[Music] my Fascination in serial killers is not confined to death row inmates by long chalk um I have witnessed executions uh I witnessed Michael Ross being executed he had an IQ of 155 he snatched girls off the street he was called we called him the road roadside Strangler a hard-nosed New York journalist made a very good comment about Michael Ross she said if I was walking up a dark alleyway at night and I heard footsteps behind me and looked around and saw Michael Ross she said I'd be relieved he looks like the boy next door
that's chilling when Michael Bruce Ross was just 10 years old one of his many chores was strangling the weak and deformed chickens on the family Egg farm in Connecticut as a young boy he cared little for the birds and was more concerned with pleasing his parents by the time he was 21 a man later dubbed the roadside Strangler had progressed to choking the life out of human victims the seeds of Evil that would claim eight young women were swn in a violent household where Ross's mother who was later admitted to a psychiatric hospital dispensed erratic
and frenzied punishment on her eldest child her violent tendencies and a relationship with Ross's father that always was seemed to be Beyond repair dominated a farm life that was far from idilic but you can see from M Ross's childhood how it set him on the path of being so bad um he had a horrendous childhood uh he was the eldest of four children totally abused and beaten by his mother um he ended up leaving home an extremely Angry Young Man and in addition to that he'd also been raped by an uncle as well well so
he didn't like the world at all for some years and despite the abuse at home which Ross later claimed not to remember he developed a strong work ethic he was also intelligent and his impressive High School grades earned him a place at Cornell University where he presented as an approachable although sometimes awkward young man who had little trouble establishing relationships so when he went out into the Big Wide World at 22 he's tried to sort of form relationship ship with girls and he didn't have the the human skills or technique or the empathy to have
any sort of meaningful sort of human relationship with other girls the explicit charm and good character was paper thin it was only a matter of time before his sexually charged fantasies played out for real they don't become a serial killer overnight I mean there's a long incubation period you know they start off with Petty offenses stalking looking through Windows tou ing somebody in a telephone box getting a kick out of it a rape think I won't do it again then I got away with that I'll do it again again they get hooked on it then
sometimes it gets to a point where they kill because they have to the woman's screaming putting up a fight he found that as soon as a girl um dumped him pissed him off got rid of him that's when he took his anger out on a victim didn't matter who the victim was it just had to be another girl and he in fact raped and murdered eight girls uh over a 5year period but it was always after something happened in his personal life and he wanted to take this anger out on someone else he saw them
as quite impersonal people he he never saw them as victims he said um if you'd have asked me to go on an identity parade immediately after the murder I couldn't even pick out the face of the victim I've just killed he said but um I just needed to take it out on someone once you cross that threshold into murder and you don't get caught I can get all too powerful and then the events get closer and closer together until it implodes for them that's basically what it is but every serial killer is different what makes
a serial killer different to you and them me and them some people are good and some people extremely evil most of us live in the Middle Ground if we say a deeply religious missionary man would be at the good end of the sky god- fairy man at the other end of the Cy you have the devil and that's where those people sit we're in the middle they are extremes there would soon be no middle ground for Michael Ross who felt compelled to kill and his taste for power and control over the young women he came
across would lead to the violent murder of eight victims seven of them sexually assaulted either before during or after they were killed although fellow Cornell University student zung natu was one of the last to be linked to Ross she'd been the first to Die the 25-year-old faced the Killer's evil in May 1981 shortly after the pair had been in the same evening class on campus police initially suspected suicide when two's body was found in a creek at the bottom of a Gorge near the fraternity house where Ross lived family and friends were furious with the
initial assessment and refused to believe that two would take her own life she was funny Happy highly intelligent and had the world at her feet even when a subsequent examination revealed injuries not consistent with the theory she had leapt to her death police found no evidence to link the killer to the crime it would be years before to's shattered family would learn the truth of her death but it wasn't long before Ross's Criminal Intent landed him in jail shortly after graduating from Cornell where he'd studied economics he was convicted of an assault on a teenager
that could have been far more serious police had no idea Ross had already killed and that he would kill again when their intervention effectively saved the life of the 16-year-old girl who Ross had dragged into a local Woods a fine and a 2-year probation served as no deterrent and Ross set about finding more victims killing seven more girls in just 3 years intimidating them raping them comforting them and then killing them he would tell them look just going to rape you all right and he would perform the act however he did it and then afterwards
he would say he'd get them to lie on their stomachs and say look I'm just going to tie you up and I'm going to walk away and leave you so just cooperate so he would tie them up and then once they were on their stomachs looking on the ground he'd get behind them and he would then just gr up them from behind in January 1982 Ross killed again this time 17-year-old Tammy Williams who lived just a mile from the Ross family farm was raped and murdered her body wasn't found for more than 2 years leaving
her devastated parents to wonder what happened to their only child less than 2 months after Tammy Williams went missing Paula pereira's body was found by the road side in Wallkill north of New York City the 16-year-old high school student had been missing for 2 weeks after hitching a ride to a vocational cooking class it wasn't unusual for perrera to Hitch rides with strangers against the advice of her friends but this ride with Michael Ross would be her last in June 1982 Deborah Smith Taylor disappeared after an argument with her husband their car had run out
of fuel and rather than stay together as they set out to find a service station they went in different directions it was a decision that would cost Smith Taylor her life as Ross took his fourth victim mischievous teenager Robin stavinsky was the next to die at the Killer's hand a successful track and field athlete at school the 19-year-old was said to be strong and muscular she went missing in November 1983 although family and friends found it hard to believe Ross had overpowered raped and murdered stavinsky on Thanksgiving Day 1983 Steiny's mother Joan had the heartbreaking
task of identifying her daughter at a morg the depths of depravity that Ross had trolled in killing his first five victims would be surpassed by the murder of April brune and Leslie Shelly as closest sisters the best friends had been to the movies and were hitchhiking home when Ross offered them a ride instead of taking them to their Anor parents Ross drove them to a deserted Road at Preston and began his assault he forced Shelly into the boot of his car so she couldn't escape before turning his attention to brune in his confession Ross claimed
brune used a small knife as she desperately tried to defend herself while Shelly shouted words of comfort to her friend brune was brutally raped and then strangled to death before Ross returned to the car for Shelly Ross later said he had con considered Shel to have been brave so he decided not to rape her but instead killing her choking her to death that way he could avoid the possibility of Shelly identifying her as salent it was April 1984 and April brune and Leslie Shelly were just 14 years old he wasn't haunted by any of his
victims other than the youngest one the 14-year-old one for some reason that one he said played on his mind but the rest of the he had no effect on him whatsoever so he killed these innocent girls raped them grotted them and had no impact on his mind at all Wendy barabol would become Michael Ross's final victim the 17-year-old's body found under a pile of rocks on the side of the road in Griswald Connecticut in June 1984 she had left a note to her parents to tell them she was walking to a local shop but never
returned this time during their investigation a police received a tip off that a man had been sitting in a blue Toyota car close to where barabol had been found Ross owned a car matching the description and since his house was in the vicinity of the murders he was one of the first suspects police visited the game was up some serial killers deny their guilt leaving the detail of their murders to be unpicked by police and their forensic teams others can't wait to tell more driven by ego and the same power that had compelled them to
kill Michael Ross's immediate admission to several murders was only part of his story prompted by criminologist Christopher Barry D he spilled the final chapters with alarming cander allowing police to uncover the extent of his serial killing he sat in front of me and I had two unsold homicides that I wanted to clear up with him and I wanted from him information that only the police and nobody else knew and we formed a good relationship if you like through correspondence and a previous visit people say why you must be terrified you must be scared it must
frighten you but it doesn't because I am as cold as ice when I'm with them they can tell me anything they can shout they can scream but they can't touch me they won't touch me because they only kill the vulnerable people and if you show any emotion whatsoever when you're interviewing these people you become weak in their eyes and it is that control it's knowing that they Psychopaths they can lie and cheat and lie and cheat but I'm already inside their heads and I manipulate them I have no fear at all he knew that I
was compassionate towards him in other words I I I made sure that he had cocacola and I made sure his cuffs were taken off behind his back and he was Unshackled and we were talking and talking and I could see him manipulating he was boasting about his murders how it how long it took to strangle a girl that sometimes there were multiple bruises around their necks because they wriggle around on the floor then he lets off cuz he can't come and he needs to build his sexual pressure up again and I looked at him and
I didn't even blink and I said to him Michael you're not a big hitter 67 what's that you're not a Ted Bundy you're not a Kenneth bian you're small fry little guy and he looked stunned I said I said youve V you've only got five and he suddenly said no I've done seven I said no you haven't he said I've I've done seven and I have to worry about entament you understand me and he said I killed zup to and pul the Pereira I said you didn't and I said tell me about zok to he
said I threw over a dam into into the river he said at Cornell University he said I didn't kill her he said that she drowned and then asked him about Paula Pereira and I had all the crimes in photographs everything the maps everything so I L across to him and I said Michael with Paula what did you do with the body he said I dumped her by a Willow Tree near a little stream by a pull off off the road I said what was she wearing he said and he told me a school uniform I
said what did you do with the body then Michael he said I treated it like so much trash like garbage I'd used her abused her and walked away I've got my confessions the police armed with that and armed with the transcripts and the film tapes of that went back to interview him and he was subsequently charged with another two homicides and I had letters of commendation from the New York State Police and the Crystal Run police and letters of thanks from the parents for putting their minds rest but that's what happens when you get involved
with somebody like Michael Ross in July 1987 Michael Ross received six separate death sentences for killing Wendy barabol Robin stavinsky Leslie Shelly and April brune in July 1994 following years of legal argument the death sentences were overturned because a the judge had incorrectly excluded a letter from a psychiatric report 4 years later Ross gave up his fight against his death sentences he claimed to have felt guilt and in prison found God and worked as a braal translator in the hope of redemption some saw him as a reformed character including Susan Powers who was engaged to
the killer but broke up with him 2 years before he was put to death on May 13th 2005 Michael Ross a sadistic rapist who had killed his victims to cover his tracks was administered a lethal injection at Osborne Correctional Institution in Summers Connecticut watched by the family of some of those he had murdered the roadside Strangler was [Music] dead in the dry hot summer of 2005 the desert City of Phoenix Arizona was facing an unprecedented number of gruesome homicides serial Shooters Dale hner and Samuel deetman were vying for airtime against the brutal Baseline killer in
the most heinous possible way randomly shooting dead people on the street I was a public information officer and at uh the same time we had two cases come up a series of crimes that were distinctly separate but apparently uh serial cases uh one of them was the serial shooter case which be which uh started out with the number of animals being shot and turned into the number of people being shot and then a number of homicides and the other one was uh the Baseline killer case instigator D hner was determined to make headlines the serial
Shooters kept track they would follow the the Baseline killer case as well as her own case and the numbers of people that were murdered think she's notorious he was on the news it was almost like well this serial killer got the Press tonight we better go out and do something so we get the press back on us you know the notoriety on us he was he was all about himself and being in the Limelight as so many serial killers are yeah and that's not unusual again this is all about damage and control and fear and
Anarchy and that's what these two did on a on a daily or weekly basis that was what they're that's what you have when you have serial murder you have people that want to cause as much damage as much fear in a community as they can and that's exactly what they do detective Clark schwarzkoff was the lead investigator in the serial shooter case it's not unusual for thrill Killers to cause as much havoc and damage as they want to as or as they can they when you're a when you're a Serial murderer and you you you
target humans you do it because you want to inflict pain on the human if you want to inflict pain on humans what's the what's the one way that you can do it without shooting a human is shooting their animal people are very attracted to animals and you can cause a lot of Carnage and you can cause a lot of Heartache to the owner of that animal when you gun it down when Phoenix police realized they were dealing with two sets of serial killers the urgency to identify and capture the killers plaguing the city was palpable
it was a shock to the police department because uh it was something that Police Department had to face not only with trying to solve this but Manpower uh to get uh enough people to cover certain areas so that they could try to catch this person uh deal with the public to satisfy their needs and to calm the the public down uh it was a quite a task for them something that I don't think they've ever been faced with before and you're talking about 14 months of chaos and havoc and and and fear in a public
so the longer the series went on obviously the more pressure it became our story gained more interest in the summer of of 200 six based on them stepping up their their activity when the Baseline killer fell off so ours became more and more pressure towards the end of the case the last 2 months than it was in the first 12 months it takes a it takes a very strong toll on you especially when you're working 100 to 120 hours a week uh trying to balance all those things uh but what you have to keep doing
is just have to keep pushing forward the goal is to get uh a resolution to make an arrest and stop the crimes so you just have to keep looking towards that goal and not letting things that come up detract from that Dale Shan hner was born in Nebraska in February 1973 the youngest of five boys hner grew up with a tough disciplinarian father a school dropout malicious Behavior came early to Dale hner he was um a Bad Seed from the very beginning um he is a psychopath at age 8 he sat his lawn on fire
um when he was 17 um and I'll go through the progression of how bad he really was um he was a a master thief from about age 10 uh at 17 he um went to purchase a vehicle and tried to negotiate a lower price on the vehicle and then the owner said no and Dale came back later and arson the vehicle blew it up basically it started on fire at about age 18 he went to work um at a Walgreens and began to embezzle products from the store uh to fund his whatever it was he
would whatever it was he was doing he was completely antisocial Dale was like I said born bad Samuel John deep was born in October 1975 and raised in Minnesota he married his high school girlfriend fathering a child with her but they later divorced deetman developed a criminal record that spanned forgery disorderly Behavior drunken driving and shoplifting by the time deetman was arrested in 2006 he'd already notched up 37 incounters with the police across two states Tracy wittenberger brother Ron Horton new deetman he lived with my brother for a short time and um he wasn't a
bad guy at that point um I think he was just down on his luck and ended up getting in with the wrong people he didn't have a job he didn't he didn't have anything so this person was taking care of him and I think that kind of led him into this path he was doing what he was told for a place to stay and food to eat and drugs and beer and not beer but liquor um he was just kind of following Dale Sam became kind of a sociopath where he was actually put in different
situations because of his social upbringing and who he associated with that's how he became dangerous Dale on the other hand was just a bad bad person for the very get-go the torment of driveby shootings had continued for over 12 months but with the shooters leaving few CL CL and no eyewitnesses police had little to go on so they continued to ask the public for help well you you want to solve as quickly as possible because you don't want any more you don't want any more people hurt but the problem was we just didn't have any
information we had no Witnesses no one that could identify anybody one shot fired very little information on vehicles so we're basically grasping in the dark these guys are operating as ghosts at late at night I mean your typical uh stalking predatory type of violence and we were struggling to try to get any information any intel we could any tip that we could to give us some kind of direction to go the more information the public has even if there's no solution yet the more they know the more they're aware that the police department is willing
to share with them the better it is in terms of the public remaining peaceful and Vigilant and calling in because there's a great dependency to get from the public there was a key witness that came forward and we were putting tips out or asking for the Public's help all the time and telling people to be vigilant and call in with any suspicious activity and boy we got thousands of calls but we did get one call from a gentleman who uh said that he thought he knew who was killing these people and that was Ron Horton
Horton was perhaps one of the most unlikely people to call police with a tip off my brother um on the outside was rough tough biker kind of guy um but he was very um uh generous and and kind um I know it was very difficult for him to do what he did to turn um Sam and Dale in um cuz he considered it snitching and bikers don't do that so I know that that was difficult for him but he felt he knew he was doing the right thing I had a ton of respect for Ron
and still do to this day and his family and Ron was the type of guy that hung out with some rugged rough people who wouldn't talk to the police if their life depended on it but yet Ron knowing what he knew and knowing people were getting killed came forward I was um fortunate enough to be able to talk to Ron when that tip came in in and I interviewed Ron about what happened over the phone and then I met with him later on in the day Ron Horton's information was key to Leading the police to
the identity and whereabouts of the serial Shooters Ron knew specifics about the case that the public didn't know about and he learned that from from Sammy particularly uh using a shotgun a 410 shotgun nobody knew that so when Ron told us that we knew we had something good there Ron's story was he uh hung out at a bar with a bunch of his friends played pool all the time and um he was talking to this friend of his Named Sam and one night while they were drinking Sam just asked him if he knew what it
was like to kill anybody and Ron thought no that's just drink talking going on and kind of pushed it aside but then Sammy just kept pushing the issue even started telling him about shooting somebody so Ron thought well there's more to this I know what's going on in the news I better uh tell somebody about it and he did he came forward and and told the police and told me his story police already knew who Samuel deetman was he'd been named as a person of interest for an arson attack on a Walmart store following Ron's
revelation Sam immediately became a person of interest in the serial shooter case well I convinced Ron to uh obviously try to make contact and stay in contact with Sammy try to meet for beers and whatever so we can get a tail on him so we can keep an eye on him and not only that to see who he's hanging around with and where he's living he wasn't worried and if even if he was he was able he was willing to take that uh on if somebody was to threaten him or come after him he was
ready for that he still felt in his mind that he wanted to do the right thing and end this Killing Spree the investigation team wanted Ron and Sam to meet again quickly Sam would likely reveal more leads to Ron enabling police to make an arrest but getting Sam to meet Ron again wasn't so simple the first night we were able to identify um Sammy through Ron he was trying to arrange a meeting with um Samy that night and so we could get our surveillance going that night well it turned out Samy did not want to
have anything to do with Ron during the night he seemed preoccupied they were texting each other back and forth uh and Sammy just wouldn't cooperate with Ron that night they come to find out that's because they were out hunting a victim and they found one uh the the young girl in Mesa Arizona and uh we found out that and Ron found out that that night and was just devastated that he couldn't convince him I know he took that last um I believe it was like a 21 or 22y old girl he took that one really
hard he felt that had he done something sooner or pushed uh Sam to meet with him sooner that he could have prevented that one so that one really a at him the following night Sam accepted Ron's invitation to meet for a beer the police were ready in waiting when the meeting time happened our vehicle that we knew we were looking for pulled into the parking lot with Sammy in it being driven by who we later found out to be Dale and that was the vehicle that we knew they were driving when they were doing these
crimes the reason we knew and the reason I knew it was I was sitting in the bar parking lot waiting for Sam to show up and I saw the vehicle roll in and at that point in the investigation we had a pretty good description from one of the victims and I recognized the vehicle immediately and I knew it was our two guys we were able to get the license plate of the vehicle description of the vehicle and then we had surveillance units follow Dale after he dropped Sam off at the bar when we followed Dale
hner he went a looping around the city and took a route which he should have never taken which was down vanan street he was surveilling B Bean Street it was a killing Street for him in our city there had already been six shootings on that seat on that street alone so when I follow him down that street I knew that he was surveilling it and I also knew that that we were on the right track of the right person we kept a tail on him the whole night and he led us to where they were
living Sammy on the other hand uh stayed at the bar with Ron they drank they moved to another bar did a little more drinking and then um comes to find out that um Ron took him to a casino um and that's where he left him the police had to tread a fine line between Gathering evidence and intervening to prevent a kill while retaining their cover it was the worst night of my life as a as a police detective or officer this is where I got really really really scary we knew that they they shot from
their car and we knew that there was two of them or at least I knew that Sam was seen taking something from the trunk of the vehicle and placing it inside the vehicle which was a bag and of course we first thing that we thought of okay that's the gun that's the gun they're going to be using so with multiple people multiple surveillance we watch them troll the the streets of Southeast Phoenix Chandler Gilbert um in circles slowing down looking for pedestrians watching people on bicycles doing counter surveillance of people looking to see if anybody
was following them and for 2 and 1/2 hours they trolled those streets looking for someone to shoot and we could tell based on their actions alone with a plane overhead watching them 10 surveillance units continually rolling around and we knew that they were out there actually looking for victims they actually rolled up on two kids on a bicycle slowed down but we had units right on top of them going both ways and a guy right on their bumper and they failed to shoot Sam later told me that they were they were going to shoot but
they it did the coast wasn't clear after they started cruising the streets looking for a victim they were pretty conf that they found one that they were intending on assaulting but uh we shed those people out of the area that person out of the area uh and then it started raining so they just drove home back to the apartment by the time Dale and Sam returned home undercover police had wiretapped their apartment we were able to listen to them and they were chatting quite a bit they were bragging they were comparing themselves to the DC
sniper that was going on that had just occurred in Washington DC and uh they they were pretty proud of what they were doing for about 7 hours that evening they would switch channels on their TV to every news station that was covering any information about the serial shooter case and we were monitoring the same stations that they were watching and flipping to then that night for the very first time and Sam admitted this is goes it was the best night for you guys to tap our conversations because they went through numerous shootings that they had
been involved in laughing yucking it up talking about um individuals who'd been shot individuals who went down individuals who've been screaming individuals um that they actually they actually on one of the on one of the shootings actually went out and contacted the victim they talked about that they made fun of Robin basnik who was the last murder victim blasik um I'll think so I know a blast NE making fun of her name they called her blast neck which referred to the shooting of over with a shotgun so they went through numerous cases and laid them
out for us and that was all we needed that wi tap was crazy you know before uh when we first got the wire tap on and Dale had a daughter a little daughter and this just killed us to listen to was um before they when they put the daughter to bed Dale told the daughter to tell Sammy not to kill any body tonight and she repeated it good night Sam in the morning in the morning hey don't kill anybody morning that's too early ready hey don't kill anybody you know to hear a little kid say
that in her baby talk was just gotcha over the next few days the investigation team patiently listened and watched Dale and Sam acre little pieces of evidence that would later help to convict the pair Sam had emptied a garbage full of trash throw it in a trash bin one of our undercover units uh had seized it brought it down to me and inside it we found some very incriminating evidence um a piece of paper with the victim's name on it uh a shotgun shell of the exact same caliber and cartridge that was used on our
last victim uh uh we were able to get newspaper clippings from this garbage um on Days Of The Murder so it was a an any map which actually pinpointed locations where they'd actually shot people it was a treasure Trove within 9 days of Ron Horton's telephone call to the Phoenix police the SWAT team stormed Dale's apartment and arrested him in saying the serial shooter scourge of Phoenix was over seems like it was just yesterday when we were so tired and and we'd been up when we made the rest most of us been up for like
54 straight hours we hadn't slept you know we were unkempt we were you know we were just done we were at our ends rope and I I look back at that and I go I don't I I wonder somehow how we survived how we really functioned how we were able to put it all together in such a very short period of time a 14-month Crim spree of Serial shootings within a 9-day period Dale had told me that he thought it was a some kind of drug stand cuz he was a heavy methamphetamin user both he
and Sam were and they used drugs constantly when they went out and shot people I think that was where Sam got the courage I think it fueled Dale's passion for the thrill killing the investigators were confident they had the serial Shooters in custody but they didn't want to get the hopes up of the families devastated by the Killer's crimes after all police still had no eyewitnesses to the murders and getting a conviction would be another major hurdle it was a tough case to prove it was when you don't have witnesses and you have very little
evidence and most of the stuff that you have um is tough to try to prove in court the question was whether a jury would be able to look at this and and figure it out based on just small pieces of evidence was it enough to convict both of them of eight murders and 27 other human shootings and then uh 15 other animal shootings schwarzkoff interviewed both suspects EX defensively at first he thought Sam was the ring leader that impression soon changed when he interrogated Dale well I just sat and let Dale talk I let him
explain you know his life and I would and he went in he was the one that broached the series and I just let him talk about it he he was laughing at police how stupid we were how how you couldn't find somebody how come we couldn't set up you know people on Corners to catch these guys so he just and I let let him just continue to hang himself as he continued to tell us and tell me how ridiculously dumb investigators are when we are dealing with this why couldn't we catch these guys and then
he proceeded to lay out his guns what he had his ammunition how he knew Sam where he met Sam how Sam came into his life everything that I would need to just basically come back and say well what about this this and this what about the map I found the garbage what is this oh I don't know what that is well what about what about the joh G shell in your guard oh I don't know what that is what's this name on this why is this victim's name written down why do you have obituaries of
people that have been murdered so once he realized that the game was up then he kind of shut down but for 5 hours I said let I said and let him tell us how stupid we were Dale came across as you're never going to catch me I'm too good and too great at what I do to catch me and real arrogant Sammy on the other hand was uh somebody that seemed like a follower and would do anything for somebody that's trying to lead him to do bad things and he was more of the uh pretty
passive and uh apologetic and pretty calm of the two Sam deetman turned States evidence for us so he gave me everything in numerous interviews about how they would plan their attacks what they would do uh what they did to finance their operations how they got their money how they got their drugs how they picked their targets everything Sam's confession was a thrilling development for the investigation team in contrast news of their star witness Ron Horton was grave he became uh ill right after that so he wasn't alive during the trial at all um because I
remember the detectives coming to the hospital to see him because at that point they were concerned about the whole case being gone um but um so yeah and he passed away probably what within a few weeks right I think it it was pretty close yeah I was there the day uh just pretty much the day he died in the hospital I remember going seeing him and I knew he even though he was in a coma I I went into the room by myself and I grabbed his hand and I said Ron you're great I told
him I loved him and he squeezed my hand in March 2009 Dale hner was convicted of 80 counts of attempted homicide driveby shooting and cruelty to animals he received the death penalty 4 years later he committed suicide Samuel deetman was convicted of two homicides and conspiracy to commit homicide and sentenced to life imprisonment you know I never had the sense that it was joyful I had the most of the sense was relief I was relieved for uh those uh suffering families and loved ones who who needed to begin to be able to work through their
grief I was relieved for the investigators who just poured themselves out endlessly and uh it was more of relief after deetman was sentenced Tracy wittenberger corresponded with Samuel deetman while he was in prison did give me some closure I did ask him um how he felt about Ron uh knowing that he was the one that turned him in and um he was grateful he said Ron was a good friend and he um he was glad it happened he wasn't angry at him and and you know that gave me some peace too not that it mattered
what he thought but it helped me detective Daryl Smith kept in has kept in touch with my mother there ever since I mean it's been what 9 10 years now and um he he still calls her um on my brother's death you know it's a it was a tragedy I mean horrible but yeah I I think sometimes too when these horrible things happen it does bring people closer together like our [Music] family [Music] [Music] he [Music]
