Latest / Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained / Hiding in Plain Sight John Eric Armstrong World’s Most Evil Killers

Transcript

Hiding in Plain Sight John Eric Armstrong World’s Most Evil Killers · Weird Darkness:True crime & The unexplained

0:07
Speaker 1: In the summer of 1999, 26-year-old John Eric Armstrong was
0:13
Speaker 1: honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy. He settled in Dearborn Heights, Michigan,
0:19
Speaker 1: with his wife and their new baby.
0:22
Speaker 2: He was a nice neighbor, a good friend, a good father, apparently,
0:26
Speaker 2: according to his neighbors.
0:28
Speaker 1: But Armstrong wasn't the loving family man that people believed
0:32
Speaker 1: him to be.
0:34
Speaker 3: Armstrong was, in my humble opinion, the personification of evil.
0:39
Speaker 1: Armstrong was using the services of sex workers, many of
0:43
Speaker 1: whom he then brutally murdered.
0:47
Speaker 4: He's killed multiple women. It was natural to him. Only
0:50
Speaker 4: person that that type of lifestyle that could be natural.
0:53
Speaker 3: To is a monster.
0:55
Speaker 1: As more details emerged, police realized that these murders went
0:59
Speaker 1: far beyond their local area.
1:03
Speaker 5: You're talking Singapore, Hong Kong, and all these exotic locales
1:08
Speaker 5: that his boat traveled to while he was in the Navy.
1:12
Speaker 6: He's going to be one of the most prolific, well-traveled
1:15
Speaker 6: serial killers in history.
1:16
Speaker 1: John Eric Armstrong had gone global and been unveiled as
1:20
Speaker 1: one of the world's most evil killers. On April the 10th, 2000,
1:49
Speaker 1: in Detroit, Michigan, police were alerted to an alarming discovery.
1:54
Speaker 1: The bodies of three sex workers had been found near
1:57
Speaker 1: some railway tracks in varying states of decomposition. This was
2:02
Speaker 1: the work of a serial killer.
2:04
Speaker 3: He didn't try and conceal his crimes. He just discarded
2:07
Speaker 3: the bodies, didn't try and hide them. He just came
2:10
Speaker 3: back to visit and abuse. and then move on to
2:13
Speaker 3: the next murder and dispose of that one and roll
2:16
Speaker 3: it downhill and find another one.
2:19
Speaker 1: With no leads, the police were under pressure to find
2:22
Speaker 1: the unknown killer before he could strike again. Then a
2:26
Speaker 1: chance traffic stop and subsequent arrest of 26-year-old John Eric
2:31
Speaker 1: Armstrong led to more revelations than they could ever have expected.
2:37
Speaker 5: In the patrol car, one of the patrolmen could hear
2:40
Speaker 5: Armstrong in the back muttering something under his breath. I'm
2:44
Speaker 5: glad it's over. I'm glad you guys got me.
2:52
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins on the southeastern coast of America.
2:57
Speaker 1: John Eric Armstrong was born on November the 23rd, 1973.
3:03
Speaker 5: Armstrong was born and raised in New Bern, North Carolina...
3:06
Speaker 5: and by all accounts had a very normal upbringing, very
3:10
Speaker 5: normal childhood.
3:12
Speaker 2: I think the most important point in his early life
3:16
Speaker 2: was the death of a younger brother, Michael, who died
3:19
Speaker 2: of sudden infant death syndrome at barely two months old.
3:23
Speaker 2: And this had an impact on the young John Eric Armstrong.
3:27
Speaker 7: Armstrong was five years old at the time, and at
3:30
Speaker 7: five years old, I'm not sure that children fully understand...
3:36
Speaker 7: the concept of death and dying and perhaps how permanent
3:43
Speaker 7: it is. So it's quite possible that it impacted him
3:48
Speaker 7: in a way that made him feel completely powerless.
3:52
Speaker 5: He was so distraught over that that he deliberately rode
3:56
Speaker 5: his bicycle out in traffic, almost like, you know, with
4:00
Speaker 5: the intention of joining his baby brother.
4:03
Speaker 1: The loss of the baby had a major impact on
4:07
Speaker 1: Armstrong's parents.
4:10
Speaker 5: Shortly after his baby brother Mikey died in the crib,
4:14
Speaker 5: his biological father left the family.
4:18
Speaker 1: After his father left, young Armstrong stayed in the family
4:22
Speaker 1: home with his mother. Towards the end of the 1970s,
4:31
Speaker 1: Armstrong started school, and his classmates saw nothing unusual about him.
4:37
Speaker 3: The people who.
4:37
Speaker 5: Went to school with him, for instance, his fellow students,
4:41
Speaker 5: they saw him as just a normal kid. He was
4:43
Speaker 5: a little quiet. He seemed pretty meek. One person described
4:47
Speaker 5: him as aloof, but really nothing unusual about his childhood,
4:52
Speaker 5: nothing that would make someone ill at ease.
4:57
Speaker 6: Armstrong felt that he was kind of an underachiever and
5:00
Speaker 6: being bullied.
5:02
Speaker 8: And a lot of this behavior impacted him psychologically.
5:07
Speaker 7: We've got somebody whose whole identity is being formed around
5:12
Speaker 7: this victimhood, this powerlessness, this the world is against me.
5:18
Speaker 7: And I think that internal anger, rage, revenge is more
5:23
Speaker 7: what drove him as he went into adulthood.
5:27
Speaker 2: There was a strange incident in his life. At school,
5:32
Speaker 2: he said, one of his classmates, a girl, was trying
5:35
Speaker 2: to persuade him to have sex with her, and he
5:38
Speaker 2: didn't want to.
5:39
Speaker 5: And he locked himself into a bathroom and threatened to
5:43
Speaker 5: kill himself.
5:43
Speaker 8: This led to a month-long stay in a mental health facility.
5:48
Speaker 7: So he obviously had issues with sex. A simple pressure
5:51
Speaker 7: for sex is not going to put you into psychiatric care.
5:54
Speaker 2: There's a lot more going on here.
5:57
Speaker 6: At the age of 16, Armstrong felt that he was
5:59
Speaker 6: still dealing with the negative impact of his brother's death,
6:03
Speaker 6: and so he went for additional psychiatric counseling.
6:07
Speaker 7: To seek psychiatric care at age 16, when he's just
6:11
Speaker 7: had care for another incident, this is somebody who's really,
6:17
Speaker 7: really struggling to function in the world.
6:21
Speaker 1: By his late teens, despite his problems, Armstrong had managed
6:26
Speaker 1: to start a relationship with a girl. But when his
6:29
Speaker 1: high school sweetheart left him for another boy, Armstrong was devastated,
6:35
Speaker 1: especially when he saw his love rival shower his ex-girlfriend
6:40
Speaker 1: with gifts.
6:41
Speaker 6: Armstrong interpreted this as her prostituting herself for her affections
6:46
Speaker 6: in exchange for these gifts that this other new suitor
6:49
Speaker 6: was providing her.
6:51
Speaker 7: This guy sees women, sex, relationships, transactional. And even he
6:59
Speaker 7: said that this was like she was a prostitute.
7:03
Speaker 2: What an awful way to see relationships.
7:10
Speaker 1: In April 1992, when Armstrong was 18 years old, he
7:15
Speaker 1: signed up with the US Navy.
7:19
Speaker 7: He joined the military, which is, I don't think, an
7:22
Speaker 7: unusual thing for somebody like him who feels, you know,
7:26
Speaker 7: like he needs to be in a big gang because
7:29
Speaker 7: he feels like the world's against him and he needs
7:32
Speaker 7: control and he needs power.
7:34
Speaker 1: Armstrong was assigned to the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier, then
7:39
Speaker 1: the largest sailing vessel in the world.
7:43
Speaker 8: Life aboard the Nimitz, it would be pretty exciting.
7:45
Speaker 6: It can go anywhere in the world, and often did,
7:47
Speaker 6: and Armstrong would have enjoyed that life.
7:50
Speaker 5: He worked in the barbershop, it was said, and then
7:53
Speaker 5: he had one or two other jobs on the boat.
7:57
Speaker 5: And he had a good record, by all accounts, aboard
8:00
Speaker 5: the boat. Nothing really stood out.
8:03
Speaker 2: At one point, he was nicknamed Baby Doll. He had
8:07
Speaker 2: this very childlike face, this very innocent approach, which didn't
8:12
Speaker 2: really make him look like a grown-up man at all.
8:17
Speaker 1: Despite his youthful features, Armstrong was over six foot tall
8:21
Speaker 1: with a large build. It was while aboard the USS
8:25
Speaker 1: Nimitz that Armstrong met the woman he would go on
8:28
Speaker 1: to marry. After both being honorably discharged in 1999, the
8:34
Speaker 1: couple moved to Michigan to start their married life and
8:37
Speaker 1: raise their first child.
8:41
Speaker 5: And so they settled into a city in Metro Detroit
8:45
Speaker 5: on the west side of Metro Detroit called Dearborn Heights,
8:48
Speaker 5: and they lived with her parents for a while.
8:52
Speaker 1: Armstrong started working for a chain of retail stores, then
8:57
Speaker 1: later as a security guard, and then refueling aeroplanes at
9:01
Speaker 1: Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
9:05
Speaker 6: Seems like Armstrong may not have been able to find
9:08
Speaker 6: his way, at least vocationally, in a career.
9:12
Speaker 1: Those around Armstrong just saw him as any other guy
9:16
Speaker 1: in the neighbourhood.
9:18
Speaker 3: One lady said, I used to get a ride home
9:20
Speaker 3: with him or a ride to work. And she was
9:22
Speaker 3: just the nicest guy.
9:24
Speaker 2: He was a nice neighbor, a good friend, a good father, apparently,
9:30
Speaker 2: according to his neighbors. And yet he had this completely
9:33
Speaker 2: other side, this classic Jekyll and Hyde approach, particularly to women.
9:40
Speaker 6: Beyond this normal life appeared to be a facade. And
9:43
Speaker 6: behind that facade, Armstrong was going out and engaging in
9:47
Speaker 6: activity like having sex on a regular basis with sex workers.
9:52
Speaker 7: He has got a bad attitude, misogynistic attitude towards women,
9:58
Speaker 7: so I think we can kind of see where it's
10:01
Speaker 7: coming from with him.
10:04
Speaker 1: John Eric Armstrong wasn't the loving family man he was
10:08
Speaker 1: portraying to those around him. He was living a double
10:12
Speaker 1: life filled with dark secrets, one that would soon be exposed.
10:17
Speaker 1: Armstrong's preferred haunt for picking up sex workers was in
10:21
Speaker 1: downtown Detroit, around 10 miles from his family home.
10:27
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, prostitution has always thrived in Detroit, and the area
10:32
Speaker 5: of Michigan Avenue has always been a hot spot for prostitution.
10:38
Speaker 1: Kyle James Casares was a child when his mum, Kelly
10:42
Speaker 1: Jean Hood, began working on the streets in the 1990s.
10:46
Speaker 1: Kelly started taking drugs following the death of her father
10:51
Speaker 1: and was trying to fund her addiction through sex work.
10:55
Speaker 4: She was actually very close to my grandfather, and when.
10:59
Speaker 9: He passed away, she couldn't deal with the pain.
11:04
Speaker 8: My mom, before the drugs.
11:07
Speaker 4: And even after the drugs, was one of the most
11:10
Speaker 4: kind-hearted person you could ever meet. We were her world.
11:13
Speaker 4: She made sure we had a good childhood. at best
11:16
Speaker 4: she could, giving her what she could.
11:20
Speaker 6: It's, you know, a very common motivation of sex workers
11:24
Speaker 6: is to engage in prostitution, to raise money, to support
11:28
Speaker 6: their drug habit.
11:29
Speaker 1: Despite his young age, Kyle worked out how his mum
11:32
Speaker 1: was earning the money to pay for her addiction.
11:36
Speaker 4: I was with her all the time, and I knew
11:38
Speaker 4: the people she hung out with, and I would just...
11:42
Speaker 4: see them around the neighborhood and what they were doing.
11:44
Speaker 4: And I just connected the dots. I was worried, but
11:46
Speaker 4: it was nothing I can do. She was a grown
11:49
Speaker 4: woman and she was my mother. I felt like I
11:52
Speaker 4: needed to protect her all the time.
11:54
Speaker 1: Kelly Jean Hood was one of many women selling sex
11:58
Speaker 1: in the Detroit area at the time. Natasha Olenichak was
12:03
Speaker 1: also working in the same area.
12:05
Speaker 9: I wasn't on the streets for the drugs.
12:07
Speaker 10: I was in the streets for money, fast money.
12:11
Speaker 9: Seeing nice cars, clothes, mink coats, stuff like that. And
12:15
Speaker 9: I don't know, I just fell in the trap.
12:20
Speaker 10: I always had jobs and everything.
12:22
Speaker 9: I just wanted to do something to get quicker money,
12:25
Speaker 9: and I did.
12:26
Speaker 1: The nature of the industry means that sex workers often
12:31
Speaker 1: operate in secluded and dark areas, making them extremely vulnerable
12:36
Speaker 1: to predators.
12:38
Speaker 7: Sex workers are... at a huge risk of serious harm
12:44
Speaker 7: and homicide. I mean, mainly because of their accessibility. Sex
12:49
Speaker 7: workers are easy to get into a place on your own,
12:55
Speaker 7: no questions asked.
12:57
Speaker 5: And because they want the money, they'll go with you
13:01
Speaker 5: to a dark place where no one else is around.
13:04
Speaker 5: It is a very risky business. They're living a very
13:07
Speaker 5: high-risk life.
13:10
Speaker 1: One night in August 1999, Natasha was working a shift
13:14
Speaker 1: on the usual streets. Unbeknown to the sex workers in
13:18
Speaker 1: the area, there was a deadly predator on the loose,
13:21
Speaker 1: and he was out that night looking for his next victim.
13:27
Speaker 10: I was on 8 Mile Road. He was in a Jeep,
13:31
Speaker 10: and he circled one.
13:33
Speaker 9: Time, then he circled again. He pulled up.
13:38
Speaker 10: And he asked me for a date, and I said, yeah.
13:43
Speaker 10: Then I got in the truck.
13:46
Speaker 9: He was big.
13:48
Speaker 10: He was bald-headed at the time. He was tall. He
13:52
Speaker 10: wore glasses. Yep, and he was a big guy.
13:58
Speaker 9: He wasn't little.
14:00
Speaker 10: I didn't feel uncomfortable with him or anything, you know?
14:03
Speaker 10: I wasn't nervous or nothing.
14:07
Speaker 1: Natasha was staying in a motel room close to the
14:10
Speaker 1: red light area. So the pair headed there.
14:16
Speaker 5: He got inside the room and he just was feeling uneasy.
14:20
Speaker 5: He asked to use the bathroom. He used the bathroom.
14:22
Speaker 5: He came out and he said, I just don't really
14:24
Speaker 5: feel right.
14:25
Speaker 9: I got to leave.
14:26
Speaker 8: And he leaves. She goes into her room.
14:28
Speaker 6: A little while later, there's a knock on her door.
14:31
Speaker 8: She opens the door. It's that guy.
14:35
Speaker 10: I should have never opened the door. I should have
14:37
Speaker 10: just said, never mind. But I didn't think he was
14:40
Speaker 10: going to come back.
14:42
Speaker 1: Opening the door to let the client back in turned
14:45
Speaker 1: out to be a decision that Natasha would soon regret.
14:49
Speaker 10: He came in, and that's when he slammed my door,
14:51
Speaker 10: and he was like, don't scream, don't yell, because that's
14:53
Speaker 10: when he had the knife, them sharp, big ones. And
14:56
Speaker 10: I was like, oh, my God, you can have all
14:58
Speaker 10: my money, whatever, my whatever.
15:01
Speaker 1: But the attacker wasn't interested in taking Natasha's money. He
15:05
Speaker 1: wanted to take her life.
15:08
Speaker 9: He said he was.
15:12
Speaker 10: Going to kill me. And I was like, don't kill me.
15:17
Speaker 10: I got kids. He came in with his knife at me.
15:21
Speaker 10: My neck, my eyes, my toes, my fingers.
15:26
Speaker 9: He had just blood everywhere because he cut me. Then
15:30
Speaker 9: I was on the bed, like, laying down.
15:32
Speaker 10: He had his body on me, and then he grabbed
15:35
Speaker 10: the telephone cord, and wrapped it around my neck like
15:40
Speaker 10: five times and was like choking.
15:44
Speaker 1: The asphyxiation caused Natasha to pass out. When she regained consciousness,
15:52
Speaker 1: her attacker was gone.
15:55
Speaker 10: I went out to the, ran out of the motel
15:57
Speaker 10: room and said, I need help, I need help. I
16:00
Speaker 10: was almost, this guy just tried to kill me and
16:03
Speaker 10: And that's when the police came.
16:06
Speaker 1: The police interviewed Natasha, but her description of the attacker
16:11
Speaker 1: wasn't enough on its own.
16:14
Speaker 6: It's very difficult for the police to follow up on
16:16
Speaker 6: any kind of attack like this because there's so little
16:19
Speaker 6: to go on about who this person is.
16:22
Speaker 9: And after that happened, I said, I got to get
16:25
Speaker 9: out of this.
16:26
Speaker 10: I had to get counseling and stuff because I got
16:29
Speaker 10: diagnosed with PTSD.
16:31
Speaker 4: PTSD.
16:36
Speaker 1: Less than four months later, on December 2, 1999, another
16:42
Speaker 1: woman was targeted. 31-year-old sex worker Monica Johnson was driven
16:48
Speaker 1: to work on Michigan Avenue by her boyfriend. The couple
16:52
Speaker 1: parked up on a side street just off the notorious
16:56
Speaker 1: red light strip.
16:58
Speaker 6: And he stayed in his car while she walked down
17:00
Speaker 6: Michigan Avenue to do some business, and that's the last
17:03
Speaker 6: he ever saw of her.
17:05
Speaker 1: Monica had been picked up by a man on Michigan Avenue,
17:08
Speaker 1: and they'd driven away from the area to have their
17:11
Speaker 1: sexual encounter.
17:13
Speaker 5: And it was just a short little kind of secluded area,
17:17
Speaker 5: a short little service drive, and they parked along there
17:20
Speaker 5: near an alley, and they carried out a transaction.
17:24
Speaker 1: But then things took a dark turn when the man
17:28
Speaker 1: Monica was with attacked and strangled her. A passerby found
17:32
Speaker 1: her still alive hours later and called for an ambulance.
17:37
Speaker 5: And the ambulance came and they picked her up and
17:40
Speaker 5: they took her to the hospital, but by the time
17:43
Speaker 5: they got there, she had died.
17:45
Speaker 1: With no eyewitnesses or CCTV of the attack on Monica Johnson,
17:51
Speaker 1: the police had no leads and very little to progress
17:54
Speaker 1: their investigation. Nor had they identified any suspects for the
17:59
Speaker 1: attacks on several other sex workers in Detroit in 1999.
18:05
Speaker 1: Monica's killer was still on the loose in Detroit and
18:08
Speaker 1: he could strike again at any moment.
18:11
Speaker 2: So when we get into the beginning of 2000, the
18:16
Speaker 2: turn of the millennium, he escalates really quite quickly. He
18:22
Speaker 2: cannot give up the compulsion. So have sex with sex
18:25
Speaker 2: workers and kill.
18:29
Speaker 1: Them. 39-year-old Wendy Jordan was known to the police as
18:33
Speaker 1: a sex worker in the red light area of Detroit.
18:37
Speaker 1: On January the 1st, 2000, Wendy got into the car
18:41
Speaker 1: of a man who wanted to pay for her services.
18:46
Speaker 5: He was on Warren Avenue in Detroit and he picked
18:49
Speaker 5: Wendy up and he took her to this side street
18:53
Speaker 5: that was right next to.
18:55
Speaker 9: A funeral home.
18:56
Speaker 5: And they parked in the parking lot of this funeral home.
18:59
Speaker 5: And they proceeded with their transaction. And then he killed
19:03
Speaker 5: her and he drove with her in the Jeep. It's
19:05
Speaker 5: a few miles away. And he pulled over and dumped
19:09
Speaker 5: her over a bridge into the Rouge River on Ann
19:14
Speaker 5: Arbor Trail.
19:15
Speaker 9: And then he went home.
19:18
Speaker 1: Wendy's body had been left in Dearborn Heights, the home
19:22
Speaker 1: of John Eric Armstrong and his family. Since leaving the
19:26
Speaker 1: army less than a year earlier and moving to the area,
19:30
Speaker 1: Armstrong had changed jobs a number of times. On January 2, 2000,
19:36
Speaker 1: Armstrong set off for work at a retail store.
19:41
Speaker 6: At some point in the morning, Armstrong reported feeling sick
19:44
Speaker 6: and told his boss he had to leave work, at
19:47
Speaker 6: which time he drove away.
19:49
Speaker 8: Apparently on his way home.
19:50
Speaker 2: Home.
19:50
Speaker 6: On his way home, Armstrong pulls over on the bridge
19:54
Speaker 6: over the Rouge River and says he did that because
19:58
Speaker 6: he felt so ill he was going to vomit over
20:00
Speaker 6: the bridge.
20:01
Speaker 1: Armstrong looked down at the River Rouge below.
20:05
Speaker 3: It's maybe, at that point, 50 yards wide. six, eight
20:10
Speaker 3: feet deep at the most. And it runs for miles,
20:16
Speaker 3: but there's not a real strong current. It was January and.
20:20
Speaker 8: It was still frozen.
20:22
Speaker 5: And so he looks over the bridge and he sees
20:24
Speaker 5: this woman.
20:24
Speaker 1: It was the body of Wendy Jordan who'd been left
20:27
Speaker 1: there the previous day. Armstrong flagged down a passerby to
20:31
Speaker 1: call the police.
20:33
Speaker 8: I'm on the Rouge River, and there's a dead body
20:35
Speaker 8: in the river. Yeah, I think she got raped. She's naked.
20:38
Speaker 8: She's got her clothes ripped off.
20:40
Speaker 2: He phones them up, and, of course, the body is discovered.
20:45
Speaker 2: It is indeed Wendy Jordan.
20:46
Speaker 1: The police arrived at the scene, and Armstrong told them
20:50
Speaker 1: that he'd left work early because he was feeling ill
20:53
Speaker 1: and had been driving home.
20:55
Speaker 2: But the police regarded, and I quite agree with them,
20:58
Speaker 2: as most peculiar.
20:59
Speaker 5: Yeah.
21:01
Speaker 2: He just happened to stop on the bridge and he
21:02
Speaker 2: just happened to look over and he just happened to
21:04
Speaker 2: see a body. Goodness me. I mean, it almost defies belief,
21:08
Speaker 2: doesn't it, to be honest?
21:11
Speaker 1: Detectives wondered if there was more to the discovery than
21:15
Speaker 1: Armstrong had told them. But if he was involved in
21:19
Speaker 1: any way, why would he have alerted the police?
21:24
Speaker 7: He said he could see a body floating in the
21:27
Speaker 7: river and it was all innocent. Why would he do that?
21:31
Speaker 7: This really, it seems like it would go against everything
21:35
Speaker 7: that you think that he would do. You would think
21:39
Speaker 7: that he would want to get away with it. You
21:41
Speaker 7: think he'd want to stay under the radar.
21:44
Speaker 6: Based on the unusual nature of Armstrong being in that
21:48
Speaker 6: place at that time, the police bring him down for
21:50
Speaker 6: additional questioning to the police station, during which he maintains
21:54
Speaker 6: that he has no connection to this person. He didn't
21:56
Speaker 6: know who they are or why they were there. And
21:58
Speaker 6: he stuck to his story that he felt sick and
22:00
Speaker 6: left work.
22:02
Speaker 9: I leaned over to vomit.
22:05
Speaker 3: And then when I leaned over, my eye caught something.
22:09
Speaker 8: I looked over, and there she was. It seems unusual
22:11
Speaker 8: that you picked the exact spot.
22:14
Speaker 5: That would lead you to be looking over the edge
22:17
Speaker 5: where she was.
22:17
Speaker 8: I'll tell you right now, I wasn't with her.
22:20
Speaker 9: I never saw her.
22:21
Speaker 8: I've never seen her.
22:23
Speaker 9: I'm going to sign things, not knowing anything, I guess.
22:29
Speaker 4: Armstrong had placed himself directly into the murder inquiry, but
22:33
Speaker 4: with no grounds to detain him, police let him leave.
22:37
Speaker 8: His account of what happened had.
22:38
Speaker 5: Raised their suspicions, and they decided to investigate Armstrong further.
22:58
Speaker 5: Dearborn Heights had him pegged. And they don't get a
23:02
Speaker 5: whole lot of homicides like Detroit does. And so they dug.
23:06
Speaker 9: Into this one and they hung on.
23:08
Speaker 5: They followed him around.
23:10
Speaker 8: They even asked to search his car, which he consented to.
23:13
Speaker 6: So they did a forensic examination of his car, which
23:15
Speaker 6: they do Tape lifts of, they try to see if
23:18
Speaker 6: there's fingerprints or DNA or blood inside the car.
23:21
Speaker 5: And one of the officers happened to notice in the
23:24
Speaker 5: search of the Jeep that he saw what he believed
23:28
Speaker 5: were little specks or residue that were gold in color
23:34
Speaker 5: that matched the shoes that Wendy was wearing.
23:37
Speaker 2: Within the car, there was forensic evidence that Wendy Jordan
23:40
Speaker 2: had been in it. which pointed even more conclusively to
23:43
Speaker 2: the fact that he'd not only known her, had her
23:46
Speaker 2: in the car, and thrown her out into the river.
23:49
Speaker 5: They got a warrant for his blood and saliva, and
23:52
Speaker 5: they did DNA testing, and then they did DNA testing
23:55
Speaker 5: from Wendy's body.
23:57
Speaker 1: Conclusive DNA evidence could give the police enough to link
24:01
Speaker 1: Armstrong to the murder of Wendy Jordan, but this wouldn't
24:05
Speaker 1: be a quick process.
24:07
Speaker 3: DNA really came onto the criminal investigation scene in the
24:10
Speaker 3: late 80s So it was relatively new.
24:14
Speaker 6: They didn't have the technology that we have today to
24:18
Speaker 6: both get DNA and analyze even a good DNA sample.
24:22
Speaker 1: It could take months for the DNA results to come back.
24:26
Speaker 1: The police would have to wait for those before they
24:28
Speaker 1: could take any further action against Armstrong.
24:32
Speaker 3: And the prosecutor ordered him released until such time as
24:36
Speaker 3: they had the results from the DNA lab.
24:38
Speaker 6: At this point, the police look at Armstrong, and he's
24:40
Speaker 6: a former military service member who got out of the
24:44
Speaker 6: service and got a decent job and settled with a
24:46
Speaker 6: wife and family, and so his daily life doesn't seem
24:50
Speaker 6: to indicate, you know, a killer.
24:53
Speaker 1: It would be an agonizing wait for investigators. Meanwhile, John
24:58
Speaker 1: Eric Armstrong remained free to roam the streets of Detroit.
25:03
Speaker 1: Three months after Wendy Jordan's body was discovered... 42-year-old Wilhelmina
25:09
Speaker 1: Drain was on Michigan Avenue.
25:12
Speaker 5: She said she was trying to catch a bus home,
25:15
Speaker 5: and she was.
25:15
Speaker 3: An older lady.
25:16
Speaker 1: A vehicle pulled up alongside her, and the man driving
25:20
Speaker 1: asked her if she needed a lift.
25:23
Speaker 5: And they start to travel along, and she instructs him
25:28
Speaker 5: how to take her home, which was north of Michigan.
25:30
Speaker 5: She lived, like, off Joy Road, and he traveled north.
25:33
Speaker 5: But he didn't make the turn he was supposed to make,
25:36
Speaker 5: and he turned somewhere else, and he pulled over, and
25:40
Speaker 5: he reached for her.
25:42
Speaker 8: She sprays him with mace, and she's able to escape.
25:50
Speaker 1: Five days later, on April 7, 2000, sex worker Devin
25:55
Speaker 1: Marcus survived an attack and reported the incident to the police.
26:00
Speaker 1: Around the same time, another sex worker called Cynthia was
26:03
Speaker 1: attacked by a man fitting the same description as the
26:07
Speaker 1: other two incidents.
26:10
Speaker 2: He left her for dead, but in fact, she wasn't dead.
26:14
Speaker 2: She survived.
26:15
Speaker 1: The attacker was showing no signs of slowing down.
26:19
Speaker 5: We've got Wilhelmina, we've got Devin, we've got Cynthia, who
26:23
Speaker 5: were attacked and survived, and he was escalating. He was
26:25
Speaker 5: definitely escalating. I mean, once he kicked back into gear
26:27
Speaker 5: in mid-March... He escalated.
26:29
Speaker 8: Boom, boom, boom, boom.
26:32
Speaker 1: On April the 10th, 2000, the police received a phone call.
26:38
Speaker 1: Somebody thought they saw a body on the side of
26:41
Speaker 1: a railroad track as they were passing through.
26:44
Speaker 3: I was the commanding officer of the violent crime section
26:48
Speaker 3: of the Detroit Police Department, composed of the Violent Crime
26:51
Speaker 3: Task Force, the Fugitive Apprehension Team, and the Crime Analysis
26:57
Speaker 3: Team of the Detroit Police Department. Every Monday morning, we
27:02
Speaker 3: would have a briefing. While we were in that meeting,
27:07
Speaker 3: the head of the Homicide Division got a message to
27:12
Speaker 3: call the office.
27:15
Speaker 1: Jerry Cliff passed the news on to his colleague Del Christian,
27:19
Speaker 1: a team leader on the Violent Crime Task Force.
27:23
Speaker 11: The commander from the Detroit Police Department came through and says, hey,
27:27
Speaker 11: they found a body over by the railroad tracks.
27:30
Speaker 8: It's just a track that just goes through.
27:32
Speaker 11: It's a single track in that area that's used by
27:35
Speaker 11: one of the passenger rails and also freight. And a
27:38
Speaker 11: passenger on the train that looked out the window and
27:43
Speaker 11: saw the body told the conductor, I think I just
27:47
Speaker 11: saw a body.
27:47
Speaker 8: On the track, and the conductor contacted the police department.
27:51
Speaker 1: Not long after this report came through to the police,
27:54
Speaker 1: there was more news to follow.
27:57
Speaker 5: As they walk around the area, they discover a second body.
28:01
Speaker 3: He came back and he said, there's two bodies at
28:05
Speaker 3: the scene, and they're in different states of decomposition.
28:11
Speaker 5: They walk around further, and unfortunately, third body. And so
28:15
Speaker 5: they realize, okay, this is very bad. These three females
28:20
Speaker 5: were probably left here by the same person.
28:23
Speaker 1: With three dead bodies found in the same location, police
28:26
Speaker 1: had to act fast to establish what had happened to
28:29
Speaker 1: these women.
28:31
Speaker 3: There was one victim. She was lying 10 to 15
28:34
Speaker 3: yards away from the tracks themselves on grass and gravel,
28:40
Speaker 3: but not concealed at all in brush or anything like that.
28:46
Speaker 3: She had her pants down around her ankles. She had
28:48
Speaker 3: her legs had been spread in a revealing manner, I
28:52
Speaker 3: guess you would say. There was what appeared to be
28:55
Speaker 3: tights of some sort wrapped around her neck. So you
28:58
Speaker 3: could tell that she'd obviously been raped and strangled.
29:03
Speaker 8: As we walked.
29:06
Speaker 3: Further, it would have been north, there was a lot
29:09
Speaker 3: of brush. And that's where the second and the third
29:13
Speaker 3: bodies were found.
29:15
Speaker 7: The bodies weren't very well hidden, so this isn't somebody
29:19
Speaker 7: who's done what they've done and they're leaving the scene.
29:23
Speaker 7: So we have to assume that the killer knows these
29:27
Speaker 7: bodies will be found, wants them to be found, in fact.
29:31
Speaker 7: They want to display what they've done to the world.
29:37
Speaker 1: The victims all had ligature marks around their necks, showing
29:41
Speaker 1: that they'd been strangled. Their bodies had also been posed
29:47
Speaker 1: by their killer.
29:48
Speaker 7: I don't think that somebody who does that to women
29:54
Speaker 7: has got great relationships with women. probably struggles in relationships
30:00
Speaker 7: with them and feels.
30:01
Speaker 2: An awful lot of resentment towards women.
30:05
Speaker 7: I mean, the misogyny of it just is probably the
30:08
Speaker 7: loudest message that you can get from something like that.
30:12
Speaker 7: It's wanting to degrade and humiliate the victims.
30:18
Speaker 1: This was a man taking pleasure in killing and demeaning women.
30:23
Speaker 11: Once we realized, oh, we have a, what, what I
30:26
Speaker 11: would call a dumping ground for the bodies.
30:29
Speaker 8: We knew we had a serial murderer.
30:31
Speaker 3: We mobilized pretty much everybody that we had. Didn't take
30:34
Speaker 3: us long to realize that this guy was a very
30:37
Speaker 3: prolific killer and that we needed to get him off
30:41
Speaker 3: the street as soon as humanly possible before somebody else died.
30:44
Speaker 8: Now you have multiple victims.
30:46
Speaker 6: You have future victims that may happen unless you catch
30:48
Speaker 6: this person because they're not going to stop killing until
30:51
Speaker 6: you catch them.
30:55
Speaker 1: Over eight months in 1999 and 2000, a spate of
30:59
Speaker 1: attacks and murders had happened in the Detroit area of Michigan.
31:04
Speaker 1: It was clear to police that a serial killer was
31:07
Speaker 1: loose on the streets, attacking and murdering women at an
31:11
Speaker 1: increasing rate. Detectives knew they needed to act fast.
31:17
Speaker 6: Now this ups everything in the police mind. The investigation
31:21
Speaker 6: immediately takes on a different tenor.
31:24
Speaker 3: This is obviously a serial, because you could tell by
31:27
Speaker 3: looking at the three bodies that they were in differing
31:29
Speaker 3: states of decomposition, and it's going to be the only
31:32
Speaker 3: case we're going to be dealing with for the next
31:33
Speaker 3: few days until we get the bad guy.
31:36
Speaker 1: The race to catch the killer was on, but with
31:39
Speaker 1: limited evidence and no leads, the investigators had little to
31:43
Speaker 1: go on. They needed to identify the three women and
31:47
Speaker 1: work out a possible connection between them in the hope
31:50
Speaker 1: that it might lead the police to their killer.
31:55
Speaker 3: As we were able to identify the victims, we also
31:58
Speaker 3: found out that there had been previous arrests for or
32:02
Speaker 3: encounters with the law concerning prostitution and whatnot.
32:08
Speaker 2: One was called Robin Brown, also known as Nicole Young.
32:13
Speaker 2: One was Rosemary Felt, and the last was called Kelly Hood.
32:22
Speaker 1: For Kelly Hood's son, Kyle, his worst fears for his
32:26
Speaker 1: mother had come true.
32:28
Speaker 4: I heard my grandmother coming up the stairs. And the
32:30
Speaker 4: first thing she told me before anybody, she said, Miko,
32:33
Speaker 4: they found your mom.
32:34
Speaker 8: She's not here with us anymore.
32:36
Speaker 9: They found her.
32:36
Speaker 8: She's gone.
32:38
Speaker 4: Then I knew then that she meant she was dead.
32:42
Speaker 3: She became addicted to drugs. The only way that she
32:45
Speaker 3: could support herself after her family broke up was to
32:47
Speaker 3: work the street. She didn't become addicted because she wanted to.
32:51
Speaker 3: She wasn't working the street because she wanted to. She
32:53
Speaker 3: was working the street to support a habit she had
32:55
Speaker 3: no control over.
33:00
Speaker 1: Police had identified the victims were all sex workers, but
33:04
Speaker 1: specialist help would be needed to track down their killer.
33:09
Speaker 1: FBI profilers got to work on building a picture of
33:13
Speaker 1: the offender.
33:14
Speaker 6: The profiler would come in and look at all the victims,
33:16
Speaker 6: look at the victimology, what commonalities among these victims, among
33:19
Speaker 6: the way they were posed. among the way they were killed,
33:23
Speaker 6: and maybe even if you can figure out the way
33:25
Speaker 6: they met the person that killed them.
33:28
Speaker 2: Looking at the crime, the FBI's behavioral science unit suggested
33:34
Speaker 2: that the crimes had been committed by a white man,
33:37
Speaker 2: comparatively young, 25 to 30.
33:41
Speaker 3: They told us, you're looking at his successes. You need
33:46
Speaker 3: to look for a failure. And by that, they meant
33:50
Speaker 3: somebody got away. And if we could find that somebody,
33:54
Speaker 3: we would get a physical description, maybe a vehicle description,
33:57
Speaker 3: so on and so forth.
33:59
Speaker 1: Having identified the women as sex workers, police knew they
34:03
Speaker 1: needed to interview women in the red light area in
34:06
Speaker 1: the hope of getting much needed information.
34:11
Speaker 11: Well, from two or three of the girls that were interviewed,
34:15
Speaker 11: They mentioned that, yes, a guy tried to kill me.
34:17
Speaker 8: He was driving a Jeep.
34:19
Speaker 11: Another one said that he had a tiger tattoo on
34:22
Speaker 11: his arm, that he was a white male with reddish hair.
34:26
Speaker 11: Another one said he had a work shirt with the
34:28
Speaker 11: name Eric on it.
34:29
Speaker 1: The reports all seem to point to the same offender.
34:34
Speaker 3: So we realized that the next thing that he would
34:35
Speaker 3: do is find another victim.
34:37
Speaker 1: In the hope of stopping the killer in his tracks,
34:40
Speaker 1: Detroit's Violent Crime Task Force set up covert surveillance on
34:45
Speaker 1: Michigan Avenue and the surrounding streets.
34:48
Speaker 6: Now you have potentially a predator hunting victims through this area,
34:52
Speaker 6: and you can't afford to miss that.
34:54
Speaker 3: We basically flooded the area with surveillance crews and detectives
35:00
Speaker 3: in clean clothes, not business suits, but you know, jeans
35:04
Speaker 3: and jackets and basically patrolled looking for someone fitting his description.
35:11
Speaker 1: They didn't want the killer to realize that the police
35:14
Speaker 1: were onto him. Any suspicion they were looking for him
35:18
Speaker 1: could scare the killer off and prevent him from being caught.
35:23
Speaker 6: So during this time in this area, an actual police,
35:27
Speaker 6: marked uniform patrol car noticed a car with a guy
35:31
Speaker 6: in it that might have matched the description of the profile.
35:34
Speaker 6: And so they do a routine car stop so they
35:37
Speaker 6: can identify him, get his driver's license, get his date
35:39
Speaker 6: of birth, run him through the system to see if
35:42
Speaker 6: anybody's looking for him, who is this guy.
35:45
Speaker 1: The driver of the vehicle was John Eric Armstrong. Dearborn
35:50
Speaker 1: Heights were waiting for DNA results to establish a link
35:53
Speaker 1: to the murder of Wendy Jordan. But Armstrong was unknown
35:57
Speaker 1: to the officers in neighboring Detroit.
36:01
Speaker 5: He said he was coming home from work. Well, his
36:03
Speaker 5: work was in the other direction. He lived in Dearborn Heights.
36:07
Speaker 5: He worked over in that direction. He was a long
36:10
Speaker 5: way from home.
36:11
Speaker 1: Based on the matching description and Armstrong's story not adding up,
36:16
Speaker 1: police arrested him for further questioning. But before they could
36:19
Speaker 1: get to the station, there was a shock in store
36:22
Speaker 1: for the officers.
36:24
Speaker 6: The officers that are driving him hear him muttering in
36:27
Speaker 6: the back seat under his breath, and he's saying kind
36:30
Speaker 6: of in a low voice, I'm just glad it's over.
36:33
Speaker 8: I'm glad you got me.
36:35
Speaker 3: He was taken straight down to the fifth floor police headquarters,
36:39
Speaker 3: and that's when the interviews began.
36:41
Speaker 1: As the officers talked to Armstrong, one of them leaned
36:45
Speaker 1: forward and put his hand on top of Armstrong's.
36:49
Speaker 3: He says, I just touched you. He says, I left
36:53
Speaker 3: my DNA on your body simply by laying my hand
36:57
Speaker 3: on yours. And that's when they began to explain to him,
37:01
Speaker 3: you know, if.
37:04
Speaker 3: If you had anything to do with these murders and
37:07
Speaker 3: you touched them in any way, we're going to be
37:09
Speaker 3: able to tell. There is absolutely no way that you're
37:13
Speaker 3: going to plead that you didn't touch them if we
37:16
Speaker 3: get this DNA analysis that proves that you did.
37:19
Speaker 5: And all of a sudden, he just started, okay, I
37:21
Speaker 5: did it, I did it, I did it. Then he
37:23
Speaker 5: started making all of his confessions, and one right after another,
37:27
Speaker 5: a lot of confessions for several hours.
37:30
Speaker 1: John Eric Armstrong confessed to the murders of the three
37:34
Speaker 1: women found at the rail yard, Nicole Young, Rosemary Felt,
37:38
Speaker 1: and Kelly Jean Hood.
37:40
Speaker 6: Also during this time and this confession, he confessed to
37:43
Speaker 6: the murder of Wendy Jordan off the Rouge Bridge. He
37:47
Speaker 6: knew that he was a suspect in that case, so
37:50
Speaker 6: it was time to confess to that.
37:58
Speaker 1: But Armstrong's confessions... had only just begun.
38:03
Speaker 3: He actually went through a list of a number of
38:09
Speaker 3: females that he had murdered while he was on the
38:13
Speaker 3: USS Nimitz aircraft carrier in multiple foreign countries. Anytime he
38:18
Speaker 3: was on shore leave, he would go ashore and quite
38:23
Speaker 3: often he would find a prostitute and go through his routine, rape, murder, and,
38:30
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes he would dispose of the bodies, and
38:33
Speaker 3: sometimes he would just leave them.
38:35
Speaker 5: You're talking Singapore, you're talking, you know, Hong Kong, and
38:41
Speaker 5: all these exotic locales that his boat traveled to while
38:45
Speaker 5: he was in the Navy.
38:46
Speaker 6: At this point, FBI officials begin to investigate Armstrong's claims
38:51
Speaker 6: of all these other murders internationally, because if it is true,
38:54
Speaker 6: He's going to be one of the most prolific, well-traveled
38:57
Speaker 6: serial killers in history. And so they start to look
39:00
Speaker 6: into all of these things that he's telling them in
39:03
Speaker 6: other jurisdictions. Some of his descriptions aren't definitive enough, so
39:07
Speaker 6: when they look, the dates don't match up. It could
39:10
Speaker 6: be he's telling the truth, he just didn't give them
39:11
Speaker 6: enough details.
39:15
Speaker 1: In March 2001, 27-year-old John Eric Armstrong went on trial
39:21
Speaker 1: for the murder of Wendy Jordan at the Frank Murphy
39:24
Speaker 1: Hall of Justice in downtown Detroit. To the surprise of
39:29
Speaker 1: those involved... in the investigation, and despite his earlier confessions,
39:35
Speaker 1: Armstrong changed his story.
39:37
Speaker 5: By the time he was brought up on charges and
39:40
Speaker 5: things were proceeding through the court system, he was maintaining
39:44
Speaker 5: his innocence.
39:45
Speaker 1: During the trial, DNA and forensic evidence was presented to
39:49
Speaker 1: the jury. Fibers from Wendy Jordan's clothes had been found
39:53
Speaker 1: in Armstrong's vehicle, and the results of the DNA taken
39:57
Speaker 1: by the Dearborn Heights police had come back. The semen
40:01
Speaker 1: found inside Wendy's body was John Eric Armstrong's.
40:07
Speaker 5: And so in the case of Wendy Jordan, his attorney,
40:10
Speaker 5: one of the tactics he tried was that, okay, You
40:14
Speaker 5: got DNA evidence, and it's linked to my client, to
40:17
Speaker 5: Wendy Jordan. So yeah, they had sex that night, but
40:19
Speaker 5: it was consensual, and when he left her, she was alive.
40:22
Speaker 5: So somebody else killed her.
40:24
Speaker 1: The jury didn't believe this excuse. On the 3rd of
40:28
Speaker 1: April 2001, after a two-week trial, John Eric Armstrong was
40:33
Speaker 1: found guilty of the first-degree murder of Wendy Jordan and
40:36
Speaker 1: given a life sentence. On the 18th of June 2001,
40:41
Speaker 1: he was also found guilty of the first-degree murder of
40:46
Speaker 1: Kelly Jean Hood and given another life sentence.
40:50
Speaker 4: She was a wife, a mother, a daughter, and she
40:54
Speaker 4: was a human being that deserved to live and deserved
40:57
Speaker 4: to come back from her addiction. If he didn't take
41:00
Speaker 4: her life, I know she would have came around because
41:04
Speaker 4: everybody can overcome an addiction.
41:10
Speaker 1: On July the 4th, 2001, Armstrong pleaded guilty to the
41:14
Speaker 1: second-degree murder of Robin Brown, Rosemary Felt, and Monica Johnson.
41:20
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to an additional 31 years. Armstrong was
41:24
Speaker 1: never charged with the attack on Natasha Olenichak, but she
41:28
Speaker 1: is certain he was the man who attacked her in
41:31
Speaker 1: August 1999.
41:32
Speaker 9: He was wrong for doing what he'd done, and period.
41:39
Speaker 10: I don't even know how someone can just be at
41:42
Speaker 10: home with their wife and killing women.
41:46
Speaker 9: How can you just go out and do that?
41:49
Speaker 1: Armstrong was taken to the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility
41:53
Speaker 1: in Michigan to serve his sentence.
41:57
Speaker 3: I've worked other serial investigations, and one of the things
42:00
Speaker 3: that you learn when you're doing that is serial criminals
42:03
Speaker 3: don't just stop. When and if they get back into
42:06
Speaker 3: polite society, they're going to start up all over again.
42:09
Speaker 9: If he could, he would still be doing it. If
42:11
Speaker 9: they let him out, he would do it again.
42:15
Speaker 3: Armstrong was, in my humble opinion, the personification of evil.
42:22
Speaker 3: He had no remorse whatsoever for what he was doing.
42:25
Speaker 3: He knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew
42:27
Speaker 3: he was taking lives. He was a manipulator. And he
42:32
Speaker 3: would do it until we stopped him.
42:35
Speaker 1: The lives that Armstrong took before being caught will always
42:39
Speaker 1: be remembered by their loved ones who bear the pain
42:43
Speaker 1: to this day.
42:45
Speaker 4: My impression of John Eric Armstrong, he's just a monster.
42:48
Speaker 4: He's killed multiple women. So it was natural to him.
42:53
Speaker 4: Only person that type of lifestyle that could be natural
42:57
Speaker 4: to is a monster, plain and simple.
43:07
Speaker 1: Armstrong killed five women in Michigan and violently attacked many more.
43:13
Speaker 1: He also claims to have murdered women all over the
43:16
Speaker 1: world when he was in the Navy. If true, John
43:20
Speaker 1: Eric Armstrong is one of the most globally prolific serial
43:24
Speaker 1: killers to ever exist and will forever be known as
43:29
Speaker 1: one of the world's most evil killers.