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The Tragic Story Of Reyna Marroquin's Murder · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, I want you to put yourself in a
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: very specific, a very visceral scene to start off this
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: deep dive. Okay.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Set the scene for us. Right.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: So the date is September 2, 1999. And we are
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in Jericho.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Which is, you know, a pretty quiet suburb on Long Island,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: New York.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Just a normal, quiet neighborhood. And there's this man
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: named Ronald Cohen. He has just sold his house to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a new buyer, a guy named Hamid Tafagoti. Right. Now, Tafagoti...
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: He wants the property completely cleared of all debris before
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: he moves in.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Which, I mean, that's a pretty standard request when you
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: buy a home, right? You want a clean slate.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. You don't want the previous owner's junk.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: So the sanitation department is called out to haul away whatever,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever trash has been left behind in the
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: yard and the crawl space.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Just clear it all out.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Right. But when the crew finally packs up and leaves,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: there is one massive item still sitting on the property.
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a 55-gallon steel drum.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Just a deeply rusted 55-gallon steel drum just sitting there
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: in plain sight.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: And we should probably clarify right away that the sanitation crew,
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: they didn't leave it out of, like, negligence or laziness.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Right. It wasn't that they forgot it.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: No, the decision was purely logistical. Because this drum wasn't just,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: you know, a hollow, rusty barrel. It weighed a staggering
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: 345 pounds.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Which is just an insane amount of weight for a barrel.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Right. It was physically too heavy and too dense for
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: a standard sanitation crew to safely lift into their truck,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: at least without specialized equipment.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: So they just leave it.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It simply remained there, this strange, heavy anomaly in
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: an otherwise pristine, cleared-out space.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Which leaves Ronald Cohen with a pretty serious problem. Because
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: he has to hand over a clean property to the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: new owner.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: He's on the hook for it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So out of sheer frustration and, let's be honest,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: probably a heavy dose of curiosity.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, for sure.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Cohen decides he has to figure out what is inside
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: this thing so he can dispose of it. So he
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: gets some tools. He manages to pry this rutted lid open.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: And what he finds inside is, well, it's an absolute nightmare.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's horrific.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: He peers into the darkness of this heavy steel drum.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: And he sees what appears to be a human hand
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and a woman's shoe just poking out from a mass
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: of debris.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: It is the kind of sudden, jarring discovery that completely
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: shatters your reality. I mean, you pry open an old
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: barrel expecting, I don't know, heavy construction sludge or maybe
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: old roofing car.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Right, just normal suburban garage junk.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And instead, you find yourself staring directly into a
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: makeshift tomb that has just been sitting on your property.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: It honestly feels like a modern-day Edgar Allan Poe story.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: It's like the telltale heart, but instead of a beating
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: heart hidden beneath the floorboards, it is a 345-pound industrial
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: drum sitting in broad daylight.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Just waiting decades for someone to finally look inside.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Right. And that rusted drum is the center of our
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: deep dive today. Because we are piecing this incredible story
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: together using a really massive stack of source materials.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have a lot to go through.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: We're looking at historical NYPD case files. the detailed autopsy
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and forensic pathology reports from the late 90s, corporate records
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: from a Manhattan plastics company, and even several sociological studies
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: detailing the immigrant experience in 1960s New York.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: And by synthesizing all of those sources, we really uncover
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: this sprawling 30-year journey.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: It's a huge timeline.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: It really is. And the core theme we are exploring
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: today is how this single case acts as a perfect
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: showcase for the evolution of forensic science.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Which is fascinating on its own. It is.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: But on a deeper level, it also serves as a
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: tragic time capsule. It demonstrates the specific ways in which vulnerable,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: marginalized individuals in the 1960s could completely vanish without the
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: institutions meant to protect them batting an eye.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Which is so frustrating to read about. But OK, the
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: immediate question that jumps out at me and probably anyone
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: listening right now is the sheer physical impossibility of a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: 345-pound drum full of human remains just going unnoticed.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Right. How does it just sit there?
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. Because we are talking about a discovery in 1999,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: but the house itself was actually built in 1957. That's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a huge gap. It is. Between the time it was
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: built and the time Ronald Cohen popped that lid, there
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: were four previous owners. Four different families lived on that property.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, they mowed the lawn, they barbecued, they celebrated birthdays,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: all while this massive steel drum just sat there. How
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: does that happen?
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Well, investigators asked that exact same question. They systematically went
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: back and interviewed the previous homeowners to trace the timeline
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: of the barrel.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Because they had to know where it came from. Right.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: And what they found was deeply unsettling. The second owner
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: of the house, a man who lived there in the mid-1980s,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: openly admitted to police that he had actually discovered the
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: barrel years earlier.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait. He found a sealed, rusted, 345-pound barrel on
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: his property and just left it there?
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: He did, yeah. He found it tucked away in the
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: crawl space while he was having an addition built onto
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: the house.
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  Speaker 1: You're kidding. No.
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  Speaker 2: But rather than questioning its contents or opening it or
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: even just paying someone to haul it away, he simply
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: pushed it aside, worked around it, and subsequently forgot about it.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I really have to push back on the psychology of that.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: Why? Because I can completely understand ignoring, like, a dusty
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: cardboard box in an attic. Mm-hmm. You know, if I
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: move into a house and there's a box of old
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: tax documents from 1982... I am absolutely leaving that alone.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Sure. Out of sight, out of mind.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Right. But how does a human being just forget a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: 345-pound industrial drum during a major home renovation? I mean,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: is it just willful ignorance?
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: It goes far deeper than willful ignorance, actually. What we
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: are looking at is a profound psychological phenomenon known as
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: normalcy bias.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Normalcy bias.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, combined with the brain's inherent drive for cognitive efficiency.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: You see, the human brain is essentially a prediction engine
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: designed to conserve energy.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, making things easier for us to process.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. When we encounter something that doesn't fit our daily reality,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: like a massive, immovable industrial drum at a suburban home,
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  Speaker 2: our brain desperately tries to rationalize it into something mundane.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Just to avoid dealing with it.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Right, to avoid the immense cognitive and emotional labor of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: dealing with an anomaly.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. It's like when your car engine starts
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: making a horrific clanking sound on the highway.
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  Speaker 2: That's a great example.
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  Speaker 1: Right. Rather than your brain accepting, my transmission is actively
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: exploding and I need a new car, your brain immediately
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: tells you, oh, it's probably just a loose piece of
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  Speaker 1: plastic flapping in the wind.
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  Speaker 2: Because accepting the worst case scenario requires a massive immediate
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: disruption to your life.
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  Speaker 1: It's expensive and stressful.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. And that is a perfect analogy for this. The
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  Speaker 2: cognitive dissonance of finding a suspicious barrel is too high.
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  Speaker 2: The homeowner's brain didn't leap to human remains. because that
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: introduces police, crime scenes, and trauma into his life.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: That would ruin your weekend, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So his brain leapt to heavy construction resin left
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: over from a previous project.
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  Speaker 1: Ah, so it makes it boring.
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  Speaker 2: Yes. By assigning it a boring, benign origin, the homeowner's
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  Speaker 2: brain essentially rendered the barrel invisible. He categorized it as
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: background noise, which allowed him to literally build his house
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  Speaker 2: extension around it without a second thought.
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  Speaker 1: Which is an incredibly unsettling thought for the rest of us,
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  Speaker 1: if you think about it.
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  Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, think about the physical spaces you occupy. The
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: items sitting in your basement, your garage, or your crawl
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: space right now that belong to a previous tenant. How
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: much do we blindly accept our physical surroundings just because
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  Speaker 1: they were there when we arrived?
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  Speaker 2: We place an enormous amount of implicit trust in the
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: spaces we inhabit. And the killer in this case relied
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  Speaker 2: entirely on that psychological blind spot.
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  Speaker 1: He knew they wouldn't look.
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  Speaker 2: He banked on the fact that suburban normalcy would act
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  Speaker 2: as a cloaking device for his crime.
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  Speaker 1: But in 1999, Ronald Cohen shattered that cloaking device. The
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: authorities are called in, the property becomes a full-blown crime scene,
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  Speaker 1: and the narrative abruptly shifts from suburban real estate to
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: complex forensic archaeology.
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  Speaker 2: It completely pivots.
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  Speaker 1: It does. The authorities now have the daunting task of
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  Speaker 1: processing this terrifying sealed environment to extract whatever clues they can.
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  Speaker 1: And reading through these pathology reports, I mean, the science
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  Speaker 1: of what happened inside that drum is fascinating.
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  Speaker 2: It is a master class in preservation, honestly. When the
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: medical examiner opened the drum at the lab, they didn't
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  Speaker 2: find skeletal remains.
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  Speaker 1: Which is what you would expect after 30 years.
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  Speaker 2: Right, exactly. You'd expect bones. But instead, they found the
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  Speaker 2: mummified body of a petite woman with black hair.
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  Speaker 1: See, how does that happen? Because intuitively, if you put
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  Speaker 1: biological matter in a closed container in a humid environment
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  Speaker 1: like Long Island, you would expect accelerated decay.
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  Speaker 2: You'd think it would be a mess.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Why didn't she decompose normally?
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  Speaker 2: The answer lies in the chemistry of the sealed drum.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Natural decomposition is primarily driven by aerobic bacteria.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So bacteria that need air.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: Yes. Bacteria that require oxygen to survive and break down tissue.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: When the killer sealed the lid of that 55-gallon steel drum,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: he inadvertently created an airtight microenvironment.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see where this is going.
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  Speaker 2: Right. Within a very short period, the aerobic bacteria consumed
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: whatever limited oxygen was trapped inside the barrel, and then
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  Speaker 2: they essentially suffocated and died off.
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  Speaker 1: So the lack of oxygen just hits the pause button
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  Speaker 1: on decay.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: It severely retards it, yes. Oh. But another chemical process
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: took over, something forensic anthropologists call saponification.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Saponification. Okay, explain that.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Well, the victim was sealed in a dark, moist, anaerobic environment.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Under those specific conditions, the body's fatty tissues undergo a
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: chemical conversion into a substance called adipocere.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Adipocere. Right.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It's commonly known as grave wax.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Wow. Grave wax. Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Thick, waxy coating encases the remains, effectively shielding the underlying
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: tissues and preserving physical features, and most importantly, the evidence
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: of trauma.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: So the killer accidentally built the perfect preservation chamber to
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: document his own crime.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: He really did.
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  Speaker 1: Because the autopsy reports detailing that trauma are incremental, Incredibly
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: difficult to read. The medical examiner found that she had
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: suffered massive blunt force trauma to the head.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: It was brutal.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they documented 10 distinct lacerations to the back of
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: her skull, along with multiple severe fractures.
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  Speaker 2: And the pathology tells a very clear story about the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: nature of the murder. Ten lacerations to the back of
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  Speaker 2: the head is not a simple accident.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: No, definitely not.
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  Speaker 2: Nor is it a sterile, calculated assassination. It requires an
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: immense amount of physical exertion and sustained violence. It indicates
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: a deeply personal, highly emotional homicide. It was a crime
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: of intense rage, what investigators often classify as overkill.
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  Speaker 1: And it gets even more tragic from there. The autopsy
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: revealed the victim was a Hispanic woman, likely between the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: ages of 20 and 30. And she was pregnant with
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a baby boy.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: She was nearly full term at the time of her death.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: That detail fundamentally changes the trajectory of the investigation. The
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: stakes escalate immediately.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. You're dealing with two victims now.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Right. But identifying her was going to be an immense challenge. However,
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: because of the adipose preservation we talked about, the drum
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: acted like a forensic time capsule.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: It preserved everything else, too.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Alongside of her man's, investigators found this bizarre collection
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: of seemingly random items. There were industrial plastic packaging pellets,
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: a bit of makeup, a plastic stem from an artificial flower,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: a mysterious green liquid pooling at the bottom, an address book,
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: and a cryptic water damage note.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Let's break those artifacts down, because those pieces of garbage
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: are what eventually gave this woman her name back.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: They were the key to everything.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Right, so investigators focus heavily on the artificial flower stem
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and the plastic pellets. They test the chemical composition of
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: the green liquid, which turns out to be industrial dye.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Right. The green liquid wasn't just stagnant water. It was
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: the exact same chemical dye used to color artificial plant stems.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: And when they trace those specific manufacturing materials, they're led
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: directly to a company in Manhattan called Melrose Plastics. Right. Which,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: in the late 1960s, specialized in manufacturing artificial flowers and plants.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: The irony here is profound. The killer thought he was
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: being resourceful.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: He thought he was being clever, yeah.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He needed to hide a body quickly, so he
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: grabbed what was readily available to him. A chemical drum
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: from his workplace, packing pellets from his warehouse, and industrial dye.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: But by utilizing the unique materials of his own highly
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: specific daily life, he built a forensic bridge directly from
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: the tomb back to himself.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: He basically signed his own arrest warrant.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: He did. But knowing the factory doesn't tell you who
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the woman is.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: No, it doesn't give you a name.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: For that, they needed the address book and the note. Now,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: according to the case files, this address book had been
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: sitting in this sealed drum, submerged in a soup of
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: green dye, decomposing fluids and moisture for 30 years.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: It was completely ruined.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: It was essentially a degraded lump of paper. You couldn't
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: just open it up and read a phone number.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: The ink had entirely washed away and the paper had
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: fused together. I mean, if this drum had been found
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: in 1975 or even 1985... it is highly likely that
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: the address book would.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Have been useless. And the case would have gone cold.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But because the barrel sat until 1999, the technology
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: had finally caught up. Forensic document examiners utilized a device
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: called a video spectral comparator, or VSC.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Now, I spent a lot of time reading up on
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the VSC for this deep dive, because the physics behind
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: it sound like absolute science fiction.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: It really is amazing tech.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: So if you're listening and wondering how on earth you
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: read a book with no ink, here is the mechanism.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: When you write on a pad of paper with a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: ballpoint pen, the physical pressure of your hand pushes the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: pen tip down.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Right, you're pressing into the page.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Even if the ink washes away, you have permanently
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: crushed and disrupted the microscopic fibers of the paper on
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: that page, and usually on the pages beneath it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: That physical disruption is the key. The VSC operates on
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: the principles of the electromagnetic spectrum. It doesn't rely on normal,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: visible light.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: So it's not just a bright lamp.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. Instead, the machine bombards the damaged
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: paper with varying wavelengths of light, specifically targeting infrared and
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: ultraviolet spectrums.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and different materials. And more importantly, paper fibers that
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: have been compressed versus fibers that are untouched will absorb
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: and reflect these wavelengths differently.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So they put this ruined 30-year-old mush of an address
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: book under the VSC, and they start cycling through the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: wavelengths of light.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: They escape through them.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: And suddenly, the crushed paper fibers cast these microscopic shadows
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: under the infrared light. And the invisible ink indentations literally
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: glow and come back to life on the monitor.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: It's like magic.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: It is. And through this process, they manage to extract
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: an immigrant visa number. They pull a surname. Marroquin. They
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: extract another name. Katie Andrade.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: And most chillingly, they used the VSC to read the
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: small cryptic note found alongside the book.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the note.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: It was just a single sentence, but it provided the
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: entire motive for the murder. It read, don't be mad,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: I told the truth.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Don't be mad, I told the truth. That is such
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a heavy, loaded statement to find in a tomb.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It really changes everything.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: It completely shifts the investigation. We move out of the cold,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: hard physics of light spectrums and saponification. And suddenly, we
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: are thrust into the deeply human story of the victim herself.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Right. We have a victim with a real life.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: So the police have the name Katie Andrade. But in
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: a massive city like New York, 30 years after the fact,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: how do you find someone based on the ghost of
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a name pulled from a ruined book?
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Well, you start with the address listed next to her
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: name in the book. There's a massive long shot. But
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: detectives went to the specific address in New York City
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: pulled by the BSC.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And what happened?
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Incredibly, in a city known for constant turnover and transient populations,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Katie Andrade was still living at that exact same address
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: three decades later.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: That is, I mean, that is the only stroke of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: good luck in this entire dark story.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: It really is a miracle.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Detectives knock on her door, they sit down with her,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: and when they mention the name Mariklin and the Melrose
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Plastics Factory, Katie is finally able to put a full
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: name to the victim. She identifies her missing best friend,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Raina Angelica Mariklin.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And with that identification, Reyna is no longer just a
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: forensic profile or a set of biological statistics. Her life
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: comes into sharp focus.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: We have to explore who she was because her background
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: provides all the context for why she became a target. Exactly.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Reyna was born in El Salvador in 1941. In 1966,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: after a failed marriage in her home country, she made
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the massive, courageous decision to immigrate to the United States
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: seeking a better life.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Her journey represents the quintessential pursuit of the American dream.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: but it also highlights the immense vulnerabilities of that pursuit.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Well, when she arrived in New York, she didn't have
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: a built-in familial safety net. Initially, she lived at a
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: shelter run by nuns, which provided a crucial, albeit temporary, foundation.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Right, just to get her on her feet. Exactly.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: And from there, she actively worked to integrate. She enrolled
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: in English language classes, which is where she met Katie Andrada,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: and the two formed a deeply bonded friendship.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: She was a striver. She didn't want to just scrape by.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: She secures a job at a factory painting artificial flowers,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: which we now know was Melrose Plastics.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: But Katie described her as a sweet girl with massive ambitions.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Working the factory floor was just a means to an end.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: Raina was actually taking classes at the High School of
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Fashion Industries.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: She wanted to be a designer.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Yes. She was working this grueling manual labor job to
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: fund her education and elevate her circumstances. And all the while,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: she remained deeply tethered to her roots. writing detailed letters
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: back home to her family in El Salvador, keeping them
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: updated on her new life in America.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: That communication was constant right up until 1969, when those
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: letters abruptly and inexplicably stopped.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Which must have been terrifying for her family.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. And when we analyze Reyna's position in society
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: at that exact moment in 1969, we have to look
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: at the power dynamics at play.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Which brings up a critical question. You have this ambitious,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: hardworking woman, but she is a recent immigrant. navigating a
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: new language and culture largely without a permanent family structure
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: in the U.S. Does that specific sociological vulnerability make her
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: an ideal target for a predator?
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The disparity in power is staggering. Think about her
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: daily reality. She is entirely reliant on her factory job
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: for her survival, her housing, and her tuition.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Everything depends on that paycheck.
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. She lacks the entrenched systemic protections, the generational wealth,
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And the social leverage that a native-born citizen might take
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: for granted. If you place her in an environment with
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: a wealthy, established corporate employer, the potential for exploitation is massive.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Right, because who is she going to complain to?
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly. An employer in that era held almost unchecked authority
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: over an immigrant worker's livelihood.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And that stark power imbalance is exactly what led to
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the secret relationship she formed at that factory.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: It was a recipe for disaster.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: In the months leading up to her sudden disappearance in 1969...
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Katie Andrade noticed that Raina was acting increasingly anxious and withdrawn.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: She was carrying this heavy burden.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: She knew something was wrong.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Eventually, Raina broke down and confided in Katie that she
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: was pregnant. But she was terrified, and she absolutely refused
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: to tell Katie the name of the father.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Which is a huge... red flag.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Right. The only details Raina provided were that the father
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: was her boyfriend, that he was an older man, and
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that he was married with three children.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: It is a tragically common narrative, but the way this
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: boyfriend managed the relationship is highly indicative of his controlling nature.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: How did he handle it?
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Well, When he discovered Raina was pregnant, he didn't just
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: keep it quiet. He actively orchestrated her isolation. He rented
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: an apartment for her in New Jersey and moved her
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: out of New York City.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: He moved her entirely out of the state.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Yes. And he paid for a specific doctor to oversee
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: her medical care.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Now, Raina spun this to Katie as a positive thing.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: She said the man was taking care of her, that
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: he promised he was going to leave his wife, and
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: they were going to start a legitimate family together.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That's what he told her.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: But when I look at the logistics of moving her
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: to New Jersey, I don't see romantic care. I see
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: a gilded cage.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: A gilded cage is the perfect term for it.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: New Jersey geographically removes her from the subway lines, from
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: her English classes, from the nuns, and most importantly, from Katie.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: He was systematically cutting her tethers to her support system
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: under the guise of providing for her.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: That is a crucial point. Geography is a powerful tool
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: of control. By placing her in a different state, he
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: became her sole lifeline.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: She had no one else there.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Right. She was entirely dependent on a man whose primary
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: motivation was clearly not love, but containment. He needed to
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: keep her, and the physical evidence of his infidelity completely
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: hidden from his respectable, affluent life in New York.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: But a pregnancy is a ticking clock. As the months
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: go by and Raina gets closer to her due date,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the illusion starts to fracture.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: She starts to see the reality.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: She realizes that the boyfriend has made no moves to
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: leave his wife. The promises of a new family were empty,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: stalling tactics.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: And this brings us back to the psychology of desperation
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: and that cryptic note found.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: In the barrel. Right. Don't be mad I told the truth. Yes.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Cornered, isolated, and panicked about bringing a child into the
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: world alone, Raina makes a fateful, incredibly dangerous decision.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: What does she do?
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: She bypasses the boyfriend entirely. picks up the phone, and
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: calls his wife.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: She confesses to the affair, the secret New Jersey apartment,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: and the impending birth of their child.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Don't be mad I told the truth. She thought telling
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the truth would set her free, or at least force
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the boyfriend to finally make a choice.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: She believed she was breaking a deadlock. But she vastly
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: underestimated the psychological profile of the man she was dealing with.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: It backfired completely.
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: To a powerful, wealthy man whose entire identity is wrapped
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: up in his social standing and his image as a
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: respectable family man, this phone call wasn't just an inconvenience.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: It was an existential threat to his entire reality.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: His whole life was about to implode.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly. In his mind, Raina transformed instantly from a manageable
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: secret into an enemy that was actively destroying his life.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And the boyfriend's reaction was swift and terrifying. Raina called
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Katie shortly after speaking to the wife. Katie later reported
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that Raina was in a state of absolute terror, crying
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: and saying that the boyfriend was enraged and that she
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: genuinely feared he was going to kill her.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: That phone call is the direct catalyst for everything that follows.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: It is. Katie hears the sheer panic in her best
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: friend's voice, and she springs into action. She immediately travels
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: out to the New Jersey apartment to get Raina out
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of there.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: But when Katie arrives at the apartment, she encounters a
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: massive red flag.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: What does she find?
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: The front door is unlocked, but the apartment is completely empty.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: Raina is nowhere to be found.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Which makes no sense. If you are a woman living alone,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: heavily pregnant, and terrified that a man is coming to
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: murder you, the absolute last thing you do is leave
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: your front door unlocked.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: An unlocked door doesn't say, I went for a walk.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: An unlocked door says, I was interrupted.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Precisely. It breaks the baseline behavior of someone in fear.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Katie recognizes this instinctively. She sits in that empty apartment
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: and waits for three agonizing hours, hoping Raina will walk
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: back in.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: That must have been awful.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: When she doesn't, Katie does exactly what a responsible citizen
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: is taught to do. She goes straight to the local
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: police station to report her pregnant friend missing and in
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: grave danger.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: And this is where the system completely catastrophically fails Raina.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: It's a massive failure.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Katie walks into the precinct, panicked. She explains the unlocked door,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the pregnancy... The terrified phone call, the enraged married boyfriend,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and the police effectively shrugged their shoulders.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: They did nothing.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: They brush her off. They tell Katie that Raina probably
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: just eloped or ran off with the boyfriend to avoid
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the drama. They suggest Katie just go home and check
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: back in a week.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: That's infuriating.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: They refuse to officially take the report or launch an
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: investigation because Katie wasn't a blood relative. And crucially, because
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Raina had kept the boyfriend's name a secret, Katie couldn't
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: tell the police who they should be looking for.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: We have to analyze the policing standards of 1969 to
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: understand how this happened.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Right, because today that would be a massive scandal.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Historically, missing persons cases involving adults were incredibly difficult to
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: get off the ground. The prevailing law enforcement philosophy was
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: that adults have the legal right to disappear.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Which is technically true, but still.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Right. Unless there was a dead body or a witnessed
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: violent abduction... Police were highly reluctant to allocate resources to
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: search for an adult who might have just walked away
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: from their life.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: But surely the context matters. A terrified pregnant woman calling
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: to say someone is going to kill her, followed by
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: an empty apartment with an unlocked door that demands scrutiny, right?
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: It should have, but this is where the heavy, ugly
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: reality of systemic sociological bias comes into play. The police
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: were looking at a young, unmarried, pregnant Latina immigrant woman.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: In 1969, the institutional prejudice against that specific demographic was immense.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: It didn't take her seriously.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: No, the authorities largely viewed her through a lens of
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: moral judgment rather than as a vulnerable potential victim. The
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: narrative of the pregnant immigrant running away with her lover
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: was an incredibly convenient bureaucratic excuse.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: It left them off the hook.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: It allowed the police to categorize the situation as a
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: personal moral failing rather than a violent crime. effectively closing
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: the book without having to file a single piece of paperwork.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: It is so frustrating to read. Because she wasn't family
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and because she didn't have a name to give them,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: Katie's hands were completely tied.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: She tried everything she could.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: She did. But she was turned away. And because of
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that institutional apathy, Raina's body sat silently in the steel
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: drum for 30 years. The police's failure gave the killer
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: exactly what he wanted.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: He walked away clean.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: He got to go home. sit down at his dinner
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: table with his wife and three kids, and enjoy the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: exact reputation and life he had just committed a brutal
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: murder to protect.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: He was gifted 30 years of stolen time. He lived
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: out his entire adult life entirely free of consequence, shielded
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: by a system that simply didn't care enough to look
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: for the woman he killed.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: But the luxury of time eventually runs out. Yeah. Because
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that institutional failure in 1969 is finally rectified by the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: discovery of the barrel in 1999.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: It all comes back around.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: We fast forward back to the modern detectives. They are
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: armed with the forensic science that didn't exist 30 years prior.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: They have the VSC data. They have the name Melrose Plastics.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: They have Katie's testimony and the exact date of Raina's disappearance.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: They have all the puzzle pieces now.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So they start pulling the corporate records for the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: plastics factory.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: It becomes a matter of connecting data points that seem
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: glaringly obvious in hindsight. The detectives look at the corporate
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: filings to see who owned Melrose Plastics in 1969. Then
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: they cross-reference that with the property deeds for the house
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: in Jericho, Long Island, where the barrel was found, to
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: see who owned the house during that exact same time period.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: And both of those data points intersect perfectly on one name.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Howard Elkins. There it is. He was the co-owner of
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the Melrose Plastics factory. He was Raina's boss. And he
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: was the man who owned the house in Long Island
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: in 1969.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: It all lines up.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: He was the one who procured the barrel, the dye,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and the plastic pellets.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: The detectives finally had their prime suspect 30 years later.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: But time had passed. Howard Elkins was no longer a
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: middle-aged factory owner in New York.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: No, she had moved on.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: By 1999, he was a 70-year-old man living quietly in
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: a retirement community in Boca Raton, Florida.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: So the New York detectives fly down to Florida. They
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: find his house in this sunny, peaceful retirement community, and
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: they knock on his door.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Just imagine that moment.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Just put yourself in Elkin's shoes for a second. You
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: have successfully gotten away with a brutal murder for three decades.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: You are living out your golden years, playing golf, enjoying
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: the Florida sun.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: You think you're untouchable.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And suddenly you open your front door and New York
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: homicide detectives are standing on your porch asking if they
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: can come in and talk to you about a 55-gallon
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: drum and a young woman named Raina Marroquin. The psychological
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: shock to his system must have been absolute panic.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: It would have been a catastrophic internal collapse. However, Elgays
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: was a man who had spent 30 years cultivating a facade,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: and he maintained it during the interview.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: He didn't crack.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Not visibly. He invited them in, sat down, and completely
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: denied any knowledge of Rain American. He claimed he had
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: no idea what they were talking about regarding a drum
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: found in his former home. He feigned total ignorance.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: But the detectives don't just take his word for it.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: They push him. They explain the evidence, the factory connection,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the house.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: They lay it all out.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And then they drop the hammer. They ask him to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: voluntarily provide a DNA sample, just a simple cheek swab
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: to clear his name.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: And Elkins flatly refuses. Now, legally, that is his right
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: under the Fifth Amendment. But practically, it signals to the
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: seasoned detectives that they are... sitting across from the killer.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Who they knew.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: They couldn't arrest him right then and there because the case,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: while compelling, was still technically circumstantial without the DNA linking
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: him directly to the unborn child.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: They needed the hard science.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Right. But they don't leave quietly. They leave him with
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: a very clear, deliberate warning. They tell him they are
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: flying back to New York, They are going to secure
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: a court order from a judge compelling him to provide
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: his DNA, and they will be back to collect it.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: They completely boxed him in. He had left a 30-year
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: paper trail of forensic breadcrumbs, the house, the factory, the
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: specific plastic pellets, the industrial dye, and it led straight
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: to his living room in Florida.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: There was nowhere left to run.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: And when the bill finally came due, when he realized
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: he could no longer outrun the science, he made his
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: final move. The very next day, before the detectives could
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: return with a court order, Howard Elkins went into a
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: neighbor's garage, sat in the back of an SUV, and
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: died by suicide from a self-inflicted shotgun wound.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: When you analyze the profile of Howard Elkins, the suicide
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: serves as the ultimate definitive admission of guilt.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: It's the coward's way out.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: We have to remember why he committed the murder in
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: the first place. He brutally killed a pregnant woman solely
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: to protect his fragile image as a respectable, moral family
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: man and business owner.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: It was all about his image. Exactly.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: He was obsessed with control and perception. He maintained that
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: specific facade to his literal dying breath. When faced with
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: the inescapable reality that the DNA would expose him, he
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: chose death over having to face his wife, his children,
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: the media, and a jury as a murderer.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: He couldn't face the shame.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: He took his own life to control the narrative and
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: avoid the public humiliation of a trial.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: But he couldn't control the science. His refusal to give
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: DNA while alive didn't matter, because after his deaths, the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: medical examiner in Florida acquired his DNA post-mortem during his autopsy.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: They got it anyway.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: They sent that sample back to New York, where forensic
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: scientists tested it against the DNA extracted from the nearly
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: full-term baby boy found in the drum.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: And the results were definitive. The DNA was a perfect match.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Howard Elkins was undeniably the father of Raina's unborn child.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: It was finally proven.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: The truth was completely scientifically confirmed, officially closing the criminal investigation.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: The forensic science that Elkins thought he could bury in
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: his backyard finally caught up to him.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: With the killer's fate sealed and the science firmly established,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: there is one final lingering thread to this deep dive.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: And it is the most important one. Returning Raina to
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: her family.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: That's the real closure.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier that Raina used to write letters home
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: to El Salvador constantly, until 1969. For 30 long years,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: her family had absolutely no idea what happened to her.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: They were just left in the dark.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: They didn't know if she started a new life and
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: forgot about them, or if she was dead. They just
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: had 30 years of agonizing silence. But because of the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: incredible work of the forensic team and the detectives in 1999,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Raina's remains were finally released and flown back home to
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: El Salvador.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to a deeply tragic yet poetic conclusion
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: to the story. When Raina's remains arrived in El Salvador,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: her mother was actually still alive.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Wait, really?
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Yes. She was 95 years old.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: That is just astounding.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: She had lived for three decades, with the most painful
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: kind of ambiguity a parent can experience. But because Ronald
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Cohen decided to pry open that heavy rusted drum when
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: he did, this 95-year-old mother was finally able to learn
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: the truth.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: She finally got answers.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: She was able to receive her daughter's remains and give
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: her a proper burial. And the timing is what makes
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: this so poignant. Just one single month after finally laying
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Raina to rest, the mother passed away herself.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: The bittersweet timing of that is almost hard to comprehend.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: It is as if her body and her spirit were
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: just holding on for 30 years, refusing to let go
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: until she knew her daughter was safe and home.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: She just needed to know.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: She survived just long enough to learn the truth, to
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: stand at the gravesite and say goodbye, And then she
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: finally allowed herself to rest. It highlights the vast echoing
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: impact of a single violent act.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: It really does. The ripples are massive.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: The pain of what Howard Elkins did didn't just stay
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: in that New Jersey apartment. It rippled out, spanning decades
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: and thousands of miles, suspending an entire family in grief
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: until the science could finally catch up and speak for Raina.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: It is a profound reminder that forensic science doesn't just
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: solve puzzles. It restores humanity to those who had it
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: violently stripped away.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: It really does. We started this journey looking at a
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: rusted steel drum sitting on a driveway in Long Island,
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: a massive, heavy anomaly of an object that multiple people
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: just walked past, ignored, and accepted as normal because it
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: was easier than asking questions.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: Because of that normalcy bias.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So I want to leave you with a haunting
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: question to ponder as you go about the rest of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: your day. Think about the physical spaces you occupy every
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: single day. The home you live in, the office you
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: work in, the streets you walk down in your neighborhood.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: We take those spaces for granted.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: We assume we know the history of the ground we
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: walk on. But based on what we've learned today about
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: human psychology and what we are willing to ignore, how
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: many unwritten stories, how many forgotten lives are resting quietly
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: just behind the drywall or buried beneath the floorboards, patiently
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: waiting for the right moment to finally be heard?