may not have required tight buying.
29:00
Speaker 1: If she had taken a blow to the face or
29:03
Speaker 1: any attack at all, I doubt that she could have
29:06
Speaker 1: fought back, but she wasn't bound leading me up to
29:11
Speaker 1: that is an excellent source of DNA. Why because whoever's
29:17
Speaker 1: tying the knot has to pull the rope and it
29:21
Speaker 1: goes across your hands if it is collected correctly and
29:24
Speaker 1: at that time I mean touch DNA. The advent of
29:27
Speaker 1: touch DNA has just been in the last couple of years.
29:30
Speaker 1: Nobody knew about epithelial cells when Laura Lee was murdered.
29:35
Speaker 1: That has just happened. That's a major advancement. But that
29:40
Speaker 1: is an incredible source for DNA evidence.
29:43
Speaker 4: Ryl it is and that's something Detective LeMay and I
29:46
Speaker 4: have talked about to test and retest all the items
29:50
Speaker 4: and Nancy.
29:50
Speaker 9: The other thing that is.
29:51
Speaker 4: Pretty clear is because of the Lucia County, this evidence
29:56
Speaker 4: was located and collected so quickly. You're talking about within
30:01
Speaker 4: thirty minutes they had it. They saw her. And here's
30:05
Speaker 4: the other thing about this killer. Yes, he came with
30:08
Speaker 4: a loaded weapon and something to bind her with, but
30:11
Speaker 4: he made no effort to conceal her body. So again
30:16
Speaker 4: this leads me to think this person is young, they
30:18
Speaker 4: were inexperienced in this type of crime, and I believe
30:22
Speaker 4: his DNA will be on some of the items that
30:26
Speaker 4: were left at.
30:26
Speaker 9: That saintle.
30:33
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace to Sheriff Mike with special
30:41
Speaker 1: guests joining us today elected Sheriff Felicia County Sheriff. Was
30:46
Speaker 1: she sex assaulted this fifteen year old teen girl?
30:50
Speaker 11: She was, and we have again because of the great
30:53
Speaker 11: work by the initial detectors, we have that DNA and
30:56
Speaker 11: it has been I guess we've excluded probably fifth these
31:00
Speaker 11: suspects based on that y star DNA that we have.
31:04
Speaker 1: So she was molested. I understand Cheryl McCollum that she
31:11
Speaker 1: was partially nude.
31:14
Speaker 9: Correct, That's my understanding.
31:15
Speaker 4: So again, some of the clothing left owned her is
31:19
Speaker 4: extremely interesting to me because I believe we can get
31:22
Speaker 4: more DNA and maybe develop an entire profile from that.
31:26
Speaker 1: Okay, what I'm getting at, Cheryl, I'm glad that she
31:31
Speaker 1: was partially clothed. Why because there's a better chance of
31:38
Speaker 1: me getting DNA off the clothes, if her pants were
31:42
Speaker 1: yanked down, or sure it was ripped open, anything along
31:45
Speaker 1: those lines, I'm getting more of a chance of getting DNA.
31:48
Speaker 1: You know, some victims are forced to disrobe themselves. That's
31:53
Speaker 1: not what happened here, because she was tied up. And
31:56
Speaker 1: I want to apologize to Virginia Jenny at Basel. This
32:00
Speaker 1: is Laura Lee's sister, who is haunted by this to
32:04
Speaker 1: this day. We have launched into the only thing we
32:08
Speaker 1: know how to do. This is all we're good for.
32:10
Speaker 1: Jenny is analyzing facts, analyzing evidence, and building a case.
32:16
Speaker 1: And you're sitting there hearing me talking about her being bound.
32:19
Speaker 1: Was she partially clothed? Was she forced to disrobe herself
32:25
Speaker 1: while you're thinking of your sister as one of the loves,
32:29
Speaker 1: the great loves of your life. And I want to
32:32
Speaker 1: apologize about the analytical way we're describing what happened. And
32:37
Speaker 1: I hope you understand what we're doing.
32:40
Speaker 2: No, No, I totally understand.
32:42
Speaker 1: I want to talk about retesting, and I also want
32:44
Speaker 1: to you know, so often we hear, oh, the cops
32:48
Speaker 1: did this wrong, they did that wrong, the sheriff screwed
32:51
Speaker 1: this up, blah blah, blah, and sometimes it's true, but
32:54
Speaker 1: not in this case. If you only knew the immediate
32:59
Speaker 1: rollout out, the canvassing, the aerial, the dogs, everything they
33:05
Speaker 1: were on it. Listen.
33:06
Speaker 12: Officers from the Ormond Beach Police Department joined Belusia County
33:10
Speaker 12: Sheriffs to canvas Spears neighborhood for a week. Over one
33:13
Speaker 12: thousand tips are collected in the month following Laura Lee's murder,
33:17
Speaker 12: and police learn a group of people are hanging out
33:20
Speaker 12: and shooting guns at the burned down home where the
33:23
Speaker 12: body is found. Neighbors also report seeing a dark colored
33:26
Speaker 12: truck near the crime scene.
33:29
Speaker 6: Laura Lee's Spears family continues their fight to identify the
33:33
Speaker 6: teen's killer. Police call for the public's help to solve
33:37
Speaker 6: the case and bring a killer to justice.
33:41
Speaker 1: Then there is what we think is going to be
33:44
Speaker 1: a big break in the case. Listen.
33:47
Speaker 7: Six months past and then a tip from an inmate
33:49
Speaker 7: comes in claiming Bobby Rawley says he killed Laura Lee Spear. Raleigh,
33:53
Speaker 7: twenty is a waiting trial for the double murder of
33:56
Speaker 7: two West beallusihah men killed six weeks after spears death.
34:00
Speaker 7: Raleigh also owns a dark colored truck matching the description
34:02
Speaker 7: of the one spotted near the crime scene. Raley is
34:05
Speaker 7: charged with the murder of Laura Lee Spear. He vehemently
34:08
Speaker 7: denies involvement. Nearly three years in, Raley manages to produce
34:11
Speaker 7: a solid alibi, receipts showing he was at a car
34:14
Speaker 7: repair shop at the time of the murder. The chargers,
34:16
Speaker 7: they're dropped, and the Lucia County Sheriffs are bank to
34:19
Speaker 7: square one.
34:20
Speaker 1: Jenny Massel, Laura Ley's sister. That had to be like
34:23
Speaker 1: a gut punch. They think they've got the guy. They investigate, investigate,
34:29
Speaker 1: and investigate. Three years pass and suddenly he has a
34:34
Speaker 1: rock solid alibi. Why he didn't produce it earlier that
34:37
Speaker 1: I don't know, but he did produce it, and after
34:41
Speaker 1: three years of thinking the killer was caught, you find
34:45
Speaker 1: out no, that's not him. That had to be horrible
34:48
Speaker 1: for your family, right.
34:49
Speaker 10: It was like taking the window of our sales kind of.
34:54
Speaker 10: We were very hopeful that.
34:58
Speaker 2: We had the.
34:59
Speaker 10: Guy, but then to be let down to say though, no,
35:03
Speaker 10: it didn't work out. It was disheartening to say the least.
35:09
Speaker 10: And then having to go back to square one to
35:11
Speaker 10: try to figure out who it could potentially be now
35:16
Speaker 10: your guard is up now because you think, oh I
35:19
Speaker 10: can breathe, you know, because before you're always having to
35:24
Speaker 10: look over your shoulder, or you know, is it this person?
35:27
Speaker 5: It?
35:28
Speaker 2: Could it be that person?
35:29
Speaker 1: You know?
35:30
Speaker 2: I mean we're still living in that and that fear
35:34
Speaker 2: of who could it be?
35:35
Speaker 5: Now?
35:35
Speaker 1: That has got to be complete. Hell that every time
35:39
Speaker 1: you get to the local grocery store you look at
35:41
Speaker 1: a guy and think, well, was it you? Were you
35:45
Speaker 1: the one watching my sister? Did you sex assault and
35:50
Speaker 1: murder her? Did you bind my sister and leave her
35:53
Speaker 1: lying out in the open? That way? I would be
35:56
Speaker 1: suspicious of everybody I saw you. Look at the preacher,
36:00
Speaker 1: You'll go to church, custodian, the school, custodian, the neighbors.
36:03
Speaker 1: Everybody is under a cloud of suspicion. But today Sheriff
36:08
Speaker 1: Mike Chitwood has a major announcement for us. He is
36:14
Speaker 1: not sitting back and just reviewing case files. He's doing
36:19
Speaker 1: something about it. Sheriff Chitwood, could you describe the new
36:25
Speaker 1: reward that you are announcing? I kind, Nancy.
36:28
Speaker 11: Today would have been Laura Lee's forty six birthday.
36:32
Speaker 3: It's thirty years since this horrific brutal sexual assault and
36:37
Speaker 3: execution occurred to this young lady and that finally was destroyed.
36:41
Speaker 3: We are offering one hundred thousand dollars reward for information
36:45
Speaker 3: leading to the arrest of persons or persons who were
36:49
Speaker 3: responsible for this horrific act.
36:51
Speaker 1: You know, Sheriff, that is amazing. Number one, that you
36:57
Speaker 1: and Detective le May are still working this case. You
37:01
Speaker 1: want justice, but somehow you have managed to raise one
37:06
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars to finish this investigation. That never happened, Sheriff.
37:13
Speaker 1: That never happens. Most cases have no reward at all,
37:18
Speaker 1: nothing much less one hundred thousand dollars reward. That's amazing, Nancy.
37:23
Speaker 3: We don't know what else to do.
37:24
Speaker 11: The detectives throughout the decades have poured their heart and
37:27
Speaker 11: soul into this case. Detective de LeMay even was up
37:30
Speaker 11: in Philadelphia with the Ydox Society going through this case
37:33
Speaker 11: with dozens and dozens of cold case investigators.
37:37
Speaker 3: We have to do something.
37:38
Speaker 11: As you said, this whole segment, people knew, people know
37:43
Speaker 11: this was not this was This was not something that
37:46
Speaker 11: happened in the strange. It was not something that was
37:49
Speaker 11: a spur of the moment it was planned. People know
37:52
Speaker 11: they need to do the right thing now for Laura
37:55
Speaker 11: Lee and for her family.
37:56
Speaker 6: The hunt continues for Laura Lee's spears killer. Could a
38:00
Speaker 6: jailhouse confession be the key to closing this cold case?
38:06
Speaker 14: Every day now day goes by that I don't think
38:08
Speaker 14: about her. Always wonder what she would think of her
38:15
Speaker 14: Christmas or Thanksgiving, her birthday. Always wonder where's she'll be
38:20
Speaker 14: at if things were different, if somebody had just left
38:24
Speaker 14: her alone that day and let her live, what life
38:30
Speaker 14: would be like with her here. I'm sure it had
38:34
Speaker 14: been a lot happier.
38:35
Speaker 1: You are hearing sister Jenny Bissell, who to this day
38:40
Speaker 1: is haunted by her sister's kidnap, assault, and murder just
38:45
Speaker 1: two hundred yards less than two hundred yards from the
38:48
Speaker 1: bus stop. Cheryl McCollum, I want to talk about retesting
38:53
Speaker 1: this DNA. How can we make that happen? In addition
38:57
Speaker 1: to this incredible, incredible reward, the sheriff has cobbled together
39:03
Speaker 1: Sheriff Chitwood and Detective La May announcing today a one
39:07
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollar reward for information leading to solving Laura
39:13
Speaker 1: Lee's murder. What about retesting.
39:15
Speaker 4: Cheryl McCollum, you know, the detective Lamy and I have
39:18
Speaker 4: already talked about getting perhaps her broad essentially to a
39:23
Speaker 4: private lab like OUTHRAM. It's going to be critical that
39:27
Speaker 4: they retest everything, even if something's already been tested. The
39:31
Speaker 4: technology today is nothing compared to what they could do
39:35
Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety four. They can do things now that
39:38
Speaker 4: would have been unheard of. Author only needs six sales
39:43
Speaker 4: to get a full, you know, profile of a suspect.
39:46
Speaker 4: We've got to get everything to this as soon as
39:49
Speaker 4: we can. And I'll tell you, Nancy what I just
39:52
Speaker 4: heard the sheriff say. There is one hundred thousand reasons
39:56
Speaker 4: for somebody to come forward and.
39:58
Speaker 1: To Sheriff Mike Chitwood, the Lucia CA On the elected
40:00
Speaker 1: sheriff who's announcing one hundred thousand dollar reward to solve
40:04
Speaker 1: this case. Sheriff, the perp may not have been in
40:09
Speaker 1: the database at the time Laurelle was murdered, but I
40:14
Speaker 1: guarantee you this guy didn't commit a one time sex assault, kidnapped, murder,
40:22
Speaker 1: no way. He had to have done something else, some
40:26
Speaker 1: violent crime. Since Laurelle was murdered, he should be in
40:30
Speaker 1: the database. Now, would you agree with that? This ain't
40:34
Speaker 1: a one off?
40:35
Speaker 11: Yeah, I absolutely one percent agree with that. And you
40:38
Speaker 11: know he did it, he got away with it. This
40:41
Speaker 11: is something I believe was in his DNA. There are
40:43
Speaker 11: other probably sexual assault victims or homicide victims out there
40:46
Speaker 11: related to this guy.
40:47
Speaker 1: We've got to get this DNA to off Ram Labs
40:51
Speaker 1: or a similar lab that handles UH degenerated or degraded
40:58
Speaker 1: DNA or old DNA. It's a specialty Niche to Virginia
41:03
Speaker 1: Jenny Bissell, this is Laura Lee's sister. What is your
41:09
Speaker 1: message today? To whomever you want it to be heard,
41:14
Speaker 1: wherever you want it to be heard. It can be
41:16
Speaker 1: to DeSantis, the governor. It can be to Moody, the
41:21
Speaker 1: Florida Attorney General. It can be to the public. What
41:26
Speaker 1: is your message?
41:28
Speaker 10: My message would be that Larley needs justice, our family
41:36
Speaker 10: needs to find peace, and on top of that, laar
41:42
Speaker 10: Leine needs to rest in peace. We need to find
41:48
Speaker 10: her killer and we need to do by whatever means
41:52
Speaker 10: necessary to find it. And the fact that someday has
41:56
Speaker 10: been quiet for this long.
41:59
Speaker 2: Unacceptable. You can run, you can hide, but we'll catch
42:05
Speaker 2: up to you. I'm not giving up.
42:08
Speaker 1: And it's not just the purp Jenny. It could be
42:12
Speaker 1: the mom who washed bloody clothes. It could be the
42:16
Speaker 1: dad who realized his teen had taken the family gun
42:20
Speaker 1: that day. It could be a number of people. Someone
42:23
Speaker 1: may be the purp bragg to or new too much
42:27
Speaker 1: information and talked about it, or asked too many questions,
42:31
Speaker 1: or followed the case in an odd or obsessive way.
42:35
Speaker 1: Someone knows the answer to this riddle who killed Laura Lee.
42:42
Speaker 1: If you know or even think you know any information
42:46
Speaker 1: about Laura Lee's kidnapped from the school bus and murder,
42:50
Speaker 1: dial three eight six two five, four five three seven.
42:55
Speaker 1: There is a new one hundred thousand dollars rewards to
43:00
Speaker 1: share of Mike Chitwood. Thank you to our guests for
43:04
Speaker 1: being with us. Thank you to you for joining us here,
43:09
Speaker 1: but especially to Jenny Bissell, who tells the story of
43:15
Speaker 1: her sister's murder. Nancy Grace signing off, goodbye friend.