Latest / Crime Night / How Paperwork Errors Shielded a Killer

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How Paperwork Errors Shielded a Killer · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The electric ring of a landline telephone at 3 o'clock
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in the morning is just this universally terrifying sound.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Right? Like if you were old enough to remember having
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: a phone bolted to your kitchen wall, you know exactly
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: what I mean. That harsh mechanical bell, it doesn't just
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: wake you up. It sends this spike of pure adrenaline
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: straight into your bloodstream.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. You're immediately in fight or flight mode. Exactly.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You fumble around in the pitch black, your heart
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: is hammering against your ribs, and you pull that heavy
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: plastic receiver to your ear. But instead of the familiar
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: voice you were expecting, a stranger is on the line.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Just an unfamiliar man asking for your loved one.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: And when you tell them they aren't home, the line
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: simply goes dead. The dial tone just hums in the dark.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: It's the purest distillation of panic, I think. At 3 a.m.,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: an unexpected call is just this immediate fracture of your safety.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: But in this particular case, that phone call wasn't, you know,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: a serial killer taunting a victim's family or something. It
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: was something far more mundane and in a way far
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: more tragic. It was literally just a police officer making
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: an administrative error.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: So let's set the scene for today's deep dive. The
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: officer making that call was standing in a brightly lit
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: convenience store in East Windsor, Connecticut. The date is September 12th, 1985.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: And on the floor of that store is a 23-year-old
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: man named Carmen DeLuca, who went by CJ. And he's
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: dead from a single gunshot wound.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: And the police at the scene, they don't know who
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: he is because, well, he doesn't have his ID in
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: his pocket.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Right, which makes sense if you're just working a shift.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Say they flip through the store's Rolodex, they find the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: emergency contact number for the store manager, and they dial it.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Because they're simply trying to get a boss to come
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: down and identify an employee.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They have absolutely no idea that the number they
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: just dialed actually belongs to CJ's home and that they
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: just woke up his 22-year-old fiancée, Dina.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: That horrific disconnect, I mean, that life-shattering moment for Dina
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: caused by a simple lack of information on the part
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: of the police, it's really the tragic thesis of this
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: entire case.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It really is. Today, we are taking a deep dive
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: into an investigative true crime report that unpacks the mechanics
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of this multi-town crime spree that just gripped Connecticut in
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the mid-' 80s.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: But beyond the violence, we are going to tear down
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: the engine of the investigation itself.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. We need to look closely at how the physical
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: reality of 1980s police work, you know, carbon copies, unlinked databases,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: rigid municipal boundaries, how all of that can allow a
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: killer to slip through the cracks.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: And leave a case completely frozen for decades. I mean,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: have you ever wondered how easily a tiny piece of
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: evidence can just fall through the cracks of a massive
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: system because this case is the ultimate example of that.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: It really is. So going back to Dina, when her
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: phone goes dead, she doesn't just go back to sleep, obviously. No.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: She knows CJ is covering the overnight shift at the
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: gas and save. Right.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And he usually didn't work nights, but he literally just
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: fired the regular attendant. And being the responsible guy he was,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: he took the shift himself.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: So Dina tries calling the station, but it just rings endlessly.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: So she drives. She drives 30 minutes through the dark
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: from their home in Massachusetts, straight across the state line.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And she pulls up to the gas and save and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: just walks into her worst nightmare.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that quiet rural intersection is just bathed in the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: harsh red and blue strobe of police cruisers.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Yellow tape ropes off the pumps. She is stopped by
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: an officer. And right there in the parking lot, she's
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: told that her future husband is gone.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: That's just devastating. And the physical crime scene inside that
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: gas and save, it presented this immediate, infuriating puzzle for
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: investigators right off the bat.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this. Because it's honestly like a locked
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: room mystery, but in a brightly lit convenience store.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it. So a customer
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: named Vincent had pulled in around 2.30 a.m. He noticed
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: the full service pumps were off, so he walked inside
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: to find the attendant.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: And he found CJ face down on the linoleum with
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: this frothy substance on his mouth. Yep.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So Vincent bolts to the payphone outside, drops in a dime,
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: and calls the police. When the medical examiner arrived, they
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: confirmed CJ was killed by a single. 38 caliber bullet
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: to the back.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Right. And if I'm a detective walking into that scene,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: my first assumption is, okay, an armed robbery gone wrong.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a 24-hour gas station in 1985. Of course.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: That's the most logical conclusion.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But the physical evidence completely contradicts that. The cash register
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: is completely full.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Untouched.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Untouched. The inventory, like the cigarettes, the scratch-off tickets, the food,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: it's all exactly where it should be. CJ even has
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a wad of cash still sitting in his own pocket.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: The only items that might have been missing were a
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: couple of cheap boom boxes, but even that wasn't totally certain.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, if the motive isn't financial, what on
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: earth are you looking at? A targeted assassination? A chaotic
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: thrill kill? Neither of those fits the profile of a
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: well-liked guy working a random cover shift.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: And that immediate lack of a clear why is paralyzing
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: in a homicide investigation, especially in an era before digital surveillance. Oh, yeah.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Think about the forensic toolkit available in 1985.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: It's virtually non-existent by today's standards. There are no security
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: cameras in the store. There are no cell phone towers
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: to ping. No GPS data from passing cars.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Nothing.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: The physical evidence consisted entirely of a single footprint matching
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: an Adidas sneaker.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: No shell casings because revolvers don't eject them. Right.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: So without a motive and without physical trace evidence, the
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: investigation literally has nowhere to go. You essentially just have
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to wait for the ghost to materialize again.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: You have to wait for the offender to make another
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: move and just hope they leave a bigger footprint.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, investigators didn't have to wait long at all.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: No, the wait was agonizingly short. Because while Dina was
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: sitting in a local hotel lobby waiting for CJ's parents
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: to arrive as the sun came up, the violence erupted
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: a second time.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Just a few hours later. Exactly.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Just before 6 a.m., roughly an hour's drive away in
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: the town of Orange, Connecticut, a customer walked into a
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: different gas station. They went to the counter for a
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: morning coffee, and found the attendant, Craig Sutton, bleeding heavily
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: on the floor.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: But, and this is crucial, Craig survives.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, he survives.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And a surviving witness changes the entire trajectory of an investigation,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: because they can finally introduce a narrative to the physical evidence. Absolutely.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: So Craig tells the responding officers that a lone, thin
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: black man, looking to be in his late teens or
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: early 20s, walked in holding a handgun.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: He pointed it at Craig and said, this is it,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: give me the money.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Right, and Craig complied immediately. He turned to open the register,
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: and without any warning, the attacker fired.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: The psychological shock of that moment is profound. Craig didn't
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: even realize he had a bullet in him at first.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he pulled the cash drawer out, set it on
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the counter, and the shooter coldly told him to hurry
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: up or he would shoot him again.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Just brutal. So Craig watches the man grab the cash,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: run out the door, sprint across an open field, and
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: jump into the passenger side of a silver early 1970s Cadillac.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Which confirms a massive new variable for the police.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: A getaway driver. Right.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: We're now looking at a two-man operation. But there's a
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: really glaring psychological contradiction here that detectives had.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: To wrestle with. Oh, for sure. Why demand the money
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: from Craig and literally threaten to put a second bullet
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: in him if he doesn't hand it over fast enough?
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Just three hours earlier, this exact same crew left a
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: register full of cash sitting on the counter next to
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: CJ's body. Exactly.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: It points to highly erratic, unpredictable offenders. Often, when you
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: see a drastic shift in the modus operandi within a
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: single night, it points to panic or maybe intoxication. Yeah.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Like perhaps at CJ's store, the gun went off accidentally.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Or CJ made a sudden movement that spooked the shooter,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: causing him to just flee before grabbing the cash.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: That's very possible. And by the time they reached Orange,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: they had stabilized enough to complete the robbery, though the
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: violence obviously remained completely disproportionate.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Right. But here's where it gets really interesting. Because more
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: important than the psychological profile were the physical details Craig remembered.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: He was incredibly observant for someone who had just been shot.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: He really was. He described the shooter's outfit with incredible precision.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: He said he was wearing a black silk do-rag, a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: light brown leather jacket, dark pants, and crucially, a black
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: painter's cap, styled like a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball hat.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: A hat which, thankfully, fell off the shooter's head outside
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: the store.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Right in the grass, as he was sprinting toward that
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: silver Cadillac.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: That hat is such a critical piece of the puzzle,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: but we need to look at how investigators linked these
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: two scenes in the first place.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Right, because it wasn't automatic.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Not at all. The detectives in East Windsor heard about
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: the orange shooting through the interdepartmental teletype, which was this Slow, clunky,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: physical messaging system.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Basically a glorified fax machine?
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Pretty much. So they drove down to look at the scene.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: They had a gut feeling it was the same crew,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: but obviously a gut feeling isn't probable cause.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Right. It took 12 days for the ballistics lab to
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: provide the concrete link. They confirmed that the bullet pulled
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: from CJ and the bullet pulled from Craig were fired
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: from the exact same. 38 caliber weapon.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: And we should probably pause and talk about the mechanics
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: of how they proved that in 1985. Because it's wild.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Today, we picture a CSI technician scanning a
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: bullet into a shiny computer database that spits out a
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: match with a high-tech sound effect.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Right, a glowing green screen saying match.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But that is not how this worked.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Not even close.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: In 1985, ballistics matching was an entirely manual physical science.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: An examiner had to place the bullet from East Windsor
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: and the bullet from Orange under a comparison microscope. Which
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: is this specialized device with two separate stages and a
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: split-screen eyepiece. Right.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: The examiner literally dials the two bullets around by hand,
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: squinting through the lens, looking to see if the microscopic striations,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: you know, the unique scratches left by the barrel of
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the gun, if they line up perfectly across the divide.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: It requires a human being to physically recognize the pattern.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Yes. And because there was no national database, the only
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: reason these bullets were ever compared was because detectives physically
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: transported the evidence between jurisdictions.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Wow. And while the lab is staring through microscopes, the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: crew actually strikes a third time.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they really escalated.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Just two days after the shootings, an AMPM convenience store
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: in the town of Windsor is robbed. It's a different town,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: but the same underlying chaos. Only this time, the MO
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: shifts again.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: No gun is drawn.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Right, no gun. A young man walks in, physically shoves
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the female clerk out of the way, empties about $ 300
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: from the till, and runs out to a stolen car.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: This sparks a massive high-speed police chase through the streets,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: tearing right into Hartford. The chase ends violently when the
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: stolen car crashes.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: And the suspects just scramble out of the wreckage and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: disappear on foot into the city.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Leaving the police with a smashed car and no suspects.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: But they do have the interior of the AMPM store.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: And this is where a simple mistake finally gave police
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: some names. Because the suspect made a spectacularly mundane error
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: before he shoved the clerk.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, this part is amazing.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: He walked over to the refrigerated cooler, picked up a
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: can of Pepsi, and set it on the front counter.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And then he just left it there.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: That cold aluminum can was basically a perfect surface for
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: lifting latent fingerprints.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: And again, the fingerprinting process at this time was just
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: as manual as the ballistics. Investigators dusted the can, lifted
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the print with tape, placed it on a card, and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: had to manually compare it against physical cards in their
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: local archives.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: And they got a hit. The prints belonged to a
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: man named Douglas Whitehead.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Who was recently paroled for a string of robberies.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: So the dominoes really start falling here. Detectives working the
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Pepsi can robbery bring in a confidential informant who knows
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: the street dynamics.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: And the CI drops two names, Douglas Whitehead and his roommate,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: William Spikes.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Right. Spikes is freshly out of prison for manslaughter. And
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: the CIA tells police that Spikes has been actively bragging
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: about the crime spree.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he allegedly took credit for shooting that boy in
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: East Windsor. He wore Adidas sneakers, which matches the single print.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: And he was recently seen carrying a. 38 caliber revolver.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: So on paper, it looks like a wrapped case. I mean,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: you have the fingerprints placing Whitehead at the third robbery.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: And informant testimony placing Spikes with the murder weapon.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: But physically, the narrative totally fractures.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Completely. Because think back to Craig Sutton's description. He described
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: the man who shot him in orange as a thin
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: black man, somewhere between 5'8 and 6' tall.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Right. And William Spikes was 6'3 and weighed 265 pounds.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: He was built like a defensive lineman.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There is no universe where Craig staring down the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: barrel of a gun from three feet away describes Spikes
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: as a thin man under six feet.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Exactly the opposite. The physical description of the shooter matched
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Douglas Whitehead perfectly.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: So the logical deduction is that the massive Spikes was
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the getaway driver waiting in the silver Cadillac, while the smaller,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: erratic Whitehead was the one actually going inside the stores
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: with the. 38.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: So the police swoop in, they grab Whitehead at his
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: girlfriend's apartment, and they sit him down in an interrogation room.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Confronted with the Pepsi can fingerprints, Whitehead just immediately folds.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he confesses to the AMPM robbery. He confesses to
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: stealing the getaway car with spikes. But the moment the
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: detectives pivot and ask about the dead clerk in East
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Windsor and the shot clerk in Orange, Whitehead builds a
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: brick wall.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: He absolutely denies pulling a trigger.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: And to fortify that wall, Whitehead offers an alibi. He
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: tells the detectives, I couldn't have killed the guy in
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: East Windsor on September 12th. because right after I robbed
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: the AMPM store, I got on a bus and went
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: to New York City.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait. This right here is where the system
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: completely breaks down. Let's map this out chronologically.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: It's mind-boggling.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: CJ is murdered on September 12th. The Pepsi can robbery
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: at the AMPM happens two days later on September 14th.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Whitehead tells the police his alibi for the murder on
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the 12th is that he left the state after the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: robbery on the 14th. He uses a future bus trip
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: to alibi a past murder. And the police just accept it.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: They accept it. It literally defies the laws of linear time.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: But to understand how this catastrophic error occurred, you really
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: have to look at the mechanics of 1980s bureaucracy.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, explain this to me.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Well, today, a centralized digital case file would immediately flag
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that date discrepancy. But in 1985... You have three different
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: police departments, East Windsor, Orange, and Windsor, operating in total silos.
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: They are passing physical paper files back and forth through
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: the mail or reading fragmented summaries over teletype.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it's like a modern office where three different
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: people are working on a massive project. But instead of
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: saving their work to a shared network drive where everyone
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: can see the updates in real time, they each save
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: their notes to their local computer desktop under completely different
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: file names.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: That is a perfect analogy. Yes.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: And when it's time to put the presentation together, nobody
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: knows who holds the master copy and crucial data just
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: gets overwritten or ignored.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: That is precisely what happened. What's fascinating here is the
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: detective writing down Whitehead's confession for the AMPM robbery simply
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: didn't cross-reference the date of CJ's murder in the neighboring
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: town's file. The alibi was logged into the official record
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: without any scrutiny. And because of that one piece of paper,
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: Whitehead was legally cleared of the shootings.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable. He was sent back to prison solely for the
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Pepsi can robbery. Exactly.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: And William Spikes, despite the CI's testimony, was never even
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: brought into an interrogation room to answer for the murder
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: or the shooting.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: So the paperwork error literally acted as a shield for
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the killers.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: It did. And the case goes cold. It just sits
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: in cardboard boxes and basement archives for almost 30 years.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Decades.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Until 2014, when the East Windsor Police Department assigns
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: a newly promoted detective named Scott Roberts to look at
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the file.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: And Detective Roberts has a massive advantage here, right? Because
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: he isn't burdened by the assumptions of the past, and
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: he just has a fresh slate.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: And he also has access to modern forensic science. When
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Roberts opens the file, he isn't looking at shoe prints
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: or manually checking alibi dates. He is looking for biological material.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: He immediately zeroes in on the black Pittsburgh Pirates hat
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: that fell off the shooter's head in orange.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Oh, man. That is the holy grail of cold case evidence.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: The hat had actually been tested back in 1985, but
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: the lab report merely noted the presence of human hairs
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and a crusty substance on the inner band.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Which in 1985 meant absolutely nothing.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Right. But in 2014, that crusty substance is sweat. The
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: hairs have follicles attached. It is a concentrated goldmine of
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: epithelial cells. Exactly.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Detective Roberts knows that if he swabs the inside of
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: that hat, He can extract a full DNA profile, run
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: it through the national database, and objectively identify the man
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: holding the. 38 caliber revolver.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: It is the single piece of physical evidence capable of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: bypassing all the botched paperwork and uncooperative witnesses.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: So Detective Roberts requests the physical transfer of the hat
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: from the evidence locker.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: And he discovers it's gone.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: The hat doesn't exist anymore. It was destroyed. It's devastating.
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: And to comprehend how the most vital piece of evidence
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: in a murder investigation gets thrown into an incinerator, we
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: have to examine the legal mechanics of evidence retention.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Right. Because geography plays a huge part here. It does.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Remember where the hat was dropped? It was dropped in Orange,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: where Craig Sutton was shot. Because Craig survived, the Orange
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Police Department classified that incident primarily as an attempted robbery
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: and an aggravated assault.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Which is fundamentally different from a homicide.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Legally, yes. Very different. In Connecticut, evidence tied to robberies
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: and assaults is subject to a strict statute of limitations.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Evidence lockers are not infinite cavernous warehouses. They are cramped,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: secure rooms with finite shelf space. Departmental protocol mandates that
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: once the legal clock runs out on a robbery charge,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: meaning the state can no longer prosecute anyone for it,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: the physical evidence associated with that specific case number must
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: be purged to make room for new crimes.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: But wait, homicides don't have a statute of limitations. C.G.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: 's murder case remains open forever. Correct.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: And everyone in law enforcement knew the Orange shooting and
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: the East Windsor murder were committed by the same people. Right.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: The ballistics proved it.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: But legally knowing something and administratively logging it are two
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: different things. No one ever took the physical step of
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: transferring the Hatt's custody log from the robbery case file
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: in Orange to the homicide case file in East Windsor.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God. Goes right back to that shared network
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: folder analogy.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: The evidence was trapped in the local desktop folder labeled robbery.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: When the system ran its automated cleanup protocol after the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: statute of limitations expired. it just permanently deleted the file.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: No one had moved it to the protected homicide folder.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Detective Roberts described it as a bureaucratic bystander effect. You
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: have multiple prestigious agencies involved, local precincts, state police, forensic labs.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And when everyone assumes another department has handled the administrative cross-referencing...
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: No one actually does it. Right.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: If everybody driving by the crash assumes someone else called 911,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: nobody calls. The clock silently ran out, the protocol triggered,
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: and the DNA evidence literally went up in smoke.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: So without the forensics, Detective Roberts has to rely entirely
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: on the human element, which is obviously the most fragile
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: part of any cold case.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Definitely.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: He starts tracking the names from the old files. Douglas Whitehead,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the likely shooter, died in 1994, taking his secrets to
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the grave. Craig Sutton, the brave witness who survived the
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Orange shooting, has also passed away.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: But the massive getaway driver is still around. Yes.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: In October of 2021, Detective Roberts manages to track down
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: William Spikes. He's living in East Hartford, having spent decades
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: in and out of the corrections system for various larcenies.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: And when the detectives finally sit down with Spikes, the
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: conversation is just surreal.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Spikes doesn't even pretend to be an innocent choir boy,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: does he?
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Not at all. He openly admits to being a street
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: hustler in the 80s. He freely confesses to stealing the
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: getaway car and doing the AMPM robbery with Whitehead. He
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: treats those crimes as ancient history.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: But the moment the detectives bring up C.J. DeLuca and the.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: 38 caliber revolver, his entire demeanor shifts.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: He draws an absolute unshakable line. He denies any involvement
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: whatsoever in the shootings. And his defense is chillingly practical.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: What does he say?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: He tells the detectives that he didn't need to carry
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: guns back then. His exact words were, my size was enough.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: And structurally, for strong-arm robberies, a man who is 6'3
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: and nearly 300 pounds is a weapon in himself.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Right. But he completely ignores the CI's testimony that Spikes
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: was seen carrying the. 38 revolver after the murder.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: The detectives even try to give him a psychological out.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: They frame it to allow him to save face, basically saying, look,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: we know Whitehead was erratic. We know he's dead. Just
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: tell us if Whitehead went rogue and shot those guys
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: while you were sitting outside in the Cadillac.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they offer him the role of the unwitting driver.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: But Spikes refuses to bite. He stares them down and repeats,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: you're chasing the wrong guy.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Which leaves law enforcement totally stranded. Without a confession... And
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: with the physical evidence destroyed by bureaucratic protocol, the investigation
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: is entirely dependent on external intervention.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: The Connecticut Cold Case Unit is simply waiting for someone
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: who knows the truth to come forward. They're waiting for
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: someone to decide the statute of limitations on their conscience
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: has finally expired.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because over 40 years, alliances fracture, fear diminishes, and
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: people who were once loyal to Whitehead or Spikes might
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: finally feel safe enough to speak.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And as we unpack all these mechanical failures, you know,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: the clerical errors, the unlinked databases, the incinerated evidence, we
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: really cannot lose sight of the profound human collateral damage here.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: No, absolutely not. Dina, the 22-year-old fiancé who received that
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: horrifying phone call in the dark, she is now a
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: grandmother living by a quiet lake in New York.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Her life moved forward, but a piece of her remains
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: permanently anchored to 1985.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: She continues to visit CJ's grave in Massachusetts. She continuously
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: reads through copies of the case files herself, looking for
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the connections the system missed.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Her relentless advocacy is honestly the only reason this case
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: hasn't been completely swallowed by the archives. She forces the
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: detectives to remember that there is a victim waiting for
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: a resolution.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: She actually recently sat down with her husband and children
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: to explain her past, just so she could dedicate more
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: of her waking hours to pushing for answers without having
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to hide her grief from her own family.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: That takes so much strength.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: It really does. And When a reporter asked her how
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: it would feel to finally see someone held accountable for
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: CJ's murder, her answer was just devastating. She said that
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: so much time has passed and so much of her
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: life was altered that she doesn't even allow her mind
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to imagine that kind of relief.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: It feels like too much to hope for. Yeah. It
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: is the heavy burden carried by the survivors of cold cases.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: They are forced to live in the agonizing space between
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: a broken system and unresolved trauma while the rest of
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: the world is just allowed to move on.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for you and me?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Think about the immense weight placed on the machinery of justice.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: We like to believe that when the worst happens, when
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that 3 a.m. phone call shatters our reality, There is
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a flawless, impenetrable system ready to catch the people responsible.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: But this investigation proves how terrifyingly fragile that system actually is.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: It really does. Think about how much of our justice
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: system relies on perfect paperwork. How many other solved mysteries
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: are sitting right now in an evidence locker, just waiting
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: for someone to connect the dots, before a statute of
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: limitations silently throws the answer in the incinerator?