The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Solkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing. I'm Ali. And I'm Eli.
Welcome back everyone. I just wanted to take a quick second at the top here just to say thank you to everybody who's been listening. If you're new here, if you've been with us for a while, thank you so much. We've had a really outstanding January. It's been our highest number of listens. So thank you so much for just being a part of it and telling your friends and rating us and reviewing us. It means so much. It's such an honor to be a part of your week.
Yeah, it's really exciting to see how many people are coming over to the podcast and just listening and that, you know, our little podcast continues to do what it's meant to do, which is get these cases and names out there, which brings us all to this week's episode, which is a cold case. Yes, we are on a cold case this week. All right, let's jump into it. So just as a bit of a content warning at the top, this case does have mentions of sexual assault.
Today, we are going to be talking about the cold case of Fiona Yu. And this takes place in August of 1997 in Tempe, Arizona. But first, a little bit about Fiona. Fiona is 21 years old in 1997. She was a senior at Arizona State University majoring in accounting. Fiona was a dedicated student. She was always in her books and doing her homework according to family and friends. On top of her classes, she also worked part-time at the university gift shop.
Her friends and family describe her as a sweet, friendly, trusting to a fault and a little bit naive. Fiona lived off campus in the Cypress Gardens apartments with her roommate, Kazoo Aito, and her boyfriend, Tony Satterwhite. That's Kazoo's boyfriend, not Fiona's. Fiona had just met someone special too, though. He worked at a topless bar in town, and the two had been seeing each other for only a few weeks. Her friends were wary of her new relationship.
Tony Satterwhite said, quote, he didn't look like the type of guy for her. He just looked like a bully sort of guy. He looked like he could manipulate Fiona, unquote. And now, a timeline of events. On Monday, August 4, 1997, Fiona was seen by a neighbor riding her bike near East Lemon Street and South Terrace Road in Tempe. This is just around the corner from where her apartment was located. According to Google Maps, it would take a minute or less than to bike there from where she was last seen.
The neighbor said he saw her between 4 and 4.30 that afternoon. Fiona's roommate arrived home at around 5.15. Their apartment was two stories. It's like the apartment version of Row Houses, with about nine apartments all next to each other, sharing walls. When Kazoo arrived home, she stayed on the first floor for a while. After about 45 minutes, she started to get a bad feeling and decided to check out the apartment and go upstairs. It's there that she finds Fiona in the hallway.
She's partially clothed. Her pants had been lowered and her shirt was removed. She had injuries to her head and neck. There were blood stains on her body and Fiona is clinging to life. Kazoo calls 911 and Fiona is rushed to St. Luke's Hospital, but she passes away shortly after she arrives. As the case shifts to a homicide investigation, police begin to process the scene. There are no signs of forced entry at the apartment.
The blood that was found on her body will be tested and later determined that it was not Fiona's blood, so the blood must have come from the killer. The next day, Tuesday, August 5, Fiona's autopsy is conducted by the Maricopa Medical Examiner's office. The autopsy confirms what police had suspected. Fiona died of strangulation and she was sexually assaulted. Police begin looking for her boyfriend so they can question him.
They don't consider him a suspect at this time, but Sergeant Toby Dias says, quote, We want to talk to him. Find out what he knows, end quote. I assume that police are able to find him and talk to him. Years later, they will confirm in the media that he was cleared as a suspect altogether. On Friday, August 8, just four days after her murder, Fiona is laid to rest in tempeh.
Now, there's not much coverage after the initial murder, but on September 14 and 15 of 1997, that same year, it's been just over a month since Fiona was murdered. There are two separate attacks of ASU students. Both of the women survived, but they are sexually assaulted and strangled to the point of passing out, and one is cut with scissors on her legs. The media and police are interested to see if these attacks are related to Fiona's murder, given the similarities.
Tempeh police say, quote, We aren't ruling it out, but we aren't ruling it in either. Right now, it's too soon to say whether they're related, but our detectives are comparing notes with their detectives, end quote. About a week later, on September 22, two teenagers from tempeh high school are arrested and charged with attempted murder, sexual assault, robbery, and kidnapping related to the attacks on the other two ASU women.
Tempeh police are looking closely at the two teens to see if they are in any way connected to Fiona's murder. They plan to use DNA to either include or exclude the two teens as suspects. On September 24, women of Arizona State University rally Wednesday afternoon to take back the day. They argue that they're not even safe during the day, so they can't take back the night yet. Fiona is honored at the rally. They read poetry dedicated to her, and the women pushed for a bike path named after Fiona.
One of her last papers that she wrote was in support of more bike paths on campus. Police also announced that day that one of the teenagers arrested is the prime suspect in Fiona's murder. The attorney for Maricopa County says, quote, He's the prime suspect in the matter. We obtained a court order asking for the withdrawal of blood so we can compare it with DNA evidence, end quote. The teen suspect denies that he was involved in the murders altogether.
It takes months for the DNA analysis to come back, but on Monday, December 15, it's been over four months now since Fiona was murdered, and the police announced that the DNA was not a match for either teen suspect. Police will continue to investigate the teens related to Fiona's murder, but years later, police will announce that they are officially cleared of being involved. In March of 1998, so it's been seven months since Fiona's murder, and there are still no suspects in the case.
However, in Tempe, there is a man who appears to be stalking Asian women. He has attempted to kidnap at least five women, but was unsuccessful in these attempts. All of the women were able to run away to safety. Police search for the stalker and also want to know if he could be involved in Fiona's murder. And it's unclear if they are ever able to find this man or if the media coverage kind of scares him off, because I couldn't find a resolution to what happened in this particular instance.
But after that, you don't hear about Fiona's murder in the media hardly at all. There is a true crime show in 2001 that covers her murder and gets it in the public awareness, but still no real clues are developed from this according to police. In October of 2006, so it's been over nine years since Fiona's murder, police say they are reopening the case and taking an aggressive look at the case.
They believe that between the public's help and new DNA advances that they'll be able to solve the case, police theorize that the suspect is still in the area. Detective John Thompson is heading the investigation and says, quote, Fiona's family and friends deserve answers in this case. It's hard enough that they have been forced to know the what and the how of the incident, so it's only fair that they be given the opportunity to know the why. End quote.
Fiona's brother, Kevin, speaks on behalf of the family. He says, quote, my parents will never get over it. You can see that in their eyes. In fact, none of us in the family can get over it. End quote. When speaking of his sister, Kevin says that his sister was too trusting. Quote, she was very good at heart, but had no street sense. Maybe she met the wrong person. I think it was premeditated in some ways. End quote.
Police believe that the DNA will be crucial in this case and have tested several people. Detective Thompson says, quote, at this time no matches have been linked to the sample. Biological samples have also been collected from numerous acquaintances of Fiona or suspicious people in the area, but they too have come back with no match. End quote. In August of 2017, so it's been 20 years since Fiona was murdered.
Tempe Police have decided for the first time that they are going to try to use technology called snapshot DNA phenotyping. This basically takes the DNA sample and creates a composite of the person based on the DNA. Detective Lily Durans says, quote, we are hoping that getting this composite sketch would draw out people's memories. End quote.
This DNA testing or composite sketching isn't able to tell age, height, or weight of the person who gave the sample, but it can tell police the skin color, ancestry, hair, and eye color of the suspect. Based off of the DNA, he is of Latino descent and he would have light brown skin, dark eyes, dark brown eyes, and then brown hair. That composite was released to the public, but as of 2024, there have been no arrests in this case and no suspects named.
So with that, if you know anything about what happened to Fiona Yu in August of 1997, please call the Tempe Police Department at 480-250-8311. And the sources for the timeline today come from the Arizona Republic, the Tucson Sun, and 12 News, so that is the case of Fiona Yu. Thank you for bringing this case to us today. As always, you know, I'm surprised that it's one that I don't know, but I'm grateful to have learned about her today. The description of what happened is, is, was startling.
It's just heartbreaking that that was, those were her last moments, you know. I have always just like questions for you. What are your thoughts and opinions? Do you, do you, do you have a suspect, I guess? I don't have a suspect in this case. DNA was used to kind of rule out what seemed like the obvious people in the beginning, you know, the boyfriend and then these two teens who committed similar attacks just a few weeks later.
But I do agree with her brother that it was probably somebody that knew her and maybe knew her schedule a little bit because the timeframe, like the window of time for the crime to be committed before her roommate comes home is pretty small. It's, it can vary if she got home around four, that gives an hour and 15 minutes before her roommate shows up. But if she got home at 430, that leaves a half hour and you know, kind of everywhere in between.
So it seems like it was somebody who knew the layout, knew how to get in, how to get out without really being seen and maybe knew her and her roommate's schedule. That's just what I have come to. That's like the only suspect, I guess, that I could give is somebody who knew her a little bit.
Yeah. The, the violence of it and it being the middle of the day, to me, it's, it's one of two, you know, a wild person committed this crime or someone who knows a lot of details because like you said, it's a, it's a small window. And if you don't know that person, you don't know the schedule as I guess in a salient, you're like banking on a lot to go right for you when you're doing something very wrong.
So that's like bone chilling though, to think about that and the aspect of like, like stalking. Yeah, I did think that the stalker who was like targeting the Asian community, specifically women in that community, I think that is an interesting lead. And I would be curious to know if the police ever found this man, if they were able to rule him out or if he's still kind of elusive because if somebody was watching her, like that would be a stalking behavior.
So I am curious there a little bit about who that man was and what became of that story. It's something very interesting that is happening around this time. And for there to be no follow up or anything, I am curious as well. And maybe that answer is out there and I just couldn't find it. It didn't seem to be brought up in the newspapers again that I had access to. So yeah, that would be something that I would want to know the answer to and if they ruled him out in Fiona's case specifically.
But I do agree with you though about the bone chillingness of this case. Like it was scary to read about, but then also like kind of scary how little is known about the case and how it is not more widely known. I think that and I'm hoping that with us covering this case, you know, more people will as well. And hopefully we'll see some of those answers trickle through. Again, I think it's as sad and horrifying as this case is. I think it was necessary to bring it here.
Yeah, I agree with you 100%. And you know, seeing all our listeners like those numbers just come in, like that's just these names, these cases getting out there. And, you know, that does put pressure on police if there's news stories about them. It makes them look at the case again. Maybe it gives a detective that hasn't looked at the case, you know, the curiosity to go look at it themselves and maybe they're able to see something that was missed.
Like there's so many ways that just talking about these cases helps and helps bring awareness. Fresh eyes are always a good idea, you know, on things like this. I couldn't agree more that with the listeners and the numbers, just the more attention there is, the more likely it is that things will be discovered. Yeah, and I am hopeful that, you know, police have this composite based off of the DNA. We're going to be posting pictures of that composite on our Instagram.
So if you're not following us there, you absolutely should be. And of course, if you know anything about the murder of Fiona Yu in August of 1997, please call the Tempe Police Department at 480-250-8311. And again, we're going to be posting pictures of Fiona on our Instagram as well as the composite sketch created by DNA. So if you're not following us, you can find us at Cold and Missing and you can keep up with the podcast there and other true crime stories that we kind of report about.
You can also visit our website, www.coldandmissing.com. We have transcripts for every single episode. So if you or someone you love is hard of hearing, you can follow along with the podcast there. And you can also rate and review us on our website. Or if you're an Apple podcast, a written review goes a long way in getting this podcast into other people's days and into their ears, which ultimately gets these names into people's ears and in their minds and in their thoughts and conversations.
So take a minute, write us a review. We'd appreciate it so much. But that is all I have. Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing. I'm your host, Allie. And I'm your co-host, Eli. Have a good week and stay safe, y'all. �