Latest / Crime and Horror / Her dating history created dozens of suspects - MrBallen

Transcript

Her dating history created dozens of suspects - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

0:00
Speaker 1: One night in December of twenty eleven, a man sat
0:02
Speaker 1: in front of his computer anxiously staring at the words
0:05
Speaker 1: that he had just typed into a chat window. He
0:07
Speaker 1: was about to hit send and share his darkest secret
0:10
Speaker 1: with someone he'd only ever talk to online, and it
0:13
Speaker 1: was the kind of secret that could totally destroy him,
0:15
Speaker 1: and he knew sending it was probably a huge mistake,
0:19
Speaker 1: but the loneliness and the guilt he was feeling was
0:22
Speaker 1: just sort of unbearable, and he felt like he had
0:25
Speaker 1: to tell someone. So after a long pause, he reached
0:29
Speaker 1: up and he hit send. But before we get into
0:31
Speaker 1: today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark
0:34
Speaker 1: and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to
0:37
Speaker 1: the right place, because that's all we do, and the
0:39
Speaker 1: upload two, three, even four times every week. So if
0:42
Speaker 1: that's of interest to you, please invite the like button
0:45
Speaker 1: to come deep sea fishing with you, but don't.
0:47
Speaker 2: Tell them that they are going to be the bait.
0:49
Speaker 1: Also, please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications.
0:52
Speaker 2: So you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.
0:55
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into today's story. On the afternoon of Wednesday,
1:21
Speaker 1: November seventeenth, twenty ten, a fifty four year old woman
1:24
Speaker 1: named Diane Czeleski pulled her car into her driveway in
1:27
Speaker 1: Union Township, New Jersey, which is a small suburb of
1:30
Speaker 1: New York City. Diane was just about to get out
1:32
Speaker 1: of her car and go inside when her cell phone
1:35
Speaker 1: inside of her purse began to ring.
1:37
Speaker 2: She opened it up and she looked at.
1:38
Speaker 1: Her phone and the caller I d said it was
1:41
Speaker 1: her sister in law, Debbie, So Diane picked it up
1:43
Speaker 1: and she said hello, and immediately Debbie asked her for
1:47
Speaker 1: a favor. She said that she needed someone to drive
1:49
Speaker 1: her to a doctor's appointment the next day, and she
1:51
Speaker 1: was wondering if Diane could do that, and Diane did
1:54
Speaker 1: not have to consult her calendar to know that her
1:57
Speaker 1: schedule tomorrow was wide open. A few months ago, she'd
2:01
Speaker 1: retired from her seventeen year career as a legal secretary
2:04
Speaker 1: and then had moved to this particular neighborhood to be
2:07
Speaker 1: closer to her aging parents and her brother, and so
2:09
Speaker 1: her only job at the moment was helping out her family,
2:12
Speaker 1: which didn't take up all her time, and tomorrow she
2:14
Speaker 1: was free, so Diane told Debbie you know, that she'd
2:17
Speaker 1: see her tomorrow, and then the pair hung up. After that,
2:20
Speaker 1: Diane gathered up her things and got out of her car,
2:23
Speaker 1: and then as she was about to walk inside of
2:24
Speaker 1: her home, she stopped and just turned around and looked
2:27
Speaker 1: out at her new neighborhood.
2:29
Speaker 2: And it was really nice here. I mean, the block
2:31
Speaker 2: was full of.
2:31
Speaker 1: All these beautiful homes and well kept lawns. I mean,
2:34
Speaker 1: this was just a really nice place to live. And
2:36
Speaker 1: so as she was just you know, staring out at
2:38
Speaker 1: the scene, she saw the woman who lived across the street,
2:41
Speaker 1: her name was Missus Yearwood, dragging her garbage cans down
2:44
Speaker 1: to the curb. And so Diane, you know, she waved
2:46
Speaker 1: to missus Yearwood and smiled and also made a mental
2:50
Speaker 1: note to ask missus Yearwood if her son, whose name
2:53
Speaker 1: was Arnell, was free to shovel her Diane's walkway tomorrow
2:57
Speaker 1: because that night it was supposed to snow. Later Let's night,
3:00
Speaker 1: Sometime after ten pm, Diane was in bed with her
3:03
Speaker 1: laptop open, scrolling through messages on her online dating profile.
3:07
Speaker 1: Now dating was sort of a normal part of Diane's life.
3:11
Speaker 1: She'd gone out with plenty of men over the years,
3:13
Speaker 1: and she still got hit on pretty aggressively at bars,
3:16
Speaker 1: and she'd even been proposed to once. But despite you know,
3:19
Speaker 1: meeting lots of men and liking quite a few of them,
3:22
Speaker 1: she just had never gotten married. These days, Diane met
3:26
Speaker 1: most of the men that she went on dates with online,
3:28
Speaker 1: like on a dating site, and on these sites, men
3:31
Speaker 1: seemed to always be messaging her to ask her out,
3:34
Speaker 1: and so far, you know, of the men she actually.
3:36
Speaker 2: Wound up seeing, only a few had been creeps.
3:39
Speaker 1: And so over time, Diane had sort of cultivated the
3:42
Speaker 1: small roster of men that she kept in touch with
3:44
Speaker 1: and you know, would meet up with for dates. And
3:47
Speaker 1: so now Diane clicked on the profile for one of
3:49
Speaker 1: the men that was on her roster. It was a
3:51
Speaker 1: man named Kyle Porter, and she was just about to
3:54
Speaker 1: message him this very flirty message when she heard her
3:57
Speaker 1: doorbell downstairs ring.
3:58
Speaker 2: And when she heard this, she was sort of surprised.
4:01
Speaker 1: Because she definitely was not expecting anybody, but you know,
4:04
Speaker 1: she still obviously got out of bed and got herself
4:07
Speaker 1: together and headed downstairs to see who it was. And
4:09
Speaker 1: when she unlocked and opened the door, the person standing
4:12
Speaker 1: outside in the cold was somebody that she immediately recognized. Now,
4:16
Speaker 1: she really had no idea what they were doing here
4:19
Speaker 1: right now, but she told them to, you know, come
4:22
Speaker 1: inside and then ask them, you know, what's going on.
4:24
Speaker 1: And then this visitor started talking and they would say
4:27
Speaker 1: something that Diane never expected. The following day, around noon,
4:37
Speaker 1: Diane's ninety one year old father, Stanley Celeski, was at
4:40
Speaker 1: home watching TV when his phone rang. He picked it
4:43
Speaker 1: up and he heard the voice of his daughter in law, Debbie,
4:46
Speaker 1: and Debbie sounded really worried, and she quickly explained to
4:50
Speaker 1: him that Diane.
4:51
Speaker 2: Had agreed to drive her to a doctor's appointment that morning,
4:55
Speaker 2: but she hadn't shown up.
4:56
Speaker 1: And now you know, she was reaching out to Diane,
4:59
Speaker 1: but she was answering, and she also wasn't responding to texts.
5:02
Speaker 1: And Stanley, much like Debbie, was very surprised by this
5:06
Speaker 1: because this was not like Diane at all. So he
5:09
Speaker 1: told Debbie that he would go over to Diane's place
5:11
Speaker 1: right now and check on her, since, after all, he
5:13
Speaker 1: lived a lot closer to Diane.
5:15
Speaker 2: Than Debbie did.
5:16
Speaker 1: Then they hung up, and Stanley yelled for his wife
5:19
Speaker 1: to come on with him. Twenty minutes later, Stanley and
5:22
Speaker 1: his wife, Diane's mom, walked up to the front door
5:25
Speaker 1: of Diane's house. As soon as they got there, Stanley
5:28
Speaker 1: began pounding on the door, yelling for his daughter, but
5:31
Speaker 1: there was no answer, and so eventually, after looking at
5:33
Speaker 1: his wife and they both are like, what's going on here,
5:36
Speaker 1: he reached down and he tried the door handle to
5:38
Speaker 1: see if the door was unlocked, and he found that
5:40
Speaker 1: it was, so he turned the handle and he just
5:43
Speaker 1: pushed the door open, and immediately his eyes were drawn
5:47
Speaker 1: to the ground inside the house, right in the foyer,
5:50
Speaker 1: because it was all red.
5:52
Speaker 2: There was blood everywhere. A wave of.
5:55
Speaker 1: Nausea came over Stanley and he had to grab the
5:58
Speaker 1: doorframe to steady himself. But then after a moment, he
6:01
Speaker 1: turned to his wife, who was right next to him,
6:03
Speaker 1: and he just said, stay right here. I'm going to
6:04
Speaker 1: go in and look around. And then he stepped inside.
6:08
Speaker 1: And as he moved further into the foyer, which again
6:10
Speaker 1: I mean there's just like blood splattered everywhere, he began
6:14
Speaker 1: to notice there were piles of strange white dust that
6:17
Speaker 1: he didn't recognize, sort of amongst the blood. There's no
6:20
Speaker 1: sign of Diane, Like it's silent in the house, but
6:24
Speaker 1: as Stanley's standing there, he sees that there's also what
6:27
Speaker 1: appears to be a pretty clear trail like something had
6:30
Speaker 1: been dragged through the blood and was sort of pulled
6:33
Speaker 1: towards the back of the house. And so Stanley, you know,
6:36
Speaker 1: with his heart racing, he began walking like following this
6:39
Speaker 1: trail of whatever got dragged through the house, and it
6:42
Speaker 1: made its way to the top of the stairs that led.
6:45
Speaker 2: Down into the basement. And then when.
6:47
Speaker 1: Stanley looked down into the basement, he saw something at
6:51
Speaker 1: the foot of the stairs, like a heap of something.
6:53
Speaker 2: That was down there.
6:54
Speaker 1: And after a minute, once his eyes adjusted to the
6:56
Speaker 1: dark down there, he saw it was his daughter. And
6:59
Speaker 1: at that point he he sort of staggered back and
7:01
Speaker 1: he yelled out for his wife to call nine one.
7:03
Speaker 1: One Half an hour later, around one in the afternoon,
7:09
Speaker 1: Detective Robert Henderson of the Union County Homicide Task Force
7:12
Speaker 1: drove his police cruiser into a very nice, quiet neighborhood.
7:15
Speaker 1: His partner, Detective Mike Minacchio, was sitting in the passenger seat,
7:19
Speaker 1: and at some point Henderson he pulled up to the
7:21
Speaker 1: snow covered curb in front of a large house that
7:23
Speaker 1: was in the process of being roped off with crime
7:25
Speaker 1: scene tape. Henderson immediately noticed there was an elderly man
7:29
Speaker 1: and woman being interviewed by officers in the front yard
7:32
Speaker 1: of this house, and as soon as Detective Henderson and
7:35
Speaker 1: his partner got out of their cruiser, one of the
7:37
Speaker 1: officers who was out and about ran over to brief
7:40
Speaker 1: them on what the police knew so far. He explained
7:42
Speaker 1: that the elderly man and woman were the parents of
7:45
Speaker 1: the victim, Diane Czeleski. Diane lived alone, this was her home,
7:49
Speaker 1: and her parents come over earlier and found her foyer
7:52
Speaker 1: covered in blood, and Diane was found lying dead at
7:56
Speaker 1: the bottom of the stairs in the basement. Henderson asked
7:58
Speaker 1: if there were any signs of a break in or
8:00
Speaker 1: a robbery, and the officer said no, but he warned
8:05
Speaker 1: them that the scene inside the house.
8:07
Speaker 2: Was really unusual.
8:08
Speaker 1: It seemed like the killer, after killing Diane, had sort
8:12
Speaker 1: of been all over the house, clearly taking a lot
8:14
Speaker 1: of time to both clean up and also contaminate the
8:18
Speaker 1: scene to make it harder for investigators. And when Henderson
8:21
Speaker 1: heard this, he sort of raised an eyebrow because in
8:24
Speaker 1: his experience, most killers tried to get away from the
8:27
Speaker 1: crime scene as quickly as possible. They wouldn't just linger
8:30
Speaker 1: like that, and so at this point Henderson turned to
8:33
Speaker 1: Monocchio and was like, you know, how do you want
8:35
Speaker 1: to split this up here? And Monacchio said he would
8:38
Speaker 1: stay and interview Diane's parents. That why Henderson could go
8:41
Speaker 1: inside and inspect the rest of the crime scene when
8:50
Speaker 1: you were refreshing your space. Choosing a paint color can
8:53
Speaker 1: feel weirdly high stakes. Well, that sea foam grain that
8:57
Speaker 1: you loved online looked more like split piece soup on
9:01
Speaker 1: your walls. Luckily, Sherwin Williams takes the guesswork out of
9:05
Speaker 1: finding the perfect paint color with three easy ways to sample.
9:08
Speaker 1: You can choose color with confidence, testing shades in your
9:11
Speaker 1: actual space before making the final call. Order color chips,
9:15
Speaker 1: peel and stick, or color to Go, Paint samples at
9:18
Speaker 1: s W samples dot com or visit your neighborhood Sherwin
9:21
Speaker 1: Williams store to get started today. Moments later, Henderson stepped
9:29
Speaker 1: through the front door of Diane's house and he saw
9:31
Speaker 1: the huge amount of blood in the foyer. There was
9:34
Speaker 1: so much that he assumed the murder must have taken
9:36
Speaker 1: place right here in the entryway. There was also a
9:39
Speaker 1: lot of white dust all over the floor that Henderson
9:42
Speaker 1: recognized as fire extinguisher powder. Henderson couldn't see any evidence
9:46
Speaker 1: of a fire, so he guessed that what must have
9:48
Speaker 1: happened here is the killer had sprayed down the area
9:51
Speaker 1: with a fire extinguisher in an effort just to contaminate
9:55
Speaker 1: the scene. Henderson noticed there was a trail of blood
9:58
Speaker 1: that sort of left the entryway and headed towards the
10:00
Speaker 1: back of the house, and so he followed it through
10:02
Speaker 1: the hallway into the kitchen, and in there he saw
10:05
Speaker 1: forensic texts standing around the kitchen sink, which was full
10:08
Speaker 1: of all the soapy water, and as he walked in, Henderson,
10:11
Speaker 1: one of the texts pulled a woman's wallet out of
10:14
Speaker 1: the sink and then set it open on the counter
10:16
Speaker 1: to dry. Henderson walked over to check the id and
10:19
Speaker 1: saw that it was Diane's wallet, and so this was
10:21
Speaker 1: obviously very weird. But it got even weirder when the
10:24
Speaker 1: forensics tech reached back into the water and.
10:27
Speaker 2: Then fished out something else, a TV remote.
10:30
Speaker 1: And so at this point Henderson and the text realized
10:33
Speaker 1: that what must be going on here is the killer
10:36
Speaker 1: must have been dumping these items in this soapy water
10:39
Speaker 1: to try to clean off fingerprints or DNA. But after
10:42
Speaker 1: seeing all this, it made Henderson really wonder, like what
10:47
Speaker 1: state would the body be in when he found it?
10:49
Speaker 1: If the killer's going to these many lengths with just
10:52
Speaker 1: like ancillary evidence, what did they do to the body.
10:55
Speaker 2: And so, after chatting with the text for a.
10:57
Speaker 1: Few minutes about how strange this whole thing was, Henderson
11:00
Speaker 1: turned and continued following that trail of blood on the ground,
11:04
Speaker 1: and it led him to the door that went down
11:06
Speaker 1: to the basement. And so he looked down into the
11:08
Speaker 1: basement and he saw at the foot of the stairs
11:10
Speaker 1: there was a forensic specialist taking photos of Diane's body,
11:14
Speaker 1: which was right at the foot of the stairs. When
11:16
Speaker 1: Henderson went down there and actually got a look at
11:19
Speaker 1: Diane's body, I mean, he had been bracing for her
11:23
Speaker 1: body to be in pretty rough shape considering what he
11:25
Speaker 1: had seen upstairs, But he was still taken aback by
11:29
Speaker 1: just how violently Diane clearly had been attacked. Her torso,
11:33
Speaker 1: her neck, and her face were covered in literally more
11:37
Speaker 1: stab wounds than he could even count. And then, as
11:40
Speaker 1: Henderson leaned in even closer, he saw there were additional
11:43
Speaker 1: bruises on Diane's face and pretty clear defensive marks on
11:47
Speaker 1: her limbs that told him that there had definitely been
11:50
Speaker 1: a pretty big struggle. Also, some of Diane's clothes had
11:53
Speaker 1: been removed, which made Henderson wonder if Diane had been
11:56
Speaker 1: sexually assaulted, and as awful as that obviously is, if
12:00
Speaker 1: that was the case, the upshot was that there was
12:03
Speaker 1: a good chance the killer's DNA could be recovered from
12:07
Speaker 1: her body. However, at the same time Henderson is thinking this,
12:10
Speaker 1: he began to notice a very harsh chemical smell that
12:13
Speaker 1: was clearly coming from Diane's body, and that's when he
12:16
Speaker 1: spotted a bottle of toilet cleaner that was right nearby,
12:19
Speaker 1: and he realized that the killer must have dragged Diane's
12:22
Speaker 1: body down here and then splashed it with chemicals and
12:25
Speaker 1: yet another attempt to destroy evidence.
12:28
Speaker 2: And so at this point Henderson was getting.
12:29
Speaker 1: Pretty worried because the killer clearly had taken a lot
12:33
Speaker 1: of steps to cover their tracks, and if they had
12:36
Speaker 1: done a thorough enough job and the police couldn't find
12:39
Speaker 1: any usable fingerprints or DNA, they'd be relying primarily on witnesses,
12:44
Speaker 1: which are not.
12:45
Speaker 2: Necessarily hugely reliable, So.
12:47
Speaker 1: Henderson just really hoped that was not going to be
12:49
Speaker 1: the case here, but if it was, he just prayed
12:53
Speaker 1: that someone in the neighborhood had seen something. Ten minutes later,
12:58
Speaker 1: Henderson walked down the icy side walk, canvassing the neighborhood
13:01
Speaker 1: with his partner, Detective Monachio, and as they walked, Monachio
13:05
Speaker 1: filled Henderson in on the talk that he had just
13:07
Speaker 1: had with Diane's parents. What he'd learned was that Diane
13:11
Speaker 1: had recently moved to this neighborhood and that she also
13:14
Speaker 1: dated a lot, mostly men that she met online. And
13:17
Speaker 1: the fact that she dated a lot of people certainly
13:19
Speaker 1: caught Henderson's attention because all the evidence that they had
13:22
Speaker 1: found so far in Diane's house suggested that she had
13:26
Speaker 1: been killed by somebody she knew. There were no signs
13:28
Speaker 1: of forced entry, and there was evidence of a long,
13:32
Speaker 1: very deliberate cleanup, so the killer had clearly felt comfortable
13:35
Speaker 1: enough to stick around after the murder and had probably
13:39
Speaker 1: known Diane was single. So they were not going to
13:41
Speaker 1: be interrupted, and so Henderson sort of filed these thoughts
13:44
Speaker 1: away as he and his partner arrived at the next
13:47
Speaker 1: house on the block, Henderson knocked, and a moment later
13:50
Speaker 1: an elderly woman answered the door, and at that point
13:53
Speaker 1: Henderson explained about Diane's murder, and then he asked her
13:56
Speaker 1: if she had seen anything suspicious around Diane's place the
13:59
Speaker 1: previous day, cars parked outside, or you know, strange people
14:03
Speaker 1: coming and going.
14:04
Speaker 2: Anything. Now, this woman was immediately.
14:06
Speaker 1: Startled by the news of a murder in this neighborhood.
14:09
Speaker 1: That definitely was the primary reaction she had. But you know,
14:12
Speaker 1: she quickly recovered and said that no, she hadn't seen anything. However,
14:17
Speaker 1: she did remember seeing some kids playing in the yard
14:20
Speaker 1: across the street from Diane's, so maybe they had seen something.
14:23
Speaker 1: Moments later, Henderson and Monacchio stood on the front porch
14:27
Speaker 1: of the house that was directly across the street from
14:29
Speaker 1: Diane's and they were speaking to a woman in her
14:32
Speaker 1: fifties who'd introduced herself as Missus Yearwood. When Henderson explained
14:36
Speaker 1: about the murder across the street, Missus Yearwood gasped and
14:40
Speaker 1: said that, you know, she hadn't known Diane particularly well.
14:43
Speaker 1: I mean, she was new to the neighborhood, but she
14:45
Speaker 1: had always been so friendly to her and her family,
14:47
Speaker 1: and in fact, Diane had even paid Missus Yearwood's son
14:51
Speaker 1: to help with some small chores around her house. At
14:53
Speaker 1: this point, Henderson sort of, you know, shifted the conversation
14:56
Speaker 1: and just got to the point he told her that
14:59
Speaker 1: he had heard that there there had been some kids
15:00
Speaker 1: playing outside this house the previous day, and were the
15:04
Speaker 1: kids home, because he really wanted to speak to them
15:06
Speaker 1: to see if they had maybe heard or seen anything
15:08
Speaker 1: strange on Diane's property the day before. Missus Yearwood immediately
15:13
Speaker 1: nodded and turned around and walked into the back of
15:15
Speaker 1: the house, and then a moment later came back with
15:18
Speaker 1: an eleven year old boy who looked very nervous, and
15:21
Speaker 1: so Henderson to disarm him, immediately knelt down and touched
15:24
Speaker 1: him on the shoulder and just said, look, we're trying
15:26
Speaker 1: to catch a bad guy. And then Henderson pointed across
15:30
Speaker 1: the street and asked the boy had he seen anything
15:32
Speaker 1: strange at Diane's house the day before. The boy, at
15:35
Speaker 1: this point looked past Henderson over at Diane's house and
15:39
Speaker 1: then back at Henderson, and he just shook his head
15:41
Speaker 1: and said no. And at this point Henderson he felt
15:44
Speaker 1: the stomach sink because, with a deeply contaminated crime scene
15:48
Speaker 1: and apparently no good witnesses, this case was already off
15:51
Speaker 1: to a horrible start. Around noon the following day, December nineteenth,
15:58
Speaker 1: Detective Henderson's at in his office reading through Diane Celeski's
16:02
Speaker 1: autopsy report. He'd been anxiously waiting for this file all morning,
16:06
Speaker 1: but unfortunately it did not contain much information that he
16:09
Speaker 1: had not already guessed. Diane's time of death was estimated
16:12
Speaker 1: to be between ten pm and one am, so eleven
16:15
Speaker 1: to fourteen hours before her parents found her body. She
16:18
Speaker 1: had been strangled and beaten, and also stabbed more than
16:21
Speaker 1: forty times. The damage was so severe the medical examiner
16:25
Speaker 1: couldn't actually say which injury killed her, and also the
16:29
Speaker 1: knife that was used in the attack had never been found.
16:31
Speaker 1: They also couldn't tell if Diane had been sexually assaulted
16:34
Speaker 1: because the chemicals that had been splashed on her body
16:37
Speaker 1: had destroyed any DNA.
16:39
Speaker 2: The killer might have left behind.
16:41
Speaker 1: The forensics team also had not pulled any usable fingerprints
16:44
Speaker 1: from the house thanks to the killer's clean up efforts,
16:46
Speaker 1: but they did find something that was even better. There
16:49
Speaker 1: were a few drops of fresh blood at the crime
16:51
Speaker 1: scene that did not match Diane's DNA, and early tests
16:56
Speaker 1: showed that they came from an adult male. Now, it
16:59
Speaker 1: was possible that this blood was from someone other than
17:02
Speaker 1: the killer, but Henderson didn't think so. There had clearly
17:05
Speaker 1: been some sort of struggle between the killer and Diane,
17:08
Speaker 1: so it seemed likely that Diane had managed to wound
17:12
Speaker 1: the killer and maybe draw blood, and maybe this was it,
17:14
Speaker 1: and so now the game had changed.
17:17
Speaker 2: Henderson's next task would be to collect.
17:19
Speaker 1: DNA samples from all the men closest to Diane and
17:23
Speaker 1: compare them to this fresh blood at the crime scene. Now,
17:27
Speaker 1: the digital forensics team had Diane's laptop and they were
17:30
Speaker 1: working really hard to try to access her online dating
17:33
Speaker 1: profile to try to figure out who she'd been chatting with,
17:35
Speaker 1: because those were definitely some people they might want to
17:38
Speaker 1: compare DNA with. But while Henderson you thought that was great,
17:42
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to wait. He felt like he needed
17:44
Speaker 1: to move on this right now, and he figured if
17:46
Speaker 1: he wanted some answers about who Diane was potentially dating
17:50
Speaker 1: or seeing, or maybe who some of her exes were,
17:52
Speaker 1: he actually knew where he could go to start around
17:55
Speaker 1: nine point thirty the next morning, Henderson was sitting in
17:58
Speaker 1: a coffee shop across from Diane's best friend, Joanne Govella.
18:02
Speaker 1: Joanne was clearly still processing the murder, and at the
18:05
Speaker 1: moment she really seemed more angry than anything else. But
18:08
Speaker 1: she told Henderson that she would help any way she could,
18:11
Speaker 1: and that she did know all about the men who
18:14
Speaker 1: were in Diane's life, but of all her romantic partners,
18:18
Speaker 1: there was really only one who concerned her. His name
18:21
Speaker 1: was Mike Prunell, and according to Joanne, he'd been Diane's
18:25
Speaker 1: landlord years ago. After Diane had moved into his building,
18:28
Speaker 1: he'd started showering her with gifts and bugging her to
18:32
Speaker 1: go out with him, and they had ended up dating
18:34
Speaker 1: for a while, but when Diane ended things, Mike had
18:38
Speaker 1: been furious, and Diane had actually had to move to
18:40
Speaker 1: a new place just to get away from him. Now
18:43
Speaker 1: this obviously got Henderson's attention, and he made a mental
18:46
Speaker 1: note to find Mike as soon as possible. But there
18:49
Speaker 1: was another name that he wanted to ask Joanne about
18:51
Speaker 1: as well. During the search of Diane's house, detectives had
18:54
Speaker 1: found her wallet in the kitchen sink, you know, had
18:56
Speaker 1: been sitting in the water, and inside of the wallet
18:59
Speaker 1: had been Diane's eye, some credit cards, and then there
19:02
Speaker 1: was also this soggy business card for someone named Mark Baker,
19:06
Speaker 1: and so Henderson asked if Joanne recognized that name, and
19:10
Speaker 1: Joanne said, yeah, I do. She said Diane had met
19:14
Speaker 1: Mark Baker at a bar and they had talked and
19:17
Speaker 1: exchanged contact info, but Joanne didn't know if they'd ever
19:20
Speaker 1: actually followed up, And so Henderson and Joanne spoked for
19:23
Speaker 1: a bit longer, and then eventually they wrapped it up,
19:25
Speaker 1: and Henderson thanked Joanne for the help, and then as
19:29
Speaker 1: he was leaving, he decided that, you know, he really
19:31
Speaker 1: needed to speak to both Mark and Mike, but he
19:33
Speaker 1: would start with Mark because he had.
19:35
Speaker 2: His business card.
19:37
Speaker 1: Later that afternoon, Henderson led Mark Baker into the police
19:41
Speaker 1: station's interview room. He offered Mark a seat and a
19:43
Speaker 1: bottle of water, which Mark accepted before asking, like, what's
19:47
Speaker 1: going on?
19:48
Speaker 2: What is this all about?
19:49
Speaker 1: Mark definitely was pretty annoyed to have been asked to
19:51
Speaker 1: come down here in the middle of the work day
19:53
Speaker 1: with you know, virtually no explanation. So Henderson decided to
19:57
Speaker 1: just get straight to it, and he explained that he
20:00
Speaker 1: was investigating a murder. Then he pulled out a photo
20:02
Speaker 1: of Diane, put it on the table, and slid it
20:05
Speaker 1: over to Mark. Now, as Henderson did this, he was
20:07
Speaker 1: sort of studying Mark for any sort of reaction when
20:10
Speaker 1: he saw Diane's picture, But Mark just sort of glanced
20:13
Speaker 1: at the photo and then back up at Henderson and
20:16
Speaker 1: he said, am I supposed to know who this is?
20:19
Speaker 1: And this totally caught Henderson off guard. Henderson told him
20:22
Speaker 1: that the woman's name was Diane, and he knew that
20:26
Speaker 1: Mark had met her at a bar not that long ago,
20:28
Speaker 1: but Mark just shook his head and insisted that that
20:31
Speaker 1: had not happened. He said he definitely didn't know Diane,
20:34
Speaker 1: and he also would not have chatted her up anywhere
20:37
Speaker 1: because she apparently was not the kind of quote target
20:41
Speaker 1: he usually went for. And that word target sort of
20:44
Speaker 1: hung in the air very uneasily between them for a
20:46
Speaker 1: long time. And then eventually Henderson just sort of cleared
20:50
Speaker 1: his throat and asked if Mark would be willing to
20:53
Speaker 1: give a DNA sample, and Mark flat out refused, But
20:57
Speaker 1: this only made Henderson even more determined and to get
21:00
Speaker 1: a sample. Now he couldn't force it without a warrant,
21:04
Speaker 1: but he had another idea. Mark had been drinking from
21:07
Speaker 1: that water bottle that he had given him when he
21:08
Speaker 1: first came in, and he just hoped if Mark left
21:12
Speaker 1: it behind, Henderson could scoop it up and send it
21:14
Speaker 1: off for testing. So he told Mark that he was
21:16
Speaker 1: free to go, but Henderson was disappointed when Mark did
21:20
Speaker 1: not throw the bottle away. Instead, he put the cap
21:23
Speaker 1: back on, pocketed the bottle, and he left. Now Henderson
21:27
Speaker 1: obviously couldn't prove this, but just from the looks of it,
21:30
Speaker 1: the decision to take the bottle like that, it just
21:33
Speaker 1: it felt deliberate, and it reminded him of just how
21:35
Speaker 1: careful Diane's killer had been to remove forensic evidence from
21:39
Speaker 1: the crime scene. So he gave Mark a few seconds
21:42
Speaker 1: head start, and then eventually Henderson got up and actually
21:46
Speaker 1: followed Mark out of the station, but kept his distance
21:48
Speaker 1: so that he wouldn't notice he was behind him, and
21:50
Speaker 1: Henderson very carefully trailed Mark all the way down the block,
21:54
Speaker 1: and then at some point when Mark stopped and sort
21:56
Speaker 1: of looked around for a moment, Henderson froze until he
22:00
Speaker 1: realized Mark was just checking street signs, and then you know,
22:03
Speaker 1: Mark just kept on walking, and Henderson kept on trailing
22:06
Speaker 1: until eventually Mark pulled out that bottle and he chucked
22:10
Speaker 1: it onto the ground. And then as soon as Mark
22:12
Speaker 1: had walked down the road, turned the corner and disappeared,
22:15
Speaker 1: Henderson ran over, put on a rubber glove, picked up
22:18
Speaker 1: that bottle and went right back.
22:20
Speaker 2: To the police station.
22:21
Speaker 1: And then as soon as he got there, he put
22:23
Speaker 1: it inside of an evidence bag and he sent it
22:25
Speaker 1: off to the crime lab for testing. That evening, around
22:29
Speaker 1: six pm, Henderson was sitting at his desk staring at
22:32
Speaker 1: his computer screen in total frustration. He was reading the
22:35
Speaker 1: results of a database search for Diane's ex boyfriend and
22:38
Speaker 1: former landlord, Mike Purnell, and he was running into a problem.
22:43
Speaker 1: Henderson could not find anybody with that name. A moment later,
22:47
Speaker 1: Henderson heard a knock at his door and he called
22:50
Speaker 1: for whoever it was to come on in, and then
22:52
Speaker 1: when the door opened, he saw his partner, Detective Binocchio,
22:55
Speaker 1: standing there with a middle aged man, and Minocchio explained
22:59
Speaker 1: that this guy was Diane's brother, Ron Zeleski, and he
23:02
Speaker 1: was here to give whatever information he could about Diane's
23:05
Speaker 1: personal life, and Henderson immediately perked up because he realized that,
23:09
Speaker 1: you know, Ron very likely knew Diane's ex boyfriends and
23:13
Speaker 1: any current boyfriends. So as they sat down, Henderson asked
23:17
Speaker 1: him if he remembered a man named Mike Prenell, and
23:20
Speaker 1: Ron immediately paused and looked really surprised and then said, yeah,
23:25
Speaker 1: he knows exactly who Mike is, because at one point
23:28
Speaker 1: Mike had actually asked their father for his blessing to
23:31
Speaker 1: marry Diane. According to Ron, none of the family had
23:35
Speaker 1: been in love with that idea because Mike had seemed
23:38
Speaker 1: like a really shady guy.
23:40
Speaker 2: In fact, he had such.
23:41
Speaker 1: A long rap sheet that he didn't even go by
23:44
Speaker 1: his real name. Two days later, on November twenty second,
23:55
Speaker 1: Detective Henderson sat in the interview room across from the
23:59
Speaker 1: man who called himself Mike Prenell. His real name was
24:02
Speaker 1: Lou Hubbard, and at this point Henderson knew that amongst
24:05
Speaker 1: his rap sheet was a conviction for domestic violence against
24:09
Speaker 1: his ex wife, Apparently he had savagely beaten her, and
24:13
Speaker 1: Henderson knew that obviously in this murder case, Diane had
24:17
Speaker 1: been savagely beaten, So there's a similarity there. Now, Henderson
24:21
Speaker 1: had not told Lou that they knew his real name,
24:23
Speaker 1: and he also hadn't told Lou why he was even here,
24:26
Speaker 1: and Lou hadn't asked, And at the moment, I mean,
24:28
Speaker 1: Lou was just sort of leaning back in his chair,
24:30
Speaker 1: sort of like making light of this whole thing, like
24:33
Speaker 1: it was totally hilarious that he was being held inside
24:35
Speaker 1: of a police station. At some point, Henderson asked Lou
24:38
Speaker 1: where he had been on November seventeenth, and Lou just
24:41
Speaker 1: sort of shrugged and said he couldn't remember anything about
24:43
Speaker 1: that day, like it didn't stand out at all to him.
24:46
Speaker 1: At this point, Henderson pulled out that photo of Diane
24:48
Speaker 1: and he slid it across the table to Lou, and
24:51
Speaker 1: Lou he just glanced at it and then slid it
24:53
Speaker 1: back across the table and said he had no idea
24:56
Speaker 1: who that was. And to Henderson, this was just completely unbelievable,
25:01
Speaker 1: like literally not believable, because he knew that Lou had
25:05
Speaker 1: literally proposed to Diane, this woman in the photo, so
25:09
Speaker 1: there was no way he did not recognize her.
25:12
Speaker 2: He had to be lying.
25:13
Speaker 1: At this point, Henderson stood up from the table and
25:15
Speaker 1: he looked at Lou and said, if you want to
25:17
Speaker 1: keep playing dumb, that's fine. Then he stood up and
25:20
Speaker 1: he walked over to the door. He opened it up,
25:22
Speaker 1: and he yelled out for his partner, Detective Binachio, to
25:26
Speaker 1: bring him the file on Lou, and then a moment later,
25:29
Speaker 1: Monacchio ran down the hall. He handed over the file,
25:32
Speaker 1: and then Henderson went back to the table. Henderson comm
25:35
Speaker 1: as could be opened up the file and then began
25:37
Speaker 1: telling Lou that I know your name's not Mike Prinell,
25:41
Speaker 1: it's Lou Hubbard.
25:42
Speaker 2: I know all about you.
25:43
Speaker 1: I know that at one point you were going to
25:45
Speaker 1: propose or did propose to this woman Diane, the one
25:48
Speaker 1: in the photo, the one you claim not to know.
25:50
Speaker 2: We know all about it.
25:51
Speaker 1: We know about your criminal record, your domestic violence conviction,
25:55
Speaker 1: we know all about it. At this point, Lou's entire
25:58
Speaker 1: demeanor had changed. It was like he knew he'd been caught.
26:01
Speaker 2: And he just nodded and said, yeah, he knows who
26:04
Speaker 2: she is. And he also said that he had seen
26:07
Speaker 2: on TV that she had been murdered, but he swore
26:10
Speaker 2: he didn't do it.
26:11
Speaker 1: Now, Henderson really didn't believe the guy because he's just
26:13
Speaker 1: caught him lying. But he told him, you know, hey,
26:16
Speaker 1: if you really didn't do it, there's an easy way
26:18
Speaker 1: to prove that. Give us a DNA sample, like literally
26:21
Speaker 1: right now, and after a long pause, Lou agreed. Around
26:27
Speaker 1: eight am the next morning, November twenty third, Detective Henderson
26:30
Speaker 1: was working at.
26:30
Speaker 2: His desk when his phone rang.
26:32
Speaker 1: When he looked at the caller ID and he saw
26:34
Speaker 1: the extension, he knew it was the crime Lab and
26:37
Speaker 1: he assumed they must be calling to confirm receipt of
26:39
Speaker 1: Mark Baker and Lou Hubbard's DNA samples they had sent over,
26:43
Speaker 1: But when Henderson answered, the analyst on the line explained
26:46
Speaker 1: they were actually calling with an update from Digital Forensics.
26:50
Speaker 1: The digital team had finally accessed the browsing history on
26:54
Speaker 1: Diane's laptop and they'd found some activity from the hours after.
26:58
Speaker 2: Diane was killed.
26:59
Speaker 1: It looked like the killer, while hanging around inside of
27:02
Speaker 1: Diane's house after the murder, had viewed some pornographic websites,
27:06
Speaker 1: and then they'd also used Diane's credit cards to try
27:09
Speaker 1: and order a MacBook and an iPhone, and they had
27:11
Speaker 1: set the delivery address for these items for Diane's house now,
27:16
Speaker 1: Henderson was sort of taken aback by all of this,
27:19
Speaker 1: But what stood out was, well, if they're ordering these
27:21
Speaker 1: items to the scene of the crime, it means they
27:24
Speaker 1: planned on coming back to the scene of the crime.
27:27
Speaker 2: But there was also more.
27:29
Speaker 1: Apparently, the digital forensics team had finally gotten into Diane's
27:32
Speaker 1: dating profile, so now they could see everyone that she
27:35
Speaker 1: had messaged or gone out with in the past, and
27:38
Speaker 1: there were literally dozens and dozens of names. And so
27:42
Speaker 1: when Henderson heard that, I mean he knew that now
27:44
Speaker 1: you know, there were all these new suspects, dozens of them,
27:47
Speaker 1: they would have to swab and question every one of
27:50
Speaker 1: those men.
27:51
Speaker 2: And so now the case had just totally exploded.
27:56
Speaker 1: Around noon on December two, twenty ten, so about two
27:59
Speaker 1: weeks after Diane's murder, Detective Henderson sat in his car
28:02
Speaker 1: outside of an office building in Newark, New Jersey, watching
28:05
Speaker 1: the front entrance. He'd been there all morning waiting for
28:08
Speaker 1: a worker whose name was Kyle Porter. Kyle was one
28:11
Speaker 1: of the men that Diane had been messaging with online
28:14
Speaker 1: before she was killed. Henderson had already spoken to him
28:16
Speaker 1: over the phone, and Kyle had actually confirmed that he
28:20
Speaker 1: had been to Diane's house just a few weeks before
28:22
Speaker 1: the murder. But what really made Henderson suspicious of Kyle
28:26
Speaker 1: was just the fact that he had refused to submit
28:28
Speaker 1: a DNA sample, even after Henderson explained that doing so
28:32
Speaker 1: would help clear him as a suspect. So now, as
28:35
Speaker 1: Henderson finally saw Kyle step out of the building and
28:39
Speaker 1: had for the parking lot, Henderson got out of his
28:42
Speaker 1: car and literally ran over to intercept him, and as
28:45
Speaker 1: he did, Henderson flashed his badge and Kyle for a
28:48
Speaker 1: second looked like he maybe wanted to run, but instead
28:50
Speaker 1: he just sort of stammered that he was going to
28:52
Speaker 1: be late for his lunch meeting, sort of suggesting like,
28:54
Speaker 1: I can't talk to you right now. But Henderson had
28:56
Speaker 1: not waited around all morning just to leave empty handed here,
28:59
Speaker 1: so he told Kyle that he could either give a
29:02
Speaker 1: sample right now and be on his way, or they
29:04
Speaker 1: could talk again. When Henderson came back with a warrant
29:07
Speaker 1: for Kyle's arrest, and Kyle seemed terrified by that idea,
29:11
Speaker 1: so he sighed and said, Okay, I'll give you a sample.
29:15
Speaker 1: Four days later, on the morning of December sixth, Henderson
29:18
Speaker 1: was out jogging before his shift. When his cell phone rang,
29:21
Speaker 1: he saw that it was the crime lab calling, so
29:23
Speaker 1: he stopped what he was doing and he answered the call.
29:25
Speaker 1: A forensic analyst from the lab was on the line,
29:28
Speaker 1: and he explained that he was calling because they just
29:30
Speaker 1: finished with the first batch of Henderson's blood samples. This
29:33
Speaker 1: batch included the samples for Mark Baker, the man who Henderson.
29:37
Speaker 2: Had to secretly trail just to pick up his.
29:39
Speaker 1: Water bottle, as well as Diane's ex boyfriend Lou Hubbard
29:43
Speaker 1: aka Mike Prunell, and also Kyle Porter, the man she
29:47
Speaker 1: had met through online dating, who only after being threatened
29:50
Speaker 1: with arrest, offered up his DNA swap.
29:53
Speaker 2: And so Henderson held.
29:54
Speaker 1: His breath as this analyst read off the results and
29:58
Speaker 1: not one of them matched the bloo bood.
30:00
Speaker 2: Sample from the crime scene.
30:01
Speaker 1: For a moment, Henderson thought, there really had to be
30:04
Speaker 1: a mistake here, because all three of those men had
30:06
Speaker 1: been so suspicious and so uncooperative. Now he'd always known that,
30:11
Speaker 1: you know, the crime scene blood that he had tested
30:13
Speaker 1: their samples against maybe wasn't from the killer. But if
30:17
Speaker 1: that was true, then Henderson was really in trouble because
30:20
Speaker 1: it meant that.
30:21
Speaker 2: After all this, he had nothing.
30:24
Speaker 1: Now the blood from the crime scene had already been
30:26
Speaker 1: tested against these states DNA bank and there had been
30:29
Speaker 1: no matches. And now he's got no matches here with
30:32
Speaker 1: these three suspects. And so Henderson knew he really had
30:34
Speaker 1: no choice but to keep finding and testing more suspects.
30:39
Speaker 1: And in the next few weeks and then months, he went.
30:42
Speaker 2: Through this process over and over.
30:44
Speaker 1: Interviewing and obtaining DNA samples from the men in Diane's
30:48
Speaker 1: dating profile history and her email contacts, basically every man
30:52
Speaker 1: who had anything to do with her. He went out
30:54
Speaker 1: and interviewed and tested. In fact, over the next year,
30:58
Speaker 1: the detectives conducted more than a hunt interviews and took
31:01
Speaker 1: over eighty DNA samples, but one by one, they all
31:04
Speaker 1: turned into dead ends. One morning in December of twenty eleven,
31:10
Speaker 1: Detective Henderson was at his desk on the phone following
31:13
Speaker 1: up about a tip about Diane's case. So a month earlier,
31:17
Speaker 1: on the anniversary of Diane's death, the local news had
31:20
Speaker 1: aired a big special on the case, and then since
31:23
Speaker 1: then the police station had been flooded with people calling
31:26
Speaker 1: in various tips. And so now you know, Henderson and
31:29
Speaker 1: Minacchio had had their hands full following up on all
31:31
Speaker 1: these tips, but so far they had gone nowhere. And
31:35
Speaker 1: so Henderson thanked the person he was on the phone with,
31:37
Speaker 1: even though he sort of knew that what they were
31:39
Speaker 1: telling him was not going to be useful. Then he
31:41
Speaker 1: hung up and let out a frustrated sigh. He was
31:44
Speaker 1: starting to think that he had been totally wrong at
31:46
Speaker 1: the start of this murder, that Diane's killer was not
31:50
Speaker 1: someone she knew, but maybe a random intruder who would
31:53
Speaker 1: be even harder to catch, or even worse would be
31:56
Speaker 1: you know, maybe the blood they had been testing all
31:59
Speaker 1: of these suspects against for the last year, that that
32:02
Speaker 1: blood maybe didn't even belong to the killer. But just
32:05
Speaker 1: then Minachio burst into the office and he had a
32:07
Speaker 1: big grin in his face, and he said he had
32:10
Speaker 1: just gotten a call from this woman who had.
32:12
Speaker 2: A story that Henderson needed to hear.
32:15
Speaker 1: Minachio at this point just handed Henderson his cell phone,
32:18
Speaker 1: and so Henderson put the phone to his ear, and
32:20
Speaker 1: sure enough, there was a woman on the line, and
32:22
Speaker 1: this woman explained that she had an online friend that
32:25
Speaker 1: she spoke with all the time. Now they'd never actually
32:28
Speaker 1: met in person, but they were still pretty close and
32:31
Speaker 1: they told each other practically everything. And a few days ago,
32:35
Speaker 1: this online friend of hers had sent a very disturbing
32:39
Speaker 1: message where they openly admitted that they had killed Diane Celeski.
32:44
Speaker 1: And when this woman told Henderson the actual name of
32:47
Speaker 1: this online friend of hers, he was so confused. But
32:52
Speaker 1: then it was like, all at once, the world came
32:55
Speaker 1: crashing down around him because he realized that over a
32:58
Speaker 1: year ago, on the very first he'd begun investigating Diane's murder, he.
33:03
Speaker 2: Had made a huge mistake.
33:11
Speaker 1: Based on forensic evidence from the crime scene and the
33:14
Speaker 1: killer's eventual confession, this is what police believe happened to
33:17
Speaker 1: Diane'zeleski on the night of November seventeenth, twenty ten. The
33:27
Speaker 1: killer was very nervous as they knocked on Diane's front
33:30
Speaker 1: door because even though they had been here before, tonight
33:33
Speaker 1: was going to be different. Diane eventually came to the
33:36
Speaker 1: door and she opened it up, and she seemed sort
33:38
Speaker 1: of surprised to see the killer there, but you know,
33:41
Speaker 1: she let them inside.
33:42
Speaker 2: And asked them like, what's going on? What are you
33:45
Speaker 2: doing here?
33:46
Speaker 1: And the killer, you know, they hadn't really figured out
33:48
Speaker 1: how they were going to do this, and at some
33:50
Speaker 1: point they just sort of blurted out the thing they
33:53
Speaker 1: wanted to tell her, which was to tell Diane that
33:56
Speaker 1: they had really intense feelings about her. But as there
33:59
Speaker 1: were sort of like rambling on about all these things
34:02
Speaker 1: they wanted to do with her and how they they
34:04
Speaker 1: really just wanted her, the hand stopped them and told
34:08
Speaker 1: them that what they wanted was totally inappropriate and that
34:10
Speaker 1: now they needed to leave. But the killer, after being rejected,
34:15
Speaker 1: refused to leave, and then the killer began to argue,
34:19
Speaker 1: and as they did, they got angrier and angrier, until
34:22
Speaker 1: they reached over and grabbed a pair of scissors on
34:25
Speaker 1: the table by the door.
34:26
Speaker 2: And they began stabbing Diane.
34:28
Speaker 1: But Diane she immediately fought back, way harder than the
34:32
Speaker 1: killer had expected, thrashing and kicking until the killer's grip
34:36
Speaker 1: on the scissors slipped, and at that point the killer
34:38
Speaker 1: actually felt a flash of pain in their hand, and
34:41
Speaker 1: they looked down to see a bloody cut on their hand.
34:44
Speaker 1: But for the killer, this only made them more mad.
34:47
Speaker 1: The killer began to strangle her until finally she stopped moving.
34:52
Speaker 1: Once Diane was still the killer took their hands off
34:54
Speaker 1: of her and then just sort of looked around at
34:56
Speaker 1: the incredibly bloody mess they'd made in the front of
34:59
Speaker 1: the house. They'd watched enough TV to know that their
35:02
Speaker 1: DNA and fingerprints were probably all over not just Diane's body,
35:06
Speaker 1: but all over the foyer right now. But they also
35:08
Speaker 1: knew that Diane she lived alone, which meant that nobody
35:11
Speaker 1: was coming home anytime soon, and so they felt like
35:14
Speaker 1: they had plenty of time to clean up this mess.
35:17
Speaker 1: They started by dragging Diane's lifeless body down the hallway
35:20
Speaker 1: to the steps and then down into the basement, and
35:23
Speaker 1: then they cleaned her body with chemicals, and then after
35:25
Speaker 1: that they went back upstairs and stripped off their own
35:28
Speaker 1: bloody clothes and started a little laundry. And while they
35:31
Speaker 1: waited for their laundry to be done, the killer just
35:33
Speaker 1: sort of made themselves at home. They took a shower,
35:36
Speaker 1: they watched TV, they cooked and ate a bowl of pasta,
35:40
Speaker 1: and they used Diane's laptop to look at pornography and
35:43
Speaker 1: also do some online shopping with Diane's credit card. And
35:46
Speaker 1: then once the killer's clothes were clean and dry, they
35:49
Speaker 1: put them back on and then collected the items that
35:51
Speaker 1: they had handled, like Diane's wallet and her TV remote
35:54
Speaker 1: and dumped them in the sink with a bunch of
35:56
Speaker 1: soapy water. Then they went around the house blasting every
36:00
Speaker 1: everything with a fire extinguisher from under the sink to
36:02
Speaker 1: destroy trace evidence.
36:03
Speaker 2: And also they went ahead and wiped down the laptop.
36:06
Speaker 1: To make sure there was no DNA or fingerprints on
36:08
Speaker 1: that as well. And then finally, sometime in the early
36:11
Speaker 1: hours of the morning after the murder, the killer, you know,
36:14
Speaker 1: after having done all they could, they just casually walked
36:17
Speaker 1: out the door into the falling snow and crossed the
36:20
Speaker 1: street and went into their mother's house. Because the killer
36:24
Speaker 1: was Arnell Yearwood, Diane's neighbor's son. So the huge mistake
36:31
Speaker 1: that investigators made at the very beginning of this investigation
36:34
Speaker 1: was when they found out that the neighbor across the street,
36:37
Speaker 1: Missus Yearwood, that her son apparently did chores for Diane. Well,
36:42
Speaker 1: the mistake they made, in particular, Detective Henderson, was when
36:45
Speaker 1: Missus Yearwood went into the back of the house and
36:48
Speaker 1: came back with that eleven year old boy that they
36:50
Speaker 1: spoke to that said he didn't see anything strange across the.
36:53
Speaker 2: Street the day before.
36:54
Speaker 1: They assumed that boy was Missus Yearwood's son, and he
36:59
Speaker 1: was the one who was due chores for Diane. And
37:02
Speaker 1: basically they're like looking at this kid who's totally innocent, thinking, Okay, clearly,
37:06
Speaker 1: this kid who's been across the street in her house
37:09
Speaker 1: is is not a person of interest. He did not
37:11
Speaker 1: kill anybody, and so the son of Missus Yearwood was
37:14
Speaker 1: just sort of forgotten about. What they didn't realize is
37:17
Speaker 1: that eleven year old boy was not Missus Yearwood's son.
37:20
Speaker 1: It was her grandson. Her actual son was a twenty
37:24
Speaker 1: six year old man, Arnell Yearwood, who was actually inside
37:28
Speaker 1: the house on that day. He was hiding in her house,
37:31
Speaker 1: but they just never clarified. They assumed the kid was
37:34
Speaker 1: her son and just sort of wrote off any chance
37:37
Speaker 1: that her son.
37:38
Speaker 2: Could be involved.
37:39
Speaker 1: And so detective Henderson and Monacchio didn't put it together
37:42
Speaker 1: until over a year later when they got that tip
37:45
Speaker 1: from that woman who said her online friend confessed to
37:48
Speaker 1: the murder and his name was Arnell Yearwood. And so
37:52
Speaker 1: ultimately Diane let Arnell into her house on the night
37:56
Speaker 1: she was killed because she knew and trusted him. He
37:58
Speaker 1: did chores at her house, but he tried to initiate
38:01
Speaker 1: a sexual relationship with her. She rejected him, and so
38:05
Speaker 1: he killed her. Arnell Yearwould was ultimately arrested on April seventh,
38:09
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, so about a year and a half after
38:11
Speaker 1: killing Diane, he would confess to the murder and was
38:13
Speaker 1: sentenced to thirty years in prison.
38:22
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for watching.
38:24
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
38:26
Speaker 1: the comments, and remember, we have a whole playlist of
38:29
Speaker 1: true crime episodes ready for you to binge right now,
38:32
Speaker 1: so click here and give them a watch.
38:34
Speaker 2: All right, until next time, see ya,