Los Angeles, CA — A man accused of raping a teenage girl and a young woman and dumping their dead bodies by the freeway in Lincoln Heights in 2011 was caught because he spit on the sidewalk while being followed by police.

Related: The Grim Sleeper: How A Serial Killer Eluded Capture For Years

A DNA test of the spit left by Geovanni Borjas, 32, tied him to the killings of 17-year-old Michelle Lozano and 22-year-old Bree’Anna Guzman, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck announced Tuesday.

“DNA collection at time of arrest allowed us to connect this monster to the deaths of these two young women,” Beck said.

Borjas was charged Tuesday with two counts each of murder and forcible rape and one count of kidnapping, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He pleaded not guilty in criminal court on Tuesday afternoon.

Related: Could Controversial New DNA Technique Help Find Jogger Karina Vetrano’s Killer?

Lozano vanished around Easter 2011, when she was taking a walk near her Lincoln Heights home. Her body was found a day later near the 5 Freeway.

The day after Christmas, Guzman left her apartment in Lincoln Heights to pick up medication from a nearby pharmacy — and never came back. Her body was found off the freeway a month later, and she had also been sexually assaulted.

The LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division worked the investigations, but progress was slow for several years. Since a match to the attacker’s DNA had not turned up in any state or national criminal databases, the investigators began the “exhaustive protocols” set up by the state Attorney General’s Office to request a familial search.

Related: BTK’s Daughter Writing A Book About Surviving Serial Killer Dad

About a month ago, they got a hit: It was Borjas’ father, who had a previous arrest on his record. Further detective work identified Borjas as the possible suspect, Beck said.

They began surveillance, and got a stroke of luck when the suspect spat on the sidewalk. That saliva was tested, and the DNA matched evidence linked to both killings.

Borjas was arrested May 25 at his home in Torrance. His next court date is June 22. He is being held without bail. If convicted as charged, Borjas faces life in prison without parole or the death penalty.

Beck asked the public to look at the photo of the suspect and contact investigators with any information about this case or other possible crimes he may have been involved with in the past.

Read more:

Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office 

KTLA

Main photo: Geovanni Borjas [LAPD]

The post Sidewalk Spitter Linked To Two Cold-Case Murders appeared first on CrimeFeed.

LOS ANGELES, CA — On July 12, 1982, an assassin somehow gained entry into the stately Hollywood Hills residence of Frank Rytenhyde Saletri, a likably eccentric Los Angeles attorney and lifelong horror film fanatic. No evidence of a struggle resulted.

Blackenstein Blu-ray, front cover image [Severin Films]

Frank R. Saletri, in the meantime, has become a tragic legend.

Related: Fright Film Freaks — 9 Times Criminals Claimed “Horror Movies Made Me Do It”

The Illinois-born Saletri made a handsome living going to court on behalf of Hollywood’s “underbelly” class — i.e., pimps, prostitutes, pornographers, and other fringe-dwellers around the dark edges of show business.

One typical Saletri case, for example, occurred during the 1970s “streaking” craze. He defended a 48-year-old stripper who alerted the media that she would run naked down a single block of Hollywood Boulevard — and she did.

All this enabled Saletri to realize his dream of making movies, as he scripted and produced the 1973 cult classic, Blackenstein. He was also forever planning all sorts of follow-ups.

On top of that iconic fright film contribution, Frank Saletri also died in the very “castle” that was once owned by Dracula icon Bela Lugosi.

Related: Slender Man Will Be Scaring The Crap Out Of Movie-Goers In Upcoming Horror Film

Still, for all of Saletri’s professional work among potentially dangerous clients, he was not known to have any enemies. In fact, most accounts indicate just the opposite, describing him as a popular presence all over town and a frequent guest at celebrity soirees.

In reporting on the murder, The Los Angeles Times wrote:

“People who knew him described Saletri as a tall, broad-chested, handsome man with a mustache who fancied himself something of a ladies’ man. He was divorced, with no children.

He liked to fly single-engine airplanes, was active in the American Legion’s Midtowne post and belonged to the Cauliflower Alley Club, a Hollywood social club whose members are predominantly boxers, wrestlers, or performers who have played roles as fighters (Sylvester Stallone is a member).”

June Kirk, Saletri’s sister, has never entirely stopped grieving for her brother, nor has she waned in her search to find his killer.

Blackenstein (1973)/newspaper ad layout [promotional image]

In 1986, after offering a $10,000 reward for information, Kirk told the press, “He did not indicate to me any problems, or that he was in fear for his life.”

She theorized that since Saletri owned legal guns, was an expert in karate, and had multiple large dogs, that the murderer “would have to be someone that he felt comfortable with, or the animals felt comfortable around.” Kirk also added, “Even at my brother’s funeral, I often wondered if that person was even there.”

Related: Crime History — Sal Mineo, Movie Star And Gay Icon, Stabbed To Death In Hollywood

Movingly, June talks at length on Severin Films’ newly restored Blu-ray release of Blackenstein not just about her brother’s murder, but about his extraordinary life as a dreamer whose child-like love of monster movies drove him to unique heights.

Another special feature on the disc is an extensive 1982 Los Angeles TV news story about the case. The news piece profiles Saletri in depth. It takes viewers inside the murder location and also offers a look at some of Frank’s unproduced screenplays, including Sherlock Holmes in the Adventures of the Golden Vampire, which was to have starred Alice Cooper as Dracula.

Blackenstein (1973)/Mexican release movie poster [promotional image]

While the murder case remains open, and June Kirk continues to search for answers, Saletri did give us the remarkable Blackenstein by which to remember him.

The off-the-wall fright flick took its cue from the 1972 hit Blacula, which combined a classic scary character with the era’s popular “blaxploitation” genre (e.g. — Shaft, Foxy Brown, Super Fly).

With its instantly unforgettable title, bizarre-looking title creature, and an affable air of affection for its own nuttiness, Blackenstein has remained a pop- culture fixture since its release.

Related: “My Friend Dahmer” Author Talks About Movie Premiere, Compares Killer To Trump

The Halloween perennial has even been memorably parodied on Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons (where a TV announcer welcomes viewers back to a triple feature of “Blacula, Blackenstein, and The Blunch Black of Blotre Blame”).

Given the enduring fun and good times that Saletri bestowed upon the world via Blackenstein, his still-unsolved murder seems even more tragic.

Anyone with any information on the killing is encouraged to contact the LAPD’s Cold Case Homicide Special Section at (213) 486-6880.

Read more:
Los Angeles Times
Severin Films
Curbed L.A.
Horrorpedia
Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor

Main photo: Blackenstein (1973), Joe De Sue/publicity photo [promotional image]

The post Cult Film, Cold Case: Who Murdered The Man Who Made “Blackenstein”? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

In 2008, reporter Christine Pelisek broke the story of a terrifying serial killer who terrorized Los Angeles for decades.

In her article for LA Weekly, Christine dubbed him “The Grim Sleeper” because of his long break between murders (she and her editor had rejected the monikers “Western Avenue Killer” and “Ripper Van Winkle“).

The Grim Sleeper cover art [CounterPoint Press]

Related: The Grim Sleeper: How A Serial Killer Eluded Capture For Years

Pelisek, who is currently the crime reporter for People Magazine, has been covering crime for almost 15 years.

She told CrimeFeed that she got a culture shock after relocating from Ottawa, Canada, to Los Angeles when she found a high murder rate in a town that “wasn’t all beaches and palm trees.”

Pelisek wrote that shortly after she was hired at LA Weekly in 2003, she went to see Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter. She convinced Winter to give her a list of 38 cases, all of which involved women of color whose bodies had been dumped in South Central, for similarities. In each of those cases, all of the victims’ bodies had been dumped in dirty back alleys, hidden under mattresses and trash. All were Black.

The police were not cooperative at first, but after they realized that Pelisek was refusing to give up, she began to make some headway with certain members of the LAPD.

Related: Trial Of “Grim Sleeper,” Accused Of Killing At Least 10 Women, Begins In L.A. 

Eventually, Pelisek found a detective who told her that there were DNA and ballistic links between two of the cases on the list — a foster-care runaway and a 35-year-old mother — and seven unsolved slayings from the 1980s.

During her investigation, she began befriending the victims’ families, and conducted over 100 interviews.

One of the women Pelisek spoke with was Enietra Washington, who survived being shot by Franklin after he offered her a ride to a friend’s house in 1988. Franklin sexually assaulted her and took Polaroid pictures of her bleeding body before pushing her out of a moving car.

At first, Pelisek said that Washington was resistant to speaking with her. In one of the book’s scariest scenes, Pelisek recounts how she and Washington drove around the neighborhood looking for Franklin’s house.

“That made me a little nervous because as she pointed out where the house was, she was really feisty, and really angry about what happened to her,” Pelisek told CrimeFeed. “She would have been happy to confront him.”

Another thing that Pelisek said she was not prepared for was calls from tipsters who believed that their boyfriend or husband could be the Grim Sleeper. Some went further than just making calls: Pelisek said that one tipster insisted on meeting Pelisek in person to hand over evidence she thought would implicate her partner — which turned out to be a semen-covered napkin in a bag.

Pelisek ended up storing the evidence before handing it over to police. “I actually put it in my fridge next to my ketchup and mustard,” she wrote. After all that, needless to say, the DNA did not match that of the Grim Sleeper.

Christine Pelisek [Investigation Discovery/screenshot]

Related: Sex, Sun, And Serial Killers: Los Angeles In The 1980s

Christopher had been in the state DNA database of felons since the summer of 2009 after he pleaded guilty to a felony firearms charge.

His dad, Lonnie Franklin, was known around the neighborhood as being a normal, nice guy who had worked as a city trash collector and, at one point, a garage attendant for Los Angeles police.

But in July 2010, undercover detectives began surveillance of Franklin, and an officer dressed as a waiter was eventually able to collect an unfinished piece of pizza that Franklin discarded, and therefore capture his DNA to test. They had found their match.

Related: Victims’ Families Confront Serial Killer “The Grim Sleeper” As He’s Sentenced To Death

The book also shines a light on the a wider story about the victims who are often forgotten, and the cycle of poverty, gang violence, and despair that many of them were living in.

Pelisek said that one thing that continues to haunt her is the fact that Franklin has never revealed what motivated him. “My only regret — one I am sure I share with the victims’ family members — is never finding out what drove Franklin to commit such heinous crimes,” she wrote.

She said that Franklin appeared emotionally flat throughout the trial, only becoming visibly upset when he was asked about having a girlfriend. “He never got upset when they were asking him about the horrible things he did to all these women,” she said, “but when they asked about his girlfriend, he was really angry that people might think he cheated.”

Related: “Grim Sleeper” Lonnie David Franklin Jr. Gets The Death Penalty

Franklin was sentenced to death in 2016.

However over 30 of Franklin’s victims are still unidentified — and authorities believe that more bodies could still be out there. You can look through the photos here — maybe you’ll recognize someone. The LAPD asks people to call (877) 527-3247. Callers may remain anonymous by phoning CrimeStoppers at (800) 222-8477. Tipsters also may contact CrimeStoppers by texting the number 274637 on a cellphone. All text messages should begin with “LAPD.” They may also go to LAPDonline.org and click the “webtips” link.

Watch Investigation Discovery’s “The Grim Sleeper” episode of People Magazine Investigates on ID GO now!

Read more:

The Grim Sleeper / Amazon 

People

ChristinePelisek.com

Main photo: Lonnie Franklin, Jr. [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Crime Reporter Christine Pelisek Lifts The Lid On Her New Book “The Grim Sleeper” appeared first on CrimeFeed.

The post Police Dig Up Beach Looking For Victims Of 1980s Pedophile Serial Killer Couple appeared first on CrimeFeed.

ATLANTA, GA — On June 21, 1981, Atlanta native Wayne Williams, 23, was arrested for the murders of two men whose bodies had been found in the Atlanta river.

But these murders were just the tip of the iceberg: Investigators would later link him to the “Atlanta Child Murders,” a string of killings that took place over a two-year period from the middle of 1979 until May 1981. During this time, Atlanta was a city paralyzed with fear.

Related: Thousands Search For Teen Who Suspiciously Vanished After Moving To Atlanta To Start Over

At least 28 African-American children — and adults — vanished, before their dead bodies were discovered in isolated areas. Although most of the dead were children and teenagers, six victims were men in their 20s. The youngest victim was seven-year-old Latonya Wilson, who disappeared on June 22, 1980.

Most of the victims were strangled, but some were stabbed to death. Some of the bodies were being dumped in different rivers, so police surveillance teams made a plan to stake out bridges throughout Atlanta.

On May 22, 1981, officers watching a bridge over the Chattahoochee River got a break when they heard a loud splash and saw a vehicle speeding away. The driver was Williams, who told the police that he was a music producer and was on his way to audition a new singer.

Related: Crime History: Australia’s “Schoolgirl Strangler” Hangs For 4 Sick Child Murders

Williams was born in 1958, and enjoyed a stable, middle-class home life. He enjoyed radio broadcasting, and his goal was to become a music producer.

Two days after Williams was stopped, the nude body of a 27-year-old man was found near the bridge. Police then looked into Williams’ background and discovered he had previously been arrested for impersonating a police officer.

Williams came in for questioning, and — after he failed a polygraph test — police obtained a search warrant for the residence of Williams’ parents, where he was living, and found hairs and fibers matching those from some of the murder victims.

He was arrested in June, and eventually convicted of murdering the two adults whose bodies were found in the river in the spring of 1981. Police subsequently have attributed a number of the child murders to Williams and closed the cases, although he has not been tried or convicted in any of those cases.

Related: Golden Lasso Of Truth: The Creator Of Wonder Woman Also Invented The Lie Detector

When Williams went to trial, DNA technology was in its infancy. So the case was largely built on circumstantial evidence, such as the fibers and hairs. He was found guilty, and the judge sentenced him to life in prison. Ten other deaths were presented to the jury during the trial, but he was not charged in any of those.

After he went to prison, DNA technology improved, and evidence implicated Williams in the death of at least one other victim, 11-year-old Patrick Baltazar. The boy’s body was found dumped down a wooded slope behind an office park on February 13, 1981.

A forensic scientist discovered two human scalp hairs inside the boy’s shirt, and at trial, scientists testified that the hairs were consistent with those of Williams — but there was no way of being 100 percent sure at the time.

The judge allowed the hair samples to be sent to Quantico for testing, and retired FBI scientist Harold Deadman, who testified about the hair findings in Williams’ 1982 trial and later became head of the FBI’s DNA lab, said that the testing done on the hairs pointed to Williams and “would probably exclude 98 percent or so of the people in the world.” 

Williams has denied he killed Patrick Baltazar, and maintained his innocence in the other murders.

Related: Was The Mysterious Murder Of Jackie Galloway Inspired By A Serial Killer Novel?

In 2015, a study released by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI, the Innocence Project, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers found that in 96 percent of cases where FBI hair analysis led to a conviction before 1999, the evidence was faulty. 11Alive News revealed that one of those cases was Wayne Williams’. Williams’ attorney stated at the time that he hoped to use the information in an appeal, but several experts disagreed and said that hair analysis played only a small role in the case.

Williams and his family members have also blamed the murders on various others over the years, including the Atlanta police — who they believed were trying to avoid a race war — and the Ku Klux Klan.

Spin magazine investigated the case in 1986, and revealed that a secret investigation discovered and then covered up the fact that a Ku Klux Klan family, the Sanders, may have been responsible for the murder of a young black boy and was possibly linked to the murders of 14 others in an attempt to ignite a race war between blacks and whites, according to court papers. But as the evidence against the Sanders family grew, the committee investigating the killings allegedly became nervous that revealing that the Klan was behind the murders could trigger racial unrest in the city. Members of the committee reportedly decided to terminate the secret investigation and seal its findings — but the controversy continues to this day.

Related: “Making A Murderer’s” Steven Avery Speaks Out To Supporters: “I’m Innocent”

Williams is serving his sentence in Hancock State Prison in Georgia.

Read more:

CNN 

Spin

Main photo: Wayne Williams [Fulton County Police]

The post The Controversial Case Of The “Atlanta Child Serial Killer” Wayne Williams appeared first on CrimeFeed.

SAN ANGELO, TX — A Texas man has been linked to the cold case slayings of two teens who disappeared on July 4, 1988.

Shane Stewart, 16, and his girlfriend, Sally McNelly, went out watch the fireworks together — and never returned. Stewart’s car was recovered from a lake in San Angelo, Texas, the day after he disappeared. The teens’ skeletal remains were discovered near another lake in the area a few months later. Though investigators were able to determine that the teens died from gunshot wounds, the state of the remains made it difficult to extract other evidence.

Related: Parents Arrested For Setting Homeless Man On Fire With Fireworks As Kids Watch

Heartbreakingly, Pat Wade, Sally’s mother, shared that since there wasn’t enough of the body left to dress, she buried her daughter with her prom dress laid inside the coffin, as opposed to on her body.

Police say that John Cyrus Gilbreath, 47, is now being considered a person of interest in the 29-year-old murder case. Detectives were searching his home looking for items related to drug-trafficking charges and found a fingernail, a lock of hair, and blood. They also reportedly found written material related to the murder including Shane and Sally’s names and three audio tapes with “SS” written on them.

Related: Florida Man Plays Dumb When Cops Find “Fully Grown Marijuana Plant” In Back Of Pickup

The search was a result of a traffic stop, during which Gilbreath’s passenger told police Gilbreath kept ledgers and scales in his home and that he travels to Austin to pick up large amounts of marijuana to distribute throughout Tom Green County. A half a pound of marijuana, a loaded .38 caliber handgun in a black lockbox with ammunition, and body armor were found in the car. Gilbreath currently faces charges of possession of marijuana, possession of a firearm by a felon, and possession of body armor by a felon.

For decades, the crime has gone unsolved as Stewart’s father, Marshall, and other family members prayed for answers and justice for his teenage son, the Dallas News reports. Over the years, the families and authorities have made multiple appeals to the public for information to try and solve the case. An episode of Unsolved Mysteries put forth the theory they’d been killed in a Satanic cult ritual.

In March of 1988, Sheriff’s Deputy Larry Counts got a phone call from Sally. He reported:

“She and her boyfriend, Shane, were members of this group and they were trying to get away from it.  She said there was a lot of drugs involved.  There was a lot of group sex. She also expressed that she had a weapon that had been given to her by another member of the cult.  And when he gave it to her, he told her and Shane that the gun had been used in a murder/robbery.”

Authorities, however, reportedly never took the cult theory seriously. Perhaps now the truth will be known.

Read more:

DailyMail.com

Unsolved.com

DallasNews.com

Standard-Times.com

Main photo: John Cyrus Gilbreath [Tom Green County Jail]

The post New Evidence & Person Of Interest In Murder Of 2 Teens Who Went Missing On July 4, 1988 appeared first on CrimeFeed.

RIVERHEAD, NY — A carpenter was convicted on Wednesday of murdering two prostitutes found beaten to death in the 1990s. John Bittrolff, a 51-year-old married father of two, faces 50 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in September. His case, prosecutors say, is the first conviction of a homicide in New York state that involved the use of “partial match” DNA.

Related: Could Human Skull Found In Long Island Be Related To LISK Case?

The naked body of Rita Tangredi was found on November 2, 1993, in a wooded area in East Patchogue. Twenty-year-old Colleen McNamee’s body was found in the woods near the William Floyd Parkway in Shirley, on January 30, 1994. Both women had been beaten and strangled, and also suffered severe head injuries. Police say both bodies were found in “unique” poses.

Related: 6 Years Later, Who Is The Long Island Serial Killer?

Bittrolff was arrested in 2014 after homicide detectives were able to link evidence found on the women’s remains to his DNA. At the time, his shocked neighbors described him as friendly and helpful.

His attorney, William Keahon, has said his client will appeal and insisted that “proof of sexual intercourse doesn’t mean murder.”

The DNA case against Bittfolff began when his brother, Timothy Bittrolff, submitted a DNA sample following his misdemeanor conviction for violating an order of protection in 2013. After the analysis of the sample indicated it was a partial match to DNA left on the two dead women, investigators looked at Timothy Bittrolff’s brothers.

Related: DNA Links Unidentified “Peaches” Torso From 1997 To 2011 Long Island Serial Killer Case

Police were able to retrieve a cigarette butt that one brother, Kevin Bittrolff, had tossed from his car — but the DNA wasn’t a match. Next, investigators then set up a camera outside John Bittrolff’s home, and were able to see when he put nine bags of trash outside. After they went through the garbage, DNA was retrieved from a plastic cup they found and was determined to be a match with the material found on the dead women.

Bittrolff was arrested, and when he sipped from a coffee cup during questioning, authorities got another sample of his DNA, which they said matched evidence taken from the crime scene.

Related: The Long Island Serial Killer: Victims’ Families Are Still Desperate For Answers

Police on Long Island are still investigating the unsolved killings of 10 victims of an apparent serial killer of prostitutes, who has been nicknamed the “Long Island Serial Killer” or “Gilgo Beach Killer.” So far, police have revealed no link between Bittrolff’s murders and those deaths.

Read more:

WRAL

Main photo: John Bittrolff [Suffolk Police Department]

The post Carpenter Found Guilty Of Killing Long Island Prostitutes In The 1990s appeared first on CrimeFeed.

BELLINGHAM, WA — The father of Dylan Redwine, the 13-year-old Colorado boy whose dead body was found in 2012, was arrested Saturday in connection with his death, according to the La Plata County Sheriff’s Office.

A grand jury issued an indictment for Mark Redwine after establishing probable cause to charge him with second-degree murder and child abuse in connection with the killing. The investigation into the teen’s disappearance and death spanned a period of almost five years.

Related: The Murder Of 13-Year-Old Dylan Redwine: Did Dad Do It?

Dylan was 13 when he arrived at his father’s house on November 18 for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The Denver Post reported that several witnesses testified that Dylan had not wanted to visit his father, according to the indictment, and that text messages recovered by investigators indicated that Dylan wanted to stay with a friend for the night after he arrived, but his father refused.

Related: Cold Case Update: New Developments In The Death Of Dylan Redwine

Dylan made plans via text to visit a friend’s house at 6:30 A.M. the next morning, but never arrived. The friend sent him a “where are you” message, but got no response, according to the indictment.

At 2 A.M., Mark’s neighbor said she noticed that his exterior front porch light was still on. In the morning, when it was still dark, she said it was off.

Mark has said he left Dylan at home alone while he ran errands that morning and returned to find him gone — and claimed that he was not concerned about his son due to the fact that he knew Dylan wanted to spend time with friends.

The teen’s body was found seven months later, and the investigation into his death spanned another five years.

During that time the case made national headlines, and various theories developed regarding Dylan’s whereabouts, from being picked up hitchhiking to abduction to being killed in a bear attack.

Mark has always denied any involvement in his son’s death.

According to the indictment, in June 2013, some of Redwine’s remains were found in the woods a few miles from his father’s house.

You read the full indictment here.

In November 2015, Redwine’s skull was found by a group of hikers just over a mile from where the rest of his remains were discovered. According to the indictment, forensic anthropologists found “two small markings consistent with two marks from a knife” on the skull that were not caused by an animal or another natural cause.

Investigators named Mark Redwine as a person of interest in the case two years ago.

Investigators who studied Dylan’s skull determined he had suffered injuries consistent with blunt-force trauma.

His blood was found in his father’s living room, and cadaver dogs detected a scent that indicated a deceased person had been in Mark’s living room and in the bed of his truck.

Dylan’s parents were in the middle of a custody battle over the teen, and his mother, Elaine Hall, has always insisted that her ex-husband had something to do with Dylan’s death.

Related: Thanksgiving Cold Case: Who Killed 13-Year-Old Dylan Redwine?

The entire family appeared on Dr. Phil twice in 2013, and they accused Mark of having a hand in his murder. But Mark insisted that he had “no idea” where his son was. Mark told Dr. Phil that he would take a polygraph test to clear his name, but later said that he did not feel well, and ultimately backed out of the test.

The indictment also states that Dylan had plans to confront his father about “compromising” pictures of him. There was no explanation of what the pictures were.

Mark is being held on a $1 million, cash-only bail.

Dylan would have been 18 years old this year.

Read more:

Mark Redwine indictment

CNN 

The Denver Post 

Main photo: Mark Redwine [La Plata County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Dylan Redwine’s Father, Mark Redwine, Arrested For His Murder appeared first on CrimeFeed.

MISSOURI CITY, TX — On November 7, 2002, 17-year-old Christopher Daigle went to his high school in Missouri City — and vanished without a trace.

Had he run away? Was he kidnapped? Could he have been suicidal? For almost a decade, police investigated hundreds of leads and went down dozens of rabbit holes, but had no idea what happened to him.

Related: Jealous Wife Pleads Guilty To Killing Husband For Texting “I Love You” To Another Woman

In the morning, Chris, a tall, handsome, and popular high school junior, left for Hightower High as usual. When he failed to come home that night, his family assumed that he had spent the night with friends. But by the next morning, when Chris had still not been in contact, his family contacted friends — and then the police.

Chris had spoken to several friends that day. One of them was Richard “Ricky” Mendoza, who played with Chris on the baseball team. Ricky told police that he and Chris had been hanging out at the mall and met girls. He claimed that his mother told him that he had to go home, so he left Chris in their company.

For a long time, police — and many members of Chris’ family — believed that he may have simply run away. They explained that Chris had been devastated after getting kicked off of the baseball team four months earlier, and his grandmother Wanda, with whom he had lived with since he was three years old, told investigators that he had been depressed on the way to school that last morning.

Related: Insanely Jealous Husband Shoots Wife’s Friend Over Facebook Messages

“I thought he just took off, that he and his friends had gone for the beach for a few days,” said Samantha Talley, Chris’ aunt. Jen Hayes, Chris’ half sister, said that she hung “Missing” posters in town, but admitted that part of her believed that her half brother would eventually turn up.

Rumors began to circulate that Chris had run away to Oklahoma, moved North, or was in trouble with a bad group of people who had kidnapped him.

But through it all, there was no trace of Chris. After a few weeks, his family began to believe the worst — that someone may have killed him. “It makes you crazy,” Talley said.

Christopher Daigle [Investigation Discovery]

Chris’ mom Tracy Gregory said that she never stopped looking for answers. She took a job at a bar and said that she would try to subtly quiz teens who came in about Chris’ disappearance. One day, she met a young woman in a bar who implied she may know something about Chris’ disappearance. Tracy encouraged the young woman to tell detectives her story.

The young woman told police that she was in a car with Ricky Mendoza, and that he had told her that he killed Chris and, when she said she didn’t believe him, told her that he would show her where the body was buried. The young woman took police to the field and showed them where Ricky had driven her — but they failed to find a body.

Related: Thanksgiving Cold Case: 18 Years Later, Family Still Looking For Missing Teen Kevin McClam

But in 2011, Missouri City detectives reopened the case, and tracked down another of Chris’ friends named Josh. Josh told police that Ricky had looked into a classroom and saw his girlfriend of two years kissing Chris. At that moment, Chris’ fate was sealed. Investigators believe that Ricky, jealous of Chris’ popularity and good looks, became enraged.

A few days after the incident in the classroom, Josh said Ricky picked up him, Daigle, and David Garcia, supposedly to pick mushrooms. But when they went out to the field in Fort Bend County, Ricky shot Daigle in the back of the head with a 12-gauge shotgun. Josh told police he saw Chris’ eyes roll back in his head, and that there was blood everywhere.

Richard Mendoza [Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office]

Investigators searched the area, and found human bones — later determined to be Daigle’s through DNA testing — along with a handgun.

Related: True Crime With Aphrodite Jones: What Happened To Missing Teen, Joey Martin?

On August 12, 2011, Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Mendoza. He was charged with murder in Daigle’s death, but the road to justice encountered another speed bump after a district attorney in Fort Bend County forgot to file some paperwork in the 90 days following Mendoza’s arrest. As a result, Mendoza was set free on bail.

In 2013, Mendoza, then 28, was finally convicted by a jury and sentenced to 50 years in prison. He was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

To learn more about this case, watch the “Field of Broken Dreams” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Gone on ID GO now!

Read more: 

Houston Chronicle 

DailyMail.com

Main photos: Christopher Daigle at 17 and age progressed to 22 [National Center for Missing & Exploited Children]

The post Gone: 15 Years Later, What Really Happened To Christopher Daigle? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

WEST DES MOINES, IA — A red wooden wagon that became a symbol of one of Iowa’s most infamous cold cases will go on display in this year’s Iowa State Fair. The wagon was being pulled by 12-year-old Johnny Gosch on the morning of September 5, 1982, while he was delivering newspapers. It was left behind when he vanished without a trace.

The boy’s kidnapping remains unsolved 35 years later — and has been the subject of countless headlines, news reports, a documentary, and several books.

Related: Johnny Gosch: The Original “Milk Carton Boy” Is 47 And Still Missing

The red wagon has the name “Gosch” painted in black lettering.

Ron Sampson of Des Moines, who owns the wagon, said that he wanted to put the wagon inside the Grandstand at the fair as a “tribute” to Gosch’s parents. Sampson, a real estate agent, met and became friends with Johnny’s parents John and Noreen Gosch shortly after their son disappeared. He also wrote a series of articles for the Ankeny Press Citizen about the case.

“This is the last thing that Johnny touched,” Sampson said. “Think of the significance of that wagon. I’m getting the chills sitting here, and it’s 105 degrees.”

Related: JonBenét’s Tricycle: A “Crazy Collector” And His Documentary

Sampson explained that the couple played a crucial role in getting the word out about child abductions. “I guess I would reach back and say they were the very beginning of the Amber Alert. They were the first people to have a child on milk cartons,” he said.

Sampson said that John gave him the wagon about a year ago, after moving to Florida where he doesn’t have room to store it. “Anybody who sees that at the fair, whether they know the story or not, if they don’t get the chills or choked up, they better check their pulse,” Sampson said.

The Iowa State Fair in Des Moines is scheduled for August 10 – 20.

Read more:

Radio Iowa

KCCI.com

Main photo: Johnny Gosch’s red wagon [KCCI screenshot]

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Following news that Dylan Redwine’s father Mark has been charged with second-degree murder five years after his son’s death, many people are asking the same question: Why did it take so long to arrest him in connection with the killing?

Related: Dylan Redwine’s Father, Mark Redwine, Arrested For His Murder

Todd Risberg, then the district attorney in LaPlata County, said that the delay occurred because the DA was not sure that there was enough evidence to file charges. “The prosecutor’s decision-making process begins and ends with our ethical obligation: Do we have a reasonable belief that we can obtain a conviction in a case?” Denver’s assistant district attorney Ryan Brackley told 9NEWS.

“But in a cold case, there is always that crossroads where we ask ourselves, do we want to take that shot now? Are we ready to take that shot? Will the case ever get better?”

Here’s what we know so far:

The circumstantial evidence
The La Plata County Sheriff’s Department issued a statement following Dylan’s disappearance in which they stated that the investigation had been “frustrating … because of the total lack of clues left behind.”

In the beginning of the investigation, detectives had no body and no murder weapon —- which can often make homicide cases more complicated to prosecute. But now, according to legal experts, the circumstantial case is strong, primarily due to the forensic evidence found in Mark’s cabin.

During the investigation, DNA testing located Dylan’s blood in multiple locations in his father’s living room – on the couch, a love seat, the floor, the corner of a coffee table, and beneath the carpet.

Related: The Murder Of 13-Year-Old Dylan Redwine: Did Dad Do It?

A cadaver dog detected the scent of a human body in the same room, around the washing machine, on Mark’s clothing, and in his pickup truck. Prosecutors say that this points to a violent struggle in the home.

Another piece of circumstantial evidence mentioned in the indictment was an odd conversation that Dylan Redwine’s half-brother supposedly had with Mark after prosecutors found some of Dylan’s remains. According to the paperwork, Mark mentioned blunt-force trauma to Dylan’s half-brother multiple times and said investigators would need to find the skull to determine how Dylan died.

The “compromising” photos
Another piece of the puzzle in a murder investigation is determining motive.

It has been widely reported that Dylan did not want to go to his father’s cabin, and that the teen’s stay with his father was a court-ordered Thanksgiving visit. Mark and Elaine Hall, his ex-wife and Dylan’s mom, had gone through a long and contentious divorce battle with harsh accusations on both sides.

The indictment describes “compromising” photographs of Mark Redwine that his son found. According to Hall, the photos disturbed Dylan and were a point of conflict between the teen and his dad. Colorado news team 9Wants to Know confirmed that the pictures showed an adult Mark Redwine wearing a diaper and eating feces.

Related: Suspect Nearly Chokes To Death After Eating His Own Poop, Spewing It At Cops

The charge
Another factor that prosecutors must consider is the severity of the murder charge they level against the defendant.

According to Colorado law, a person commits the crime of murder in the second degree if the person knowingly causes the death of another person. This distinguishes second-degree murder from the crime of manslaughter, which requires only that you act recklessly, or from first-degree murder, which requires premeditation.

Penalties can include up to 48 years in prison, and a fine of up to $1 million. But there are a number of potential defenses to second-degree murder charges, including accidental killing, self-defense, police misconduct diminished capacity, and insanity.

In addition, penalties can be reduced if “the act causing the death was performed upon a sudden heat of passion, caused by a serious and highly provoking act of the intended victim, affecting the defendant sufficiently to excite an irresistible passion in a reasonable person.”

Related: Cold Case Update: New Developments In The Death Of Dylan Redwine

Determining time of death could be crucial in this case since if there is “cooling-off” period between the provocation and the response, it’s less likely that the killing was committed in the heat of passion.

However, there is no set time for this period, since according to Colorado law “it depends on the emotional state of the offender and, in particular, upon the surrounding circumstances of the case.”

The murder weapon
According to the indictment, in June 2013, some of Dylan’s remains were found in the woods a few miles from his father’s house. In November 2015, his skull was found by a group of hikers just over a mile from where the rest of his remains were discovered.

According court papers, forensic anthropologists found “two small markings consistent with two marks from a knife” on the skull that were not caused by an animal or natural cause.

In 2014, Mark was taken to a hospital and multiple guns were found in his truck, but the murder weapon has reportedly never been found.

Lack of witnesses
There do not appear to have been any direct witnesses to Dylan’s death, so prosecutors have focused on other types of evidence, and on building a timeline of events.

Related: Thanksgiving Cold Case: Who Killed 13-Year-Old Dylan Redwine

The Denver Post reported that several witnesses testified that Dylan had not wanted to visit his father, according to the indictment, and that text messages recovered by investigators indicated that Dylan wanted to stay with a friend for the night after he arrived, but his father refused.

Dylan made plans via text to visit a friend’s house at 6:30 A.M. the next morning, but never arrived. He sent the friend a text at 9:37 P.M., which was the last time that anyone ever heard from him.

When Mark and Elaine Hall appeared on Dr. Phil, Hall told the talk-show host that, in her opinion, this would have been an uncharacteristically early hour for her teen son to stop texting. The next day, according to court documents, the friend sent him a “where are you” message, but got no response.

At 2 A.M., Mark’s neighbor said she noticed that his exterior front porch light was still on. In the morning, when it was still dark outside, she said it was off.

Mark — who has always denied any involvement in his son’s death — claimed he left Dylan at home alone while he ran errands that morning, and returned to find him gone. He also explained that he was not concerned about his son due to the fact that he knew Dylan wanted to spend time with friends.

Read more:

9NEWS 

The Denver Post 

Main photos: Mark Redwine [La Plata County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Why Did It Take Almost Five Years To Arrest Dylan Redwine’s Dad For His Murder? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

BELLINGHAM, WA — Mark Redwine was allegedly driven to murder his 13-year-old son Dylan after the teen discovered “disgusting” photos of the his dad eating feces from a diaper while dressed in women’s clothes, according to reports. Redwine allegedly became enraged after Dylan and his older brother Cory Redwine found the embarrassing pictures, Denver7 reports.

Related: Dylan Redwine’s Father, Mark Redwine, Arrested For His Murder

According to an indictment, Dylan planned to confront his father about the photos — which is what family members believe set Mark Redwine off and resulted in a violent altercation between Dylan and his dad.

“I have seen the photos,” Cory Redwine told Denver7.

“It shows him wearing women’s clothes and makeup and a diaper and then eating his feces from the diaper. It was disgusting. We couldn’t believe it.”

Dylan went missing during a Thanksgiving visit with his father in 2012. His remains were found in 2015.

Mark Redwine was arrested Saturday in Washington state on felony charges of second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death. The police bodycam video of his arrest has just been made public (above). He is being held on a $1 million bail in Washington while he awaits an August 17 extradition hearing to Colorado.

Related: Why Did It Take Almost 5 Years To Arrest Dylan Redwine’s Father For His Murder? 

According to Denver7, he has indicated that he plans to fight extradition.

Pete Klismet, a criminal profiling consultant and author who was hired by La Plata County investigators in 2015 to review the evidence in Redwine’s murder, called Redwine a “narcissist.” He added: “He thinks he is smarter than everyone else.”

Read more:

The Denver Channel 

New York Post 

Main photo: Mark Redwine [La Plata County Sheriff]

The post Was Dylan Redwine Murdered Over Fetish Photos Of His Diaper-Wearing Dad? appeared first on CrimeFeed.

CHICAGO, IL — New forensic testing appears to exonerate two men serving life sentences for a 1994 rape and murder in Chicago, and implicate a known serial rapist, according to a petition filed Monday in Cook County court.

A jury convicted Nevest Coleman and Darryl Fulton in the April 1994 rape and murder of Antwinica Bridgeman about three years after the crime. But the new filing alleges that DNA found under the victim’s fingernails and on her sweatshirt does not match either Coleman or Fulton — and that the men have been wrongfully convicted.

Related: Exonerated: “Satanic Panic” & The San Antonio Four: How False Abuse Hysteria Ruined Real Lives

DNA taken from the victim’s underwear does match the serial rapist with “almost scientific certainty,” court documents allege. Additionally Coleman, Fulton, a third man who discovered the victim’s body with Coleman, and Bridgeman’s boyfriend were all excluded as the source of semen collected from the victim’s underwear, according to a forensic report cited by the filing. The same four men were also excluded as the source of semen collected from the victim’s sweatshirt, but that stain could not exclude the serial rapist.

For Coleman and Fulton to have raped and murdered Bridgeman, the filing notes, “The victim would have to had consensual sex with a serial rapist (who was not her boyfriend), sex that left his semen on her underwear and sweatshirt, and then Mr. Coleman, Mr. Fulton and (the third man) subsequently raped the victim without leaving any of their DNA on her underwear, sweatshirt, or fingernails.”

The Cook County state’s attorney’s office said it is reviewing the case and is awaiting more DNA results.

Related: Hannah Overton Exonerated In Salt Poising Death Of 4-Year-Old Foster Son

Bridgeman disappeared after celebrating her 20th birthday at a small party. Coleman, who was a well-liked groundskeeper at the time, was in attendance. A few weeks later, Coleman and his friend found her body in Coleman’s basement with a piece of concrete in her mouth and a pipe in her vagina.

Both Coleman, 25, and Fulton, 27, gave police confessions implicating themselves and another man in the crime. But the two later said their confessions were coerced, and the third man would not give a statement after denying any involvement at all.

Coleman’s attorney Russell Ainsworth of the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School filed a motion Monday to temporarily vacate Coleman’s sentence and have him released on bond pending the state’s reinvestigation of the case. According to the motion, the sole evidence against Coleman was the confession — and his attorney plans to fight to have his conviction vacated. 

Related: New DNA Testing Planned In JonBenét Ramsey Murder Investigation

Judge Dennis Porter delayed a ruling until August 18 while prosecutors file a written argument against Ainsworth’s motion.

Read more:

Chicago Tribune 

Main photos: Nevest Coleman (left) and Darryl Fulton (right) [Illinois Department of Corrections]

The post DNA In 1994 Murder Points To Serial Rapist, Not The Two Men Serving Life Sentences appeared first on CrimeFeed.

DOUGLAS COUNTY, NE — A woman convicted of killing a romantic rival and then assuming her identity online has been sentenced to life in prison without parole in Nebraska.

Douglas County District Judge Timothy Burns said Shanna Golyar, 42 (above, left), created a “twisted plot of lies, deceit, and impersonations” in order to create the illusion that 37-year-old Cari Farver (above, right) was still alive.

Related: The Serial Imposter Who Claimed To Be A Missing Boy — & Fooled The Family

Authorities believe Golyar killed Farver in Douglas County on November 13, 2012, after she left the apartment of David Kroupa, whom Goylar had dated off and on. After the murder, Goylar used her victim’s phone, sent fake emails, and posted on Facebook using Farver’s account in an attempt to mislead authorities and her victim’s relatives — unbelievably, for the next four years.

On the last morning she was seen alive, Cari Farver sent a text message to her mother informing her that she had broken up with her boyfriend and might check into a mental institution.

Three days later, Farver’s employers in Macedona, Iowa, received a text explaining that she was resigning to take another gig in Kansas — but was sending a woman named Shanna Goylar to work in her place. The company was skeptical, and did not believe that Farver would recommend a stranger for the job.

Related: Woman Allegedly Posed As Ex-Boyfriend’s Pregnant Wife & Solicited “Rape Fantasy” Sex Online

Farver’s mother, Nancy Raney, also did not accept that her daughter would choose to disappear without explanation. She filed a missing person’s report with the Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office.

During this time, Goylar also emailed an ex-boyfriend that Farver was dating, scratched expletives into her own car, and set fire to her own home. Goylar continued to post as Farver on social media for years, according to police.

In a Facebook post in May 2013, Goylar posed as Farver to say that the reason she did not see her son Max was because he refused to run away with her. “I asked my son Max… to come with me, but you didn’t want to,” it read.

Related: Male Teacher Posed As Teen Girl Using Porn Star’s Pics In Order To Catfish Underage Boys On Facebook

Max and Farver’s mother both testified that they had received messages on Mother’s Day 2014 from what turned out to be a fake Facebook account of Farver’s created by Goylar. Goylar even picked a feud with herself online, according to The Daily Beast, by posting a disparaging comment that she claimed was written about her by “Farver.” 

“So now the Herpes infested whore is going to hide from me. Can’t be a woman and stand up for stealing me man. God will punish all whores,” it read.

In a final post on May 13, 2013, “Farver” announced that she was done with Facebook. Goylar calls it quits with Facebook, deciding then and there to stop playing Farver online:

“I have answered enough questions to prove myself to everyone I am done,” the post read. “You can’t [sic] either believe I am your daughter, mother, sister and friend that you have know [sic] your whole life or you can just leave me alone…I am not missing I just don’t want to come home right now…Sorry, and I hope some day you can forgive me.”

Related: Florida Man Posed As Country Star Jason Aldean In Order To Scam Mentally Disabled Woman Out Of Money & Sex, Cops Say

Though the body was never found, investigators were able to build a case against Goylar using circumstantial evidence, which included fingerprints on a packet of chewing gum found in Farver’s car. A photo that Goylar took also emerged that police said is her victim’s decomposing foot.

Goylar had a history of clashing with romantic rivals. In 2015, she called police and claimed that a woman had shot her in the leg — but an investigation concluded that she had in fact shot herself. In June 2016, Goylar pleaded guilty to smashing the window of another woman’s apartment.

Prosecutor Brenda Beadle called the murder case one of the “most calculated and bizarre” she has ever worked on. Farver’s body was never found, and her family still hopes to find out exactly what happened to her.

Read more:

KETV

Omaha World-Herald

Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office – Missing Persons Report 

The Daily Beast

Main photo: Shanna Goylar (left) [Douglas County Jail] and Cari Farver (right) [Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office]

The post Fatal Attraction: Woman Jailed For Life After Murdering Love Rival & Assuming Her Identity appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Twelve years after Natalee Holloway vanished during a vacation in Aruba, her father says he hopes a recent discovery of human remains could give him answers about what happened to his daughter.

Related: Natalee Holloway: 5 Key Facts About The Teen’s 2005 Disappearance

Dave Holloway revealed on Wednesday that he and private investigator T.J. Ward have conducted an 18-month investigation and discovered human remains. However it is not yet clear if the remains are Natalee’s, and they are being DNA tested to determine their identity.

“When we determined these remains were human, I was shocked,” Holloway said on Today. “I know there’s a possibility this could be someone else, and I’m just trying to wait and see.”

Holloway disappeared during a trip with friends in 2005 following her graduation from an Alabama high school. The story made headlines around the world,  but no one has ever been charged in her disappearance.

Related: WATCH: Did Joran van der Sloot Confess To Murdering Natalee Holloway On Hidden Camera?

Natalee Holloway yearbook photo [Wikipedia]

An informant known as “Gabriel” put Holloway and Ward in contact with a man they claim had knowledge of Natalee’s disappearance.

Calling the lead “by far the most credible” he had seen in the past 12 years, Holloway stated that the man claimed he had been directly involved in disposing of Natalee’s remains — along with van der Sloot.

Related: Murder In Paradise: What Are Your Chances Of Being A Crime Victim In The Caribbean?

The tip led the men to a location behind a house in Aruba, where a team dug up remains that were later tested and found to be human.

The DNA test will take several weeks to a month, Holloway said. If they turn out not to be Natalee, he says he hopes the Aruban government will work with them to determine whose they are, and figure out if a crime has been committed.

To learn more about this case, watch the “Natalee Holloway: Lost in Paradise” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Vanity Fair Confidential on ID GO now!

Read more:

MSN

Main photo: Dave Holloway [Today / YouTube (screenshot)]

The post Shocking Discovery! Natalee Holloway’s Father Finds Human Remains In Aruba appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Natalee Holloway’s father has just announced that a team he had been working with discovered human remains in Aruba that are being DNA tested to see if they could be his daughter.

Related: Shocking Discovery! Natalee Holloway’s Father Finds Human Remains In Aruba

Holloway said that he kept the lead to himself, because he did not want to give his family false hope. The Holloway family has suffered through several hoaxes and false leads over the years. Below are a few that made headlines:

The Bird Sanctuary

First Joran van der Sloot, the sole person of interest in the case, once hinted he buried Natalee in The Bubali Bird Sanctuary. Local teens reportedly used the sanctuary as a makeout spot.

Joran van der Sloot [Policia Nacional del Peru]

Related: What Happened To Robyn Gardner? After Natalee Holloway, Another American Woman Disappears In Aruba

He gave the information to Jaap Amersz, Holland’s most famous reality-television star, who sold the story to a Dutch tabloid. The paper gave the information to authorities.

Dave Holloway later dredged the swamp, but found nothing.

The Jawbone

However a short time later, a jawbone — with an intact molar — washed up on shore near the area where van der Sloot claimed he had dumped Natalee’s body.

But prosecutors in Aruba later announced that neither the jawbone nor another human bone found earlier matched Natalee.

Related: Sand, Sun & Slaughter: 5 Notorious Murders That Happened On Vacation

The Skull

[Pixabay]

After scouring all areas typically used by snorkelers and finding nothing that resembled the image depicted in the photograph, police said that the lead was another dead end — and that the “skull” was probably coral.

The Extortion

Weeks before murdering Stephany Flores in Peru, Van der Sloot extorted $250,000 from Natalee’s mother, Beth Twitty, through her lawyer John Kelly, in exchange for information about where he allegedly buried Natalee.

Holloway wired van der Sloot $25,000 as a down payment, after which van der Sloot claimed that Natalee hit her head on a rock and died after he threw her to the ground during a confrontation.

Related: Joran van der Sloot Having A Prison Wedding

Van der Sloot led Kelly to a house where he said his father, Paulus van der Sloot, disposed of Natalee’s body. But his claim was later proven to be fake when it building permits revealed that the residence did not even exist at the time Natalee disappeared.

Van der Sloot reneged on his promise, and took the money and fled to Peru.

Federal charges were brought against van der Sloot in the U.S., which he is due to face once he finishes his sentence in Peru for the murder of Flores.

The Crawl Space

In 2015, Jurriën de Jong claimed that Natalee’s body was buried in a crawl space at a Marriott vacation property in Aruba, and he believes that he saw her in her final moments.

Related: Natalee Holloway: 5 Key Facts About The Teen’s 2005 Disappearance

De Jong says he was near Marriott’s Aruba Surf Club, then under construction, on the night of May 30, 2005, when he saw a young man chase a young woman through the construction site — and then carry her limp body. At first, he thought the two were being playful, but he says a short time later the man reappeared, carrying her in his arms.

De Jong said that he was involved in illegal activities at the time, so did not contact police.

Aruba’s chief prosecutor said that he spent weeks investigating de Jong’s claims, but revealed that Marriott officials said there was no construction at the spot de Jong pointed out — and said the story could not be true. He called the tip a “closed book.”

To learn more about this case, watch the “Natalee Holloway: Lost in Paradise” episode of Investigation Discovery’s Vanity Fair Confidential on ID GO now!

Read more:

ABC News 

CNN

Main photo: Natalee Holloway [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Natalee Holloway: The Top 5 False Leads And Hoaxes In The Investigation appeared first on CrimeFeed.

UTICA, IL — It has been 25 years since the tragic kidnapping and murder of 21-year-old college student Tammy Jo Zywicki, but the FBI and the Illinois State Police have never stopped searching for the young woman’s killer.

Related: From College Senior To Cold Case: Who Killed Tammy Zywicki?

Now they are offering a five-figure reward to anyone who can help crack the case.

Zywicki vanished on August 23, 1992. According to authorities, the Grinnell College senior was on her way back to school in Iowa after driving to her brother to his college in Evanston, Illinois.

Tammy Jo Zywicki [FBI]

Related: “Vampire Trucker” Sentenced To 20 Years For Keeping Sex Slaves In His Rig

Nine days later, Zywicki’s body, stabbed and possibly strangled, was found nearly 500 miles away in Missouri. She had been wrapped in a sheet and blanket and bound in duct tape.

The FBI and the state police have been working closely together to review more than 200 pieces of evidence in the case file, and determine which pieces could benefit from the newest DNA extraction techniques.

These include the blanket, sheet, and duct tape Zywicki was wrapped in, shoelaces found at the scene, and other items that investigators believe could contain the killer’s DNA. So far, they have only found DNA in one item — a beer can found near where Zywicki’s car.

Related: Vanished From Summer Camp: Where Are Bonnie Bickwit & Mitchel Weiser?

According to authorities, that DNA profile has not matched any known offender — and they are not even certain if the can is connected to the crime.

Some of Tammy’s personal property is known to be missing, including a Cannon 35mm camera, a musical wristwatch with an umbrella on the face, and a soccer patch that was reportedly missing from the shorts she was wearing.

The FBI is continuing to offer a $50,000 reward in the case.

Related: Family Needs Help Finding Joshua Guimond, College Student Missing From Same Area As Jacob Wetterling

JoAnn Zywicki, Tammy’s mother, said she was happy that the investigation is continuing and hopes that it will lead to answers, saying “I never give up hope.”

Read more:

FBI

Iowa Cold Cases

Main photo: Tammy Zywicki [FBI]

The post FBI Offers $50,000 For Information On 25-Year-Old Cold Case Homicide Of Tammy Zywicki appeared first on CrimeFeed.

It’s been 20 years since his murder, but Christopher Wallace — who is better known by his stage names The Notorious B.I.G., Biggie, or Biggie Smalls — continues to be hugely influential in music and pop culture.

On March 9, 1997, Wallace was killed in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles — and the identity of the gunman is still considered to be one of rap’s biggest unsolved mysteries.

Wallace was born and raised in Brooklyn, and when he released his debut album Ready to Die in 1994 he immediately became a central figure in the East Coast hip-hop scene during a time when West Coast hip-hop was dominant in the mainstream.

While recording his second album, Wallace became heavily involved in the increasingly ugly East Coast vs. West Coast hip hop battles.

Related: Suge Knight Charged With Murder For Allegedly Running A Man Over On A Film Set

Notorious B.I.G. with former friend Tupac Shakur [lyovlyov777/YouTube (screenshot)]

In a 1995 prison interview with Vibe, Shakur accused Uptown Records’ founder Andre Harrell, Sean Combs, and Wallace of having prior knowledge of a robbery that resulted in him being shot five times and losing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry on the night of November 30, 1994.

Wallace and his entourage denied the accusation, calling it a “coincidence” that he had been at the studio at the same time as Shakur.

Related: Who Shot Tupac Shakur? 20 Years Later, Former LAPD Detective Says He Knows

Following his release from prison, Shakur signed to Death Row Records, and the insults and violence on both sides continued to mount.

Sketch of the suspect in Wallace’s shooting [Wikimedia Commons]

Evans later recalled Wallace’s reaction the night that Shakur was shot. She said:

“I remember Big calling me and crying. I know for a fact he was in Jersey. He called me crying because he was in shock. I think it’s fair to say he was probably afraid, given everything that was going on at that time and all the hype that was put on this so-called beef that he didn’t really have in his heart against anyone.”

The night he was shot, Wallace attended an afterparty hosted by Vibe magazine and Qwest records at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Fellow guests included Faith Evans, Aaliyah, Sean Combs, and members of the rival Bloods and Crips gangs.

Related: Rap Songs, Books, Comedy, And More — The Pop Culture Response To The O.J. Simpson Case

In the early morning hours of March 9, Wallace left in a GMC Suburban SUV and, while the SUV was stopped at a red light at the corner of Wilshire Blvd and South Fairfax, a dark-colored Chevrolet Impala SS pulled up alongside Wallace’s car. The driver, a black male, rolled down his window, drew a 9mm blue-steel pistol, and fired at the SUV.

Wallace was hit with four bullets, and his entourage rushed him to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:15 A.M. — six months after Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting.

Wallace’s autopsy was released to the public in December 2012, over a decade after his death. According to the report, three of the four shots were not fatal, but the fourth struck his right hip and hit several vitaL organs before stopping in his left shoulder.

Related: Did L.A. Gangs Make A Social-Media Bet To Kill 100 People In 100 Days?

Wallace’s murder remains unsolved, and there are many theories regarding the identities and motives of the murderers.

In Murder Rap: Inside The Biggie & Tupac Murders, former LAPD detective Greg Kading concluded that Wallace’s murder was orchestrated in retaliation for the killing of Tupac Shakur. According to Kading, Combs hired Crips gang member Duane Keith “Keffe D” Davis to kill Shakur and Suge Knight for $1 million. He alleges that on September 7, 1996, Keffe D’s nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, shot Tupac in Las Vegas. 

Kading believes that Knight hired gang member Wardell “Poochie” Fouse to kill Wallace in retaliation. 

Life After Death was released 16 days after Wallace’s death and immediately shot to number one on the charts. He has certified sales of 17 million units in the United States

Related: Rapper Troy Ave Charged With Attempted Murder, Pleads Not Guilty In Shooting At NYC Concert

A tribute single called “I’ll Be Missing You” – released in 1997 by Puff Daddy, 112, and Faith – won a Grammy award.

Read more:

The Sun

HipHopDX

Main photo: Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G. [Wikimedia Commons]

The post Who Shot Ya? 20 Years Later, Biggie Smalls Murder Still A B.I.G. Mystery appeared first on CrimeFeed.

Andrew Tan Tai Moore lived life to the fullest. As a 26-year-old college student in San Diego, Moore was working as a chef at night at the Gaslamp Quarter restaurant and by day, he was studying at the San Diego City College with a dream of one day going into international business. His parents said their son was in a good place in life and he loved everything about being in California.

On September 12, 2000, life stood still for the Moore family. CBS 8 said a relative went to Moore’s rented studio apartment to make sure he was okay. The uncle received a call from his worried sister back in Pennsylvania, who asked him to check on her son because she couldn’t reach him. When the uncle peeked in a window, he could see something was terribly wrong. The police were called to the apartment.

Moore was found dead in his bedroom – he had been shot and stabbed to death.

Moore’s apartment was found ransacked, and expensive cutlery was taken. But one of the most important clues was also taken from the scene: Moore’s beloved 1994 Suzuki Katana motorcycle. Authorities said a month later, the bike was found abandoned in the Golden Hill neighborhood. It’s unclear if anyone was ever seen on surveillance dumping the bike.

On the occasion of what would have been the young man’s 42nd birthday, and in his honor, Moore’s parents, Rita and Richard, spoke out in front of police headquarters about their son’s case. She said her son was adopted from Vietnam in 1974, and he hailed from Pennsylvania. She said he fell in love with California when he stayed with his uncle one summer and worked for SeaWorld.

“Andy was a friend to everybody, you could say. He was very friendly and outgoing. We could just picture him having an apartment there and leaving the door open, “ Rita added.

That theory may very well be the case. According to CBS 8, Moore was seen only 48 hours before his death entertaining three unidentified people. The report said there were two men and a woman inside his apartment. It is investigators’ belief that he died that night, the report added.

But who were those people? Were they friends or fellow college students? At this point that is unclear, but Rita said she does receive regular updates about the investigation from authorities in San Diego.

The print publication spoke to homicide Lieutenant Manny Del Toro. Despite the odds and the length of time that has gone by, he said, “We run DNA checks on that case about two or three times a year in hopes of obtaining additional information. Although there are no known witnesses at the time, we continue to interview individuals who we believe might have possible information.”

Richard Moore, the victim’s father, also spoke to the CBS station about the investigators saying they “really do work very hard” to solve his son’s mysterious death.

Although the Moore family remains heartbroken that their son’s case has not been solved, they do something every year in his honor. In memory of Andrew Moore, there is a scholarship fund for the city college. The winner of the scholarship receives $500. The goal is to screen students who apply and to give that award to the student who is in the workforce, but returned to college — just like Andrew Moore.

Rita added, “We want justice for Andy. That’s what we went. That’s what we need. Andy deserves that. Someone took his life from him.” 

If you know anything about this case, please contact Crime Stoppers directly at (888) 580-8477. You can always remain anonymous.

CBS News 8 – San Diego, CA News Station – KFMB Channel 8

Read more:

CBS 8

San Diego Union Tribune

The post 17 Years After College Student Found Mysteriously Murdered, Parents Still Hunt For Killer appeared first on CrimeFeed.

WILLIAMSBURG, VA — Over Columbus Day weekend on October 12, 1986, the bodies of 27-year-old Cathleen Thomas and her girlfriend, 21-year-old college senior Rebecca Ann Dowski, were found inside Thomas’ white 1980 Honda Civic along the Colonial Parkway in Williamsburg.

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An autopsy found that the two women had been strangled with nylon rope. Their throats had been cut — so viciously that Thomas was almost decapitated — and diesel fuel was poured over the bodies and the car, which apparently failed to ignite.

Thomas’ brother Bill Thomas told CrimeFeed that his sister, a Navy lieutenant turned stockbroker, was a “trailblazer” who loved life and excelled at everything she did.

“We knew that Cathy was happy, and we were looking forward to meeting Becky later in the fall,” he said.

But the 1980s in Virginia was a different time: While Cathy’s family was supportive of her same-sex relationship, she kept it a secret from most of the rest of the world. 

So she and Dowski would drive along the scenic road that links the states’s historical towns of Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown to seek out wooded “lover’s lanes.”

Related: Missing Father & Infant Found Dead In The Arkansas Mountains; Mother Arrested

Their purses and money were found inside the car, which led investigators to quickly determine that robbery was not the killer’s motive. Both women were fully clothed, and there was no evidence of sexual assault.

The bodies had been moved — they were found in the back area of the car — and the window was rolled down.

It seemed that Thomas may have struggled with her attacker, as a clump of hair was later discovered between her fingers.

Colonial Parkway victims (top row, from left): Rebecca Dowski, Robin Edwards, Keith Call, Annamaria Phelps, (bottom row, from left) Cathleen Thomas, David Knobling, Cassandra Hailey, Daniel Lauer [Courtesy]

Related: Virginia Police Find 6 Family Members Dead In Apparent Murder-Suicide

On September 22, 1987, the bodies of David Knobling, 20, and Robin Edwards, 14, were found in the Ragged Island Wildlife Refuge. Both had been shot in the back of the head.

Knobling’s black Ford Ranger pickup truck was found at the refuge parking area next to the James River Bridge with the wipers and radio on, the keys in the ignition, and some articles of clothing inside. Once again, the window was rolled down, and his wallet was on the seat.

Visitor’s Center sign along the Colonial Parkway [Wikimedia Commons]

Hailey and Call, who were both students at Christopher Newport University, were on their first date together.

Related: Why Do People Keep Disappearing From The “Bennington Triangle”?

Call’s red 1982 Toyota Celica was found on the Colonial Parkway the next day — with the driver’s side door wide open, but no one inside. The glove compartment was open, and the keys were inside the car. The front seat had been pulled forward, and articles of clothing belonging to Call and Hailey were inside.

No trace of them has ever been found — but both are presumed dead. Park rangers believe that the couple may have gone skinny dipping and drowned. But Call’s family did not buy this theory, saying that the couple would not have stripped off their clothes and then walked over a mile in 40-degree weather for night swimming.

On October 19, 1989, the bodies of Annamaria Phelps, 18, and Daniel Lauer, 21, were found by hunters in the woods near a rest area on Interstate 64 between Williamsburg and Richmond. Lauer and Phelps, who was dating Lauer’s older brother, set off on a trip to Virginia Beach on September 5, 1989.

Related: Naked “Sasquatch” Who Attacked Hunter Gets Conviction Overturned

Investigators found Lauer’s gold 1972 Chevrolet abandoned at a rest stop on the westbound side of the road in New Kent County — which was meant that it would have been heading in the wrong direction. Their clothes and other possessions were inside the car — and a marijuana roach clip was left hanging on the window.

Six weeks later, hunters found Phelps’ and Lauer’s remains. The bodies were covered with an electric blanket that had been taken from his car.

An autopsy revealed that Phelps was stabbed. Lauer’s body was too badly decomposed to determine cause of death.

Investigators found evidence, including weeds on the underside of the car that matched the crime scene, which pointed to the fact that the car was used to transport the bodies to the spot where they were dumped.

Related: Possible Third Death In The Rockies Hunting For Forrest Fenn’s $2 Million Buried Treasure

Over the years, the FBI and Virginia State police have conducted thousands of interviews, developed various theories and identified around 150 persons of interest — but no one has ever been charged with the killings.

More than three decades later, the cases remain cold.

Were the cases connected?

Circumstances that the couples were found in were disturbingly similar. Also, all of the killings took place during the same six-week period, and three occurred over a holiday weekend.

Related: Murder In The Red Barn: The Infamous Killing Of Maria Marten

Windows were rolled down at some of the crime scenes, and wallets were pulled out, which many experts believe could indicate that the victims were approached by a person in a position of authority.

At some of the crime scenes, the driver’s seat had been adjusted — indicating that the killer likely drove the victims to the site where he left them.

But other investigators don’t believe that the murders are connected at all.

In June 2010, the victims’ families requested the assistance of retired Milwaukee Police Department homicide detective Steve Spingola.

After visiting the crime scenes, Spingola spoke with family members, tipsters, and law-enforcement veterans and released a magazine article that detailed his findings. 

Related: Colorado Church Cancels Woman’s Funeral When They Discover She Was A Lesbian

Spingola proposed that the murders are the work of different killers — and claimed that the slayings of Thomas and Dowski were linked to the deaths of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, another lesbian couple who were found with their throats slashed in the Shenandoah National Park in 1996.

Was it a cop, or someone pretending to be a cop? 

The rolled-down windows, wallets left out, and the fact that many of the victims did not appear to have resisted — at least initially — led many investigators to conclude that the killer could have been a “person of authority.”

There is also the marijuana roach clip found on Phelp’s car — which some investigators think was deliberately placed there by the killer to send a message.

Related: The Cold-Blooded Killing Of The Gay Satanists Of Corpsewood Manor

Larry McCann, who founded the Behavioral Science Unit of the Virginia State Police, told true-crime writers Blaine Pardoe and Victoria Hester, who wrote A Special Kind Of Evil: The Colonial Parkway Serial Killings about the killings, that he believes that the killer moved the clip to toy with police. “Because he’s taunting the police. He’s saying, ‘I’m smarter than you, you will never catch me.’ That’s a taunt,” he said.

In addition to the Virginia State Police and the FBI, there are several military bases nearby. Camp Peary, the CIA’s Farm for training, is nearby as well, and park rangers patrol the area regularly.

Clyde Yee, a park ranger who was one of the first responders in the Thomas Dowski murders, was considered an early person of interest, but later cleared following a polygraph.

In 2009, the case took yet another strange twist when extremely graphic crime-scene photos were leaked — and a Gloucester sheriff’s deputy named Fred Atwell came into the frame.

Atwell was considered something of a hero when he discovered that a number of crime-scene photographs regarding the Colonial Parkway homicides had been inappropriately taken from the FBI’s Norfolk office. The photographs were being used as a training tool for a security company, and a number of the images had been leaked to the media.

Related: Murder In The Gay South: The Christmas Day Killing At The Drama Club

While the FBI and the Virginia State Police looked into the Colonial Parkway cases, the families of the victims joined together to support each other.

Atwell’s concern was appreciated at first — but then he began trying to insert himself into the investigation, according to Thomas. “He said that if we gave him money, he would tell us where Keith Call and Cassandra Hailey’s missing bodies could be found,” he added.

The release of the photographs was deeply upsetting to the families, but it did reignite the investigation when the FBI announced it was conducting a top-to-bottom review of the cases.

Other names surfaced in the press over the years. New Zealand native Ronald Little, a former Gloucester private investigator with a criminal record in New Zealand, claimed to be a suspect in the case. Despite his bizarre claims, Little was never arrested, and was later deported.

Related: Randall Woodfield: The Green Bay Packer Who Became The I-5 Serial Killer

A private investigator in Florida insists that Michael Nicholaou, who ran over his second wife with his car, and then shot and killed her before killing himself, was the killer. Authorities also suspect that Nicholaou is also responsible for the disappearance of his first wife, Michelle.

The detective noted that when Nicholaou moved, serial killings often followed. During the Colonial Parkway murders, Nicholaou lived in Charlottesville, and possibly  Virginia Beach.

The Watermen Theory

The FBI developed an alternative theory, one that focused on the fact that the killer could have traveled via the river. The diesel fuel was a key clue, due to the fact that it does not ignite at low temperatures, and was probably not the type of fuel that most people would happen to have lying around.

This led some experts to believe that the diesel fuel, which is used to power boats, was something the killer happened to have with him.

Related: Alleged “Kayak Killer” Angelika Graswald Denies Telling Police She Sabotaged Fiancés Boat

Could there have been more than one killer? 

Some experts believe that the killer’s — or killers’ — ability to overpower so many pairs of victims in excellent physical condition points to the work of a serial-killing team. McCann said that he believes that in this scenario, one suspect would be a more dominant leader, while the other is a follower. He added that he believed that it is possible that one of the killers has passed away.

The Investigation

From the beginning, the investigation was complicated by the fact that two of the incidents were handled by the FBI, while the other two were in different branches of the Virginia State Police.

Related: Journalist Mysteriously Disappears After Boarding Submarine With Her Interview Subject

And while some of the obstacles to finding forensics in the case were due to the bodies being exposed to the elements, sadly, mistakes were made at the crime scenes — and afterward — that likely resulted in evidence being lost forever.

For example: When Keith Call’s father found his son’s car, he claimed that there were no keys in the ignition. But park rangers found Keith’s wallet lying on the seat, several items of clothing strewn around the vehicle, and the keys in the ignition.

Virginia State Police Detective Danny Plott offered Bledsoe and Hester that he believed that the first park rangers on the scene, assuming that the car had been abandoned, gathered the belongings — and later, once they realized their mistake, they attempted to put them back in the same place.

Related: Serial Killer & “Butcher Baker” Robert Hansen Hunted Women Down In The Woods

“I’m sure the rangers and the park service don’t want to be painted as the people who were the bad people in this. I can tell you right now, in both Call-Hailey and Dowski-Thomas, their ineptness and ineptitude — I’m not saying we would have caught them if they’d left things away, but it’s almost like you had to start over each time,” he said.

In 1994, rape kits for Thomas and Dowski were mistakenly sent by the FBI Newport News Office to the York-Poquoson County Sheriff’s Department — and the FBI sent a fax to York County ordering them to destroy them. So in 1994, the rape kits were destroyed as medical waste.

Thomas told CrimeFeed that he hopes that the case will help highlight the issue of discarded evidence, which he called “heartbreaking.”

Additionally, Thomas wrote on Facebook:

“To be fair, based on the limits of 1986 (pre DNA) testing, the FBI did not believe that our sister Cathy Thomas and Rebecca Dowski were sexually assaulted. Yet, as a legendary former Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Virginia said, “Mr. Thomas, you never, ever throw away evidence in an unsolved murder case.

Let’s all learn from our mistakes, move forward together, and solve the Colonial Parkway Murders.”

Related: Cabin In The Woods: Who Killed The Sharp Family?

In February of 1989, Friends and Families Against Crime Today (FFACT) was formed after the victims’ families gathered 12,000 signatures to get law enforcement to renew investigations into murders on the Colonial Parkway and in the Tidewater area. There is a $20,000 reward offered for the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible.

Over the years, the families have continued to speak to the press and authorities and, as the families of the victims continue to search for answers, the case continues to haunt the community.

Read more:

The Virginian-Pilot

Daily Press 

Main photo: Photo of the Colonial Parkway and surrounding area taken earlier in the 20th century [Wikimedia Commons]

The post EXCLUSIVE: Is The “Colonial Parkway Killer” Still Out There? appeared first on CrimeFeed.