Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Golden State Killer survivors & victims' family speak live at CrimeCon 2018

Transcript

Golden State Killer survivors & victims' family speak live at CrimeCon 2018 · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:00
Speaker 1: Did you know a recent law can leave your personal
0:03
Speaker 1: data exposed online for anybody to find. If you've turned
0:07
Speaker 1: on the news lately, you know the internet has created
0:10
Speaker 1: a dangerous new world. It's time you take back the
0:13
Speaker 1: power by using a new website called truth Finder. Have
0:17
Speaker 1: you been issued a speeding ticket, received a lean from
0:20
Speaker 1: the I R S? Did you forget about embarrassing social
0:23
Speaker 1: media profile? That info may already be online. Truth Finder
0:28
Speaker 1: can help you find it. Truth Finder searches millions of
0:31
Speaker 1: public records, assembling the data together in one report. Members
0:36
Speaker 1: get unlimited searches, so you can also look up those
0:39
Speaker 1: close to you and make sure they're not hiding something.
0:43
Speaker 1: Visit truth finder dot com, slash Nancy, enter your own name.
0:47
Speaker 1: Get started Crime stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM
0:57
Speaker 1: Triumph Channel one thirty two. We all knew as part
1:03
Speaker 1: of this team that we were looking for a needle
1:06
Speaker 1: in a haystack, but we also all knew that the
1:10
Speaker 1: needle was there. After all these years, the haunting question
1:16
Speaker 1: of who committed these terrible crimes have been put to rest.
1:22
Speaker 1: For the ladies who were brutally rake ms cromy Son
1:27
Speaker 1: sleep better come like he isn't coming through the window.
1:33
Speaker 1: He's now in jail and his history. Imagine being asleep
1:39
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and you hear a bomb,
1:43
Speaker 1: or you hear what you think is a tree limb
1:46
Speaker 1: against the fence in the backyard. You think you hear
1:51
Speaker 1: a footstep in hall, but then nothing, And then there
1:56
Speaker 1: he is at your bedside in the dark, the Golden
2:00
Speaker 1: State Killer. And if you live to tell the tell,
2:03
Speaker 1: which so many did not, you will never forget that moment.
2:09
Speaker 1: A man now believed to have committed at least twelve murders,
2:15
Speaker 1: at least fifty brutal rapes, and over twenty home burglaries.
2:23
Speaker 1: Now we know is the Golden State Killer a former cop?
2:29
Speaker 1: How many other victims are there? I mean, see, Grace,
2:33
Speaker 1: this is crime Stories. Thank you for being with us,
2:35
Speaker 1: and we are live at Nashville's Crime Gone. Thank everybody
2:39
Speaker 1: being with us. You know what I feel like lapping?
2:45
Speaker 1: I feel like celebrating right now because with me here
2:50
Speaker 1: on the podium are survivors that lived through the Golden
2:57
Speaker 1: State Killer's attack. What a blessing, and they are here
3:04
Speaker 1: to testify to their surviving and give us clues that
3:11
Speaker 1: may help some other woman where there was not DNA,
3:17
Speaker 1: put together the pieces of the puzzle to connect her
3:20
Speaker 1: to the Golden sticular, because I am telling you there
3:24
Speaker 1: are more victims, murder victims and rape victims with me.
3:31
Speaker 1: Jane Carson Sandler, the fifth victim and the author of
3:36
Speaker 1: Frozen in Fear, a true story of surviving the Shadows
3:41
Speaker 1: of Death. So on Amazon you can find it. I
3:44
Speaker 1: did Jane Carson Sandler, Margaret word Law, the youngest victim
3:51
Speaker 1: with us, Debbie Domingo McMullen, victim's advocate, daughter of Golden
3:59
Speaker 1: Skate killer murder victim Sherry Dominga with me, Ashley Scott,
4:09
Speaker 1: founder our child crime watch dot Com, Atlanta lawyer Renee Rockwell,
4:15
Speaker 1: private investigator at Vincent Hill, Forensics expert Joseph Scott Morgan
4:22
Speaker 1: from Jacksona State University, and the sister of a murder
4:26
Speaker 1: victim whom I have spoken to many times. The murder
4:31
Speaker 1: victim was Janelle Cruz, her sister Michelle with us as well.
4:36
Speaker 1: You know, I paused right there because I'm thinking about
4:40
Speaker 1: all the victims that were brutally murdered. Just think about it.
4:46
Speaker 1: What if your life stopped right now? My children right
4:50
Speaker 1: now are eating lunch the last time I saw they
4:54
Speaker 1: were asleep. What if I wasn't there to raise them.
4:58
Speaker 1: What if they grew up the rest of their life
5:01
Speaker 1: missing mommy? What about the victims, parents, their husband, their children.
5:08
Speaker 1: Just in one moment gone, this man did this thing.
5:16
Speaker 1: And today we look for clues to piece together what
5:20
Speaker 1: other victims there may be. As these ladies give their witness,
5:26
Speaker 1: I want to go first to Jane Carson Sandler. Jane,
5:30
Speaker 1: I've asked you before, and your book, which is Frozen
5:33
Speaker 1: in Fear on Amazon, is so compelling. And I don't
5:39
Speaker 1: know how in the world I pray to be as
5:41
Speaker 1: good of a Christian as you are, and I am
5:44
Speaker 1: falling way short of the mark because somehow you have
5:47
Speaker 1: turned what happened to you into a testimony. But I
5:52
Speaker 1: want to start at the beginning with the devil what happened.
5:57
Speaker 1: I am a little emotional right now. Nancy is so
6:00
Speaker 1: caring and compassionate, and and I'm crying just because of
6:03
Speaker 1: her words and her her love for all of us. Well,
6:07
Speaker 1: it was six thirty in the morning on the fifth
6:12
Speaker 1: of October. N my husband had just left for work.
6:16
Speaker 1: I heard the garage door close, and my three year
6:18
Speaker 1: old son had just gotten in bed with me, and
6:22
Speaker 1: within a few minutes there was a flashlight shining down
6:25
Speaker 1: the hall and I yelled out to my husband, what
6:29
Speaker 1: did you forget? What's going on? And it wasn't my husband. Um.
6:33
Speaker 1: Within a minute, a man was standing over me, shining
6:35
Speaker 1: a flashlight in my eyes, with a ski mask on,
6:39
Speaker 1: holding a large butcher knife, with a black leather jacket,
6:41
Speaker 1: black gloves, and black high top sneakers. At first, I thought, oh,
6:46
Speaker 1: my gosh, maybe he's just here to rob us, But
6:49
Speaker 1: it was soon after that I realized he was more
6:52
Speaker 1: than just there to rob us. He gagged my son
6:56
Speaker 1: and myself. How old was your son three? My son
6:59
Speaker 1: was three years old. He blindfolded us, he gagged us,
7:03
Speaker 1: and he tied us up, and then he moved my son.
7:07
Speaker 1: And that's why I named my book Frozen in Fear,
7:10
Speaker 1: because I had no idea where he had put him
7:12
Speaker 1: or what he had done with him. Then he uh
7:18
Speaker 1: untied my ankles, and then I knew what he was
7:20
Speaker 1: there for. But I don't remember the rape because my
7:26
Speaker 1: whole attention was on where did you put my son?
7:30
Speaker 1: And um, my heart was beating so hard it was
7:32
Speaker 1: just coming through my chest, and the fear was just
7:36
Speaker 1: over overwhelming. It was just I was just terrorized. So
7:41
Speaker 1: after the rape, he proceeded to tear sheets and towels,
7:48
Speaker 1: and it was very methodical, very slow, and I'm thinking,
7:53
Speaker 1: oh my god, what are you going to do with
7:55
Speaker 1: those sheets and those towels, What are you going to
7:57
Speaker 1: do with all those strips of cloth that you have
7:59
Speaker 1: just horn? I had no idea. Are you going to
8:01
Speaker 1: hang us? Are you going to bound us again? I
8:05
Speaker 1: had no idea. It was the fear, the fear of what,
8:09
Speaker 1: of what we both went through. So um. Eventually he
8:16
Speaker 1: I moved over and he had moved my son back
8:18
Speaker 1: next to me, and uh, that was, oh my goodness.
8:22
Speaker 1: I just can't tell you the feeling that I had
8:23
Speaker 1: when I felt him. So um. He was in the
8:27
Speaker 1: house for quite a while. He'd come back and forth
8:30
Speaker 1: and again. When he first got there, he had said
8:32
Speaker 1: to us with clenched teeth, shut up, you know, shut up,
8:35
Speaker 1: or I'll kill you. Shut up or I'll kill you.
8:37
Speaker 1: Then he kept coming back in the bedroom and warning
8:39
Speaker 1: us if he heard anything, he would come back and
8:42
Speaker 1: kill us. So um. He would go in the kitchen,
8:45
Speaker 1: he'd rattle his pots and pants, and he'd come back
8:47
Speaker 1: and check on us and then go back. It was
8:49
Speaker 1: like he was cooking something in the in the kitchen,
8:51
Speaker 1: which was just unbelievable. Really, you're cooking. Now You've just
8:55
Speaker 1: raped me, and now you're cooking in the kitchen. Okay.
8:58
Speaker 1: So um. Then after we didn't hear anything for a while,
9:02
Speaker 1: I was able to get my blindfold down just a
9:04
Speaker 1: little bit and I was able to see that it
9:06
Speaker 1: was getting light, and I looked next to me and
9:09
Speaker 1: my son was actually asleep. Praised the Lord. He was asleep.
9:14
Speaker 1: So then um, I woke him up and I said,
9:18
Speaker 1: come on, sweetie, we gotta get out of here. We
9:20
Speaker 1: got to get out of here. So again, it was
9:22
Speaker 1: taking a chance. I didn't know if he was still
9:23
Speaker 1: in the house or not. But we hobbled down the hall,
9:26
Speaker 1: got to the front door, which was actually uh um,
9:30
Speaker 1: he had taken a chair and propped it up under
9:32
Speaker 1: the front door, so we couldn't get out that way,
9:34
Speaker 1: but we did get out through the back patio. Hobbled
9:37
Speaker 1: around to the front of the gate, yelled for a
9:40
Speaker 1: neighbor and uh she took us into her home, called
9:43
Speaker 1: the police, called my husband. And then soon after two
9:47
Speaker 1: policemen showed up to interview me, and I really didn't
9:49
Speaker 1: want to speak to them. But then Carol Daily, a
9:52
Speaker 1: female detective who I've become very close to over the years, Um,
9:56
Speaker 1: she did show up and she took me to the
9:58
Speaker 1: emergency room and at that point, you know, they did
10:01
Speaker 1: the rape exam. They went ahead and gave me the
10:05
Speaker 1: shot of penicillin and Casey had a anerial disease, and
10:08
Speaker 1: then of course gave me the morning after pill, so
10:11
Speaker 1: I didn't get pregnant. So that was not a very
10:13
Speaker 1: pleasant experience at all. But uh, you know, thanks be
10:16
Speaker 1: to God, we're alive when we're here, and thank you
10:18
Speaker 1: all for caring and being here. You know, I've got
10:27
Speaker 1: so many thoughts just colliding through my head as you speak.
10:30
Speaker 1: I couldn't even write them down fast enough to keep
10:34
Speaker 1: up with you. And just so many things. Here are
10:38
Speaker 1: some of the points. For instance, the first thing you
10:41
Speaker 1: said about how you could not remember the rape. You know,
10:43
Speaker 1: it's interesting and I've gone over this with Renee a lot. Um.
10:47
Speaker 1: First of all, let me introduce everybody full on. Vincent
10:51
Speaker 1: Peel is a former Tennessee p D now private investigator.
10:56
Speaker 1: Renee Rockwell is a longtime defense attorney and dear friend
11:01
Speaker 1: of mine that practices in the Atlanta area. Joseph Scott
11:04
Speaker 1: Morrigan death investigator and professor of forensics at Jacksonville State
11:10
Speaker 1: and you've met there on the end as Ashley Wilcot.
11:15
Speaker 1: She founded child crime watch dot com. Lawyer and advocate
11:19
Speaker 1: Jane Carson Sandler wrote Frozen in Fear, Margaret word law
11:25
Speaker 1: Michelle Cruz, Debbie Domingo McMullen. I had to say that
11:32
Speaker 1: very slowly so I can get it all in, you know, Renee,
11:35
Speaker 1: there's so much that when my fiancee was murdered, I
11:38
Speaker 1: can't remember the facts from a couple of years before
11:42
Speaker 1: and a couple of years after the funeral. I can
11:45
Speaker 1: remember that the pastor kept calling me Mary during the funeral,
11:50
Speaker 1: and just facts like that. When when something horrible happens,
11:55
Speaker 1: I think in a way, God blocks some of that
11:57
Speaker 1: out so you don't remember it, Thank God. Nancy. Um
12:04
Speaker 1: you're living this now with these victims as they talk
12:09
Speaker 1: about it, and um, just the when things blackout, um uh,
12:15
Speaker 1: that's for self provided preservation. But now now that we
12:21
Speaker 1: have this person in custody, this is gonna all be
12:27
Speaker 1: very important, every every single detail, because I can is this,
12:33
Speaker 1: Every single detail matters if you do get some of
12:36
Speaker 1: that memory, they cause it. Believe me, when a defense
12:39
Speaker 1: attorney gets all of this case no offense, Renee, everything
12:43
Speaker 1: you say and remember is going to be questioned as
12:46
Speaker 1: a matter of fact. This is how it all broke down.
12:48
Speaker 1: We've been covering this for years, right, who's going to stay? Killer?
12:52
Speaker 1: And the fact that remember she said he put the
12:55
Speaker 1: top the chair up against the door. This is common.
12:59
Speaker 1: He would use pots and pans and dishes in many
13:02
Speaker 1: of his infantasy If a man was home, he would
13:06
Speaker 1: tie the man up and put dishes on his back
13:11
Speaker 1: and say, if I hear the dishes rattle, I'm gonna
13:13
Speaker 1: kill everybody. So the dishes, the pots, the pans, the
13:17
Speaker 1: cooking tells me told me that he had a background
13:22
Speaker 1: and law enforcement. Maybe because he was clearly casing the home.
13:27
Speaker 1: He knew when your husband left, and he knew he
13:29
Speaker 1: wasn't coming back, or he wouldn't have stayed there so
13:32
Speaker 1: long to cook something. So that led me to who
13:36
Speaker 1: is in your area? Who was around you? Who would
13:39
Speaker 1: know that? Um, what finally happened is some brilliant officer
13:45
Speaker 1: got the DNA from way back and plugged it into
13:49
Speaker 1: something like ancestry dot com and it got familial DNA hit.
13:56
Speaker 1: In other words, sisters, mothers, brothers, uncle's all. They all
14:01
Speaker 1: popped up right with this DNA. So they first go
14:05
Speaker 1: to another man based on that, and then they rule
14:09
Speaker 1: them out. Then they get to the Golden State killer
14:13
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, I'm sorry, I'm I've got a
14:16
Speaker 1: roast in the oven. Like he couldn't go well, okay,
14:21
Speaker 1: he's in jail and right now, as of today, he
14:25
Speaker 1: is challenging their use of whatever website they used, like
14:29
Speaker 1: ancestry dot com, saying it's unconstitutional and if that gets
14:33
Speaker 1: ruled out, we're in trouble. We're in trouble. I don't
14:37
Speaker 1: think it's going to get ruled out. Why, because the
14:41
Speaker 1: constitution protects us from police getting into our business without
14:45
Speaker 1: a warrant. When you mail off your DNA two in
14:49
Speaker 1: the mail, that's your problem, okay, so the constitution doesn't
14:53
Speaker 1: protect you from that. I don't think there's gonna be
14:55
Speaker 1: a legal issue, but they're fighting it right now. I'm
15:00
Speaker 1: gonna take questions and ideas out here, but I want
15:03
Speaker 1: to hear from all of our ladies. I want to
15:05
Speaker 1: go now to the shell cruise. Janelle's sister, Hi, gosh,
15:10
Speaker 1: this is really really emotional listening to Jane and Fancy.
15:15
Speaker 1: Whenever I hear any of the victims of the family
15:18
Speaker 1: is like, it really emotional. But um, Janelle was my
15:23
Speaker 1: sister eighteen years old and I was seventeen and I
15:29
Speaker 1: was in mam As skiing when I got a phone
15:31
Speaker 1: call from a friend who said, I think you need
15:35
Speaker 1: to sit down. And I said why and she said, um,
15:39
Speaker 1: your sister has been murdered. And I said, my sister
15:42
Speaker 1: got married and she said, no, murdered. And for the
15:46
Speaker 1: next twenty years, I don't I don't remember, so um
15:50
Speaker 1: what happened. I was just living in a bubble, kind
15:53
Speaker 1: of like deb Wiez was. We just tried to live
15:56
Speaker 1: our life and go on. Our family didn't talk about it,
15:59
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until about ten years ago that I
16:03
Speaker 1: started getting more into the case. And then two years
16:06
Speaker 1: ago when I started really coming out and showing my face. Um,
16:11
Speaker 1: just to try and move this case to the forefront
16:14
Speaker 1: so people away. You said something interesting. Our family did
16:17
Speaker 1: talk about it. Oh, how I love to blame things
16:20
Speaker 1: on my parents if I can. But really, you know what,
16:24
Speaker 1: I don't like. I do it when I have to,
16:26
Speaker 1: but I don't like talking about my fiancee's murder. I
16:29
Speaker 1: don't like it. It hurts my feelings, it gets me upset.
16:34
Speaker 1: I can't eat, just I feel awful. And my twins
16:38
Speaker 1: don't deserve a mother like that. So the fact that
16:42
Speaker 1: maybe your parents didn't talk about or your family didn't
16:44
Speaker 1: talk about that could be for a lot of reasons.
16:46
Speaker 1: Said they just I don't want to talk about it.
16:49
Speaker 1: It's like reliving it all over. It was. It was
16:53
Speaker 1: very emotional. We It caused arguments and then just a
16:57
Speaker 1: lot of crazy emotions cause ours because you know, one,
17:02
Speaker 1: I was doing things to speak out, and then my
17:04
Speaker 1: mom didn't want me to do that because um, the
17:08
Speaker 1: Golden State killer was still out there and she was
17:11
Speaker 1: afraid that I was jeopardizing our family, and um, just
17:15
Speaker 1: a lot of mixed emotions and we're you know, I
17:18
Speaker 1: didn't like when she brought it up in front of
17:21
Speaker 1: people when we were at in a you know, some
17:23
Speaker 1: kind of a social thing, because it got really upsetting
17:27
Speaker 1: and we'd cry and it just kind of dampered everything.
17:30
Speaker 1: You know, so there's a lot of emotions, a lot
17:33
Speaker 1: of really really crazy emotions. How was Gell killed? What happened? Um,
17:39
Speaker 1: she was home by herself. My parents had just my
17:43
Speaker 1: mom and my stepfather and my brother had just left
17:46
Speaker 1: for Cancoon the day before, and that night she had
17:51
Speaker 1: some friends over and they heard noises. Janelle was on
17:54
Speaker 1: the phone and her friends that were over, they went
17:57
Speaker 1: outside and ran into the backyard where her the noises,
18:00
Speaker 1: but they didn't see anything. So they all came back
18:03
Speaker 1: in and just we're hanging out and the next stage
18:05
Speaker 1: and Alle gone to work. And Um, she had some
18:08
Speaker 1: friends over during the day and in the evening time,
18:11
Speaker 1: she didn't want to stay by herself. She was nervous,
18:13
Speaker 1: probably because of the noises the night before, and so
18:18
Speaker 1: she had some friends over and they heard some more
18:20
Speaker 1: noises in the backyard and she disregarded it as maybe
18:24
Speaker 1: a cat or something, and she shut the shutters and
18:29
Speaker 1: then about her friend that she had there left and
18:34
Speaker 1: she also left. They just left in different cars, and
18:37
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later, which was eleven pm, she came home
18:41
Speaker 1: because somebody heard her car pull up. And I know
18:44
Speaker 1: she had a phone call at midnight and she did
18:46
Speaker 1: not answer that phone call. So it sometime when she
18:50
Speaker 1: come back home that he attacked her. I guess how
18:55
Speaker 1: was her body found and what was the motive death? Um?
19:00
Speaker 1: We our house was listed for sale and a realtor
19:04
Speaker 1: was showing the property, and she had gone and went
19:08
Speaker 1: into the bedroom and saw my sister on the bed
19:11
Speaker 1: and the blankets were covered over her face and and
19:17
Speaker 1: you know the rest of the rest of her body
19:19
Speaker 1: was uncovered up. And so that realtor called our broker,
19:24
Speaker 1: and then our broker immediately came and they called the police,
19:28
Speaker 1: and the police came. And I bet this guy, the
19:31
Speaker 1: Golden State Killer, went back and watched because we know
19:35
Speaker 1: he later would call the victims and taught them on
19:39
Speaker 1: the phone, right, isn't that right? At say, Jane, what
19:44
Speaker 1: do you recall if anything? When he would call afterwards,
19:49
Speaker 1: I could just he would just call and then just
19:51
Speaker 1: hang on the phone, and I knew it was him,
19:53
Speaker 1: Thank thank goodness. He didn't, you know, say to me,
19:56
Speaker 1: I'm going to come back and kill you, or you know,
19:58
Speaker 1: do you remember me? No, he just breathed, and I
20:01
Speaker 1: knew it was him. But that was enough to cause
20:04
Speaker 1: so much fear again, just getting over and that is
20:07
Speaker 1: an insight into who he is. It's like going back
20:10
Speaker 1: to the scene. Remember Scott Peterson kept going back and
20:13
Speaker 1: looking out in the San Francisco Bay because the issue
20:16
Speaker 1: was there. Like calling the victim Matt and you just
20:19
Speaker 1: listen and then hang up. That says something about this psyche. Yeah,
20:24
Speaker 1: it does, Nancy. And one of the things that you
20:26
Speaker 1: have to keep in mind is they value trophies. Uh.
20:30
Speaker 1: And these trophies can actually be and I'm talking about
20:33
Speaker 1: in serialized events. They can put a specific value on
20:37
Speaker 1: even just reminiscing. If you go back and even look
20:40
Speaker 1: at like b t K. He'd go and disinter bodies
20:42
Speaker 1: many times and lay down in the graves and then
20:45
Speaker 1: re enter the body. So they have this desire, they
20:49
Speaker 1: have this desire to engage, and a lot of it
20:52
Speaker 1: goes back, I think, to power to a great degree,
20:55
Speaker 1: having power and control. I mean, why the world would
20:57
Speaker 1: you go and victimize somebody like that? Well, think out
21:00
Speaker 1: at Joseph Scott. This guy have been a cop. And
21:02
Speaker 1: I'm usually on the cop side. Yes, I know they're
21:05
Speaker 1: bad cops and I hate them and I want them
21:07
Speaker 1: to go down. But this guy, I think wanted to
21:11
Speaker 1: be a cop and not one but tea jurisdictions. Scott
21:14
Speaker 1: fired at one because he wanted the power and the control,
21:17
Speaker 1: and now we see that playing out on the victims.
21:23
Speaker 1: Did you know about a recent law that could leave
21:26
Speaker 1: your personal data exposed online for anybody to find? If
21:30
Speaker 1: you've turned on the news lately, you know the Internet
21:33
Speaker 1: has created a dangerous new world. Data breaches exposed private information.
21:39
Speaker 1: There's a new cybersecurity threat every other day, and criminals
21:42
Speaker 1: can sell the identity of you and your family on
21:45
Speaker 1: the dark web. It's time you take the power back
21:49
Speaker 1: by using a new website called truth Finder. Truth Finder
21:52
Speaker 1: allows you to find out exactly what information exists about
21:56
Speaker 1: you online. Have you gotten a speeding ticket, received a
21:59
Speaker 1: lean for the I r S, forgotten about an embarrassing
22:02
Speaker 1: social media profile. Truth Finder searches through millions of public records,
22:07
Speaker 1: puts all that data together and one easy to read report.
22:11
Speaker 1: Members get unlimited searches, so you can also look up
22:14
Speaker 1: those close to you and make sure they're not hiding
22:17
Speaker 1: something from their past. You also get free Dart web
22:21
Speaker 1: monitoring to make truth Finder the ultimate tool in identity protection.
22:26
Speaker 1: If your personal info appears for sale on the dart web.
22:29
Speaker 1: You'll be the first to know. Visit truth finder dot
22:32
Speaker 1: com slash Nancy, enter your own name get started. I
22:45
Speaker 1: want you to hear from Margaret Ward Life. Hello everyone,
22:51
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. And um, I'm
22:54
Speaker 1: really glad that I could be here to see everyone
22:56
Speaker 1: and be able to tell my story. I do want
22:58
Speaker 1: to add Nancy that from my understanding, law enforcement said
23:03
Speaker 1: that he covered their heads because he realized that being
23:07
Speaker 1: people you know about the head was going to leave
23:10
Speaker 1: blood splatter on him. And they speculate that he may
23:13
Speaker 1: have covered people up that way because when he beat them,
23:16
Speaker 1: oftentimes he would beat the upper part of their body.
23:19
Speaker 1: You're right, he wouldn't get splatter on himself, so that
23:21
Speaker 1: way he wouldn't be covered with blood. And he really
23:24
Speaker 1: I guess he really really really just another clue that
23:27
Speaker 1: his law enforcement. Yeah, so, UM, my story is very different. Um.
23:33
Speaker 1: I was thirteen years old living in Sacramento. This guy
23:37
Speaker 1: was a prolific rapist, serial rapist, and I was absolutely
23:42
Speaker 1: fascinated with the story. I was reading the newspaper every
23:46
Speaker 1: time there was an attack, every time a profiler wrote
23:49
Speaker 1: something about this guy. When you were thirteen, you were
23:51
Speaker 1: obsessed with. When I was darting, I was still riding
23:54
Speaker 1: a bike. Didn't know where babies came from. Wow, I
23:58
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, the whole was a buzz. So
24:00
Speaker 1: it wasn't just me that was interested in this whole thing. Um,
24:04
Speaker 1: you know, the whole town was just on edge because
24:07
Speaker 1: we had this serial rapist that was attacking in Sacramento.
24:10
Speaker 1: So my mother was fifty five and I was thirteen,
24:13
Speaker 1: and my mother always said, well, I'm too old and
24:15
Speaker 1: you're too young. We would never be victims of this
24:17
Speaker 1: this perpetrator. And in addition to that, he had already
24:21
Speaker 1: started going into the homes where there's a man, um
24:25
Speaker 1: a husband and a wife. We had a newspaper article,
24:29
Speaker 1: I guess it came out and said, well he's only
24:30
Speaker 1: attacking his single women, and so you know, he obviously
24:36
Speaker 1: read that, and the next attack involved a husband and wife,
24:40
Speaker 1: and uh so you know, he just up the anti
24:43
Speaker 1: each and every time there was a town hall meeting
24:45
Speaker 1: where somebody stood up, a gentleman stood up and said,
24:47
Speaker 1: there's no way in a million years a guy's coming
24:50
Speaker 1: into my house with a gun. He's gonna tie me
24:52
Speaker 1: up and rape my wife. Well, guess what That same
24:55
Speaker 1: man two months later had this guy show up at
24:58
Speaker 1: his house and tie him up and as he did,
25:00
Speaker 1: rape his wife. So he was there at the town
25:02
Speaker 1: hall meeting, must have followed him home. This guy was
25:04
Speaker 1: just gutsy. So anyway, I was fascinated. I read everything
25:09
Speaker 1: there was to read. I understood, not know that. Yeah
25:13
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, it's so he was at the
25:15
Speaker 1: town hall. Made coincidence, guys, No, it's scary. It was
25:19
Speaker 1: not a coincidence. I'm sure. Uh So, reading everything I
25:23
Speaker 1: had read, I understood he really got off on frightening
25:26
Speaker 1: his victims and putting the fear in them, and by
25:28
Speaker 1: putting that fear in them, he was able to control
25:30
Speaker 1: his victims. And it was very evident to me by
25:32
Speaker 1: reading everything I had read that this is what this
25:35
Speaker 1: guy wanted. He wanted control through fear. So, um, it
25:40
Speaker 1: was a school night. I went to bed at a
25:43
Speaker 1: normal hour, um, and I was awoken about two thirty
25:47
Speaker 1: in the morning with his flashlight in my face and
25:49
Speaker 1: this guy telling me turn over, I'm going to tie
25:50
Speaker 1: you up. And initially I just refuse because I thought
25:53
Speaker 1: it was our neighbor. We had had dinner with the
25:55
Speaker 1: night before, and I just thought he had my m
26:00
Speaker 1: and employed him to come over and wake me up
26:01
Speaker 1: as a joke for school. And he had these leather
26:03
Speaker 1: gloves on, and so I refused a couple of times,
26:06
Speaker 1: and then finally I went along with it. He got
26:08
Speaker 1: a little bit more um forceful and instructing, instructing me
26:12
Speaker 1: to turn over and letting him tie me up. So
26:14
Speaker 1: once I was tied up, he walked out of the
26:16
Speaker 1: room and I looked over the clock radio and it's
26:18
Speaker 1: like two thirty in the morning, and I realized, you know,
26:21
Speaker 1: very quickly that this is not my neighbor. This is
26:24
Speaker 1: most likely the East Ara rapist. So um. He proceeded
26:28
Speaker 1: to go on upstairs. Our house was really different because
26:31
Speaker 1: we had a kitchen and living room, driving room upstairs.
26:34
Speaker 1: Because we lived right on the American River and you
26:36
Speaker 1: could look look over the levee and see the trees
26:39
Speaker 1: and you could see the river. It was a beautiful
26:41
Speaker 1: place to be. But I could hear him coming downstairs
26:43
Speaker 1: with those plates, and and you could hear him coming
26:48
Speaker 1: downstairs with the plights. Yeah, the plates were very indicative
26:51
Speaker 1: of his emo. He would always put the plates on
26:54
Speaker 1: like typically the back of a man and say, if
26:56
Speaker 1: I hear these plates rattle, I'm gonna come back. I'm
26:59
Speaker 1: gonna kill your wife. Come back and I'm gonna kill you.
27:01
Speaker 1: So that was always a threat. So, um, I heard
27:04
Speaker 1: him coming down the stairs with the plates, and I
27:06
Speaker 1: heard the plates rattling, and I realized, well, if he
27:08
Speaker 1: comes into my my room, he's gonna rape my mom.
27:11
Speaker 1: Did you know about the plights? Of course the pants
27:14
Speaker 1: at the time it was happening, you had read about it. Absolutely.
27:17
Speaker 1: I read every single thing I could give my can
27:20
Speaker 1: and even imagine laying there and hearing the plights, well,
27:24
Speaker 1: I just realized that he was going to rape one
27:27
Speaker 1: of us most likely, and whomever's room he went into,
27:31
Speaker 1: the other person was going to be raped. So I
27:32
Speaker 1: heard him go into my mom's room, and I just
27:34
Speaker 1: had a calming voice within me just said, you know, um,
27:39
Speaker 1: just this is what's gonna happen. You're gonna be raped,
27:42
Speaker 1: but you're gonna get through it. You're gonna be okay.
27:45
Speaker 1: And I knew he hadn't killed anyone, he hadn't heard
27:47
Speaker 1: anyone yet, and I knew, like I'm talking right now,
27:52
Speaker 1: he was not going to kill anyone. He wasn't gonna
27:54
Speaker 1: hurt anyone that night, even though he was threatening it continually.
27:58
Speaker 1: And so, um, I heard him going to my mom's room,
28:01
Speaker 1: and I just prepared myself. I just remained very calm,
28:05
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I have to say, I don't
28:09
Speaker 1: know where it came from, but for some reason, I
28:12
Speaker 1: just I realized I had to maintain just not being afraid.
28:17
Speaker 1: So he made a lot of threats. He did it
28:20
Speaker 1: in a very harsh whisper. He'd asked me, do you
28:22
Speaker 1: want me to kill your mother? Do you want me
28:23
Speaker 1: to kill you? And I simply replied, I don't care.
28:26
Speaker 1: It was the best thing I could think of to
28:28
Speaker 1: let him know I'm not affected by you, You're not
28:31
Speaker 1: frightening me. And I just knew in my mind I
28:34
Speaker 1: had to just show this guy no fear because that's
28:37
Speaker 1: what he wanted. And I was damned if I was
28:39
Speaker 1: going to give that to him. So, UM, we're what
28:50
Speaker 1: what did your mom say? Well, my mom was deeply
28:55
Speaker 1: affected by the attack. Um, you know she was once once.
29:01
Speaker 1: You know, he had this tendency to come in the
29:02
Speaker 1: room and then leave the room, so you never knew
29:05
Speaker 1: when he was really gone, right, So, and he go upstairs.
29:08
Speaker 1: He turned on the water and he turned on our
29:11
Speaker 1: you know, our exhaust fan at the stoves, so there
29:14
Speaker 1: was an ambient sound going on. So I believe he
29:16
Speaker 1: left through the front door. He came in through an
29:18
Speaker 1: upstairs um slid sliding glass door off a deck. So,
29:23
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy was extremely agile. He was like, uh,
29:27
Speaker 1: super track track athlete. You know, he was jumping fences.
29:31
Speaker 1: He was just notorious for getting away and getting into
29:35
Speaker 1: places where you just don't know how he got in there.
29:37
Speaker 1: So I'm sure he left out the front door. My
29:39
Speaker 1: mom started screaming. The neighbor came over. Um. Once my
29:42
Speaker 1: mom thought that he was gone, um, and the neighbor
29:45
Speaker 1: came over with a shotgun. The neighbor's wife and tied me,
29:49
Speaker 1: and then we waited for the police to come. And
29:50
Speaker 1: my mom really thought it was a copycat, and I said, no,
29:53
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think this was This was
29:56
Speaker 1: the guy. And my brother says, he came as quickly
30:01
Speaker 1: as he could from work, and he got out of
30:03
Speaker 1: his car and I met him outside and I said
30:05
Speaker 1: to him, Jim, what are you doing here? Aren't you
30:06
Speaker 1: supposed to be at work. I don't remember seeing that,
30:10
Speaker 1: but my brother has a very vivid memory of me
30:13
Speaker 1: just being cool as a cucumber. It's just the thought
30:17
Speaker 1: of a teen girl having to undergo a rape kit
30:20
Speaker 1: and then all those years go by and it is
30:23
Speaker 1: never resolved. I'm going to come back to each of
30:27
Speaker 1: you and ask how you felt when you heard there
30:32
Speaker 1: had been an arrest. Debate Domingo McMullen is with me,
30:37
Speaker 1: the daughter our murder victim, Sherry Domingo, thank you for
30:44
Speaker 1: being with us, Thanks for having us on. It's just
30:48
Speaker 1: really really heartwarming to have this opportunity to share our stories.
30:53
Speaker 1: So we're grateful. Um In Um I was fifteen years old. UM.
31:03
Speaker 1: My parents had divorced a few years earlier. My dad
31:06
Speaker 1: had already remarried, so I had a stepmom and stepbrothers
31:10
Speaker 1: and my own brother. Uh. I had two households that
31:14
Speaker 1: I lived in, and most of the time I lived
31:16
Speaker 1: with just my mom. It was just her and me,
31:18
Speaker 1: and sometimes I would go to my dad's and i'd
31:20
Speaker 1: come back and Uh. The summer of um, mom and
31:27
Speaker 1: I had been had been arguing quite a bit. I
31:30
Speaker 1: was just coming into that that rebellious teenager. I don't
31:34
Speaker 1: want to follow a curfew. I need to be able
31:36
Speaker 1: to talk on the phone. All I want is no
31:39
Speaker 1: matter how much it costs, And I can smoke cigarettes
31:40
Speaker 1: and I can do whatever I want kind of thing.
31:42
Speaker 1: And and my mom had always been um very we
31:47
Speaker 1: were very very close. We she was she was a nurturer.
31:51
Speaker 1: She and I were almost more like like sisters than
31:55
Speaker 1: mother and daughter. Would be out in public, she had
31:57
Speaker 1: me when when she was was very young. She was
32:00
Speaker 1: any when I was born. And so we'd be out
32:01
Speaker 1: in public and we'd be in in a restaurant somewhere.
32:05
Speaker 1: She'd order a glass of wine and they would ask
32:07
Speaker 1: for her I d and I'd be like, dude, that's
32:09
Speaker 1: my mom. What are you doing? So, you know, we'd
32:12
Speaker 1: be shopping for clothes and I say hey mom, and
32:13
Speaker 1: everybody would just look because anyway, um, but we've been
32:20
Speaker 1: we've been arguing that summer, and and at one point
32:23
Speaker 1: we just had this knockdown, drag out, just screaming at
32:25
Speaker 1: each other, and and and I said, well, I don't
32:29
Speaker 1: have to live with these rules anymore. And I threw
32:31
Speaker 1: some clothes into a backpack, and I hopped on my
32:33
Speaker 1: tent speed bicycle and and I took off and I
32:37
Speaker 1: went to a girlfriend's house and stayed on their couch
32:39
Speaker 1: for a couple of days, and when when her parents
32:42
Speaker 1: got sick of me, I went to another friend's house
32:44
Speaker 1: and I kind of bounced around for about three weeks.
32:47
Speaker 1: And during that time Mom and I had we talked
32:50
Speaker 1: on the phone every once in a while. We had
32:52
Speaker 1: a went to a team runaway shelter kind of a
32:54
Speaker 1: place and they said, okay, well you can stay here,
32:57
Speaker 1: but you have to participate in counseling. So we had
32:59
Speaker 1: the beginning of a counseling session that almost immediately as
33:03
Speaker 1: soon as we were in the same room, we were
33:04
Speaker 1: screaming at each other again. So it was just it
33:07
Speaker 1: was just this round and round kind of a thing.
33:10
Speaker 1: But I just want to side with your mother because
33:13
Speaker 1: if I call it Lucy Lanch with a cigarette to
33:16
Speaker 1: her lips, I would do a back flip Ninja style. Okay,
33:22
Speaker 1: get that out of her mouth. It's not just going
33:24
Speaker 1: on the record. I'm with your mom on this. Sorry, Okay,
33:28
Speaker 1: go ahead, Well don't you don't have to apologize for that,
33:31
Speaker 1: because now I am a mother and a grandmother and yeah,
33:35
Speaker 1: it's and you know, she was just doing her best
33:38
Speaker 1: to be a good mom. She really was. Oh, man's
33:43
Speaker 1: starting already. I'm sorry. Um yeah, anyway, UM, I'm good,
33:49
Speaker 1: thank you. UM. Monday July, I was at the home
33:58
Speaker 1: of a girlfriend and her brother called and said, hey, uh,
34:06
Speaker 1: some lady is looking for Debbie. Is she there at
34:08
Speaker 1: the house with you? And and I was, and he said, well,
34:11
Speaker 1: she's supposed to call this woman. This was my mom's
34:13
Speaker 1: best friend, who also happened to be a neighbor. And
34:18
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I'm not calling her back. She's just
34:20
Speaker 1: going to try and convince me to come home. She's
34:22
Speaker 1: just gonna try and get us to smooth things over.
34:25
Speaker 1: So I said, no, I'm not coming home. And she said, no, Debbie,
34:28
Speaker 1: you have to come home. And I said, no, I'm done.
34:32
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can say. I'm done. I was a kid.
34:36
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I was doing. But she got
34:38
Speaker 1: real quiet and real serious and she said, Debbie, you
34:42
Speaker 1: don't understand. Something's happened and it's important and you have
34:50
Speaker 1: to come home. And when I did that, of course,
34:57
Speaker 1: I had a friend drive me home. M and we
35:02
Speaker 1: lived in the caul de Sac. We were the second
35:04
Speaker 1: house in on the left hand side, and we pulled
35:07
Speaker 1: up and the the first thing that struck me was
35:10
Speaker 1: the yellow tape. It was everywhere. It was all the
35:13
Speaker 1: way around the house, it was around the end of
35:16
Speaker 1: the caul de sac. There were police cars, there were
35:21
Speaker 1: news cameras, there were neighbors standing around looking and whispering
35:26
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out what was going on. And
35:31
Speaker 1: I got out of the car and I started to
35:32
Speaker 1: make up bee line for the house, and my mom's
35:35
Speaker 1: best friend came immediately and put her arm around me
35:38
Speaker 1: and tried to shield me from everything that was about
35:41
Speaker 1: to happen. And I looked at the house and I
35:48
Speaker 1: could see my mom's car in the driveway, and I
35:53
Speaker 1: could see her boyfriend, Greg's car parked at the curb
35:57
Speaker 1: in front of the house. And immediately, I think, you know,
36:02
Speaker 1: I knew something with something bad was going on. You
36:04
Speaker 1: see yellow tape. There's no question that something's wrong. But
36:09
Speaker 1: I saw Gregg's car, and my mom and Greg had
36:12
Speaker 1: dated off and on for the better part of four years.
36:16
Speaker 1: Um I was very close to Greg, and I loved Greg,
36:20
Speaker 1: and he was so good to us. He was part
36:22
Speaker 1: of the family. And I saw Greg's car and immediately
36:26
Speaker 1: I just felt hope because I thought, oh, if Greg's here,
36:29
Speaker 1: he'll make it better. And so I started asking, where's Greg.
36:32
Speaker 1: I want to see Greg. And and this was early
36:38
Speaker 1: enough in the investigation that identifications hadn't been made yet.
36:42
Speaker 1: So as soon as I said where's Greg, all the
36:45
Speaker 1: cops started saying, Greg, who who are you looking for?
36:47
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? And I said, that car
36:49
Speaker 1: right there, Greg Sanchez. I want to see Greg. So anyway,
36:56
Speaker 1: the short version, eventually they got me into my mom's
36:59
Speaker 1: best friends house and sat me down, and they said
37:02
Speaker 1: that there were two bodies found in our house and
37:08
Speaker 1: that they believed that my mother was one of them.
37:12
Speaker 1: And of course, you know, Margaret could relate this little
37:16
Speaker 1: smart at like attitude. In my head, I'm thinking, well,
37:19
Speaker 1: one of them is my mom? Who else would you know?
37:22
Speaker 1: I just I just I was. I was feisty, and
37:25
Speaker 1: I didn't want to I didn't want to believe what
37:26
Speaker 1: they were saying to me. Um. And then the next
37:30
Speaker 1: several days, obviously I had to. I called my dad
37:33
Speaker 1: and he drove several hundred miles to come be at
37:35
Speaker 1: my side and get me through that. And then we
37:38
Speaker 1: spent the next couple of days of of questions and answers,
37:42
Speaker 1: and and did your mom have any enemies? And did
37:44
Speaker 1: she do drugs? Were their drugs in the house that
37:47
Speaker 1: somebody could have broken in to try and find and
37:49
Speaker 1: and and and they grilled my dad. You know when somebody,
37:53
Speaker 1: when somebody gets killed, you look at the X, right.
37:56
Speaker 1: So they took my poor father into that room with
38:00
Speaker 1: the blood spatter and interrogated him for hours. Unfortunately, he
38:06
Speaker 1: had a rock solid alibi that put him several hundred
38:09
Speaker 1: miles away. But Um, but that that ordeal, that first
38:14
Speaker 1: couple of days, it was obvious to me that they
38:16
Speaker 1: were really grasping at straws that they didn't have a
38:19
Speaker 1: clue who had broken into this home, broke in the window,
38:23
Speaker 1: reached into the door, knob stepped into the master bathroom, um,
38:29
Speaker 1: waited for my mom and Gregg to fall asleep, and
38:33
Speaker 1: then surprised them in that bedroom and beating them both
38:37
Speaker 1: to death. That's hill. Are you hearing all of the
38:41
Speaker 1: times that the perpetritor is touching things, is leaving behind
38:51
Speaker 1: we would think d NA or PRINCE or evidence of
38:54
Speaker 1: some sort. Yeah, we would think that, Nancy. But I
38:57
Speaker 1: think it's clear he did everything he good to disguise
39:00
Speaker 1: who he was, gloves mask, even disguising his voice, which
39:05
Speaker 1: couldn't be used in a lineup later for voice recognition.
39:08
Speaker 1: You know, back in two thousand, I was living in
39:11
Speaker 1: California with max wife and something came on about the
39:14
Speaker 1: night stalker and I told her, I said, this guy
39:16
Speaker 1: is a police officer. He was a police officer, because
39:19
Speaker 1: I can remember, ever since I was a little kid,
39:21
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a police officer. And I remember
39:23
Speaker 1: in six DNA was used for the very first time
39:26
Speaker 1: in court in England, and if you think back in
39:30
Speaker 1: six this all stopped. So that told me this guy
39:33
Speaker 1: knows exactly what's going on. He knows that he's been
39:36
Speaker 1: leaving something behind to tie back to him. So he says,
39:40
Speaker 1: I need to bow out with gracefully and hope they
39:43
Speaker 1: never catch me. I can't remember when we when I
39:47
Speaker 1: first started trying case his felonies, we didn't have DNA
39:51
Speaker 1: and we would prove rape cases by blood. And now
39:57
Speaker 1: all we have was like, the prop isn't Type A,
40:02
Speaker 1: and you're a Type A along with about twenty million
40:05
Speaker 1: other people are a Type A. And I mean we
40:08
Speaker 1: have anything we couldn't identify, hair, you could only say
40:12
Speaker 1: if hair was Caucasian, Hispanic or ma um African American.
40:20
Speaker 1: There was really no way to use that kind of
40:23
Speaker 1: forensics to make a rape case. That is really interesting
40:28
Speaker 1: that once and I remember my first DNA case, deoxyribony
40:32
Speaker 1: claic acid. But that's really interesting that it quit at
40:36
Speaker 1: the time DNAs made its advent into court. Let me
40:42
Speaker 1: go to Jane, all these years that you waited, did
40:48
Speaker 1: you relive it? Did you have dreams about it? Did
40:51
Speaker 1: you think about it? Considerate? And what did you do
40:54
Speaker 1: when you heard there had been an arrest? Well, for
40:58
Speaker 1: the last forty two years years, every night before I
41:02
Speaker 1: went to bed, I would say, Dear God, please don't
41:05
Speaker 1: let me dream anything about the rape or the rapist.
41:09
Speaker 1: And God answered my prayers because I never did. I
41:12
Speaker 1: never did. And Uh, last week ago Wednesday, I guess
41:17
Speaker 1: it was April. My husband and I were in Wilson,
41:21
Speaker 1: North Carolina. We had just um returned from Germany and
41:28
Speaker 1: the next morning my phone hadn't been working the day prior.
41:31
Speaker 1: So the next morning when I turned on my my
41:34
Speaker 1: cell phone, there was a message there from Larry Crompton
41:37
Speaker 1: and he said, Hey, I guess you've heard by now
41:40
Speaker 1: they got him. So my husband, Roger and I we
41:44
Speaker 1: cried and we we sobbed, and we laughed, and we
41:48
Speaker 1: jumped up and down and just could not could not
41:52
Speaker 1: believe it. And I've I've said before, I think we
41:54
Speaker 1: we could have woken up the hotel. We were just
41:57
Speaker 1: so joyous. So then, um, then I instead of calling Larry,
42:02
Speaker 1: I called Carol Daly, who was awake, and she was
42:04
Speaker 1: the again the detective, my angel that took me to
42:06
Speaker 1: the emergency room. And Carol said, yes, Jane, she said,
42:09
Speaker 1: we have him. He's behind bars and Sacramento. So wow.
42:13
Speaker 1: I still can't get in my head around it. It's
42:15
Speaker 1: just so grateful to all the media, all the podcasters,
42:20
Speaker 1: just everyone, all the detectives that have worked so hard
42:23
Speaker 1: on this case. And they've never given up. They've never
42:26
Speaker 1: let up because everyone up here we've all believed that
42:29
Speaker 1: he's you know, that one day he would be caught.
42:32
Speaker 1: We've never given up. Hope. Margaret, I want to hear
42:36
Speaker 1: after the incident what you went through and your response
42:41
Speaker 1: when you discovered that he had been apprehended. Um. Well,
42:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I consider myself being really fortunate that I
42:50
Speaker 1: just didn't have like that um feeling of being victimized
42:56
Speaker 1: so much. I mean, I think the whole town was victimized,
42:59
Speaker 1: you know. So for me, I carried on and I
43:01
Speaker 1: was just tough. I was a tough little girl. I
43:04
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't something that I did wrong. This was
43:06
Speaker 1: a bad person that perpetrated an evil deed upon me,
43:09
Speaker 1: and that wasn't mine to own. That was on him.
43:13
Speaker 1: And I never ever looked back. I just continued on,
43:16
Speaker 1: and Um, I was just tough. I always felt like
43:18
Speaker 1: I got the better of him by just telling him
43:20
Speaker 1: I don't care and not showing fear. That was always
43:23
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, always that she found
43:25
Speaker 1: out about the arrest. I got a phone call. Um,
43:28
Speaker 1: I was in San Diego and I got a phone call.
43:31
Speaker 1: I got My phone was ringing off the hook and
43:34
Speaker 1: it was in my person. My husband says, you better
43:35
Speaker 1: go to answer the phone. I thought, okay. Eventually I
43:39
Speaker 1: went and looked at the number. It was a nine
43:41
Speaker 1: one six number, which is a Sacramento area code. So
43:43
Speaker 1: the detective says, I'm a retired Sacramento sheriff and you
43:47
Speaker 1: don't know me, but I grew up four doors down
43:49
Speaker 1: from your family and I've always felt a personal connection
43:52
Speaker 1: to your family and to you, and I know this
43:54
Speaker 1: case inside out, and I just want to be the
43:56
Speaker 1: one to tell you. He is in Sacramento County Jail
43:59
Speaker 1: this evening. We got him about five pm. And you
44:02
Speaker 1: can't tell a soul. And that's hard for me because
44:07
Speaker 1: my husband says, he goes in here and it comes
44:09
Speaker 1: right at so oh gosh. Um. Somebody had emailed me
44:15
Speaker 1: and said, um, there's a rumor going on that that
44:19
Speaker 1: the Golden State killer has been cut and is that true?
44:23
Speaker 1: And I hadn't heard anything, but I didn't reply to
44:25
Speaker 1: that that message. I just got on my phone and
44:28
Speaker 1: I sent a text message to Erica Hetchcraft, who is
44:31
Speaker 1: the detective that I've worked with for the last ten years,
44:34
Speaker 1: who am very very close with, and I said, um,
44:37
Speaker 1: I said, there was a rumor. Is there any good
44:40
Speaker 1: news you want to tell me? And she said yes,
44:43
Speaker 1: And I said how good? And she said very good.
44:46
Speaker 1: And she said, I'm on a plane right now, I
44:49
Speaker 1: can't talk to you, but I will call you back
44:52
Speaker 1: as soon as I can. And I just put my
44:55
Speaker 1: hands on my face and I just I just I
44:57
Speaker 1: started crying. I couldn't believe that I Okay, this is
45:01
Speaker 1: it is really true. It was processing. And then the
45:05
Speaker 1: next day I drove to see my mom and I
45:08
Speaker 1: took my kids with me, and Erica Hedgecot talked to
45:11
Speaker 1: her just before and she says, I want to talk
45:13
Speaker 1: to your mom. I want to, you know, tell her
45:16
Speaker 1: so because she had worked so hard for the last
45:18
Speaker 1: ten years, I couldn't tell my mom anything. I waited
45:22
Speaker 1: until ten o'clock in the morning and we had a
45:24
Speaker 1: speaker call and Erica told my mom what had happened.
45:28
Speaker 1: And my mom was in shock and very happy and
45:31
Speaker 1: emotional and mad and just everything all the same time.
45:35
Speaker 1: And that's it. And but really I just I probably
45:40
Speaker 1: cried for hours, and I didn't sleep and called everybody
45:45
Speaker 1: that I could that was close to me. And it
45:48
Speaker 1: was just a really good, good, good moment. Debbie mhm uh.
45:55
Speaker 1: On Tuesday evening, I was in my Rick kleiner with
46:00
Speaker 1: my laptop in my lap, which is someplace I don't
46:05
Speaker 1: I don't go very often. No, I'm kidding. I spend
46:07
Speaker 1: almost all I spent almost all my waking hours, um uh.
46:14
Speaker 1: I have spent almost every waking hour trying to publicize
46:19
Speaker 1: this case and on the hunt for this guy. And
46:21
Speaker 1: you know, Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and and and
46:25
Speaker 1: all the the the forums out there with the with
46:29
Speaker 1: the people like yourselves who take interest. And so I'm
46:32
Speaker 1: in my living room and I'm at the laptop and
46:35
Speaker 1: and and I got a couple of just random messages
46:39
Speaker 1: from people I know from from the boards and that
46:42
Speaker 1: kind of thing. And and the first one said something like, hey,
46:45
Speaker 1: I heard there's been an arrest. Do you know anything?
46:50
Speaker 1: And I answered back and I said, no, I don't
46:51
Speaker 1: know anything. What do you know? And then the next
46:54
Speaker 1: message I got said I heard he's been arrested. Is
46:58
Speaker 1: that true? And I'm like, I don't know what. You're
47:02
Speaker 1: online from friends sort of. So I'm here, I'm hearing
47:05
Speaker 1: these rumors, and I'm and I'm looking and I'm trying
47:06
Speaker 1: to find you know, I'm looking at the news. I'm
47:08
Speaker 1: trying to find stuff. And then my phone rings and
47:12
Speaker 1: it's Margaret Wardlow and she's okay, and she was sworn
47:16
Speaker 1: to secrecy, right, don't don't tell anybody, Margaret, but she
47:23
Speaker 1: loves me. And I answered the phone and she says,
47:25
Speaker 1: and she's like she's like a little kid. She's all
47:27
Speaker 1: excited Debbie, Debbie, they got him, they got him, they
47:29
Speaker 1: got him. And I'm like, what are you talking about?
47:33
Speaker 1: And she says, I got this call for engine everything.
47:35
Speaker 1: She just said, she got the call from the guy
47:37
Speaker 1: and and and I'm like, I said, Margaret, that doesn't
47:40
Speaker 1: sound like an official source to me. I I don't
47:43
Speaker 1: know about this, And she says, well, who should I
47:45
Speaker 1: call next? Said for keeping this secred I have to
47:51
Speaker 1: ask you something, Danny um. In all the years that
47:54
Speaker 1: your mom has been gone, do you feel that you've
47:57
Speaker 1: ever heard from her or as she tried to reach
48:01
Speaker 1: you in any way? Uh? Specifically not. No, not. There
48:07
Speaker 1: are a lot of people who feel like they've got
48:09
Speaker 1: love going to communicate with them, and I don't. I've
48:12
Speaker 1: never had anything like that happened. I have over the years.
48:17
Speaker 1: I've I've made peace with how we left our relationship.
48:20
Speaker 1: I my last words to her over a pay phone.
48:23
Speaker 1: I just screamed at her and said you need to
48:25
Speaker 1: just stay out of my life. And I slammed the
48:27
Speaker 1: phone down. And twenty four hours later, that's when I
48:30
Speaker 1: found out that the bodies were found. So um so
48:34
Speaker 1: that you know that that lingered for a long time.
48:36
Speaker 1: But I've I have made made peace with that, and
48:39
Speaker 1: I know that she loved me, and she knows that
48:42
Speaker 1: I loved her, and uh, there's no there are no
48:46
Speaker 1: doubts there right now, the Gulden State Killer. I believe
48:50
Speaker 1: the Gulden State killer is behind bars, connected to twelve murders,
48:56
Speaker 1: home burglaries, likely fifty rights. I predict there will be
48:59
Speaker 1: more or but there is a battle going right now
49:03
Speaker 1: to exclude the DNA evidence. And if that happens under
49:07
Speaker 1: the doctrine of the fruit of the poisonous tree, those
49:10
Speaker 1: cases will be dropped. So the fight for justice goes on.
49:15
Speaker 1: Fancy Grace crime stories signing up. H m HM