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Murderers Hiding in Plain Sight · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: September nineteen eighty three. I was in second grade. Friday nights.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: It was the family movie nights. We were up a
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: little bit later than normal, and I remember my stepmother
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Mary stating that she had to run to the restaurant.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I remember pulling the curtain out just a little bit
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: and I just kind of watched her drive off. I
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: don't ever remember doing that before.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: I have, over the years thought.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: About Mary and David and Opie and Monty Enjoy out
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: there in that oil field, and there were just so
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: many unanswered questions of who, why, what kind of monster
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it could have been to do that to them.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: M H.
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: Kilar was, you know, an oil town, a very nice area,
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: wholesome families, everybody kind of knew everybody, and football was
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: a big thing, you know, being in Texas. At Kilwarre
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: KFC restaurant, our biggest day of the week would be
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Friday because before the football games, methods didn't have.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Time to cook.
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: The whole town was busy, busy, busy. Everybody was just
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: gearing up for the big football night. My shift was
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: from eleven to seven. I left and went home.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: And shortly before twelve am, KFC manager Leanne Raspberry is
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: unwinding after her shift when the phone rings.
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: It was from the Kilwell Police Department that they were
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: at the restaurant and that something wasn't right.
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: He arrives at the restaurant police tell Leanne what happened.
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: After she'd punched out. Assistant manager Mary Tyler was about
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: to close up for the night when her daughter, Kim Miller,
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: came by for a visit.
• 3:17
  Speaker 6: When Kim got there, she had noticed the front door
• 3:20
  Speaker 6: being locked, so she went round to the back.
• 3:25
  Speaker 7: The back door was wide open. Then nobody's there.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: My stepsister found the place disarray. She immediately called my
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: dad to see if Mary was at home.
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: At the end of every shift, Mary would deposit the
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: day's cash in the bank.
• 3:52
  Speaker 6: Dad told her Mary wasn't there, and then they both
• 3:56
  Speaker 6: were calling hospitals e murdercy rooms to make sure that
• 3:59
  Speaker 6: there was no accident. Once they found out Mary wasn't
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: in the yard, that's when he said, okay, let's call
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: the police department.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: Mary was a dear friend. We shared a lot of
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: time together at work and we talked a lot on
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: the phone. She was a single mom for several years
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: and she would talk about working extra hours just to
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: have enough to maybe buy something one of the kids
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: needed for school. And she struggled. She struggled, I'm sure
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: because I was a single mom myself. And then married
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: Billy Tyler, and it was so sweet to see him
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: together because she was about five foot two and he
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: was probably six foot two. She just loved it when
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: he came in the restaurant, and he was pretty crazy
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: about her.
• 5:08
  Speaker 6: I don't know what drew my dad and married together,
• 5:11
  Speaker 6: but he said that she was the love of his life.
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: We were from divorced parents, didn't have a mom around
• 5:21
  Speaker 6: for a while.
• 5:23
  Speaker 7: And then Mary come in the picture, and she just
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: it was it was a family.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: She already had three kids of her own, Tony, Him
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: and Bubba. That had no problem taking in two more.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: Mary was as proud of them as if they were
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: her biological children. She would just brag on them and
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: say what neat things they had done. And her son
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: was probably seven at the time. He was handicapped, he
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: had some disabilities, and she just, oh lord, she loved
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: that boy, and he loved his mother.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Even though she'd work a day's shift at the kentuckt
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: of our Chicken, she'd come home and she'd cook a
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: meal and we talked during dinner.
• 6:19
  Speaker 7: She took us uneath her wings, just like we were
• 6:21
  Speaker 7: her own.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: We were hers.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: An officer walked with me through the restaurant. I guess,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: you know, to get a picture of what may have happened.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: All the money had been taken.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Out of the registers, and.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: There was a good bit of blood kind of spattered,
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: and things were scattered like there had been a struggle. Well,
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: the police were curious to know who should be there,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: so we went and looked at the time cards.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: When police checked Mary's time card, they find she hadn't
• 7:14
  Speaker 5: punched out for the night. Neither had her coworkers, twenty
• 7:20
  Speaker 5: year old Joey Johnson and thirty nine year old mother
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: of three Opie Hughes.
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: Their vehicles were there, but they weren't. I just my gut,
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: just you hear people say my heart failed.
• 7:40
  Speaker 7: That's what it was.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: It was fear.
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: Police are about to start a search for the missing
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: employees when a young woman arrives at a She says
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: her husband, David Maxwell, is busy.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: David Maxwell was also an employee of the Kentucky Fry Chicken,
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: was a frat brother with Joey Johnson. Lenna informed law
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: enforcement that David had gone up to the KFC to
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: meet up with Joey when he got off work, along
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: with another frat brother, Monty Landers.
• 8:27
  Speaker 8: David.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Monty had been hanging out in the restaurant waiting for
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Joey to get off.
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: We found out that Money Landers and David Maxwell were
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: also missing.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: I was in disbelief.
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: It was a void, in a hollowness, in a fear
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: for their safety. We waited for them all night at
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: the police station, thinking they're okay, and they're going to
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: get to a phone, and you know they're going to
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: be found.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: An employee of an oil field out in rural.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Rusk County, twelve or so miles from the KFC restaurant,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: he was driving to the wells when he sees four
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: people lying.
• 9:28
  Speaker 9: Next to the road, and so he yells at him
• 9:32
  Speaker 9: to get up, thinking maybe there's just been some sort
• 9:35
  Speaker 9: of party in these people have fallen asleep. He walks
• 9:42
  Speaker 9: up there and realizes that they're dead.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: A man was in rural Rusk County checking his Derek's
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: when he sees four people lying next to the road.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: He goes up to them and discovers that they are
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: all four to seize.
• 10:20
  Speaker 9: Investigators determined fairly quickly that these are the folks who
• 10:24
  Speaker 9: match the description from the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Kilgore.
• 10:28
  Speaker 9: A couple of them were wearing uniforms, but there are
• 10:31
  Speaker 9: only four of them.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: They were in a row from left to right.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: They are identified as Joey, Mary, David, and Monty. They
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: were all lying on their stomachs with their heads on
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: their hands. They were shot in the back of the
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: head or in the back multiple times apiece.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: This was an execution.
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: Police spread up looking for evidence. They soon find the
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: fifth victim, Op Hughes.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: She too was lying on her stomach and was shot
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: multiple times, and the theory was that she had tried
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: to run.
• 11:35
  Speaker 9: And so they called upon the assistance of the Texas Rangers.
• 11:39
  Speaker 9: They are essentially Texas version of the Bureau of Investigation.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: There was very.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Little evidence at the scene, their bodies and the bullets
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: and that was it.
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: Investigators are baffled. Five people brought to a remote oil
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: field twelve miles from where they were abducted, were lined
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: up and murdered. It shocks even the most veteran detectives.
• 12:16
  Speaker 9: Mass murder on that scale in eighty three was just unthinkable.
• 12:22
  Speaker 9: It was just beyond the pale of anything that they
• 12:24
  Speaker 9: had ever envisioned.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: When I found.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: Out what had taken place, I don't even know how.
• 12:36
  Speaker 7: Absorbed it.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: If.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: It was like my world just fell apart. At KFC,
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: we're kind of like family. That was our social life
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: outside of our home, and we had watched each other's
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: children grow up, and we're involved in each other's lives.
• 13:05
  Speaker 7: And I couldn't help but.
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Feel just awful that Mary's children wouldn't ever see her again,
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: and Opie's children, it's just hard to imagine that.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I remember.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: My dad getting a phone call and uh, but I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: remember him going outside and just kind of breaking down
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: on his truck. And then the next thing I remember
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: is kim my stepsister pulling into the driveway and she
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: was in hysterics.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: She couldn't stop her car.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: So I remember someone like kind of slipping into the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: to the driver's side window and like pulling emergency break.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: The investigation starts at the last place all five victims
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: were seeing. The KFC.
• 14:15
  Speaker 9: Texas ranger Glenn Elliott is looking at things and notices
• 14:18
  Speaker 9: the box lid with a distinctive blood spatter pattern. Blood
• 14:22
  Speaker 9: spatter signs is just starting to take off, and he
• 14:25
  Speaker 9: believes that it's high velocity and that somebody's been hit
• 14:28
  Speaker 9: and that blood's moved that way and hit that box lid,
• 14:32
  Speaker 9: and in the back room there's a napkin, and he
• 14:35
  Speaker 9: forms the opinion that was cast off blood, just like
• 14:38
  Speaker 9: somebody had had a bloody nose or something, and so
• 14:41
  Speaker 9: that did interest that ranger, but it didn't necessarily interest
• 14:45
  Speaker 9: most officers at the time. Fingerprint was the science of
• 14:50
  Speaker 9: the day in nineteen eighty three, and so they were
• 14:53
  Speaker 9: really going heavy with fingerprint dust and trying to lift
• 14:56
  Speaker 9: prints from cash register, from the counter, from everywhere.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Each of the five victims was taken to Dallas for autopsy.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: They were able to determine that at least two different
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: weapons were used, a thirty eight and a three point
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: fifty seven, and there could have possibly been a third
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: weapon because there were several different kinds of bullets, so
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: they knew that there were looking for at least two shooters,
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: possibly three.
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: The medical exhibitor begins the autopsies for all five victims.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: When they were doing Joey's autopsy, a fingernail fell out
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: of the waistband of his genes and he did not
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: have any torn fingernails.
• 15:53
  Speaker 9: And the ranger was convinced that this must belong to
• 15:56
  Speaker 9: the killer, and so they're immediately looking for this person
• 16:00
  Speaker 9: who may be missing a fingernail.
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: The day that it actually set in with Denise and
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: I was the day of her funeral.
• 16:19
  Speaker 7: Then we realized Mary is not coming home.
• 16:28
  Speaker 10: I remember David's funeral, carrying his casket, and there's still
• 16:34
  Speaker 10: this disbelief this hadn't happened. I first met David. I
• 16:45
  Speaker 10: can't remember exactly if it was eighth or ninth grade.
• 16:49
  Speaker 10: David was a new guy in school and he was
• 16:52
  Speaker 10: just a laid back guy. He laughed a lot.
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: David was very kind, considerate. He was married to a
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: sweet girl and had just found out that they were
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: pregnant and was over the moon, just living life large.
• 17:16
  Speaker 10: And then I remember the funeral ending. It was back
• 17:20
  Speaker 10: to this, you know, why aren't they doing something? Why
• 17:23
  Speaker 10: hadn't there been an a rest made. The events that
• 17:28
  Speaker 10: happened are almost like an anchor that drew me in
• 17:32
  Speaker 10: the direction of law enforcement. Made a decision to go
• 17:37
  Speaker 10: to the academy to become a police officer.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Law enforcements were talking to all of the ne'er do
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: wells in town. General Mankins Junior was just general league,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: kind of known as one of the local troublemakers. His
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: father was a former state legislator who was very well respected,
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: General Macins Senior, but Junior had problems with the law
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: for a number of years.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: He was a known drug dealer.
• 18:17
  Speaker 9: They bring Jimmy Makin's junior in to be questioned. He
• 18:20
  Speaker 9: willingly comes in does a non custodial interview and they
• 18:25
  Speaker 9: end up examining his hands because they already have the
• 18:29
  Speaker 9: lead of the fingernail.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: And that's when they noticed that the middle finger on
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: his right hand, the fingernail was torn all the way
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: down to the quick.
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: That KFC restaurant reopened, and I was scared, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: you were jumpy and nervous, and several employees quit. I
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: would think about all of them all the time. Often
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: something would trigger a memory. Sometimes somebody will say something
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: funny that makes you think about Joey. He was a prankster,
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: and people saying, oh Joey, you know, And it was
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: extremely hard.
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: As loved ones say their last goodbyes. Detectives got their
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: first solid lead, a missing fingernail of the hand of
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: thirty year old jim Earl Mankin's junior.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Law enforcement took a whole bunch of pictures of his finger,
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: and then they took a clipping of that same finger
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: nail after it had grown out.
• 20:12
  Speaker 9: In nineteen eighty three. The prevailing view in the forensic
• 20:17
  Speaker 9: scientific community was that fingernails were distinctive, just like fingerprints,
• 20:22
  Speaker 9: and they'd be able to look on the underside of
• 20:24
  Speaker 9: the fingernail and see what they refer to astriations through
• 20:26
  Speaker 9: a microscope.
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: Investigators send the clippings to a Dallas lab where texts
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: had compare them to the fingernail found on Joey Johnson
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: during his autopsy. They also dig deeper into Mancoln's.
• 20:44
  Speaker 9: On the date of the murders, Jimmy Mankins Junior just
• 20:49
  Speaker 9: gotten out of jail for unlawfully having a weapon.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: The weapon was confiscated and he borrowed another weapon of
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: thirty eight, as I recall, from one of his friends.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: And there was a thirty eight that was believed to
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: be one of the murder weapons, and the ballistics guys
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: told them I can't say this thirty eight is anymore
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: the gun that killed these people than any other thirty
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: eight on earth, But I mean him having a thirty
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: eight definitely moved him up in the category of people
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: that law enforcement was interested in.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: When this all occurred, there was lots of rumors that
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: drugs were being sold out of like the drive through
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: window at the Kentuctive Fried Chicken, and that someone at
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the restaurant had a drug recipe.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: There were rumors that hidden somewhere inside that KFC was
• 21:47
  Speaker 5: the recipe for high grade methamphetamine.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I had heard that Jimi Mankins wanted the recipe and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that was why it had happened.
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: I joined into this investigation fairly early on because there
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: were thoughts of drug involvement. The agent who worked the
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: case for the FBI was George Keeney.
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: The tips and rumors about Mancons are soon backed up
• 22:15
  Speaker 5: with physical evidence. When those fingernail comparisons come.
• 22:20
  Speaker 9: In, they make a confirmation, Yes, this fingernail clipping that
• 22:25
  Speaker 9: we've discovered matches this known individual.
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: While investigators build their case against Mancons, a tipster offers
• 22:36
  Speaker 5: Texas ranger Glenn Elliott solid information that kickstarts of parallel investigation.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: Star Powers was her name, and on the night of
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: the murders, Star came in to.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: The KFC.
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: Just a few minutes for closing time. She saw an
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: employee on the phone right by the counter, and she
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: heard her say somebody didn't make the deposit to day.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: There's two thousand dollars in here, and Starr remembered thinking
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: to herself, Oh, she shouldn't say that out loud. And
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: she noticed that there were two men immediately behind her,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: and she's thought that they heard the same thing.
• 23:36
  Speaker 9: There's an unusually large amount of money in the restaurant
• 23:39
  Speaker 9: and it certainly would have looked like a quick, easy score.
• 23:43
  Speaker 9: Maybe this is a target of opportunity.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: What starred Powers, This old ranger Elliott was certainly consistent
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: with there being an armed robbery that was maybe just
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: a crime of opportunity.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: Powers describes the men she'd seen at the KFC and
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: the rangers reach out to local police jurisdictions, hoping one
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: of them can identify these men.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: The then Smith County sheriff had a lot of confidential
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: informants in the Smith County jail, and he's the one
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: that developed the lead and took it to the Rangers
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: and said, you need to look at these guys, Darnell
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Hartsfield and Romeo Pinkerton. There was a warren out for it,
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Darnell Hartsfield for committing an armed robbery and Tyler.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Three days after the KFC.
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: The grocery store robbery happened only thirty miles from Kilgore
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: and had striking similarities to the KFC crime.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: It was close to closing time, they had weapons, They
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: got all of the money out of the register, all
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the petty cash money, everywhere they could get money, and
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: they made the women stay lane with their heads on
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: their hands until they got away.
• 25:28
  Speaker 9: The Texas Rangers put together the warning poster that includes
• 25:33
  Speaker 9: Romeo Pinkerton and Darnell Hartsfield wanted for connection and questioning
• 25:38
  Speaker 9: with the Kentucky Fried Chicken robbery.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: There were obviously efforts to question them, but at the
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: time Hartsfield had not been apprehended.
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: Investigators tracked down his presumed accomplice, Romeo Person.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Romeo Pinkerton's alibi is that he was still in prison
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: at the time that happened, so he couldn't have done it.
• 26:10
  Speaker 9: He was only released from prison a couple of days
• 26:13
  Speaker 9: after the KFC robbery and murders.
• 26:25
  Speaker 5: After searching for several weeks, Tyler police find Darnell Hartsfield
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: and charge him with the grocery store robbery.
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: Ranger Dal interviewed Darnall Hartsfield after he was apprehended.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: Though the two crimes are similar, Hartsfield insists he had
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: nothing to do with the KFC murders.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: He polygraphed him as they did with Gosh almost one
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: hundred people probably, and he passed the polygraph and so
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: he was done at that point.
• 27:08
  Speaker 9: So they quit studying him. That just became a dead end.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: All of law enforcement continued to believe that if they
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: kept working at from the Mangans drug angle, eventually things
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: would break open more.
• 27:26
  Speaker 9: There has to be some sort of justification to take
• 27:30
  Speaker 9: the lives of five people. To say that it was
• 27:32
  Speaker 9: a robbery over such a small amount of money seemed
• 27:35
  Speaker 9: so horribly mean.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: They got a ton of tips, things developed from a
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: bunch of different sources, and they all circulated around the
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: idea that it was Mankans. They did all kinds of
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: things to try to develop additional evidence. I mean, there
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: was a period of time Mankins was in prison subsequent
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: to the crime, and they wired a cell made up
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: to get recordings and they never got anything meaningful.
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: The fingernail linking Mankins to the torn nail found on
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: Joey Johnson is the only real evidence beliefs have against
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: mancons and it's not enough to bring a murder charge.
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: The case goes as cold as the barren ground where
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: these five victims were discovered.
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: It was agonizing.
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: Nothing was being accomplished, and Denise and I did what
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: we could. We pushed the issue, call and put write
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: letters and say hey, you know, something's.
• 29:03
  Speaker 7: Got to be done.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: These people were still out there. It could happen to
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: someone else's family.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: On the ten year anniversary of the crime, there was
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of press, a lot of media, and the
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: victims' family members went to the local district attorney and
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: asked him to call in the Attorney General's office for assistance.
• 29:45
  Speaker 7: I called every week.
• 29:46
  Speaker 6: I called twice a week, sometimes three times a week,
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: and I'm sure they got tired of me calling.
• 29:54
  Speaker 8: DA.
• 29:54
  Speaker 9: Kyle Freeman felt a commitment to these families to get
• 29:57
  Speaker 9: the case.
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: Saw can Kyle Freeman es Texas Attorney General Dan Morales
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: for help.
• 30:05
  Speaker 9: Dann Morales makes a commendment to solve in the case,
• 30:08
  Speaker 9: and he does devote a lot of resources.
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: In the ten years since the murders, there have been
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: major advances in forensic science. Investigators will use those advances
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: to take a new look at the fingernail found on
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: Joey Johnson.
• 30:27
  Speaker 10: When you're dealing with evidence, it has to be conclusive,
• 30:30
  Speaker 10: it has to be tangible, and DNA at that time
• 30:35
  Speaker 10: was becoming such a big word.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: The fingernail was submitted to a lab in Dallas for
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: DNA testing that was state of the art at the time,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: and they did get one result that was consistent with Mankins.
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: It's enough for the DA to convene the Grand Journey
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: to weigh the evidence against Bacons.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: They were attempting to reach an indictment for Gimeral Mankins,
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: and I was called as a witness and there was
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: a sense of relief that finally something, you know, something
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: finally good because there had been nothing.
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: Prosecutors take seven weeks to present their evidence to the
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: grand jury, and finally this cold case faws out.
• 31:39
  Speaker 11: Mankins was indicted and booked for the five killings. As
• 31:43
  Speaker 11: investigators gathered enough evidence for prosecutors to convince a jury.
• 31:47
  Speaker 8: He did it.
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: We were finally getting somewhere. It was like it was
• 31:53
  Speaker 6: a beginning to an end.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: Mankins waits in jail for stay in court. Prosecutors hope
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: to strengthen their case against him with ironclad form seek evidence.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Eventually, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology was brought in.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: They were the top of the line, state of the
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: art lab in the world. We were scheduled for a
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: conference call with the lab and we were all around
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: this big table and the DNA analyst got on the
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: phone and she said, okay, I have results, and we
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: were all looking at the speakerphone and she said, yeah,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: it's not as nail.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: You could just hear a pin drop.
• 32:49
  Speaker 10: All of a sudden, the charges are dropped. I remember
• 32:54
  Speaker 10: just being angry. You kind of lay your hope on
• 32:57
  Speaker 10: something and you can begin some process of of of
• 33:02
  Speaker 10: getting some healing of families moving forward.
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: After six months behind bars, Jim Earl Mankins Junior is
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: set free.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Everybody was thinking that because of who his dad was,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: the state representative for the state of Texas, that his
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: daddy was.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: Helping him out of it.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: His dad was keeping stuff hush hush.
• 33:31
  Speaker 8: How are you going to cover something up with FBI agents, with.
• 33:37
  Speaker 12: Texas Rangers, with Aleb Shouman, and then you got County Lywele,
• 33:42
  Speaker 12: and then you got Shitty Lyo.
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: I mean that's a lot of cover. I mean, there's
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: no way the case against Mancin's was based mostly on
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: that finger down, and without it, the case goes cold
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: once more.
• 34:08
  Speaker 6: We just went back to pushing again, calling, writing letters
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: and doing what we could. You know, this day and age,
• 34:18
  Speaker 6: is you know different from back then? Is there anything
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: that y'all could do different now that y'all could have done?
• 34:25
  Speaker 10: When I was elected sheriff in nineteen ninety six, I
• 34:28
  Speaker 10: would think about it off and on. I guess I
• 34:31
  Speaker 10: accepted that it was a cold case. That day I
• 34:36
  Speaker 10: met George Kenney, who was a retired FBI agent. That
• 34:41
  Speaker 10: completely changed, matter of fact, everything changed. I would think
• 35:01
  Speaker 10: about David anytime I drove through Kilgore, every time I
• 35:08
  Speaker 10: saw that KFC, it just brought back thoughts. It just
• 35:15
  Speaker 10: over and over and over again. I just felt a
• 35:18
  Speaker 10: desire for justice. Somebody did this, Somebody needs to pay up.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: Stroud gives the case another jumpstart. He brings in retired
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: FBI agent George Keenan, who'd worked the case back in
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: the nineteen eighties.
• 35:50
  Speaker 10: We agreed the best thing to do was just to
• 35:53
  Speaker 10: take fresh eyes and began looking at everything again.
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: Retired FBI agent George Keeney applies new forensic techniques to
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: old evidence from the restaurant. He tests a bloodstained napkin
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: and the cashier's tape box looking for a link to
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: the killer or killers.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: The blood on the cardboard box that had held the
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: cash registered tape came back to be consistent with a
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: Darnell Hartsfield and the blood on the napkin with Romeo Pinkerton.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: Both men were suspects back in nineteen eighty three, but
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: were cleared.
• 36:46
  Speaker 9: Romeo Pinkerton claimed that he was only released from prison
• 36:51
  Speaker 9: a couple of days after the KFC robbery and murders,
• 36:56
  Speaker 9: and his claim was based on a hurricane that it
• 37:01
  Speaker 9: was not until after this hurricane had gone through, So
• 37:04
  Speaker 9: it made sense in hindsight. You weren't able to check
• 37:07
  Speaker 9: things as quickly back then because there wasn't no Internet.
• 37:11
  Speaker 9: They were able to check the records and he was
• 37:14
  Speaker 9: actually released from prison a couple of days before the
• 37:17
  Speaker 9: KFC murders.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: We had a meeting with all five families shortly after
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: the hits came in, and once I pulled the wanted
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: poster out and showed them, several members of the family
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: started to cry because you saw the realization that these
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: guys had been there all along and we just didn't
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: have the science to prove it.
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: Looking for more investigators take a closer look at the
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: victim's clothing.
• 37:50
  Speaker 9: And that's when they used the black light, and they're
• 37:53
  Speaker 9: able to determine that there appears to be seemen in
• 37:56
  Speaker 9: Opi Hughes's pants.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: That was a huge epiphany for US law enforcement had
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: early on explained away her being away from everybody else
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: by saying, well, she's the one who tried to run.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: Finding out that Opie had been raped, it was like
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: getting hit by train. I never saw that coming, and my.
• 38:30
  Speaker 7: Heart just broke.
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: Opie was the kindless, gentlest person. She wouldn't hurt a
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: flee and it's almost like they took the most innocent.
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: I couldn't even process it for a long time.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: We submitted cuttings from her pants to the lab for
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: DNA analysis. The lab called and said the DNA result
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: doesn't match Pinkerton or Hartsfield.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: We just all looked at each.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Other and just thought, oh God, here we go again.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: There's a third person that's out there.
• 39:24
  Speaker 9: We had a DNA profile, Surely we're going to be
• 39:27
  Speaker 9: able to find this individual.
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: The DNA doesn't match how anyone involved, including Opie's husband
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: or their original suspect, Jim Earle Mankins.
• 39:38
  Speaker 9: Junior, where there was no evidence to time Mankins do it.
• 39:42
  Speaker 9: For so many years, they believe the case is solved.
• 39:45
  Speaker 9: This person did it well, they didn't do it astrauation.
• 39:49
  Speaker 9: Science really didn't hold up in hindsight, and I submit
• 39:53
  Speaker 9: that science has proven incorrect and again took this case
• 39:58
  Speaker 9: down the wrong path for many, many years.
• 40:00
  Speaker 13: Unfortunately, today a russ County grand jury handed down ten
• 40:13
  Speaker 13: capital murder indictments, five each against Darnell Hartsfield and Romeo Pinkerton.
• 40:22
  Speaker 5: To avoid the death fedally, Binkerton takes a deal and
• 40:27
  Speaker 5: pleads guilty to five counts of murder. The judge hands
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: down five life sentences. Hartsfield decides to take his chances
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: with a jury. During his trial, prosecutors described what they
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: believe happened on that horrible night back in nineteen eighty three.
• 40:50
  Speaker 9: I believe they were there as customers in the restaurant
• 40:52
  Speaker 9: and they overhear that the deposit hadn't been made. They
• 40:57
  Speaker 9: go out to make a quick, easy score by coming
• 41:00
  Speaker 9: back when the restaurant closes up and Joey Johnson, the
• 41:04
  Speaker 9: cook that night, he's taking out the trash in the back,
• 41:07
  Speaker 9: and force him back into the restaurant to let him in,
• 41:11
  Speaker 9: and somehow inside ends up being a struggle in the restaurant.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: And that's where it was a robbery that just went bad.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: And I think that felt like they had no choice
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: but to eliminate the victims.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Darnell Harsfield was.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Convicted of all five capital murders and he was sends
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: to life in prison for capital murder. Efforts to identify
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: the third person are ongoing.
• 42:00
  Speaker 9: Any people over the years have made a commitment that
• 42:02
  Speaker 9: until they leave this world, they will keep searching for
• 42:05
  Speaker 9: the truth and for that final person.
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: Yes they've gotten two, okay, but there's still a part
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: of us that's not able to move forward because there's
• 42:17
  Speaker 6: no closure.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: It hurts. It's not one each individual victim I think
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: of him. It's sort of like a family. They each
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: had each other that night, and so when the hues
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: don't have that closure. We don't have that closure, but
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it's coming. It may not be today, may not even
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: be tomorrow or week from now, but it's coming.
• 43:10
  Speaker 8: Bruce was my brother. He's my youngest brother. Me and
• 43:14
  Speaker 8: my brother were close. We were type.
• 43:19
  Speaker 14: Bruce is not the type of person to just go
• 43:21
  Speaker 14: off and not let anybody know where he was going
• 43:24
  Speaker 14: and what he was doing. The fear started to set
• 43:29
  Speaker 14: in when I had not heard from my brother. The
• 43:35
  Speaker 14: police are looking to see if there was anything that
• 43:38
  Speaker 14: may have caused him to disappear.
• 43:42
  Speaker 8: They can't find him.
• 43:45
  Speaker 14: Nobody wants to feel somebody that they love to be
• 43:48
  Speaker 14: discarded like that.
• 43:51
  Speaker 8: I wasn't going to let him go like that.
• 43:54
  Speaker 14: He didn't deserve this, and I just kept at it,
• 43:58
  Speaker 14: at it, at it, added it and giving up on
• 44:02
  Speaker 14: him is like maybe giving up on myself.
• 44:07
  Speaker 8: I was going to find out what happened to my brother.
• 44:40
  Speaker 12: New York City is the place where people come to
• 44:42
  Speaker 12: realize their ambitions, their hopes, and their dreams.
• 44:46
  Speaker 8: It is the land opportunity. It's where things happen.
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: It's Monday morning and fifty five year old Bruce Blackwood
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: does something unusual, at least for him. He calls into
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: the off track betting parlor he manages and tells him
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: he will be coming in.
• 45:13
  Speaker 15: It was a very brief call. The person that took
• 45:15
  Speaker 15: the phone call said, Bruce said, I slipped and fell
• 45:18
  Speaker 15: in the bathtub.
• 45:19
  Speaker 16: I have to go to the hospital.
• 45:21
  Speaker 15: I can't make it into work. I was worried about him.
• 45:26
  Speaker 17: Bruce Blackwood work as a manager at the OTB and
• 45:30
  Speaker 17: Queen's out of O'Neill's. He had never missed the day's work.
• 45:36
  Speaker 18: They were very concerned, especially for the fact that he
• 45:39
  Speaker 18: mentioned that he hit his head. Just didn't seem right
• 45:43
  Speaker 18: at all.
• 45:45
  Speaker 15: When I heard that, Bruce called it sick. I immediately called Bruce.
• 45:51
  Speaker 15: When he didn't pick up the first time, I figured, okay,
• 45:53
  Speaker 15: maybe he just didn't get to the phone. The second time,
• 45:56
  Speaker 15: I was telling him, Bruce, it's Tina, pick up, it's me.
• 46:01
  Speaker 15: The third time, the fourth fifth, I said, something's wrong.
• 46:08
  Speaker 15: He always picks up for me.
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: Bruce never picks up or calls back. The next day,
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: he again fails to show up for work. Even his
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: close friends can't get in touch with him.
• 46:31
  Speaker 15: I was at on attorney to leave, but Bruce and
• 46:33
  Speaker 15: I would talk to each other at least two or
• 46:36
  Speaker 15: three times a day. After not hearing from him for
• 46:41
  Speaker 15: a couple of days, I was in a complete panic.
• 46:44
  Speaker 7: He was just gone.
• 46:48
  Speaker 14: A friend of his told me that she had not
• 46:51
  Speaker 14: heard from Bruce, and did I hear from Bruce within
• 46:55
  Speaker 14: those two days? And I said no, Something may have
• 46:59
  Speaker 14: happened to Bruce. Because Bruce is not that type of
• 47:03
  Speaker 14: a person to just go off and not let anybody
• 47:06
  Speaker 14: know where he was going and what he was doing.
• 47:09
  Speaker 8: The fear started to set in.
• 47:13
  Speaker 12: No one had heard from him, so it was a
• 47:18
  Speaker 12: missing person's case, and his brother went to police.
• 47:29
  Speaker 18: We received an official missing person's report on March ninth,
• 47:34
  Speaker 18: which was three days after he called him sick.
• 47:36
  Speaker 8: At that point.
• 47:39
  Speaker 15: When made this missing person's report, I knew it was
• 47:43
  Speaker 15: very serious. That was scary. It was like reality hit.
• 47:50
  Speaker 15: I felt like I was going to jump out of
• 47:53
  Speaker 15: my skin. I prayed that he was okay.
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: The next morning, detectives in Queens launch an intensive search
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: for the missing man.
• 48:11
  Speaker 18: The first and foremost thing is to interview the person
• 48:13
  Speaker 18: who is reporting the individual missing, and in this case
• 48:17
  Speaker 18: it was Bruce.
• 48:18
  Speaker 19: Black was his brother ed.
• 48:22
  Speaker 14: And we grew up together in Queens in high school.
• 48:27
  Speaker 14: Bruce He played the clarinet for the band. He sang
• 48:31
  Speaker 14: in a glee club. He was very much involved in
• 48:36
  Speaker 14: different types of organizations.
• 48:39
  Speaker 8: Bruce is very friendly. I me and my brother were close.
• 48:45
  Speaker 14: I mean we were tight, and Bruce always had a
• 48:49
  Speaker 14: lending hand.
• 48:51
  Speaker 8: He helped my mother out quite a lot.
• 48:56
  Speaker 15: When I was pregnant, Bruce would come over and rubbed
• 49:00
  Speaker 15: my belly and it's it. I can't wait till you
• 49:03
  Speaker 15: have this baby. I can't wait to hold him. I
• 49:07
  Speaker 15: said to Bruce, you're going to make a great uncle.
• 49:10
  Speaker 15: He was so excited.
• 49:15
  Speaker 8: He was a very giving person. Can listen to you.
• 49:19
  Speaker 8: He could always talk to my brother about anything. He
• 49:22
  Speaker 8: would come through. He'd be here for you. Now my
• 49:26
  Speaker 8: brother was missing, I'm left out.
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: In a call, detectives learned Bruce was well off at
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: the least on paper, with real estate holdings worth hundreds
• 49:41
  Speaker 5: of thousands of dollars. His hard work over nearly four
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: decades helped cement his financial security.
• 49:49
  Speaker 14: Bruce worked for the airlines for thirty years as flight attendant,
• 49:54
  Speaker 14: and at that time, being a flight attendant was like
• 49:58
  Speaker 14: star quality, you know what I mean. Then TWA went
• 50:03
  Speaker 14: out of business OTV. He just went for a cashier
• 50:10
  Speaker 14: all the way up to a manager.
• 50:14
  Speaker 15: Bruce loved to work. Bruce's life was work. He then
• 50:20
  Speaker 15: got into the real estate. He wanted to invest in
• 50:23
  Speaker 15: buying property, and when he was retired, he wanted to
• 50:27
  Speaker 15: be able to just live a comfortable life. He was
• 50:30
  Speaker 15: a go getter.
• 50:33
  Speaker 12: Bruce Blackwood was a striver, a hard working New York
• 50:36
  Speaker 12: guy who took what little money he had and bought
• 50:40
  Speaker 12: run down properties and turned them into apartments.
• 50:49
  Speaker 5: After Bruce's brother ed reports Bruce missing, he then begins
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: his own search.
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: I went to the building I owned in Bushwood.
• 51:00
  Speaker 14: I got a group together that consisted of family friends,
• 51:05
  Speaker 14: and I've made up a picture of my brother and
• 51:08
  Speaker 14: wrote out had anybody seen him?
• 51:11
  Speaker 8: And we went into that area, passed it out.
• 51:13
  Speaker 14: Posters went into the stores, nailed them up on the trees,
• 51:20
  Speaker 14: stop people in the street.
• 51:22
  Speaker 8: That's what he did.
• 51:27
  Speaker 12: They do what they always do in New York. They
• 51:30
  Speaker 12: post flyers everywhere and they go door to door trying
• 51:34
  Speaker 12: to get any lead about where he might be. But
• 51:39
  Speaker 12: they found nothing.
• 51:45
  Speaker 5: Detectives meanwhile search Bruce's home looking for clues.
• 51:52
  Speaker 18: Detectives from my office responded to mister Blackwood's residents in
• 51:56
  Speaker 18: Queen's Mister Blackwood's kind of like suv was standing in
• 52:01
  Speaker 18: his driveway. He had nice things, nice house.
• 52:07
  Speaker 17: We searched the house to make sure he hadn't fallen
• 52:10
  Speaker 17: or something happened to him inside the house. There was
• 52:13
  Speaker 17: nothing they had to find out where he was and
• 52:17
  Speaker 17: there was no signs of any foul play.
• 52:20
  Speaker 18: We didn't have any physical evidence even to say that
• 52:23
  Speaker 18: this was a crime. He wasn't on any types of medication,
• 52:28
  Speaker 18: he wasn't depressed, he didn't have any financial problems that
• 52:30
  Speaker 18: we were aware of. There was no reason why he
• 52:33
  Speaker 18: would be missing.
• 52:38
  Speaker 14: I mean, it was like you're watching a movie and
• 52:41
  Speaker 14: to say, is this happening to me? I don't feel
• 52:45
  Speaker 14: that he had any kind of enemies that would cause
• 52:48
  Speaker 14: him to disappear.
• 52:54
  Speaker 18: All roads led us to believe that there was definitely
• 52:57
  Speaker 18: something nefarious had been done.
• 53:02
  Speaker 17: There was definitely foul play involved, but we didn't know what.
• 53:09
  Speaker 8: Basically, he fell off the face.
• 53:10
  Speaker 18: Of the earth.
• 53:22
  Speaker 8: My brother was missing. We had not heard from him.
• 53:26
  Speaker 14: They say that if they're not found within two to
• 53:29
  Speaker 14: three days, then the outlook doesn't look good.
• 53:45
  Speaker 18: When we received the official missing persons report, mister Blackwood
• 53:49
  Speaker 18: had already been missing for four days. We tried tracking
• 53:53
  Speaker 18: his missing cell phone. Unfortunately, his cell phone was already
• 53:56
  Speaker 18: powered off and there was no way of obtaining his location.
• 54:00
  Speaker 18: We subpoened his cell phone for cell phone records.
• 54:03
  Speaker 17: We had an all hands on deck. I was a
• 54:06
  Speaker 17: homicide investigator at the time and worked in a one
• 54:09
  Speaker 17: thirteen precinct for a long time. We do a Morgue
• 54:14
  Speaker 17: search check for car accidents. Unfortunately, in this case, he
• 54:19
  Speaker 17: had just disappeared off the face of the earth.
• 54:24
  Speaker 18: Nobody had a bad thing to say about men. He
• 54:27
  Speaker 18: was loved by all.
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: Detectives. Interview employees at the off track betting parlor that
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: Bruce benaged.
• 54:39
  Speaker 17: He handled the money to the OTB. Back then, the
• 54:43
  Speaker 17: OTV in the city was making a lot of money
• 54:47
  Speaker 17: and people could bet on horses in the bar. He
• 54:50
  Speaker 17: was responsible for the safe, so we needed to check
• 54:55
  Speaker 17: to make sure someone didn't rob them or hold them.
• 54:59
  Speaker 17: Maybe we try to take money from the OTV.
• 55:03
  Speaker 18: We spoke to everybody to try to gain more information.
• 55:07
  Speaker 18: Nobody knew anything additional.
• 55:10
  Speaker 14: Those are crazy damblers, but he never led me to
• 55:15
  Speaker 14: believe that they might be a customer that might be after.
• 55:19
  Speaker 8: Him or anything. Like that.
• 55:22
  Speaker 17: We went down every avenue possible to see if there
• 55:26
  Speaker 17: was any other potential people who may have been involved
• 55:31
  Speaker 17: in Bruce's disappearance. We turned up nothing.
• 55:35
  Speaker 18: Nothing made sense, Nothing jumped off the page as to why.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: Who investigators ask the public to help them find Bruce Blackwood.
• 55:48
  Speaker 17: We had the Missing Person Squad print up missing posters.
• 55:53
  Speaker 17: We distributed him to every precinct in the city, all
• 55:56
  Speaker 17: seventy five of them. We also flooded the nameihborhood where
• 56:01
  Speaker 17: Bruce resided and the locations where he owned the property
• 56:05
  Speaker 17: in the Bronx.
• 56:06
  Speaker 8: And in Brooklyn.
• 56:09
  Speaker 18: Sometimes witnesses come forward, I've seen that individual, I last
• 56:13
  Speaker 18: saw him here, I heard about this and things of
• 56:16
  Speaker 18: that nature.
• 56:18
  Speaker 17: Unfortunately, we didn't develop any leads from the missing posters,
• 56:25
  Speaker 17: so we are very concerned, but we never turned our
• 56:27
  Speaker 17: backs on anybody.
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: Police questioned tenants in the buildings Blackwood owned. If he's
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: met with foul play and not just missing, a tenant
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: might be to blame.
• 56:49
  Speaker 12: Police obviously hit neighbors, tenants, particularly tenants, because if he's
• 56:54
  Speaker 12: going to have any kind of conflict, it's going to
• 56:55
  Speaker 12: be with tenants, people who don't pay the rent, people
• 56:58
  Speaker 12: who complain and threatened lawsuits of people who might be
• 57:02
  Speaker 12: conceivable enemies.
• 57:06
  Speaker 17: I went to the Hancock Street address in Brooklyn to
• 57:10
  Speaker 17: interview the tenants that live in a building and the
• 57:12
  Speaker 17: handyman slash super. He lived in the apartment on the
• 57:16
  Speaker 17: third floor. He invited us in. We went up to
• 57:20
  Speaker 17: his apartment on the third floor.
• 57:23
  Speaker 18: The hand the man told detectives that he saw mister
• 57:26
  Speaker 18: Blackwood on Tuesday, the following day, which would be March seventh.
• 57:32
  Speaker 17: Bruce had arrived at the house at about nine thirty
• 57:35
  Speaker 17: ten o'clock in the morning. They discussed renovations that were
• 57:39
  Speaker 17: being done, and Bruce had told him that he had
• 57:43
  Speaker 17: to take a ride somewhere to run some errands.
• 57:47
  Speaker 18: At some point, he heard a horn beeping outside and
• 57:50
  Speaker 18: mister Blackwood told him that his friend Michael Mike was outside.
• 57:55
  Speaker 18: He then observed mister Blackwood leave the building and entered
• 57:59
  Speaker 18: a Toyota cameras and drove off with this individual.
• 58:05
  Speaker 17: The handyman didn't know who Mike was, never saw him before,
• 58:09
  Speaker 17: and that was the last time that he had seen
• 58:12
  Speaker 17: mister Blackwood.
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: Detectives sweep the Brooklyn neighborhood looking for video of the
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: black car.
• 58:23
  Speaker 17: We checked the immediate area of the video cameras. It
• 58:27
  Speaker 17: was a supermarket directly across the street, but the video
• 58:32
  Speaker 17: cameras that they had were not working properly.
• 58:37
  Speaker 15: I could not think of one person that Bruce ever
• 58:41
  Speaker 15: mentioned to me with the name Mike. There were a
• 58:45
  Speaker 15: couple of coworkers named Mike at work, but no one
• 58:49
  Speaker 15: that Bruce was friendly with on that level.
• 58:54
  Speaker 12: All cops had was Bruce Blackwood was last seen with
• 58:57
  Speaker 12: a guy named Mike in a car, But Mike could
• 59:01
  Speaker 12: be anybody.
• 59:03
  Speaker 17: We needed to find out who Mike was immediately. We
• 59:08
  Speaker 17: were running out of time. We tried to locate this guy.
• 59:23
  Speaker 17: Mike is the only leader at that time. We immediately
• 59:29
  Speaker 17: went out and did canvases through the neighborhood.
• 59:33
  Speaker 18: Nobody knew any individual by the name of Mike with
• 59:36
  Speaker 18: a black Toyota Camry, and certainly didn't know anybody that
• 59:39
  Speaker 18: mister Blackwood would just go with without letting anybody know.
• 59:43
  Speaker 18: We were unsuccessful coming up with any Mike's We just.
• 59:47
  Speaker 17: Could not find him.
• 59:49
  Speaker 8: It really bothered me.
• 59:51
  Speaker 17: Bruce Blackwood was an upstanding citizen, did everything right his
• 59:54
  Speaker 17: whole entire life. What happened to mister.
• 59:58
  Speaker 14: Blackwood not knowing about whether my brother was alive or
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 14: dead is the the.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 8: Hardest thing to grasp.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 14: I felt that something would show up eventually, and I
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 14: was just hoping that the best would show up, you know,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 14: not the worst.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 18: Mister Blackwood was not an individual that would go off
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 18: the grid for several days. There was no reason for
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 18: other than something must have happened to him for him
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 18: to disappear like this. We believed mister Blackwood was no
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 18: longer with us, and it was extremely frustrating not being
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 18: able to find any physical evidence to indicate that he
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 18: was in fact a victim of a homicide.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: Bruce's friends tell detectives they'd recently seen a change in
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 5: his behavior.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 15: Right before I went on maternity, I knew something was wrong.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 15: Bruce was very anxious. He was very moody. He didn't
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 15: want to talk, and that was not like him. He said, yeah,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 15: everything's fine, everything's okay. As his friend, I just felt like, okay,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 15: I'm going to respect his privacy.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 17: Bruce Blackwood had a very good friend who lived in Pennsylvania,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 17: and he would come up and visit him every other weekend.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 18: He had been staying with him for the weekend prior
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 18: to him. Last being seen, this individual had told us
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 18: that mister Blackwood down Edge and there was something bothering him.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 18: At some point during the day, mister Blackwood just got
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 18: very angry and agitated and started staying stuff like I
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 18: don't know why I got involved with these individuals.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 17: His friend questioned him on it, trying to get him
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 17: to give him some information, and he refused. He just
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 17: wouldn't say who he was actually talking about.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: Detectives speak to a friend of Bruce's who says she
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: went looking for him at his Brooklyn building even before
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: he was reported missing. There was no sign of Bruce,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: but she did see something alarming.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 18: At the time of mister Blackwood's disappearance one of his
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 18: best friends, she observed the hand the man Louis Perez
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 18: driving mister Blackwood's kind of lac s and V.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 17: She immediately flagged down a police cart she saw going
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 17: by and relayed the information that Bruce Blackwood owns that
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 17: car and that he would not have given it to
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 17: anybody else.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 18: The office has actually conducted a car stop and spoke
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 18: to mister Perez. Yes, this is my boss's car. Mister
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 18: Blackwood asked me to hold onto the car for him
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 18: and move it for alternate side of the street.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 12: We have alternative side parking in New York and you
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 12: have to move your car you're to the other side
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 12: of the street once twice a week, some neighborhoods every day,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 12: So it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 12: handyman to move someone's car.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 17: The explanation that Lewis Perez gave us was very legitimate
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 17: because alternate side the street was in effect for that
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 17: whole week.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: Looking for a solid lead detectives interview, one of Bruce's neighbors.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 18: Spoke to a neighborhood recalled a weekend right before mister
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 18: Blackwood went missing that he observed mister Blackwood involved in
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 18: an argument with two individuals standing in his driveway. Describe
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 18: both individuals as being male Hispanics. One of the males
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 18: he recognized from doing work on mister Blackwood's house, and
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 18: he believed that he was an employee and the handyman
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 18: for mister Blackwood. He stated that the altercation became heated.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 18: Both men appeared very agitated. He overheard mister black would
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 18: say something to the effect that it wasn't supposed to
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 18: cost this much money. That's not what we agreed on.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 18: The argument was definitely over money. As we all know,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 18: money could be the root of all evil. Money can
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 18: destroy friendships, it could destroy families. So this argument definitely
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 18: raised our suspicions a lot because we were looking for
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 18: a motive for mister Blackwood's disappearance, and money appeared to
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 18: be a very viable motive.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 8: At this point.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 18: Mister Blackwood was doing very well for himself, drove a
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 18: fancy car, had several properties, and money did provide us
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 18: a motive for why he was murdered. So at this
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 18: point we were looking very much into his handyman, Lewis Perez,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 18: being a suspect.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: With money as the possible motive, Detectives looked more closely
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 5: at Bruce Blackwood's finances.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 17: I personally went to the American Airlines credit union and
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 17: that's when we realized Bruce had been to that credit
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 17: union to report that he was missing thirteen checks.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 18: A total of thirteen personal checks that were fraudulently signed,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 18: all towards checks. Twelve of those checks were written out
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 18: to Lewis Perez and one check was written out to
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 18: mordern Ronriguez, an individual Lewis Perez basically hired to do
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 18: work at Hancock Street. The total amount for all thirteen
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 18: Ford checks was seven seven hundred dollars.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 17: Lewis Perez was somehow involved, but unfortunately we had a
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 17: wait on subpoenas to the banks, to the credit union
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 17: to prove it.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 12: Blackwood, he's a small investor, and seven seven hundred dollars
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 12: is a great deal of money to a blue collar
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 12: worker who's trying to make good.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 14: My brother became very suspicious about the checks, so he
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 14: knew that something was going on with Perez.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 5: Detectives dig into Lewis Peres's record.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 17: It was shocking. He spent ten years in jail in
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 17: Massachusetts attempting to kill his daughter and the mother of
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 17: the child. State troopers actually stopped him and he stabbed
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 17: one up State troopers.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: Weeks after detectives asked for Bruce's phone records, they finally arrive.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: They go over his calls, including the one he made
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 5: to otb Bruce had said he'd slipped in the bathtub
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: and couldn't come to work.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 18: We were able to triangulate that call and he was
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 18: hitting off a cell phone tower approximately two blocks away
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 18: from the Hancock Street location. We believed that he was
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 18: actually inside and that he was with Lewis Perez.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 5: Detectives can't prove Bruce was murdered, but they do have
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 5: proof someone had been stealing from him.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 18: We received copies of all the forged checks. Handwriting analysis
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 18: was able to determine that Lewis Perez did write those
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 18: checks out. Louis Perez was arrested and was charged with
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 18: multiple counts of grand lawsony and forgery. He also secured
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 18: a warrant for the Hancock Street residents where we believe
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 18: mister Blackwood was murdered. We had extreme high hopes of
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 18: finding any kind of physical evidence inside that residence linking
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 18: Lewis Perez to the murder, DNA, blood, weapons, knives, things
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 18: of that nature. Our crime scene unit ripped up carpeting,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 18: they removed drain pipes, traps in the sinks, and the
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 18: shower and bathtub.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 17: Unfortunately, there was nothing there that they found that could
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 17: help in our investigation. So it was very disheartening and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 17: very upsetting to everybody who was involved. I was very dejected.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: Louis Perez pleads guilty to passing and fraudulent checks.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 17: We put Louis Perez in jail for at least two
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 17: to four years, and he probably was going to do
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 17: all four because of his past criminal history.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 12: But all this proves that these guys were stealing from Blackwood,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 12: and this still is a missing person's case.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 15: It was upsetting to think that Louis Perez would only
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 15: get two to four years for forgery when he definitely
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 15: had something to do with Bruce's disappearance.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 7: But they had no evidence.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: Police have no evidence, no witnesses, and no body proving
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 5: Bruce was murdered. The case of his disappearance was his
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: cold as the deep waters of the East River.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 18: So unfortunately we were at a standstill. Mister Perez was incarcerated,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 18: and is the case to become cold.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 16: At that point, I.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 15: Never thought that this case was ever going to get solved.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 7: There was nothing.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 14: So I said to myself, I'm not going to let
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 14: my brother die like this. I'm not going this is
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 14: a hell of a way for him to go out.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 14: He didn't deserve this. Giving up on him is like
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 14: maybe giving up on myself. You know, I would find
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 14: out really what happened to my brother. They had determined
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 14: that it was a cold case. They couldn't go any further.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 14: Nobody wants to feel somebody that they love to be
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 14: discarded like that.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 8: I wasn't going to let him go like that. I
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 8: was going to find out who killed my brother.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 18: If somebody murdered a family member of mine and nobody
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 18: was held accountable, that would destroy me, my family, anybody's family.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 15: Brusus brother Ed never gave up. He was not letting
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 15: this go. He wanted justice to be served.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 14: I just kept at it, at it, at it, at
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 14: it again.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 12: And my PD has really countless cold cases, and they
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 12: only hear people who keep trying. And that's what I Blackwood.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 5: Did do you appearent?
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 13: Take one Mark.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 17: I retired in two thousand and eight, but I became
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 17: friends with that over the years. Ed told me he
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 17: was gonna try to get a hold of news agencies,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 17: TV networks, somebody who would show a little interest in
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 17: his brother's disappearance.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 14: I was reading an article from this Daily News reporter.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 14: I thought it was well done, so I said, what
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 14: the hell did I have to lose?
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 8: He reached out to the Daily News.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 17: An investigator reporter took up the story and pursued it.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 12: I hit the streets and started climbing stairs and knocking
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 12: doors like detectives do, trying to find folks who remembered
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 12: Bruce Blackwood, and much to my surprise, five years later
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 12: people did.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 5: The Daily News reporter goes looking for Lewis Perez, the
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 5: man convicted of stealing over seven thousand dollars from Bruce Blackwood,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 5: who is now out of prison and back on the street.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 14: Perez was the key point in my brother's death. I
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 14: felt that very strongly.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 12: But Louis Perez was like a ghost. I turned my
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 12: attention to trying to find him, but this guy moved
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 12: around a lot. Eventually I got on my phone and
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 12: he basically denied everything. On Matt sixth, we ran the
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 12: story and it got a kind of response that was remarkable.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 17: It was in the Sunday paper and it was a
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 17: big article. They had interviewed me and I told him
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 17: that this case still haunted me, and I felt I
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 17: didn't do my job. I didn't finish what I started.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 8: In one police plaza.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 14: They didn't want to have any bad publicity going on,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 14: and that's when they reopened.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 8: Up the case.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 20: Take one Mark I was the first grade detective at
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 20: the time in the NYPD cold case squad. We only
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 20: focus on homicide. I'm reading the articles in the newspaper.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 20: A few days go by and I'm getting summons to
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 20: one police plaza by the Chief of Detectives and the
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 20: police Commission, along with my boss, and they're telling me
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 20: that I am going to take this cold case. It's
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 20: my job as a detective to look at every single piece.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 20: I want to see everything a while, all of a sudden,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 20: this man would just go missing. We checked everything, Everything
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 20: led back to Paris. But when you can't even find
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 20: a body, and if you don't have that one witness,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 20: you have nothing.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: Weeks into the investigation, the detective gets contacted by an
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 5: unexpected source.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 20: Was Louis Perez's daughter. She proceeded to tell me what
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 20: she knew about this case. She says, he's going to
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 20: do something like that again. She was so afraid of him,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 20: but she was afraid for the well being of her
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 20: daughter that she decided to come forward.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 21: She was willing to come forward with this evidence because
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 21: she did not want him near her or near her kids.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 5: She goes.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 20: He talks about it all the time because it's like
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 20: a trophy to him about how he got away with
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 20: killing this man, and I feel bad, you know, for
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 20: that man's family. I asked her would she be willing
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 20: to record him talking about it. We had a mini
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 20: recorder that we gave her. She can seclude it any
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 20: place she wanted.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 17: Now.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 20: I instructed to listen, don't bring it up. Let him talk.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 20: If he's gonna talk, he talks. But I don't need
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 20: you prompting him to do anything.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 21: What she did it was very risky, very risky because
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 21: he is a terrible man. I think there is a
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 21: part of her that realized that her father was pure evil.
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 20: He talked about how he could do the perfect crime
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 20: and no one would ever find out.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 17: And in that conversation it was Perez in detail told
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 17: her how he had killed Bruce Blackwood in that apartment.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 8: She probably couldn't live with somebody who had killed someone.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 8: That's the only way I could think of her.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 12: The fact that she came forward is astounding. I didn't
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 12: see that happening.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 15: I couldn't believe it. I said, our prayers are finally answered.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 5: But the recordings alone may not be enough to convict
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 5: Lewis Perez.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 20: What he said on that record is not really a confession.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 20: Any defense attorney and be like, yeah, you know, look
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 20: at him. He's a bragged, you know, big guy in
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 20: the streets. And we knew, and the DA said it too.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 20: You're going to have to bring in whatever witnesses you
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 20: can find that can corroborate that tape.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 7: There was no body.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 21: The body in itself is such a big piece of
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 21: evidence in a murder case. From a prosecutor standpoint, that
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 21: is a very, very tough case and not a case
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 21: that is brought often at all.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 12: It's almost unprecedented that someone's convicted a homicide without a body.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 12: There is no crime without a victim.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 21: The defense attorney could stand up and say, we don't
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 21: know what happens to Bruce Blackwood, and.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 16: That could have convinced a jury.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 7: There's always that fear.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 21: We knew Lewis Perez killed Bruce Blackwood, we knew that
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 21: he had gotten rid of his body, and that he
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 21: had done a good job in getting rid of it.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 21: There was no forensic evidence whatsoever, meaning not even a
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 21: blood trail, nobody, not even a piece of a body. Still,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 21: I secured an indictment and Detective Strafford went out and
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 21: arrested Lewis press.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 5: By the start of the murdered trial, police locate some
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 5: key witnesses, including Wherez's former helper.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 20: Martin Rodriguez. This little, squirrely, mousey type of guy who
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 20: couldn't hurt a fly, who scared to death that Perez
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 20: was out.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 8: To get him aarin.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 20: Rodriguez was Perez's flunky for want of a better word,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 20: because that's exactly.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 8: What he was.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 21: Martin Rodriguez got on the stand and that's how we
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 21: got a lot of insight into what happens to Bruce Blackwood.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 21: It was very clear that Martin Rodriguez had nothing to
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 21: do with the murder of Bruce Blackwood.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 5: Fourteen days into the trial, res his daughter takes the
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 5: stem to reveal what her father told her.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 21: She testified to what her dad had told her. Then gruesome,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 21: terrible details everything that he did to Bruce Blackwood, but
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 21: the jury needed to hear the recording his own voice.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 21: He said that Bruce had found out he had been
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 21: stealing checks from him, and Perez said.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 5: One used to come to get me andress me so enough.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 8: Because I tied him to a chair.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 6: And awesome, then he put them on the joke and
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 6: then he put him to sleep like this, you know, I.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 5: Just I use joke that you hard man.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 21: He then said that he knew he had to get
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 21: rid of.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: Him plastic that I put down.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 5: It's a consumption plastic, but you would kick plastic.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 21: And then he went to work his words. He went
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 21: to work on his body.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 7: He used a saw. He used a machete.
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 8: Yeah, the sachetti.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 5: I had to because when I found he fall so
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 5: on the skin.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 7: It would just you'll just still making a lot of manks.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 18: Something into the game, and I think he slash take
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 18: the chicken and a shelf chat.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 20: He used bleach to clean out the drains.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 7: I cleared that whole name.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 8: He used to more than everything.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 5: How he's gone was back with the Bob Union everything.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 18: When he was gone, when.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 20: He paid several homeless people, they didn't know what they
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 20: were doing, and they just deposited the bags that had
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 20: mister blackwoods remains in different locations so that they would
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 20: be picked up by sanitation.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 5: Looking to strengthen their case, prosecutors called Perez's former girlfriend
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 5: and neighbor to this dead.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 18: She goes into Perez's farman and she says, where's mister Blackwood.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 18: I heard the police have been here, and Perez says,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 18: don't worry about mister Blackwood. He's gone. I went to
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 18: work on his body. He's not coming back. And he
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 18: had some type of electrical sore or a power saw
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 18: on top of the table, dismantled in several pieces, and
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 18: he was placing them inside.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 8: A garbage bag.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 18: He told her, if you tell anybody, I'll kill you.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 18: I'll kill your family. Keep your mouth shut.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 21: She was crucial to my case because I think the
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 21: jury needed to believe that a whole body has disappeared.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 7: It makes it more real.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 5: After the three week trial, the jury begins deliberating.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 15: I was worried thinking that Louis Perez might go free
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 15: because there was no evidence and there was no body.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 21: The jury deliberated for less than three hours and they
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 21: found him guilty of murder in the second degree at
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 21: black But broke down in the courtroom and then he left.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 14: I didn't have a body to bury.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 8: My brother was.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 14: Chopped up, and for him to be stuffed in bags
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 14: like he was a piece of gog, to be destroyed
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 14: like that, you know, I mean that hurt really, really tremendously.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 21: Lewis Perez was sentenced to twenty five to life, and
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 21: that was the maximum sentence that was allowable under the law.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 7: So there is some justice.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 21: There is there justice for Bruce Blackwood. No, the way
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 21: he was tragically taken, the way his remains were desecrated,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 21: there's no justice in that.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 17: I was a detective for over twenty years. I have
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 17: seen some brutal crimes, but this was the worst.
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 15: It's been years since this happened. But I know if
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 15: he was here, we would still be friends. Bruce would
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 15: have made a great uncle. He would have been so
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 15: involved and so loving to my son. I miss Bruce tremendously.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 14: I've lost my brother, someone that I had loved, that
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 14: my confident on and you can't replace that. I can
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 14: never replace that. That's all I can say is I
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 14: miss him a lot. I missed my brother a lot.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 22: At eighty seven years old, Dad took good care of himself.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 16: He was still active.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 22: He was always tinkering or working on a car or
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 22: adding on our house. He was involved with sons and
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 22: daughters of Pearl Harbor survivors. He would take veterans to appointments,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 22: even you know, in his eighties he did that. He
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 22: just had a good heart. Everything changed that day. It
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 22: didn't seem real. It just didn't seem like that that
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 22: could even happen. The only type of person that could
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 22: do something like this had to just be pure evil.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 22: I was just in this dark, determined space. I didn't
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 22: care about anything but finding out who did this, who
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 22: killed our dad. I was living in Columbus, Ohio, which
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 22: is about two hours south of Canon, where Dad lived.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 22: We would talk about three times a week on average.
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 16: We were close.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 22: When I got the call that night, I had had
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 22: a neighbor over and he and I were putting together
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 22: an entertainment center I had just bought and everything was fine,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 22: and then the phone rang and it was my brother,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 22: and he said, I just want to let you know
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 22: Dad's house is on fire and it doesn't look good.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 22: And he said, I'll call you back when I have
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 22: more information. And I kept trying to call him and
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 22: he didn't answer.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 16: I just didn't know what to do.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 5: Becky Angelo is terrified for the safety of her eighty
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 5: seven year old father, Benny, who lives alone in the
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 5: old family home.
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 22: We grew up in a middle class neighborhood. We had
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 22: the type of home where everybody would kind of hang out.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 22: My parents through really big Christmas parties. Mom would start
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 22: baking cookies in like October. My dad worked a lot
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 22: at the steel mill, but when he was available, she'd
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 22: like to have people over and entertain.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 16: He had a great sense of humor.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 22: Sundays at our house were fun because there was used
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 22: to be a radio station out of Alliance, Ohio that
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 22: played poke music on Sundays, and he loved poke music
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 22: and y'all Poka danced. I mean, it was just a
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 22: big deal. He was kind of feisty. He was opinionated,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 22: and I believe that he was entitled to be because
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 22: you know, going through what he went through in his life.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 22: Dead was in the military, He was in the Army,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 22: and he actually, you know, he was at Pearl Harbor.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 5: Benny is one of the few people still alive that
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 5: witnessed that lethal attach which pushed the US into joining
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 5: the Second World War.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 22: He would tell stories where he could see the eyes
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 22: of the Japanese pilots coming down, that's how low they
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 22: were when they were coming in. They were in the
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 22: chow line for breakfast, and then the person in front
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 22: of him, his mess kit got hit with a bullet
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 22: or something, and shrapnel flew and my dad got some
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 22: shrapnel in his ankle. Every year he would go to
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 22: a couple of junior high schools and you know, and
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 22: talk about it.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 16: He just wanted to keep that memory alive.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 11: Benny was a local celebrity. Everybody knew Benny. Everybody loved Benny.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 11: He had deep, deep roots to veterans organizations.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 16: A World War two Pearl Harbor veteran.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 11: They're the toughest of the tough right.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 5: Fire investigator Joe Karafelli rushes to Benny Angelo's burning house,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 5: well aware that lives are likely at stake.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 23: Anytime a fire comes in in the middle of the
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 23: night like that and it's in it what would normally
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 23: be an occupied structure, it kind of rams things up
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 23: for the firefighters. You know, you're coming into something where
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 23: possibly you have someone deceased in there, but quite possibly
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 23: you may be able to save him.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 8: You might be able to get him out.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 5: Parafelli's firefighting colleagues are already in the house.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 23: They don't want to waste any time with getting in
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 23: and trying to get him out of there. Minutes seconds,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 23: there was pretty much zero visibility because it was very smoky.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 23: He was basically just gone by. Feel as he crawled
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 23: through there found the bedroom. Of course, that's one of
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 23: the first places you look. Fell to up up on
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 23: the bed, felt mister Angelo, and immediately pulled him out
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 23: and tried to get him outside. He didn't notice any
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 23: signs of life. Couldn't hear him breathing. There's no coughing
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 23: or response from him. Once he got him out, that's
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 23: when the paramedic was trying to resuscitate him.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 5: But it's too late. But the Angelo is dead.
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 23: We look in the mouth to see if there was
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 23: any soot in the mouth. There did not appear to
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 23: be much soot at all in the mouth or the nose,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 23: which indicated that he was deceased prior to the fire.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 5: Carol fully carefully enters the smoldering house.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 23: We had to determine every possible competent heat source that
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 23: could start a fire and then rule those out one
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 23: by one. The stove was ruled out, We roll out
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 23: the hot water tank. We look at the electrical system
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 23: of the house. In the front room, it was basically
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 23: just cluttered there, chairs and furniture and boxes. Pictures of
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 23: him as a proud soldier, pictures of him with his family.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 23: It looked like stuff had been rummaged through and thrown aside,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 23: and the tables were upended and there were chairs piled
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 23: up on it. There were several liquor bottles laying around,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 23: and there were strange burn patterns you could see in
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 23: what appeared to have been liquor that was splashed around
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 23: and then lit.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 5: Those suspicious burning patterns told car of Felly that the
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 5: fire was almost certainly started deliberately.
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 23: He went into the bedroom. You could see where mister
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 23: Angelo took his last breath. Then there was some blood
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 23: and stuff on it, and there was a safe open
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 23: right there at the foot of the bed, and it
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 23: just kind of telltale, you know, it looked like we
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 23: had a crime scene here.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 5: Detective Victor George of Kenton Police Department remembers that tragic
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 5: nights what he got.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 19: The call, this is mister Angelo's house. I came immediately
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 19: out to the scene and started scouring the house for
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 19: any evidence that could be found. Of course, with the
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 19: water damage in the condition of the house, physical evidence
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 19: was kind of fewn far between. From what we've seen
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 19: in the bedroom, we were able to deduct that this
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 19: was a home invasion or a burglary. We could not
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 19: find any sign of forced entry. There was no breaching
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 19: or the door jams or the locks or anything of
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 19: that nature. I felt that somebody knocked on his door,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 19: got inside his house, allowed somebody else or some other
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 19: people to come in, so with that, he possibly knew
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 19: the person who was trying to get into the house.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 19: There was no pride marks on to safe, There was
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 19: no tooling marks, nothing that indicated that there was force
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 19: applied to the safe. Inside the safe, we were able
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 19: to find a handgun that belonged to Benny. I spoke
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 19: to the family in reference to this handgun and asked
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 19: did he have any other firearms, and they told me
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 19: that he kept a revolver next to his bed always
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 19: and it was a thirty two caliber revolver.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 8: It was missing.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 23: Mister Angelo was transported from the scene. When I got
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 23: to the hospital, one of the first things that the
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 23: doctor talked to me about was that they did have
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 23: what appeared to be puncture wounds, most likely bullet holes.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 23: I think, as far as everybody but he was concerned.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 23: At this point, somebody forced mister Angelo to open the
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 23: safe and then shot and killed him, then set the
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 23: fire to cover it up.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 22: My brother finally called me back and he said, are
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 22: you sitting down? I'm like, what's going on? And he
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 22: said that that's gone. He was shot four times, and
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 22: I remember, I remember it just kind of collapsing to
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 22: the floor. There was confusion, there was sadness, there was questions,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 22: there were so many things. I mean, you know, my
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 22: mind was just flying all over the place, you know, like, God,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 22: what do you mean?
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 16: He was shot four times?
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 22: It just seems so surreal, like who gets a phone call,
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 22: you know, hey, your dad, Dad's been shot for a time.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 22: I mean that never in my life, ever, did I
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 22: ever expect to live through anything like that. I got
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 22: in the car that next morning and drove. I knew
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 22: that I had to get up there, so it was
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 22: a long drive. It was probably the longest drive I've
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 22: ever taken in my life, and it was only two hours.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 22: When I got to a dad's house, it was bizarre.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 22: It was boarded up, it was black soot on things.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 22: There was crime scene tape. We couldn't even get into
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 22: the house at that point because you know, there was
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 22: an investigation going on. But just the feeling of standing
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 22: out there and wanting to go in but not being
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 22: able to. But then when all that stuff was taken
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 22: down and we were able to go in and just
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 22: to see the struggle and things, it was hard. It
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 22: was hard to see that, you know. It was hard
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 22: to see a puddle of blood on his chair. It
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 22: was hard to see hand blood, you know, streaks down
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 22: the hallway. I think I was more angry than anything.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 22: I think at that point is when it clicked. I
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 22: just remember the family being there, and detectives being there,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 22: and news people being there, and it just didn't seem
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 22: like there was any time to even process anything.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 24: You know, everybody was just in utter shock and heartbreak.
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 7: It was absolutely.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 24: Devastating.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 5: Becky sees a familiar face among the investigators on the scene,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 5: lead Detective Victor. George.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 22: Victor and I went to high school together. Now he
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 22: was an athlete, I was an athlete.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 19: You always want to run into your old acquaintances, you know,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 19: your high school classmates, but you don't want to have
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 19: to tell them I'm investigating your father's murder.
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 22: Just having him around, somebody familiar, was comforting in a way.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 22: He was just really reassuring that he was going to
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 22: solve this case.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 5: The Cordner's report confirms that Benny has been shot four times,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 5: once in the head and three times in the chest.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 19: He was shot and killed with a thirty two caliber revolver,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 19: believed to be the one belonging to mister Angelo.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 22: To be killed with your own gun and your own home,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 22: you know, that's a hard pill to swallow.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 5: You know, even though Benny was eighty seven years old,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 5: he was in good health.
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 22: So why I believe there was more than one person
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 22: because I don't. I think it had to be because
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 22: it would have taken more than one person to take
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 22: my dad out. You know, that's the type of he
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 22: has such a strong spirit.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 5: There's little chance of finding any forensic evidence. The fire
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 5: and the water used to put it out have made
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 5: the investigator's job much harder.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 23: You have to go in and put a bunch of
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 23: water into a place to put it out. There was
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 23: active fire in there, and water did need to be
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 23: put on it to put it out, otherwise it all
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 23: burns up. This is something that's kind of unique to
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 23: fire investigation. You know, it's one of the only crimes
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 23: that your evidence decreases as the crime progresses.
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 19: If there was any DNA that we wanted to try
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 19: to retrieve from somewhere in a house.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 8: It would have destroyed that.
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 5: But against all odds, one potentially valuable clue survives.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 19: Identification Bureau was able to find a hair in the
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 19: front door mechanism, one single hair. That hair appeared to
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 19: be blonde. I know the family of Bennie Angelo, and
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 19: they're all dark haired. Benny had white hair, but he
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 19: had very short hair. Why is there a blonde hair
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 19: in the mechanism of the door.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 5: That was a.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 8: Huge lead for us.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 19: I believe that belonged to the person who entered the
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 19: residence and ultimately assaulted him.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 5: Detective George sends the hair to the leb for DNA analysis.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 5: The family and the town of Kenton mourns the loss
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 5: of their local hero.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 22: We had a vigil on the front lawn of the
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 22: dad's house and we had the military there.
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 16: We had the twenty one gun salute.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 22: People were laying like Teddy Bear's flowers and things, and
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 22: then the bugle player showed up.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: It was so.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 24: Hard, but it was a proud moment for me to
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 24: see how many people.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 5: Cared.
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 22: I just I can't even listen to taps anymore without
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 22: breaking down or.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 16: You know, thinking about that. It takes me just right
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 16: to those moments.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 13: You don't know how to find a nursery garden, what
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 13: friend of it was.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 22: I was just amazed by how many, how many people
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 22: were out.
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 16: I mean it was bitter cold, you know.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 22: I remember being there and looking at everybody and just
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 22: watching people how they were reacting, thinking maybe I could
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 22: see somebody behaving strangely, or like, who is this person?
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 16: Why? You know, why are they here?
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 22: Now everybody was suspect at that point, because you know,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 22: nobody knows anything.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 5: A young blonde woman wear a good cowboy hat stands out.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 22: We just thought she was acting a little suspicious or
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 22: just different, and she had this pink cowboy hat. So
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 22: she put this hat on the pile for the memorial,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 22: and I thought, Okay, we've got to get this hat
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 22: and they're going to get DNA off of it, and
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 22: we're going to figure out who this person is and
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 22: why she's here.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 11: It was such a brutal crime. Here's this poor man
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 11: who served our country. He survives an attack on Pearl
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 11: Harbor and he's killed in his own home.
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 16: It was very sad, very sad.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 5: In the days after the murder. The family wonders about
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 5: one of the mourners at their father's vigil, a young
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 5: woman and a pink cowboy had none of them had
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 5: seen before.
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 19: So when I interviewed this female of interest, she answered
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 19: all of our questions. She cooperated with us. She didn't
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 19: appear to be stammering around looking for answers.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 16: Turned out to be nothing.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 22: It was just some woman who from the neighborhood just
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 22: wanted to leave her hat there. But you know, when
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 22: you're that desperate in your grasp, you know any little
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 22: thing you see, because nothing is too small, any little
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 22: thing off killed her. You automatically say, okay, that could
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 22: be the person you know, or maybe this person's involved,
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 22: or maybe this person knows something, until you drive yourself
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 22: half nuts.
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 5: Next, Detective George interviews the family.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 19: Becky Angelo told me that when her mother passed away,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 19: her father put four envelopes in that safe and it
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 19: had five thousand dollars a piece in it. That money
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 19: was for each of the children when he passed away,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 19: and I believe in speaking with Becky Angelo, she was
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 19: the only one that knew that. So there was twenty
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 19: thousand dollars in the safe.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 8: That was not there.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 19: After speaking with mister Angelo's four children, it was very
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 19: clear that none of them had anything to do with
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 19: his death. He didn't have life insurance, he didn't even
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 19: have homeowner's insurance, so the house when it got destroyed,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 19: was a loss to the family.
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 5: George Czech's police records connected to Benny's address and finds
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 5: a let lead.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 19: Two weeks prior to mister Angelo's murder, he had a
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 19: burglary to his residence. He wasn't home at the time,
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 19: but somebody had broke in and they had stole envelopes
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 19: that had cash in it for Christmas presents. Now, a
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 19: patrol officer went out, took a report. He looked around,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 19: didn't see any sign of forced entry. Now you go
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 19: two weeks ahead and he's broken into again.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 5: Investigators think the pattern of repeated burglaries could be significant.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 22: There was just something about it had to be somebody
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 22: from the neighborhood.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 19: There was actually two brothers that lived down the street.
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 19: Both of them were drug addicts and they've had issues
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 19: with burglaries and the drug trafficking and you know, minor
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 19: violent stuff. We thought maybe that they broke into the
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 19: house to get money to my drugs. So, being that
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 19: they were on probation, their pro officer did a home
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 19: visit and we didn't find anything that would link that
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 19: young man or his brother to Benni Angelo. At that time,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 19: we developed another female suspect of somebody that would come
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 19: over and do work for mister Angelo the family. She
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 19: took advantage of their father for monies, and she had
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 19: blonde hair. I went and interviewed this young girl. I
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 19: asked her if she'd voluntarily give me some dnasium and
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 19: she said sure, And I said, I just want to
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 19: get a couple of your hairs out of.
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 8: Your head.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 5: Before he can run the test. The lab results come
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 5: in on the blonde hair found at Bennie's house.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 19: The hair ended up being nonhuman.
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 5: It belonged to a dog. Investigators widen the search.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 19: I probably looked at several dozen people of interest. I mean,
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 19: anytime we had another homicide that was similar to this
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 19: same mo and I would rush that down to the
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 19: crime lab and try to get ballistics on it to
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 19: see if it was the same firearm or not.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 5: Then an accidental discovery offers New Hope.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 19: An elderly gentleman who was just cleaning up his debris,
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 19: and underneath a bush he rakes out the old dead
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 19: leaves and he finds a brown leather holster and a
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 19: wallet with Benny Angelo's id in it.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 8: I would say the way.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 19: The crow flies, it was probably fifteen hundred feet from
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 19: mister Angelo's house.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 5: The fund is their best lead. Yet.
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 19: What the discovery of those items did for us would
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 19: show us a path that one of the persons that
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 19: left mister Angelo's house was walking and discarded those items
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 19: under some bushes so nobody would ever find them.
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 8: It revived me with a.
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 19: New sense of energy on the case, and I was
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 19: excited to hopefully come up with a resolution to this murder.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 19: After we found a holster and a wallet with Benny
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 19: Angelo's idee inside, they were sent down to the crime
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 19: lab for analysis, but they had been sitting in the
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 19: weather since January seventh till July. There was no fingerprints
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 19: to obtain, there was no DNA, There was absolutely nothing
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 19: other than the recovery.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 8: Of those items.
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 19: It was tough, this case kept dragging on. All you
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 19: want to do is bring peace to the surviving family members,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 19: and I couldn't do it.
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 22: Victor took some phone calls from me at all hours
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 22: of the night that probably I wasn't my best self.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 22: I was like, are we ever going to solve this case?
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 22: I said some terrible things because things weren't happening maybe
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 22: as quickly as I thought they should.
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 19: I would get another homicide case and been able to
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 19: solve it right away, and that's when her anger would
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 19: come and she says, you know, you can solve everybody
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 19: else's murder.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 5: But not my father's.
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 19: I know, you take it with a grain of salt.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 8: I understand what she's going through.
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 22: It was frustrating just not knowing nothing's happening fast enough.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 22: He allowed me to just get it out and then
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 22: we just moved We would move forward. I just kept thinking,
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 22: what else can I do? I started investigating stuff on
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 22: my own, knocked on doors, approached people to ask them questions.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 22: You know, I wasn't afraid to ask anybody anything. I
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 22: got a little determined, I think is a good word,
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 22: determined to find out who did this. I knew where
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 22: there were a couple bad spots in the neighborhood, so
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 22: I would casually kind of incognito, wear a lot of
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 22: clothing and go hang in and you know, go walk,
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 22: walk around these people and.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 16: Be amongst them.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 22: I knew I had to be careful because I was
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 22: all over the news at that point, and I didn't
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 22: want to be identified.
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 19: Having a civilian attempt their own investigation is always a concern,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 19: you know, leave it to the detectives. We know, the
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 19: dudes that don'ts what we can and do. There's always
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 19: that potential that you're going to scare somebody off of them.
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 11: She would sometimes put herself in situations that maybe were
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 11: not the best situations that she should have been in.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 22: It's not like when you go through something like this,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 22: there's a manual. Hey, go get a book at the library.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 22: I'll tell you exactly what to do to get through this.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 16: So there's nothing.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 22: I started feeling like maybe what I was doing wasn't
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 22: the healthiest or you know, you know, like what if
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 22: somebody recognizes me or something, you know, even worse. So
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 22: what I was doing is like what can I do
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 22: to help and not hinder, but you know, not put
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 22: myself in danger or put my family in danger.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 19: Becky actually put a reward up and the local FBI
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 19: and our department through in and we had a fifteen
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 19: thousand dollars reward for the conviction of the person or
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 19: person's responsible for his murder.
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 22: I walked around with a sandwich on me for a
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 22: long time with who killed Benny with three board and
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 22: it was like a three year old put this thing together.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 22: But I didn't have any shame in wearing it, I
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 22: you know, and I went with with whatever I could,
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 22: just to let keep people talking, don't let people forget.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 22: We learned some things, but nothing really ever mounted to anything.
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 22: Another year goes by, still nothing. It was just like
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 22: everything was stacked against us. It was it was frustrating
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 22: to go on that long not knowing. Your mind goes
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 22: places and and you know, you think about what am
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 22: I missing?
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 3: What?
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 22: You know, this person's probably right under our nose.
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 16: They have to be close.
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 5: Months pass with no new leaves. The case of the
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 5: murdered war hero goes as cold as the winter winds
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 5: that blow across Ohio.
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 19: I felt like I did everything I could and there
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 19: was just nothing left to do at the present time.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 19: When you're out of leads, it's kind of out of
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 19: your control. This case going unsolved played a lot more
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 19: on my emotions than any of the other cases, just
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 19: based on the fact that I had a personal friendship
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 19: with the daughter of mister Angelo.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 22: I never lost hope. Even if it was just a
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 22: teeny tiny bit, I hung onto it. I mean I
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 22: hung onto it because if I I was just so tiny,
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 22: I was afraid if I'd let that go, you know,
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 22: I don't know that I'd.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 16: Even be sitting here today. Really, that's how dark it was.
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 22: I'm like, if somebody could do this, the dad eighty
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 22: seven years old, we got to stop them. We got
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 22: to get these people off the streets. The other thing
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 22: I cared about was bringing to justice. That's when I
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 22: started sending out posters to the jails, people in jail talk.
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 16: I just kept thinking, somebody's got to know something.
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 11: I was not thinking that this would be a story
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 11: one year, two years, three years down the road. I
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 11: thought police would solve it, but there weren't any answers.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 22: This is fears now, but no real concrete suspects. That
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 22: seem like every time I took a step forward, I
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 22: felt like I was getting knocked backward.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 5: Becky Angelo does not give up her fight for justice,
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 5: doing anything she can to keep her father's case alive.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 22: Just one night, I thought, okay, I think we've put
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 22: flyers on every telephone pole and business and wasn't really
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 22: doing anything and has just figured people in jail brag
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 22: and talk, so let's just go there. And I thought, Okay,
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 22: Ohio has eighty eight counties, which probably means there's eighty
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 22: eight county jails. And I thought, then maybe I should
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 22: branch out to pa Michigan, you know, Indiana, all the
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 22: surrounding stays. I just attached a little eight x ten
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 22: poster with a note to the share of please post
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 22: this in your jail.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 19: They were hung up right in the receiving area where
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 19: you bring a prisoner in. And in May of twenty twelve,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 19: I received what they call kite, and it is a
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 19: message that a person in our county jail passes on
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 19: to a corrections officer and their request.
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 8: Is to speak with a detective.
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 19: We get requests from inmates a lot that they have
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 19: information and reference to a certain case for investigating. It
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 19: really doesn't spark an interest to us unless they could
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 19: tell us something that has not been released for the
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 19: public to see or hear. So I went out there
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 19: to meet with this young lady and she told me
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 19: that she's in a pod cell with a young girl
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 19: whose name was Regina Crank talking about the murder of
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 19: Bendi Angelo and that her cousin was involved. Now I
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 19: was able to interview Regina on the same day. Regina
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 19: told me that she was at a party and her
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 19: cousin was Airchester Crank. Apparently she was raised with Chesterlake
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 19: brother and sister. They were very close growing up, so
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 19: he trusted her. He had been drinking and he had
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 19: mentioned to her and other people that he is going
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 19: to go to prison for the rest of his life
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 19: for shooting and killing somebody, and that somebody was Benny Angelo.
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 19: Chester Crank was somebody that wasn't even on our radar.
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 19: This is something fresh, something new, I mean, I was enthused.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 22: Were like Chester, you Crank, I've never heard of the name.
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 22: That name never never meant anything to any of us.
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 22: We had no idea who this person was.
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 5: Two more inmates see Becky's posters and tell police similar
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 5: stories about Chester Crank's involvement with Benny Angela's murder.
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 19: You hear it once, you take it with a grain
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 19: of salt. You hear it twice years per cup, you
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 19: hear it three times. Now you've got something there I
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 19: did my due diligence on Chester Crank. He had a
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 19: handful of felonies.
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 8: I found out.
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 19: That mister Crank lived on Nineteenth Street in Harrisburg Road.
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 5: Crank's address makes sense. It's close to Bennie's house and
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 5: the spot where his holster and wallet were fund.
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 19: So the pieces to me were starting to come together
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 19: on this case. I asked Regina, if I was able
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 19: to get her released from here, would she be willing
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 19: to wear a recording device and go out with Chester Crank?
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 17: You know?
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 19: I told her there's a reward put out by the
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 19: family if you get an arrest and a conviction out
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 19: of it, but if you mess up, you're going right
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 19: back in. She was more than willing to do it.
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 25: Regina worked with Detective Georgia to do the wire tap
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 25: and she they put it in her brawl and then
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 25: she went out with mister Crank.
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 19: I was excited. I was really hoping she could get
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 19: a confis fashion out of them.
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 12: Think it is eight sixteen twenty thirteen, got a fifteen
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 12: thirty four hours reference to by Angela homicidal.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 6: Chester.
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: What is wrong?
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 19: You remember when we as a kid?
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 12: Yeah, where I could have lived there which life not chosen?
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 11: Four life of that listened to me?
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 17: Yes, I'm listener.
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 5: Detective Victor George finally has a solid suspect in the
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 5: Betting Angelo murder case, a man named Chester Crank. George
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 5: hopes Crank will confess to the crime while being recorded
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 5: by an undercover informant. His cousin, Regina, I was couldn't
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 5: believe it.
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 16: I was a little worried for her.
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 22: I didn't want her to put her life at risk,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 22: but I thought, if he's the person, she's going to
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 22: get him.
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 19: She would go out with Chester, sometimes three four hours
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 19: at a time, and then I would meet up with
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 19: her and retrieve the recording.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 11: So, sir, here right now, away from everybody been over there,
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 11: I'm talking to him for please.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 5: Every time, every time you hear you wring you around
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 5: the rest killing that guy.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 6: I don't want to talk the rule.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 14: That's how funny your family maybe if they.
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 5: Want to help me through.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 19: Each time we were able to get a little bit
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 19: more detail towards what had taken place at mister Angelo's house.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 7: Chester what a wall got me scared?
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: She know you? Did you?
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 8: You suck?
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 12: I promise you.
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 16: I'm on the you did not promise you.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 21: They can never prove it.
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 4: You did not.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 12: You did took him like a piece yet.
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 21: Yeah, I'll let my amis watch it.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: Why are you going.
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 4: Around saying why would you going to say?
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 23: For him?
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 25: When our office heard the tape conversation, we were confident
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 25: that we had enough to present this to the jury.
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 25: We finally had him on tape. He was charged with arson, murder, robbery,
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 25: and burglary.
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 19: I was a static, to say the least, but I
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 19: guess the emotions didn't really hit me until I called
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 19: Becky to let her know that I am going to
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 19: have an arrest tomorrow.
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 22: I just I was like, what this is really happening?
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 22: I was just like shaking the whole time, thinking is
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 22: this really going to be it?
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 16: Is this really the person? Is it going to be over?
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 5: Under interrogation at Kenton Police Department, Frank denies everything.
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 25: Mister Crank named three other suspects, but he he said
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 25: he you know, he was not involved in this case
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 25: at all.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 19: I probably spoke to him for over two hours, tried
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 19: everything I knew to try to get him to break,
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 19: to tell me the truth, to tell me what happened,
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 19: and it did not come to fruition.
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 5: The audio tapes, covertly recorded by Regina, tell a very
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 5: different story, providing damning evidence against Drank.
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 19: He made an omission that he was the one that
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 19: shot and killed Benny and explained why there was four
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 19: gunshots on his body. When the other three they're inside
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 19: ransacking the house, a gunshot goes off. They run into
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 19: the back bedroom where the gunshot was. Benny Angelo was
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 19: in there, and Crank had told the other three that
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 19: they had to shoot him too, because they were all
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 19: as culpable or responsible as he was.
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 5: After months of delays, the trial of Ester Crank finally
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 5: gets under way.
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 12: Christy Carlos's life with what happened today In court.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 11: Crank's defense attorney does not deny that he blabbed about
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 11: the night that Angelo died, but the attorney claims he
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 11: was drunk and there is no evidence to support his ramblings.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 25: Mister Crank was sort of nonchalant, you know that I
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 25: didn't do this, You know you got the wrong person
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 25: kind of attitude.
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 22: I'd have to say that was one of the hardest
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 22: things I'd ever had to go through, was to sit
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 22: in the courtroom within probably four to six feet away
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 22: from the person that killed our father, and he was
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 22: just smirking and like he didn't didn't care about anything.
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 16: The things we had to hear. It was tough.
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 22: My dad bought to the end. He had defensive wounds
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 22: on his arms, and I believe one of the bullets
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 22: even went through his hand and then went through his head.
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 22: And I wanted to inflict as much pain on Chester
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 22: Crank as I could physically, but we knew we couldn't
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 22: do anything to jeopardize a mistrial or anything.
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 5: The defense offers no witnesses and after just five days
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 5: the trial concludes.
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 25: Any prosecutor that thinks they got one hundred percent slam
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 25: bam cases, I've never met that person. You could present
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 25: the greatest case. He just don't know what twelve jurors
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 25: are going to do on that specific day or trial.
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 19: Chester was found guilty by a jury of his peers
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 19: of aggravated aggravated arson robbery and burglary. The family asked
• 2:06:06
  Speaker 19: the judge if they would pass sentence immediately, and he
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 19: was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 25: The guilty verdict was very satisfying to me because I
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 25: knew how his family was so involved in making sure
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 25: justice was served here, and I know how Detective George
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 25: just worked very hard on this case. So I was
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 25: satisfied that Chester Crank definitely received what he deserved.
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 22: You talk about a celebration, I mean, it's almost like
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 22: you could breathe again, like you could just get air
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 22: in your lungs and be like, Wow, this okay, this
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 22: is happening.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 16: You know it's not. I'm not living this nightmare anymore.
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 16: And it was worth.
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 22: It, all the struggles, all the tears, all you know,
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 22: I mean, to finally get somebody. It was the great feeling.
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 22: I think I finally felt joy for the first time.
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 22: Wh Yeah, the first time in about seven years. I
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 22: felt like, finally.
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 11: I was truly happy for the family that they finally
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 11: were getting justice for the murder of their father. This
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 11: had been a case that had gone cold for a
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 11: lot of years. Becky is among the strongest people that
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 11: I've ever met. She did not give up, She did
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 11: not waiver. She wanted this solved, and she got it.
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 24: I know, we all cried, We all hugged out in
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 24: the hallway. We maintained our decorum in there, but we
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 24: were all holding each other's hands and just saying, thank God,
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 24: thank God.
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 25: We are very very confident that we convicted the killer.
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 8: We're confident out regard.
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 19: But there was evidence to show that there was approximately
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 19: three other people that was involved in this whole incident.
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 25: If any evidence comes forward, I'm sure they will proceed
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 25: to present it to a grand jury. But at this
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 25: point in time, that's all they are at this time
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 25: is suspects.
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 22: And that's why that chapter might be closed. But this
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 22: book isn't done because I know that there's other people
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 22: that should that need to be held accountable. Chester Crank
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 22: took the only father that we ever had. The holidays
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 22: aren't the same. I mean not having Dad in the
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 22: way he was taken from us. Yeah, I don't even
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 22: put a Christmas tree up. I know it's tough. I'm
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 22: working on that, you know. I'm just trying to get
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 22: get better about it.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 16: Every day I miss him.
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 22: There's certain things that if somebody will do something or
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 22: say something and it'll be like God, it reminds me
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 22: of Dad, you know it.
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 16: I missed him a lot.