Hi guys today we'll delve into the case of a girl who disappeared from her bedroom in the middle of the night her sister who shared the bed with her told her something very strange that a person in a wizard hat took her this case remained unsolved for a whopping 35 years but in 2024 the truth finally came to light Jessica Gutierrez was born on December 3rd 1981 in South Carolina she was the youngest in her family with two sisters and a brother shortly after her birth Jessica's parents divorced leaving her mom Debbie to raise four
children on her own they all lived in a small town called Edmund near the state capital it was hard for Debbie to provide for all the children without any support but despite this the family were pretty close-knit when Debbie was working the older kids looked after Jessica and when she had free time Debbie tried to come up with something fun to do for all of them on June 5th 1986 their family was spinning a typical summer day Jessica who was four at the time was playing in the yard with her siblings while their mom finished
up some jobs around the house in the evening they all had dinner together and Debbie put the children to bed Jessica usually slept with her mom on the same bed since she was the youngest but on that particular day her brother had an earache so Debbie decided to let himle sleep with her as a result Jessica went to sleep with her older Sisters the eldest slept on a separate bed and the other lay with Jessica the next morning Debbie woke up around 9:00 a.m. 6-year-old Rebecca who slept in the same bed as Jessica went into
her mother's room and asked her to make cereal for breakfast Debbie got out of bed left her room and immediately noticed that something was wrong the front door which she always locked before going to bed was wide open and their dog who usually stayed outside was running around the house there was also a curtain rod laying under the back window and the protective screen had been removed from it Debbie went into the girl's room but Jessica was nowhere to be found she also noticed some papers scattered on the floor when she asked her older daughters
where their sister was Rebecca replied she's gone a man with a beard in a magic hat took her thinking her six-year-old daughter was just joking the mother went to look for Jessica she thought maybe her daughter had gone out to play in the yard but she wasn't there Debbie searched the entire house hoping Jessica was just playing hide-and seek but pretty soon she realized that Jessica was not in the house so the mother ran back to the girl's room and began demanding Rebecca to tell where her sister was the girl kept repeating the same thing
about the man in the magic hat and Debbie started to lose her temper she began shouting and asking why Rebecca hadn't screamed for help if someone was taking her younger sister from the house after that Rebecca finally told more details of what had happened according to her she woke up in the middle of the night and saw a man with a beard and in a wizard hat next to their bed he gently picked up Jessica who was still sleeping and left the room with her Rebecca who was Only six didn't fully understand what was happening
she was scared and covered her head with the blanket thinking it was just a weird dream after lying like that for a while she fell asleep and didn't even think to tell her mom what had happened in the morning realizing that Rebecca was likely telling the truth immediately called the police officers searched the entire house and came to the conclusion that she could indeed have been abducted most likely the perpetrator entered the house through the living room window by removing the protective screen upon closer inspection of the area they discovered a fingerprint on the exterior
of the glass and handed its image to experts next to the window the police found a pack of cigarettes and several cigarette butts understanding that they were likely dealing with a kidnapping investigators installed a recording device and Debbie's phone this was done in case the kidnapper would call with a ransom demand the police listened to Rebecca's account and she told them the same story about the man in a wizard hat this time she added that he had unplugged the fan in NightLight before approaching their bed the girl hadn't seen the kidnapper's face so her description
didn't offer any help to the investigators they focused on Debbie and brought her to the station where they asked her to recount all the events of the previous day in the utmost detail during the conversation she mentioned that she had a a strong guest who might have taken her daughter just a few days before she had ended a relationship with a man she had been dating for several months according to Debbie he was quite aggressive and controlling and he also drank pretty often the man wasn't happy with Debbie's decision to end their relationship so she
thought he might have decided to take Revenge by taking her daughter she called him from the Police station but he denied any involvement in Jessica's disappearance the police decided to investigate him further but found no evidence linking him to the crime time they also checked Jessica's father but he had long been living out of state and just couldn't have abducted his daughter meanwhile experts ran the fingerprints found on the window through the FBI database but there were no matches the police decided to focus on search efforts and began combing the area around Jessica's house it
was located on the outskirts with endless Fields stretching for many miles around it police searched abandon buildings forests streams and rivers as well as any other places where Jessica could could potentially be the next day the FBI joined the investigation but they still couldn't find any traces of the missing girl police started Distributing Flyers not only in nearby towns but throughout the entire State the sheriff also sent an airplane to survey the area from the air the search continued for several days and during this time Debbie was restless with three children to care for she
was unable to go out and search for her daughter the police rarely spoke with her only responding when she reached out to them herself on Saturday 2 days after Jessica's disappearance Debbie decided to call the sheriff and ask whether they would continue the search over the weekend she was understandably beside herself with grief and the conversation became quite tense Debbie accused the sheriff of negligence and lack of interest in finding Jessica the sheriff responded that he had been searching for her daughter all night and warned that if she persisted in accusing him he would call
off his team and they would all simply forget about this case since Debbie's phone still recorded everything She saved this recording the woman continued to believe that the police were not doing enough to find her daughter so she was losing more and more hope of finding Jessica alive with each passing day this went on for several months until there was a rather unexpected twist in the case 10 weeks after Jessica's disappearance the police faced a series of crimes a local man had broken into someone's house but the owner used a weapon to scare him off
then this man stole a van and drove to North Carolina where he broke into a home of a sleeping woman and assaulted her shortly after this incident the man was arrested and his fingerprints were entered into the database once they were there investigators got a full match his fingerprints matched those left on the window in Jessica's house the man was a 27-year-old Thomas McDowell and as soon as Debbie learned about this she immediately told the police she knew this person she had met Thomas through relatives and just a few months before Jessica's disappearance she had
hired him to do some work on their property over the course of 2 days spent at her house he had built a shed and repaired the awning over the porch another curious fact was that Thomas had a beard and always wore a tall cowboy hat this led to the thought that Rebecca who only briefly saw the abductor in the darkness might have mistaken this headgear for a wizard's hat similar to those she'd seen in cartoons but there was one huge problem for the investigators despite the fingerprint match they deemed this evidence insufficient to press charges
they still didn't have Jessica's body so they couldn't be 100% sure she was not alive the presence of Thomas's fingerprints on the window could also Have an explanation unrelated to the abduction since he worked on Debbie's property for 2 days the fingerprint could have been left during that time although such a possibility was quite unlikely during the inspection of the house forensic experts noted that the fingerprint appeared fresh it hadn't been exposed to external factors such as weather which could have visually altered Debbie also regularly cleaned this window where the fingerprint was found when her
children played in the yard and wanted to say something to her they would run up to this open window lean on it with their hands and Shout given that the children's hands were almost always dirty Debbie had to constantly clean the glass Thomas had been working on her property around 6 months before the abduction and there were no other fingerprints found there at the time of the investigation this indicated that the man almost certainly could not have left the fingerprint back then or else it would have been wiped out Debbie also added another interesting fact
she remembered that when Thomas worked on her property she accidentally locked herself out of the house leaving the keys inside as a result she had to climb through the same window and Thomas saw her doing it but all these facts didn't convince the police they continued to believe that there wasn't enough evidence against Thomas to press charges in 1987 he was convicted of assaulting the woman whose home he broke into and was sentenced to 10 years in prison Debbie was shattered by the fact that the police refused to charge him with the abduction but there
was nothing she could do about it that same year something else happened Thomas's cellmate contacted the police and told them that Thomas had confessed to him about committing the crime according to Thomas he abducted a girl in South Carolina from her own bedroom to assault her while he was committing this horrible act the victim bit him and in a fit of rage he killed her Thomas dismembered The Remains took them into a field and left them there investigators in Jessica's case went to prison to speak with him and Thomas didn't even bother to deny it
nevertheless he said he was willing to confess if they provide him with full immunity the authorities obviously couldn't agree to such terms so the police once again came up empty-handed learning that Thomas had escaped punishment his cmate wrote a letter to Debbie and told her this story once again she was shocked by the fact that Thomas was allowed to evade justice but there was nothing she could do about about it frustrated by the police's lack of action Debbie decided to conduct her own investigation at one point she located an abandoned car that had previously belonged
to Thomas and inspected it there on one of the seats she noticed threads and fabric fibers that matched the color of Jessica's pajamas the one she wore the night of her disappearance but the police didn't rush to pursue this lead the fact that Debbie without any special equipment or knowledge of forensic science found fabric particles in some car seems strange to them in 1987 something else happened police from Kansas contacted local investigators and reported that they found a girl fitting Jessica's description her mother immediately flew there but her hopes were instantly shattered when she came
to see the girl just hearing her voice from the corridor was enough for her to realize it wasn't her daughter over the following years Debbie gave several interviews where she accused the police of ignoring the obvious suspect but it didn't yield any Significant results in 1990 Jessica's case was featured on a popular television program about unsolved crimes this led to a new wave of tips but unfortunately they all turned out to be dead ends a year later Jessica became the first missing child of South Carolina for whom an age progress portrait was created considering it
was the early 90s such technology was quite new and experimental but detectives hoped it could help identify Jessica all these years later unfortunately despite all this the case remained unsolved for many years in 2007 21 years after Jessica's disappearance her mother once again publicly accused the local police department of inaction this time she gave reporters the recording of her conversation with the sheriff where he told her he could call his men off and forget about this case they reached out to the sheriff but he stated that he hadn't stopped investigating the case all these years
the sheriff also said that after this conversation with Debbie he not only didn't send his men home but assigned even more officers to the investigation Debbie also complained that for years she had been trying to get other agencies involved in this case but each time the local prosecutor's office blocked these attempts in the same year 2007 they reviewed the case and confirmed that they didn't have any sufficient evidence making it impossible to press charges against anyone at that time in 2014 the sheriff faced charges related to fraud and bribery leading to his dismissal and a
12-month jail sentence two years later the prosecutor was arrested for a hidden run while Drunk resulting in a $11,000 fine and his resignation in 2021 after 35 years since Jessica's disappearance the new sheriff named Jay [ __ ] reopened the investigation with the FBI's help 50 agents were assigned to this case revisiting all available evidence and seeking New Leads eventually they not only concluded that there is enough evidence against Thomas McDowell but also discovered new indirect pieces of evidence linking him to the crime his relatives and Friends Revealed that the man drastically changed his appearance
after Jessica's disappearance shaving his beard and long hair and ditching his favorite cowboy hat they also said that he smoked the same brand of cigarettes found near Jessica's home unfortunately experts couldn't find any traces of DNA on these pieces of evidence probably due to the fact that they've been tested multiple times in the past which might have wiped out any biological traces while all these factors added to suspicion against Thomas the key evidence remained his fingerprint in the testimony of his former cmate eventually detectives believed that they had enough evidence to bring the case to
trial and in January 2022 Thomas was finally arrested at 62 years old Thomas refused to admit guilt and preparation for the trial stretched for several years it began only in January 2024 and Thomas's lawyers attempted to challenge the existing evidence they argued that the fingerprint on the glass was left when Thomas had worked on the property the defense also tried to use Rebecca's testimony as we recall Jessica's sister said that she saw a man in a wizard hat Thomas's lawyers tried to convince Everyone that the girl couldn't have mistaken a cowboy hat for a Wizards
as they are completely different however experts brought in by the prosecution pointed out that the fingerprint was clearly fresh if it had been left a few months before the abduction it would have either been erased or altered by the weather during the trial a former inmate also tested testified repeating Thomas's confession made in prison in 1987 the prosecution pointed out that an outsider from another state would unlikely know the details of the case moreover in those years Thomas himself said he was willing to confess but asked for full immunity which was obviously not an option
the trial ended on February 8th and the jury unanimously found Thomas guilty at 63 years old he was sentenced to life in prison for Debbie who had been convinced of his guilt from the early years of the investigation the outcome of this case stirred conflicting emotions she was glad that the perpetrator was finally held accountable but said that Thomas could have been arrested 36 years ago instead the police allowed him to live a long life before facing Justice Debbie also still couldn't come to terms with the fact that her daughter's remains were never found all
these years she along with the new sheriff refuses to give up and will continue the search but the chances of finding her daughter after almost four decades are quite low Debbie Lynn Randall was born on August 21st 1962 in Marietta Georgia she grew up in a loving family with two older brothers sometime after Debbie's Birth her parents divorced but her dad remained involved in their lives a few years later their mom married a man named Roy and he became Debbie's stepfather they all lived in a small apartment building in a quiet neighborhood neighborhood near a
military base Debbie was a typical cheerful kid who loved hanging out with friends and playing basketball she also loved dolls Debbie had a large collection and spent a lot of time playing with them on January 13th 1972 when Debbie was 9 years old she had dinner with her family after that her mom decided to send her to the laundromat as she had done many times before Debbie was supposed to keep an eye on the laundry while it washed while someone else from the family would help her carry the clothes to the laundromat and back home
the laundromat was just a few hundred yards away from their home right across the street so her mom wasn't too worried about anything happening to her back then it was quite common for parents to have their kids help with chores like laundry and Debbie even made some friends with the other girls at the laundromat on that day her mom wanted to send Debbie's older brother along but he wasn't feeling well and wanted to watch his favorite TV show so the mother asked her husband to take the laundry instead and Debbie went along with him grabbing
a box of detergent on the way her stepdad dropped off the laundry loaded it into two washing machines and left while Debbie stayed to wait for the wash to finish after that she was supposed to walk home And ask someone to pick up the clean clothes as she couldn't carry them all by herself sometime later Debbie's mom noticed that she still had it returned even though the laundry should have been done by then it was getting dark outside so she and her husband decided to walk to the laundromat but Debbie wasn't there the employee told
them that she had left a while ago and hadn't come back since her mom became worried and started to walk around the nearby streets with Roy searching for Debbie soon they noticed something strange a few dozen yards from the laundromat in the parking lot next to one of the cars there was spilled detergent since Debbie was carrying the box of detergent her mom immediately thought it might have belonged to her they continued to search the parking lot and the surrounding area but there were no other signs of Debbie some neighbors who knew the family well
also joined in to help with the search but all their efforts yielded no results and Debbie's mom decided to contact the police the officers examined the area of the parking lot where the detergent was spilled and noticed their first potential lead the detergent was scattered just inches away from a parked car and on its door they spotted several clear fingerprints those prints appeared fresh and were located significantly lower than the handle which already seemed odd the officers thought that at this exact spot an unknown perpetrator might have grabbed the girl and touched the car in
the process they collected these prints and handed them over to forensic experts while also beginning to Search for the owner of the vehicle to confirm if the prince didn't belong to them with no other leads the police started combing the streets trying to find new clues or Witnesses the laundromat employee mentioned that she hadn't noticed anything suspicious Debbie had been sitting and waiting for the laundry to finish then took her box of detergent and left the building most likely she headed home to ask someone to pick up the clothes the police soon found the first
witness whose account immediately changed the course of the investigation 12-year-old Sandra along with her friend was walking to the same laundromat helping her carry dirty clothes suddenly they saw a man grabbing a girl in the middle of the street and pulling her into his car parked nearby the laundromat the girl was screaming and trying to break free but he slammed the door shut got behind the wheel and drove off the man nearly hit Sandra and her friend one of the girls started shouting after him but he sped away at the time Sandra didn't realize she
had witnessed an abduction she thought the man was the girl's father or some other relative picking her up while she wanted to stay out longer because of this Sandra didn't tell any adults about what happened or report it to the police now when she learned about Debbie's abduction she provided investigators with crucial information based on her description the perpetrator drove a dark pickup truck likely a 1957 model according to her description she described the man as young white with thick dark dark hair he Wore a white T-shirt jeans and black work boots another girl who
lived in the same building as Debbie also shared her observations that evening she was standing outside her apartment when a dark pickup truck drove past the building at first she thought it was her uncle behind the wheel but when the driver stopped right in front of her and looked at the girl she realized it wasn't him according to her description it was a white man with medium length dark hair she also provided investigators with a few more details about his appearance that she could remember the girl mentioned that this man parked near their building next
to the same car where the spilled detergent would later be found the police soon found another witness a man who lived near Debb's house was driving to the hospital to visit his wife at one point a dark pickup truck likely a Dodge nearly crashed into him before driving off recklessly the driver appeared to be around 30 years old with dark hair however the most crucial detail was that the witness also saw a girl in his car seemingly attempting to escape while the driver held her with one hand after listening to all these accounts the police
had no doubt that Debbie had been abducted they distributed information about the suspect's vehicle to all Patrol units and police artists created a sketch based on the testimonies of the three Witnesses while some officers were searching for similar vehicles and checking their owners others organize extensive searches for Debbie with each day more volunteers and police officers From other towns joined in in total around 4,000 people were involved in the search setting a record not only for the city but for the entire State detectives also investigated various people who knew Debbie including all male neighbors her
stepfather and her biological father but all of them were ruled out as suspects her father who lived in the same city learned about his daughter's disappearance at work and immediately joined the search efforts detectives checked previously convicted criminals living within a few mile radius of Debbie's home but they didn't find any suitable suspects among them the extensive search efforts continued for over 2 weeks without yielding any results this went on until January 29th when several students joined the search teams and were sent to explore the wooded area several miles from from Debbie's house after spending
nearly 5 hours there one of them suddenly noticed tracks on the ground leading from the trail into the depths of the forest as if something had been dragged there following the tracks deeper into the woods for about 150 ft they stumbled upon a human body and immediately called the officers they quickly realized that they had found Debbie Randall she was wearing the same clothes described by her mother on the day of her abduction a lavender dress and a dark blue zipup jacket with a hood however her shoes were missing she had socks on but her
Lavender shoes were nowhere to be found She had received these shoes as a Christmas gift just a few weeks before her disappearance and she loved them very much her body was handed over to Medical experts who determined that she had died from strangulation the victim had also been Sly assaulted experts found a single dark hair on her body most likely belonging to the killer since DNA analysis was not used at that time experts couldn't do much with this evidence they examined it under a microscope and based on their knowledge at the time concluded that it
belonged to a man aged between 18 and 30 years old Debbie's clothing was also covered in dirt and lacking other leads detectives decided to examine it more thoroughly they contacted a geologist and asked him to work with their forensic team together they determined that some of the dirt consisted of a particular type of clay mined less than 10 mil from their City the geologist confirmed that it was indeed the unique Northern Georgia Clay that couldn't be found anywhere else nearby there were also other dirt stains different from the first they were traced back to another
type of clay mined by a local company just 2 miles from where the body was discovered based on this information detectives theorize that the perpetrator didn't kill the victim immediately instead he drove her to remote areas where those types of clay were located most likely he initially took her out of town where he sexually assaulted her then he drove to the location where the Second type of clay was mined killed her and took her to the forest dragging her body behind the trees and leaving it there supporting this Theory were not only the clay traces
but also the forensic analysis indicating that Debbie was already dead when brought to the forest if the perpetrator had killed her there there would have been signs of a struggle around that area the traces on the ground from the trail into the trees also suggested that the victim was already dead the clay mining sites were quite remote and difficult to access leading detectives to speculate that the killer might have worked there they reached out to the mining companies and a supervisor for one of them confirmed this Theory it was hard to believe that someone unfamiliar
with that area could have taken the abduct girl there even the workers themselves sometimes struggled to navigate through these vast areas police checked employees from both companies trying to find a man matching the description or the similar vehicle but it didn't lead to anything they also had fingerprints left on the car just inches away from the abduction site and compared them with all suspects but this yielded no results either the news of Debbie's brutal murder shook the entire city and thousands of people came to Bid Farewell at her funeral the local police department continued their
efforts to find the Killer and bring them to justice but they couldn't find any new leads hitting dead ends over and over again eventually the case remained unsolved for many years detectives continued to work on it checking dozens Of suspects but they couldn't establish their involvement for the lead detective on the case Morris Nicks Debb's murder remained a priority throughout his entire career the crime happened when he was just 19 and he had been involved in the search and investigation from day one for many years Nicks pursued various leads scrutinized different suspects and eventually compiled
a list of four men whom he considered the most likely suspects when the FBI established a DNA database experts were able to extract the genetic profile of the perpetrator from the hair found on Debbie's body it was entered into the database but no matches were found this indicated that the killer either had never been convicted of other serious crimes or it occurred before the time when DNA samples started being collected from such individuals in 2015 43 years after the murder the case was reopened and detectives decided to reexamine the victim's clothing using modern technology it
had been stored in the evidence Warehouse all this time and experts found biological material from an unknown man on it however over the years it had degraded significantly resulting in a partial profile in 2018 Debbie's mother who had hoped for decades to see the police arrest her daughter's killer and hold him accountable gave an interview she said that after Debbie's murder she couldn't bear to live in the apartment where everything reminded her of her loss she moved to another city and year after year the lack of progress in the investigation slowly destroyed her she also
said her only desire now is to see The closure of this case before her time comes unfortunately that was not meant to happen just a few weeks after the interview she passed away to cancer at the age of 78 and she was laid to rest next to her daughter Sandra who witnessed the abduction at the age of 12 also spoke out in an interview she said that she had never stopped blaming herself over the years according to Sandra she believed she could have stopped the perpetrator and prevented the abduction even if it meant taking Debbie's
place and dying instead of her in 2019 the local police department received additional funding enabling them to request a more detailed analysis of Debb's clothing this time experts were able to extract a full DNA sample from it but the perpetrator's DNA still wasn't in the FBI database Debbie's father was also interviewed and he shared that not a day had gone by over the decades when he didn't think about Debbie he still kept a box of her old photos hoping for only one thing to reunite with his daughter in heaven in 2022 shortly after the interview
he passed away in the same year detectives focused all their efforts on the one lead they had DNA they reached out to a company in Florida specializing on an Innovative DNA analysis method called genetic genealogy the police handed over all the biological samples they had collected over the years and waited experts created a profile of the unknown man and began searching for his Relatives in public genetic databases they needed to find people who had uploaded their DNA because family members genetic material has similarities modern tools can detect even distant relatives after examining thousands of potential
relatives of the killer investigators narrowed down their search to a family living in Marietta in 2023 they asked them to provide DNA samples and they agreed the analysis showed that the killer was indeed their close relative so experts looked into their family more carefully they soon identified the most likely owner of the Killer's DNA sample a man named William Rose however there was a problem Rose had taken his own life in 1974 just 2 years after Debbie's murder but detectives were determined to finally close this case Cas no matter what they obtained a warrant to
exume his grave and experts took a direct DNA sample from his remains after 51 years since Debb's murder the police finally got a full match William Rose was indeed the killer at the time of the murder he was only 24 years old and had never been a suspect it turned out that his relatives lived in the same building as Debbie's family Rose regularly visited them so investigators believe that he might have seen the girl on multiple occasions perhaps that evening he was headed to visit his relatives but saw Debbie coming out of the laundromat and
heading towards her home based on the testimonies of her neighbors and other Witnesses Rose pulled into the parking lot between the victim's house and the laundromat left the engine running got Out grabbed Debbie and then drove North perhaps he immediately headed to the clay Quarry which was located in that direction it's worth mentioning that Rose didn't have have any other criminal record either he didn't commit anything serious besides Debbie's murder or he simply didn't get caught at the time the case was solved the only living close relative of the victim was her older brother Melvin
he attended the press conference where they announced the discovery of the culprit and thanked everyone who had worked on his sister's case for over half a century he also said he wished his mom could have lived to see this moment but added that she was now in heaven with Debbie Karen Snider was born on July 29th 1948 in the small American town of Cedar Lake Indiana she grew up in a very large family with two brothers and three sisters in high school Karen met a boy named Paul and they decided to get married when she
was just 17 shortly after Karen became pregnant and in 1966 their daughter Paula was born even though Karen was only 18 at the time she and her husband were ready and happy to start their own family they moved to a town called Calumet Illinois where Paul's parents lived the family settled on the same street as his parents just a few houses away allowing them to see Paul every day and spend a lot of time with their granddaughter cumed with a population of about 25,000 residents was located not far from Chicago and considered a very safe
place to live Karen spent most of her time taking care of their child while Paul got a job at the local Railroad on November 12th 1966 Paul went to his night shift around 2: p.m. a few hours later he tried to call Karen but she didn't answer this was unusual because she was supposed to be at home and couldn't have left their two-month-old daughter alone concerned he called his parents who lived just a few few houses away and asked them to check on Karen they walked down the street and knocked on the door but there
was no response his parents didn't have a spare key so they continued knocking for a few minutes and then went back home to call their son Paul became even more worried and decided to leave work early to check if everything was all right as he approached the house his concern grew even more the porch light was off and the blinds were tightly closed the this was unusual because Karen always left the porch light on for him when he worked the night shift Paul tried to open the door with his key and realized it was unlocked
he entered the living room and was relieved to find his two-month-old daughter sleeping in a play pin near the Working TV however Karen was nowhere to be seen so he began Calling out her name while checking each room as Paul decided to go upstairs he tried to turn on the staircase light but the switch didn't work he made his way to the bedroom and turned on a lamp revealing a horrifying scene the room was in disarray and there was blood everywhere on the floor lay Karen showing no signs of life and Paul immediately realized she
was dead recovering from the shock Paul went downstairs called the police and took his daughter outside while he was waiting for the police and ambulance his parents came out to the street and saw him crying and pleading for help Paul's mother grabbed a flashlight and rushed into the house hoping to help Karen but as soon as she saw Karen's blood covered body she knew it was too late to save her soon after the Medics and police arrived the doctors could only confirm Karen's death and the investigators began examining the crime scene on the back door
lock they found shallow scratches indicating an attempted Breakin how however the door was still locked suggesting the Intruder initially tried to enter this way but failed next they discovered a broken basement window with a trail of blood leading from it to the front door investigators speculated that after failing to open the back door the Intruder tried to enter through the basement and cut themselves on the glass evidenced by the blood on it the fact that the Intruder didn't enter through the basement but went to the front door Suggests it was either on locked or Karen
opened it herself in the living room they found more blood indicating that the attack likely started there catching Karen near her daughter's crib the blood trail continued from the living room up the stairs down the hallway and into the couple's bedroom where Karen's body was found the bedroom was a chaotic scene blood everywhere and many items scattered and broken indicating Karen fought back fiercely there was a phone in the bedroom but it had been ripped from the wall police believe Karen might have run there ahead of the Intruder to call for help but she couldn't
in those days there wasn't a single emergency number like 911 local police had their own number so detectives thought she might have dialed incorrectly in her haste investigators also found a blood covered light bulb on the floor which had been unscrewed from the socket above the stairs it seemed the Intruder did this though the reason was UN clear perhaps he unscrewed it while following Karen upstairs giving her a brief moment to try calling the police in the downstairs bathroom police discovered a pile of bloody clothes and various items among them were a pair of pants
a bed sheet and a washcloth detectives speculated that the killer used these items to wipe the blood off his hands and clothes it appeared he also attempted to clean himself with the washcloth or possibly tried to use it to Wipe blood off the floor to cover his tracks however given the amount of blood throughout the house these efforts were clearly futile after using these items the killer threw them into the bathtub and fled the scene this indicated to investigators that he remained in the house for some time after the murder although they couldn't determine the
exact period of time detectives began their investigation and quickly ruled out the possibility of ached robbery the only missing items were Karen's blue wallet containing about $50 and one of the bedside lamps which had no significant value medical examiners found 124 stab wounds on Karen's body most concentrated in the chest area such brutality suggested the attacker had personal motives experts identified the likely weapon as a knife with a narrow blade similar to a stiletto but police couldn't find it inside the house or anywhere nearby ey Karen was fully clothed and no signs of sexual assault
were found but investigators didn't rule out that the attacker might have had such a motive but for some reason was unable to carry it out the time of death was estimated between 4: and 6:00 p.m. since Paul discovered her body around 11:00 p.m. the killer must have left the house several hours earlier detectives began their investigation by speaking with the victim's relatives and friends but according to Paul's mother Karen had mentioned being afraid to live in that House and said she wanted to move to Indiana where her parents lived however she didn't specify the reasons
for her fear and investigators couldn't find any more information Karen's neighbors also provided an interesting observation their dog which usually barked at the slightest noise remained quiet that evening with no other leads the police turned their focus to Karen's husband Paul in such crimes the spouse is often the primary suspect so they began investigating him after analyzing the evidence from the house detectives concluded that the attempted Breakin at the back door and the broken basement window might have been staged the killer was likely someone familiar with Karen but tried to make it appear as if
a random Intruder had committed the crime this suggested that either Karen willingly opened the door to the killer or they had a key investigators began interrogating Paul while also trying to establish whether he had the opportunity to commit the crime they considered the possibility that he might have killed Karen before leaving for his evening shift as he had left home after lunch that day they also checked whether he remained at work for the entire shift or if he had left at any point Paul denied any involvement in the murder but the police continued to view
him as the Prime Suspect with almost no evidence they attempted to obtain a confession from him repeatedly calling him in for questioning but despite this pressure Paul consistently maintained his Innocence Karen's funeral took place 6 days after the murder besides family and friends detectives also attended the ceremony and soon noticed something weird one of the Paul Bears had a deep wound on his forehead and a bandaged hand the police identified this man as James barbier a friend friend of both Paul and Karen he worked with Paul at the railroad and had done some repairs in
the house shortly before the murder Karen knew James pretty well and might have opened the door for him investigators began looking into James and discovered that on the evening of the murder he had gone to a local hospital with serious injuries to his hand and face requiring stitches this aligned with the evidence suggesting the killer injured himself on the broken basement window glass James became the second suspect and detectives brought him in for questioning he denied any involvement in the murder explaining his injuries by saying that he had been returning home drunk from a bar
that evening tripped over a stump in the dark and hurt himself on some splinters James's wife confirmed that he came home that night drunk with a bandaged hand and a cut on his forehead she mentioned that he was acting weird and was visibly shaken but she added that James was an alcoholic and frequent got heavily drunk so this Behavior wasn't unusual when police interviewed individuals who frequented bars in Karen's neighborhood they found Witnesses who had seen James there that day however they couldn't Pinpoint the exact times he was present when experts finished analyzing the evidence
from Karen's house they found something intriguing as suspected there were two different types of blood one matched Karen's blood type while the other belonged to a different blood blood type the same as James's although this blood type match was not proof of James guilt detectives decided to arrest him hoping he would confess they also cleared Karen's husband of Suspicion as none of the blood samples matched his type James continued to deny his involvement insisting that his injuries were from his fall the police hoped forensic experts might find some additional evidence but they faced disappointment the
fingerprints collected from the crime scene were smudged and without DNA analysis they couldn't make any progress with the blood evidence eventually they had to release James and continued searching for New Leads since then investigators have looked into several other suspects and interviewed dozens of people but the case remained unsolved for many years Karen's murder forever changed their small town once considered safe residents remembered the brutal crime for a long time and wondered who could have committed it at the time police did not reveal the identities of the suspects including James so only Karen's relatives and
close friends knew of his potential involvement in later Interviews with reporters they said they truly believed James was guilty but without solid evidence proving his involvement was simply impossible Karen's father passed away in 1973 7 years after the tragedy and her mother died in 1977 neither of them ever found out who killed their daughter Paul eventually remarried and his second wife helped raise Paula essentially becoming the mother the girl never had the chance to remember her relatives decided not to tell her how her biological mother died trying to Shield the girl from the horrific details
Paula later recalled that when she started school other kids teased simply because her mother was dead a few years later understanding that she might hear the truth from others or come across news reports her relatives finally told her what had happened to Karen in 1989 at the age of 45 Paul passed away from health problems never learning the truth either for decades there was no progress on the case Paula occasionally gave interviews to journalists expressing her hope to bring the culprit to Justice and mentioning that she regularly contacted the local police department to ask about
any new developments but they always replied that there were no new leads and the case remained unsolved for many years this continued until the end of 2022 when one day the police received a Call a 29-year-old man contacted the police department responsible for Karen's case inquiring about any new developments the man explained that he had known about this crime his whole life as his grandmother talked about it since he was a kid it turned out they were distant relatives of Karen's family and the man was curious whether the police had made any progress in solving
the mystery he said that he had been reading newspaper clippings about the case at work and wondered if there were any modern technologies that could help solve it and this prompted him to reach out to the police to his surprise the police department decided to reopen the investigation following his call naturally none of the original detectives were still around so a new team began reviewing all the available materials from scratch they discovered that almost all the evidence except the blood samples collected from the floor had not only been preserved but was also well-maintained over the
past 56 years this included Karen's clothing and various items from her home the detective sent all the remaining evidence to the lab where experts began examining wi in each item with modern tools meanwhile the police reinterviewed everyone connected to the case who was still alive 16 months after the investigation was reopened detectives received a long awaited call from the lab experts had found several drops of blood on Karen's dress and extracted a DNA profile of an unknown male the Police immediately obtained a warrant from a judge to collect a genetic sample from the main suspect
James who who was still alive they quickly got his sample sent it to the lab and soon received confirmation James's DNA matched the blood found on Karen's dress this confirmed that James who was just 21 years old at the time of Karen's death had been in her home the day she was murdered and had initially lied about how he got his injuries on April 29th 2024 the police returned to James's home and the 79-year-old man was finally arrested for murder upon being informed of the DNA match James did not deny anything and confess to the
crime while the police have not yet disclosed all details of his interrogation due to the ongoing legal proceedings James admitted that he had known his entire life that he would eventually be caught James has been charged with first-degree murder and was released on bail due to his age and severe health conditions given James state the risk of him fleeing was considered nearly non-existent however Karen's relatives were upset because they had already suffered enough seeing the killer live freely for over 50 years as for the motive it remains unknown the first hearing took place at the
end of May and more details are expected to be revealed only after the trial according to the main Theory reported by journalists James had feelings for Karen and was Jealous of her husband since she married him additionally James was indeed heavily intoxicated that evening which may have driven him to commit the crime Karen's relatives expressed their gratitude to the detectives for finally bringing James to Justice however given his health issues even if James lives to see prison he is unlikely to spend much time there Karen's daughter who was 57 at the time of james' arrest
said she received the best Call of her life when she learned that her mother's killer had finally been caught she admitted she had lost hope and was surprised that the evidence had been so well preserved she also revealed that she blames James for her father's early death Beyond dealing with the brutal murder of his wife her father had spent the rest of his life almost certain that his close friend was responsible and it was very hard for him to see James continue to live freely Melissa Trimble was born on March 1st 1977 in Lawrence Massachusetts
when she was just a month old her biological parents gave her up for adoption and she was adopted by Janette and Robert Trimble Melissa grew up in the nearby town of Salem New Hampshire she was a very energetic child who loved fashion singing and had a passion for reading from a young age Melissa had many friends at school and spent a lot of time at the boys and girls CL Club of America when she was nine her adoptive Parents divorced and her father hasn't been involved in her life since sometime later her mother started dating
another man named Robert but he didn't live with them on September 11th 1988 when she was 11 her mother took Melissa to Lawrence where she was supposed to meet Robert they often spent time at a local bar and Janette frequently took Melissa along because she had no one to leave her with you usually her mom would let Melissa play outside since she got bored sitting with them Janette always told her not to go far so Melissa spent time on the nearby streets because her mom went to this bar quite often Melissa made friends with other
kids in the area and would occasionally play with them that day Melissa spent most of her time outside checking in with her mother now and then during one of these visits the bartender made her some popcorn Melissa said she'd come back for it soon and left but she never returned to the bar around 400 p.m. her mother started to worry since Melissa had been gone for a while she went outside and checked her car but Melissa was nowhere to be found she and Robert began searching for her going Street by street but they couldn't find
Melissa they searched the area for several hours and around 9:00 p.m. Janette decided to call the police officers immediately joined the search but they also couldn't find any traces of of her by then it was already dark it made their task much more difficult but the police continued searching for Melissa late into the night they also considered the possibility that she might have run away but her mother insisted that Melissa was afraid of the dark and didn't like being alone so she would never have run off the next day Melissa's whereabouts were still unknown and
the search continued this went on until about 3:00 p.m. when a railroad worker called the police he had been conducting a routine inspection of an old rail yard just a few hundred yards from the bar the yard was quite large with up to eight tracks in its widest section although some of them hadn't been used in a long time there were a lot of empty box cars and between two of them the worker noticed something unusual when he got closer he realized it was a human body and immediately called the police detectives arrived at the
scene and quickly identified the body as Melissa Trimble aside from the fact that she had been reported missing since the previous morning there was a card with her name from The Boys and Girls Club in a purse found near the body Melissa's body was lying on tracks that were still in use and one of her legs had been severed the detectives believed this likely happened due to a passing train since the section of track was still active however they immediately doubted that this was the cause of death the lead Detective noticed several details that contradicted
this Theory Melissa's purse containing the card with her name was found almost 20 yards from the body this Seemed strange as it was unlikely that a train accident could have thrown the purse so far the detective also noticed a large number of footprints and drops of blood near the purse this led him to suspect that Melissa might have been attacked there and only then her body was moved to the tracks the as salent might have hoped to make it look like she died in a train accident another Factor pointing to Foul Play was the location
itself the old Rail Yard with its numerous empty box cars was a known hangout for homeless individuals and those looking for secluded spots to use illegal substances so the detectives considered the possibility that some of them might have attacked Melissa her body was sent to medical examiners while the police began searching for Clues since no useful evidence was found at the scene where Melissa was discovered investigators focused on finding witnesses to piece together the timeline of Events first they spoke with an employee of the railroad company he mentioned that the day before the body was
found he saw a girl fitting Melissa's description near the tracks he told her to leave immediately because it was unsafe for children to be there and she left the area next the police found a woman living not far from the bar she said she had known Melissa for sever several months because her children had become friends with Melissa and she often visited their house on that day Melissa had come over to invite her children to play but the woman told her They were grounded and couldn't go out so Melissa left alone investigators soon found another
witness Who provided the first significant lead he reported seeing a girl resembling Melissa standing next to a van at an intersection near the rail yard talking to the driver the witness described Des this man as rather large unkempt around 30 years old with dark hair and a large beard the van was brown old and Rusty the police considered that this man might be connected to the murder and started searching for similar Vehicles meanwhile the medical examiners finished the report and confirmed that the train was not the cause of death Melissa's body had numerous bruises and
three fatal stab wounds no signs of well assault were found and there were no foreign biological samples on her body or clothing the experts determined that the stab wounds were inflicted with the left hand suggesting that the perpetrator was likely left-handed the case was reclassified as a homicide and detectives focused on finding the killer however they still had only one lead the description of the van seen near Melissa shortly before she disappeared the police concentrated on finding similar vehicles in the area but repeatedly hit dead ends the challenge was that even if they found the
right van linking its owner to the murder would be nearly impossible without a confession DNA analysis was not yet in use and there were no additional pieces of evidence Like Melissa's belongings or fingerprints likely to be found in the van the police also kept trying to find new Witnesses they interviewed several hundred residents in the area but this effort yielded no results detectives continued searching for the van and other clues for several months but the case eventually went cold Melissa's murder received significant media coverage and many people began blaming her mother for what happened they
were outraged that Janette let her 11-year-old daughter wander the streets alone especially near such a dangerous place as a rail yard what infuriated them even more was that while Melissa roam the streets for hours unattended her mother was drinking in a bar rumors began spreading in the newspapers that Janette had developed a drinking problem after her divorce and was struggling with her parental responsibilities people also started blaming Social Services for failing Melissa by not intervening in the situation amid all these accusations Janette refused to speak with media or answer their questions when reporters reached out
to Child Protective Services they stated they were aware of the family's complicated situation and had tried to take some measures but revoking janette's parental rights had never been considered since then there had been no progress in the case police repeatedly reviewed it and examined potential suspects but this yielded no results in 200 12 years after the murder investigators identified their first Potential suspect Tommy Lynn sells he confessed to 22 murders and investigators in Melissa's case found that many details of his crime closely matched those of her murder moreover Tommy resembled the van driver scene with
the girl and he often spent nights in empty box cars while traveling across various States detectives began investigating his possible involvement in Melissa's murder but they eventually concluded that he was unlikely to be responsible they couldn't find any evidence placing Tommy near Lawrence at that time instead they determined he was probably in another state the case remained cold for several more years until 2013 when detectives unexpectedly obtained a new lead they arrested a man from Lawrence for an unrelated case and during questioning he suddenly claimed to know some details about Melissa trim bla murder the
man said that in 1988 when he was just 13 he used to steal cars for a living he spent a lot of time on the streets looking for suitable vehicles and on the day Melissa disappeared he saw a girl resembling her she was sitting on the steps of that same bar and next to her was a man named Mike the witness new Mike but his family had warned him to stay away from that man because of his questionable reputation the boy walked past them and about 10 minutes later on his way back he saw the
girl leaving the bar with Mike at some point another man whom the witness didn't recognize approached them And the three of them continued walking together the police asked the witness why he had remained silent for 25 years he replied that at the time he didn't want any unnecessary contact with the police however when he learned about Melissa's murder and realized he might have seen her he asked his brother if he should tell someone but he advised him to stay quiet however the detectives immediately found a serious contradiction in the story according to the witness he
saw the girl on the bar steps when it was already dark outside but Melissa was reported missing around 400 p.m. when it was still daylight given that all the bar patrons and staff were aware of her disappearance and her mother had been searching for her for hours the detectives found it highly unlikely that Melissa could have been right outside the bar without being noticed the police considered the possibility that the witness had either seen a different girl or his account was inaccurate despite this they investigated Mike for potential involvement but made no progress nevertheless the
witness's story brought renewed attention to the old case and in 2014 it was reopened by then DNA analysis was widely used and the police hoped that experts could find some new Clues by re-examining all the available evidence they examined Melissa's clothing and other items but found no foreign DNA however there was something else among the evidence samples take from under Melissa's Nails collected in Case she had scratched her attacker the experts analyzed these samples and indeed found traces of foreign skin which were promptly sent to the lab but there was a new problem experts were
able to extract a DNA profile of an unknown male but it was only partial it wasn't enough to get a match in the database but the investigators were determined not to give up sometime later they reached out to a company specializing in genetic genealogy the company analyzed the sample and began searching for potential matches in available databases this was a challenging task because they had to work with a partial profile which made it impossible to identify the person with absolute certainty nevertheless through meticulous work they managed to find a possible distant relative of the samples
owner in the databases this led them to a specific family with the last name name McLendon detectives began investigating the members of this family trying to determine who might have committed the crime this process took several years due to the primary challenge the lack of a complete DNA profile to definitively prove the guilt of any family member therefore investigators carefully examined who among them could have been in Lawrence in 1988 matched all the criteria like age and so on eventually they focused on two brothers one of whom was Marvin McLendon Marvin lived in Alabama but
investigators discovered that in the Late ' 80s he lived just 20 minutes away from Lawrence and worked as a carpenter digging into Marvin's past they learned that he frequently visited a church located just a few hundred yards from the bar where Melissa was last seen Marvin had also worked as a prison guard for about 30 years but with breaks one of which occurred in 1988 the Intriguing findings didn't stop there police found that Marvin owned an old brown van during those years which he used for work despite this Marvin had no criminal record aside from
numerous traffic fins for not wearing a seat belt he had been married twice but both wives had left him he had two sons from his first marriage but was not actively involved in their lives finally Marvin was left-handed unlike all his close male relatives while detectives were investigating this suspect Melissa's mother passed away in 2015 at the age of 70 she had struggled with a severe illness for a long time and never found out who killed her daughter after Gathering all the information on Marvin and checking his other relatives detectives concluded that he was the
most likely perpetrator in 2021 they went to Alabama to question him about that time in the late 80s eventually they brought up the murder of Melissa trbl and Marvin claimed he had nothing to do with it when told that DNA from one of his close relatives was found on the victim Marvin suggested that the killer might be his brother that same Year Marvin voluntarily provided his DNA sample but experts still couldn't establish a complete match the partial profile from under Melissa's Nails Only indicated that Marvin was either closely related to the killer or was the
killer himself however invest tigators who had already examined all his close male relatives knew that none of them could have committed the crime leaving Marvin as the prime suspect they also understood that without a full DNA match it would be extremely challenging for the prosecution to secure a conviction as a result they spent another year trying to find any additional Clues detectives also checked Mike the man whom the 13-year-old boy claimed to have seen with a girl resembling Melissa on the bar steps after obtaining his DNA sample experts determined that it didn't match the skin
particles found under the victim's Nails ruling him out as a suspect they visited Marvin several times asking him various questions and in April 2022 they finally decided to arrest him despite his continued claims of Innocence Marvin allegedly made a suspicious remark during his arrest he told one of the officers at least I got to enjoy 20 years of my pension Marvin who was 74 years old at the time was sent to jail awaiting trial the judge had to place him under constant protection because other inmates quickly learned about his charges and the fact that he
had worked as a prison guard Without conclusive evidence the prosecution relied on a process of elimination DNA from someone in Marvin's family was found under the victim's nails but none of his close relatives had the opportunity to commit the crime as for distant relatives a match with their DNA would be less evident and experts could easily see the difference they also pointed out that in 1988 Marvin frequently visited a church on the same street as the bar owned a similar van and matched the description given by a witness who saw a girl near his vehicle
the trial began in December 2022 Marvin's lawyer immediately focused on the lack of a complete DNA profile of the perpetrator claiming that without it his client's guilt couldn't be confirmed the defense then called two experts one was a forensic specialist who testified that based on crime- scene photos she couldn't confirm that the killer was indeed left-handed the other was a genetics expert who argued that a partial DNA match with one family doesn't rule out the possibility of it belonging to distant relatives as any person can have hundreds or thousands of them Marvin declined to testify
in his defense and by the end of December the jury began their deliberations it took them almost a week and on December 27th they reported being unable to reach a unanimous decision some jurors felt that without a complete DNA profile they couldn't definitively convict Marvin leading the judge to declare a mistrial in early 2024 the prosecution announced plans for a retrial set to begin on September 30th 2024 until then Marvin will remain in jail considering that he is 76 years old now and suffering from multiple health issues there's a possibility he might not survive until
the end of the new trial if the court fails to convict him again Marvin could be released leaving Melissa's murder unresolved and we may never learn the truth Tanya van kenborg was born on March 7th 1969 in Victoria Canada she had loving parents and an older brother she was very close to from a young age T loved animals and even considered becoming a veteranarian someday she also wanted to travel and explore the world in high school she went to Paris with her best friend and that trip made her dream of traveling even stronger shortly before
graduating high school when she was 18 Tanya met a boy named Jay cook they went to the same school but Jay was too 2 years older they met through a mutual friend after he had graduated and soon they began dating even though Tanya wanted to be a veterinarian she decided to take some time before going to college so she could travel after finishing high school she got a job at a cafe to save money for these plans and she also worked as a dog walker Jay also didn't go to college After High School instead he
helped his father with their small family business installing heating systems in November 198 7 Jay's father received an order but the local Suppliers didn't have one of the key Parts in stock the nearest place to buy it was Seattle in Washington state Jay's father decided it would be quicker and cheaper to get the part himself rather than order it for delivery however he was swamped with work and knew he couldn't fit the trip into his schedule so he asked his son to go to Seattle instead of him and Jay agreed Jay wanted to help his
father with the business but he was also also excited for another reason he decided to invite Tanya knowing she would likely enjoy the trip at that time they had been dating for about 6 months but their relationship wasn't very serious Jay hoped that the trip would change that and bring them closer as he expected Tanya agreed right away they planed to leave Victoria in the morning reach Seattle by evening and return the next day Jay's father gave him his van and money to book a hotel room for the night however Jay and Tanya decided to
save that money and just sleep in the van Jay's father also gave him a check for $700 to buy the part and a few hundred for other expenses despite Seattle being relatively close to Victoria the couple had to take two fairies first to get into the US and then to cross the bay near Seattle on the morning of November 18th the couple got into the van and headed to the first ferry which would take them to Port Angeles their parents expected them to return home the next day in the afternoon but Tanya and Jay never
showed Up their families began to worry almost immediately knowing the fery schedule and realizing that if the couple had taken the ferry they should have been home by now however the parents considered the possibility that Tanya and Jay might have simply decided to explore and enjoy the beautiful sights along the way causing them to miss the ferry in Port Angeles As Time passed and there was still no sign of them Tanya's parents called Jay's parents by the afternoon they were seriously concerned that something bad had happened despite their worries the family held on to hope
that the couple had just decided to extend their trip and continued to wait Jay and Tanya did not return home by the end of the day and the next morning their parents went to the police station to file a missing person's report however the local police decided there wasn't enough reason to conduct a full search Tanya was 18 and Jay was 20 there was no direct evidence that they had been harmed or were victims of a crime so the police assumed the couple had just gone off on an adventure and told their parents to wait
a few days naturally they weren't satisfied with this response but the officers refused to start the search by that time Tanya and Jay's parents were completely certain that they wouldn't have just decided to extend their trip for several days Jay was supposed to do an important job for his father's business and he had never been so irresponsible before and if they had indeed decided to extend their trip they would have at least called their families from a pay phone which were plentiful along their route Eventually Tanya's father decided to start the search on his own
first he and Jay's parents found out that their children never picked up the part in Seattle the supplier said he had waited for them for several hours but no one showed up next Tanya's father drove along the route to Seattle but this didn't yield any results he found no trace of Tanya Jay or their van undeterred he contacted a private company and rented a helicopter with a pilot to survey the area along their route from the air however this also led to nothing most of the area was covered with dense forests making it difficult to
spot anything after that Tanya's father made Flyers with information about their disappearance and went to Seattle to post them on the streets this went on for several days the families of the missing couple did everything they could to find them and the local police department finally started taking the case seriously however they still believe that Tanya and Jay were just spending time together somewhere and would eventually come home as a result they only contacted their colleagues in Seattle providing a description of the van and information about Tanya and Jay asking to notify them if anyone
spotted them on November 24th 5 days after The Disappearance a man went for a walk in the woods near a small town about 90 Mi north of Seattle while walking along the road near an embankment leading into the forest he noticed something unusual Under a tree below when he took a closer look he realized it was a human body and immediately called the police officers arrived at the scene and discovered the body of a young woman her clothes were partially missing hands were tied and there was a gunshot wound on her head investigator ERS quickly
determined that the victim had been killed elsewhere as there was almost no blood near the body there was no ID on the victim so the police checked the list of missing women in the area they quickly concluded that the victim matched the description of Tanya van kenborg and contacted her father he went to the morg and confirmed that the deceased was indeed his daughter detectives began their investigation trying to establish all the details of what had happened they learned that Tanya had been traveling with Jay whose whereabouts were still unknown Jay's van was also missing
leading investigators to consider his possible involvement Jay's family refused to believe he could have done something like this they insisted that he had never shown signs of aggression and that he loved Tanya he also did not own a firearm and would not have been able to purchase one easily while the police were trying to locate him they got another call a bartender from a town called Bellingham about 18 mi from where the body was found went outside and saw a wallet in keys on the ground when he opened the wallet he found an ID with
the name Tanya van kenborg at first he didn't call the police instead he took Everything back to the bar thinking the owner might return for them but after seeing a news report about Tanya's murder on TV he immediately called 911 detective searched the area around the bar and found several plastic zip ties Iden iCal to those used to bind Tanya's hands under the back porch they also discovered rubber gloves and a half empty box of bullets but that wasn't all one of the officers noticed a van parked nearby and the police quickly determined that it
was the same vehicle Tanya and Jay had traveled in inside the van there was utter chaos everything was scattered and broken but investigators managed to find several important Clues there were numerous receipts that could help reconstruct Tanya and Jay's route as well as a ferry ticket this indicated that the couple had indeed made it to Seattle and something horrible happened to them there detectives also noticed that Tanya's camera which she had taken on the trip was missing from the van since it wasn't found near her body either they speculated that the killer might have taken
it the interior of the van was covered in blood forensic experts collected these samples and sent them to the lab hoping that this evidence would bring them closer to solving the case at that time DNA analysis was just starting to be used in criminology but it had already helped solve several cases the lab in Seattle conducted the analysis and found three blood samples Tanya's Jay's and an unknown man's since the FBI's DNA Database did not exist yet it was impossible to identify the third person without a direct comparison nevertheless detectives realized that Jay was likely
not involved in the murder and stopped considering him as the main suspect they now faced other questions was he still alive and where was he unfortunately it didn't take long to find the answer on November 26th a group of friends went hunting just a few dozen miles from Seattle while walking near a bridge over a small River they saw a human body in the bushes and reported it to the police investigators quick L identified the deceased as Jay cook his body showed numerous bruises and the cause of death appeared to be strangulation given the brutality
of this crime detectives even considered that the perpetrator might have known Jay and had some personal motives they also theorized that Jay had been killed first since his body was found closer to Seattle the perpetrator then drove Tanya in the van almost to the Canadian border killed her and left her body in a wooded area medical experts also found traces of semen on her body and DNA analysis revealed that it belonged to the same man whose blood was found in the van however his identity remained unknown at the same time investigators were trying to reconstruct
the couple's route and the receipts found in the van helped them establish an approximate timeline after Tanya and Jay took the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles they stopped at a store to buy some food then they headed toward Seattle but Jay apparently missed the turn for the shortest route this was supported by a receipt from a store in the small town of Hoodsport and the testimony of the store clerk who saw a young couple matching their description and remembered they asked for directions to the ferry crossing the clerk also shared an interesting observation she
thought that a man in a brown raincoat was following the couple he entered the store shortly after them and left right after they did but she didn't see where the man went next the next receipt showed detectives that Tanya and Jay had visited a store in the small town of Allen after that they reached the ferry near Seattle and bought a ticket several witnesses saw them near this location but detectives couldn't track their movements beyond that point investigators began checking various individuals in Seattle who had previous convictions for violent crimes trying to find suspects but
these efforts yielded no result results despite having the Killer's DNA the police had no idea how to identify the perpetrator they suspected this person had committed serious crimes before as it was hard to believe an amateur could pull off such an elaborate crime it seemed likely he had followed the couple for a while and managed to abduct them once they reached Seattle investigators thought he might have gained their trust by asking for a ride and at some point used a gun to force them to comply with his demands they also thought that the Killer had
deliberately left Tanya's belongings and the rubber gloves in a visible place to Taun the police perhaps the killer was trying to say that it was useless to search for his fingerprints since he wore gloves and they wouldn't be able to catch him it's worth mentioning that forensic experts found several fingerprints on the van that did not belong to Tanya orj however the police doubted they belonged to the killer given that he likely wore gloves these prints were not in any databases so they did not bring investigators any closer to catching the perpetrator for the next
few weeks detectives continued to search for new leads or Witnesses and checked various suspects but none of these efforts yielded results this continued until December about a month after the murders when something unexpected happened Tanya and Jay's family started receiving letters and postcards from someone claiming to be the killer in these messages the sender confed confess to the crimes mocked the victim's families and said the police would never catch him investigators tried to trace the cinder but this was extremely difficult in those days all they could determine was which cities the letters were sent from
but this information did not help identify the perpetrator the letters continued to arrive on a regular basis often during holidays which investigators believed was the cinder's way of causing the families even more pain police also found that the letters were sent from Different cities and states indicating that the sender traveled around the country however they weren't entirely sure that the cinder was the killer in high-profile cases it's not uncommon for people to torment the victim's families with fake letters claiming to be from the perpetrator unfortunately fake letters from supposed perpetrators are a common thing since
then there was no significant progress in the case for many years detectives continued to investigate potential suspects and did not rule out the involvement of a serial killer this theory was supported by the fact that two other couples had been abducted in the same part of the state in recent years although the police found the connection between these cases tenuous in the following years investigators caught several serial killers operating in the area but none were linked to the murders of Tanya and Jay in 2003 the case was reopened and detectives entered the perpetrator's DNA sample
into the FBI database but no matches were found despite this they continued to believe that the perpetrator must have had a lengthy criminal history but either had not been caught by the police or had been arrested before DNA sampling became mandatory in 2010 something else happened this case was featured on a popular National TV program resulting in numerous fresh tips one caller suggested that he might know the identity of the person who sent the letters to the victim's family this lead pointed to a 78-year-old man From Seattle and the police began investigating him it turned
out that this man had traveled extensively around the country during those years and the location of his trips matched the cities from which the letters were sent detectives concluded that he was indeed the author of these letters but had no connection to the actual murders this individual clearly suffered from severe mental health issues and his DNA did not match the blood in Seaman s Les from the crime scenes this confirmed that the letters were written not by the real perpetrator but by a completely unrelated person the case remained cold for several more years in 2018
detectives learned about parabon a company offering to create composite sketches of individuals based on their DNA samples given the lack of any other leads investigators decided to try this method parabon experts created estimated sketches of the killer at different ages and the police distributed these images to the media hoping someone might recognize the man however it led nowhere despite this the investigators refused to give up and decided to try another method genetic genealogy parabon experts uploaded the Killer's DNA sample to public databases and began searching for any distant relatives of the perpetrator soon they identified
a possible second cousin of the Killer and started tracing her family tree they were searching for a man who lived in Seattle or its vicinity in 1987 and matched all the criteria including age with the help of his cousin they eventually identified Their suspect a 55-year-old man named William talit he lived in a Seattle suburb and worked as a truck driver before they could arrest him police needed to confirm that the Killer's DNA matched his they surveilled William for a couple of days and eventually retrieved a coffee cup he had discarded the saliva sample from
the cup provided a DNA profile that was a perfect match in mid-may 2018 30 years after the murders investigators finally arrested William he denied any involvement and the case went to court the trial began in 2019 and the defense attorneys tried to challenge the primary evidence the DNA they argued that the Sean on Tanya's body could have resulted from consensual intercourse they also pointed out that the prosecu had no other evidence directly linking William to Jay's murder however the prosecutor had a strong counterargument as we remember back in 1987 experts found fingerprints on the van
that did not match Tanya or Jay nor did they match anyone in the database at the time now experts compared these fingerprints to Williams and they were a match another crucial piece of evidence came from Williams friend he testified that he saw a brown van out inside William's house in 1987 which clearly didn't belong to him this suggested that William might have driven the van to his house although it was unclear whether this was before or after the murders William also lived only a few miles from Where Jay's body was found indicating he was familiar
with the area none of Williams relatives attended the trial but they did share quite a bit with the investigators they described William as always being very aggressive and other family members were genuinely afraid of him because of this most had cut off contact with him after he had moved out when they learned about the charges against him none were surprised that William could have committed such crimes the prosecution's theory was that William had asked ton and Jay for a ride to Seattle under some pretext once they arrived in the city at night he used a
gun to force them to drive to a remote area he then killed them at different locations discarded Tanya's belongings and the van in another town and remained off the police radar for the next 30 years without a confession it was impossible to establish more details but with such substantial evidence no one doubted Williams guilt the trial ended in June 2019 and William was found guilty of the double murder he received two life sentences without the possibility of parole notably this was the first case where genetic genealogy led to a conviction however an unexpected problem arose
after the trial Williams lawyers appealed the conviction arguing that the jury had been biased against the defendant which they claimed violated his constitutional rights and made the jurors unfit to serve this led To a judge overturning the conviction in 2021 granting William the right to a retrial however in 2022 a higher Court reversed this decision upholding the original conviction as for Williams potential involvement in other crimes there is still no Clarity he had previous convictions for minor and medium offenses but had never been charged with murder investigators still believe William may be linked to other
unsolved cases because the murder of Tanya and J did not seem like the work of an amateur the way he executed the crime and evaded Justice for decades indicated he might have killed before but we may never learn the truth share your thoughts on this story in the comment section and don't forget to press the like button if you enjoyed my video thank you for watching
