The Officer Who Investigated His Own Crime - Episode 100

The Officer Who Investigated His Own Crime - Episode 100

She Texted Goodbye. He Described the Wrong Death.: The Death of Molly Marie Young A 21-year-old woman was found on the floor of her boyfriend's bedroom with a gunshot wound above her left eye. When her boyfriend called 911, he described an overdose — never once mentioning the visible wound to her head. The gun that killed her left no residue on her hands. So how did she pull the trigger? In this episode, we explore the eighteen-minute gap between Molly's final text and the estimated moment of the shooting, a .45 caliber handgun with no identifiable fingerprints on the trigger or magazine, and three unidentified male DNA profiles found under Molly's fingernails that investigators never matched. Was this a young woman in crisis who followed through on a desperate threat, or did someone in that apartment already know what had happened before anyone called for help? The forensic science and the 911 recording pull in two directions that cannot both be true. Case Details Victim: Molly Marie Young, 21, college student and aspiring artist. Date: March 24, 2012. Location: Carbondale, Illinois, USA. Case Status: The case remains officially unsolved and active. Jackson County State's Attorney Joe Cervantes, elected in 2020, has stated he would have prosecuted the primary person of interest and has filed a motion to unrecuse Jackson County from further investigation. Episode Key Points - Molly's gunshot residue was found only on her right sweatshirt sleeve — not on either of her hands — despite the wound being classified as a contact shot. - Richie Minton Jr. called 911 and described Molly as having overdosed and bled through her nose, never mentioning the visible gunshot wound above her left eyebrow. - Three distinct male DNA profiles were recovered from under Molly's fingernails; only Richie's DNA was submitted for comparison, and the other two profiles were never identified. - Richie's cell phone was in his possession at the police station for approximately thirty minutes before investigators took it, and when forensic tools were applied, the device failed to connect — a system his father, a digital forensics expert, had been specifically trained to operate. Molly Young, Carbondale Illinois homicide, Jackson County unsolved 2012, Southern Illinois University death, undetermined ruling Illinois, homicide, forensic science, true detective, criminal minds, investigation, murder, unsolved mysteries, true crime English.

She Texted Goodbye. He Described the Wrong Death. - Episode 99

She Was Wrapped, Bound, and Nobody Looked: The Murder of Patricia "Tricia" Melody Newsome A canvas tarp. Copper wire. Two trash bags and a cloth stuffed in her mouth. Someone spent a significant amount of time preparing this body for disposal — and then nearly fifty years passed without a single arrest. The forensic science existed. The tips came in. So why does no one answer for what happened to Tricia Newsome? In this episode, we explore how the physical evidence points to a killer with military or maritime knot knowledge, why a convicted murderer in Maine refused to speak with investigators for decades despite living five minutes from the dump site in August 1975, and how a flooded evidence room destroyed nearly everything police had collected. Was this a calculated disposal by someone who had done this before, or a crime that was simply allowed to go cold? The investigation and the DNA timeline tell two stories about what justice actually means. Case Details Victim: Patricia "Tricia" Melody Newsome, 18, private citizen reported missing by no one. Date: August 1975 (body discovered); identity confirmed April 10, 2023. Location: East Haven, Connecticut, USA. Case Status: Unsolved and actively investigated. No arrests have ever been made. East Haven Police Department continues to pursue tips as of 2023. Episode Key Points - Tricia's body was wrapped in a canvas tarp, secured with copper wire, two plastic bags, twine at wrists and ankles, and a cloth stuffed in her mouth — a level of preparation that required time, materials, and more than one pair of hands. - A convicted murderer named Glenner lived five minutes from the dump site in August 1975 and used an almost identical binding method — plastic bag over the head, mouth stuffed, ankles tied with twine — in a separate murder years later. - All physical evidence collected in 1975 was destroyed when a toilet malfunction flooded the East Haven Police evidence room, leaving investigators with only a pubic bone and swabs stored at a separate medical examiner's lab — both too contaminated for DNA testing. - When investigators exhumed Tricia's grave in June 2022, they opened the casket and found the body of an unknown young boy. Tricia's actual remains were located ten feet away in a second exhumation one month later.

She Was Wrapped, Bound, and Nobody Looked - Episode 98

The Dog Bones Buried Six Feet Deep: The Disappearance of Reed Jepson A fifteen-year-old boy stepped into his backyard to feed his dogs on a Sunday afternoon in 1964 and was never seen again. Forty-five years later, a backhoe in the neighboring yard hit something five feet down — two dogs, surgically dismembered, sealed in plastic bags. The man who owned that property in 1964 was a bone surgeon. When police finally questioned him, he didn't say Reed had run away. He said he hoped they'd find out who killed him. In this episode, we explore why the $60 Reed supposedly took to run away was found untouched in a jar in his closet, how a bone surgeon with an open-secret history of abusing teenage boys lived forty years next door to the family he may have destroyed, and why voice stress tests administered to the primary person of interest produced results investigators called deliberately sabotaged. Was this a crime of opportunity against a boy with two minutes to spare before Sunday lunch, or something far more calculated? The forensic science and a single unguarded sentence point in the same direction. Case Details Victim: Reed Jepson, 15, Eagle Scout and high school student. Date: October 11, 1964. Location: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Case Status: Unsolved and active. Salt Lake City Police Department reopened the case on May 25, 2010. No charges have ever been filed. The primary person of interest died in 2016. Episode Key Points - The $60 Reed allegedly took to fund a runaway was found intact in a jar inside his closet — every belonging he owned remained at home. - Dog remains discovered in 2009 had been surgically dismembered and buried five to six feet underground in sealed plastic bags — on a property owned in 1964 by an orthopedic surgeon. - When detectives questioned the property's 1964 owner, he volunteered that he hoped police would find out who "killed" Reed — at a time when the public narrative described Reed as a runaway, not a homicide victim. - During a voice stress test, the same man deliberately gave false answers to basic control questions, rendering the results inconclusive — then requested and passed a second test. Reed Jepson, Salt Lake City Utah missing person, cold case homicide 1964, Mill Creek Canyon remains, orthopedic surgeon person of interest, true crime, murder, investigation, forensic science, homicide, criminal minds, unsolved mysteries, true crime English.

The Dog Bones Buried Six Feet Deep - Episode 97

He Cleaned the Room. The City Became the Grave.: The Disappearance of Bruce Blackwood Bruce Blackwood called his job minutes before his shift on March 6, 2006, to say he had slipped in the bathtub — but his phone pinged a cell tower nowhere near his home. Three days later, someone spotted his prized Cadillac being driven across the city with music blasting, and Bruce was nowhere to be found. The investigation stalled for five years. The answer, when it finally came, was recorded on a flip phone by the last person anyone expected. In this episode, we explore a forged check trail totaling nearly eight thousand dollars that linked directly to the man Bruce trusted with his properties, a receipt for a long sheet of plastic and industrial quantities of sulfuric acid purchased around the time Bruce vanished, and a prison phone call in which a father coached his own daughter on exactly how to cry on the witness stand. How do you prosecute a murder with no body, no blood, and no forensic evidence — and still win? Case Details Victim: Bruce Blackwood, adult male, manager at an Off-Track Betting facility in New York City. Date: March 6, 2006. Location: New York City, New York, USA. Case Status: Luis Perez was convicted of Murder in the Second Degree in September 2015 and sentenced to 20 years to life. He is currently serving that sentence. Episode Key Points - Bruce's call to his job on the morning he vanished pinged a cell tower near his tenant's apartment building, not near Bruce's own home, directly contradicting the bathtub story. - Twelve of thirteen forged checks reported stolen by Bruce were made out to Luis Perez, with surveillance footage confirming Luis cashed them — a paper trail that existed from day one. - Purchases of a long plastic sheet and large amounts of sulfuric acid, made around the time of the disappearance, were confirmed by the seller as outside Luis's usual buying patterns. - A prison phone call captured Luis Perez instructing his daughter in precise detail — including when to cry and what words to use — on how to discredit her own recorded confession on the stand. Bruce Blackwood, New York City homicide, no-body murder conviction, Off-Track Betting New York, cold case NYPD 2006, murder, investigation, forensic science, homicide, true detective, criminal minds, cold case, true crime English.

He Cleaned the Room. The City Became the Grave. - Episode 96

The Trunk Nobody Thought to Open: The Double Murder of J.B. Hilton Beasley and Tracy Hollett Two seventeen-year-old girls called home from a payphone just after eleven-thirty at night — perfectly fine, asking for directions. By the next morning, their car sat abandoned on a back road with purses, wallets, and cash still inside. Officers stood at that car for hours before anyone thought to pull the trunk lever. The question that still lands hard: what were those officers doing while the girls were already there? In this episode, we explore a DNA profile that sat unmatched in a federal database for nearly twenty years, a paternity court order issued the day before the murders to a man who twice refused to comply, and a genetic genealogy match that finally put a name to the semen found on J.B.'s clothing. How does a double murder in a small Alabama town stay unsolved for twenty-three years when the biological evidence was recovered in the first week? Case Details Victim: J.B. Hilton Beasley, 17, recent high school student; Tracy Hollett, 17, JCPenney retail employee. Date: Night of July 31 into August 1, 1999. Location: Ozark, Dale County, Alabama, USA. Case Status: Coley McCraney was convicted on four counts of capital murder on April 25, 2023, and sentenced to life without parole on June 15, 2023. No appeal has been publicly filed as of the latest available records. Episode Key Points - Officers stood at J.B.'s unlocked car for hours on the morning of August 1 without checking the trunk because the keys were missing — a family friend had to drive from Dothan to ask about the trunk lever. - Both girls were still wet from the waist down when examined at autopsy the following day, more than fourteen hours after the car was found. - The day before the murders, Coley McCraney was court-ordered to submit a DNA sample for a paternity test — he refused, and refused again when ordered a second time months later. - McCraney was never in the CODIS national database, meaning the DNA match only became possible in 2019 through genetic genealogy run on samples from his biological relatives. J.B. Hilton Beasley, Tracy Hollett, Ozark Alabama double homicide, Dale County murder 1999, genetic genealogy cold case, true crime, homicide, forensic science, investigation, cold case Alabama, criminal minds, unsolved mysteries, murder, true crime English.