The Murder Years: Ep. 5 - Victoria

This series is inspired by true events. The stories you're about to hear are fictional, and so are the characters who are played by actors.

Principal Palumbo here, remember Valentine's Day is Friday, and today's the last day of carnation sales one dollar a carnation, and the proceeds go to help fund the concert choir's trip to Nationals.

After Charlotte Murphy's murder at the ice cream shop, it was nice to have a distraction like Valentine's Day, even though it could be pretty stressful. At Mount Pine High School, a person's popularity can be basically measured by how many carnations they get on Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day was all about the carnation.

Back in nineteen eighty six, sixteen year old Lauren Collins is a junior like us. She's the stereotypical varsity cheerleader. Today, Lauren live in Houston and is the manager at a high end hotel and spa.

It was not only about who I'm buying carnations for, but who was buying carnations for me? And the colors set it all white for friendship, pink for a secret crush and red for love.

Of course, this Valentine's Day, I'm wondering how many carnations all get from my new boyfriend Ethan.

Today.

He's a fifty two year old divorce attorney, and of course he's divorced.

My clan was to make it a very romantic Valentine's Day for Nancy. But man, we had no idea it would be a bloody Valentine.

I'm Nancy Clark.

This is The Murder Years, episode five, Victoria.

Finally, it was Friday, Valentine's Day. Flowers were going to be coming to our homeroom class.

Tatiana and I were always in the same homeroom, so we got to experience the carnations thing together every year.

I checked my diary. Of course, I wrote it down.

I got six white ones and one red one from my boyfriend.

I was pissed he only got me one.

I got five white carnations and ten red ones. Ethan did good. But Lauren, the cheerleader, well, Lauren cleaned up.

I got something like thirty carnations. It was kind of crazy. We carried the flowers around all day and everyone took note of who got the most. You know, sure, I know It sounds dumb now, but it was very important then.

The plan for that night is Ethan and I are double dating with Tatiana and her boyfriend. We all go to China Buffet, then to the Valentine's dance at school. At the end of the night, Ethan and I have a pretty good makeout session in his car while Tatiana and her date are still dancing, and then Ethan drops me and Tatiana off at her house for a sleepover. We're way too hyper asleep, so we're up for hours talking about dinner and the dance, and then.

We hear something.

It sounds like screams, blood curling, screams.

Nine one one, what's your emergency?

Oh my god, my daughter she's gone.

Oh my god, my daughter is gone.

It's around two am when Mount Pine police arrive at the Blue and White ranch house on Allendale Lane, three doors down from Tatiana's house. We're outside watching everything. On the front we see Dorothy Brown and her fourteen year old son, Donnie. Dorothy is sobbing while Donnie nervously swings a baseball bat and paces the lawn.

I arrived at a very chaotic.

Scene back in nineteen eighty six. Detective Marcia Thompson is a four year veteran of Mount PINEPDE. Today she's an investigator in the Prosecutor's office. She told me she would only talk to me if she could find her notes and review them first.

Thankfully she did so.

Yes, I was first informed that thirteen year old Victoria Brown was missing, and as we know, every second counts when there's an abduction.

People in town know the Brown family. Sadly, they're no strangers to tragedy. Dorothy's husband died in a horrible car accident six years before and now this.

So because we had a missing girl, we cordoned off the area until the canine unit from the county arrived. I tried to talk to Dorothy outside. She was hysterical, understandably, so she told me everything was normal up until then. She got home from work. She worked at Ridgemont nursing Home. She made dinner and a heart shaped pink duncan Heine's cake for the kids. Around seven point thirty, Victoria came home from her friend's house.

She was in a good mood.

She didn't have dinner because she had already eaten at her friends, but she did have a lot of cake, which then turned into a belly ache, so she went to her room and fell asleep. Donnie got home around nineish, ate cake and played Autari until around eleven pm, then he went to bed. Dorothy said she got up from bed at one forty five to get a drink, and when she she got close to Victoria's room, she noticed the door was open and cold air was blowing into

About fifteen minutes after Detective Thompson speaks with Dorothy, the canine unit arrives, led by Officer Dixon, an expert with dogs.

When Me and Copper arrived, we learned a young girl was missing.

In nineteen eighty six.

Canine Officer Charles Dixon is on his third dog, Copper.

One of the things that makes it, So we're easy for a canine to follow. A scent is the adrenaline rush accentuates, So why don't you start the doll on a particular scent. He'll follow that sent until he either finds it or losing. Window was opening the girl's bedroom, and the police believed she was taking out that window. So that's where we start. Right away, Copper tractor sent from that window, and I followed.

Officer Dixon says.

Copper led him to the bottom of the muddy hill about fifty yards behind Victoria's house. There they find her partially clothed, beaten body.

Oh, it was a very upsetting site. I mean, of course, the worst case scenario, I'd hope Copper would help us find Victoria alive, or you know, at least lead us to a suspect. Of the two of them. Victoria's adrenaline was stronger than the suspects, and unfortunately we were just too late. We set word back to Detective Thompson that we found the victim again.

Detective Marcia Thompson.

I mean, it was just awful news. And her body was found so close to her house and with her mother and brother right there. When I told Dorothy the tragic news. She was in shock and insisted on seeing her daughter with her own eyes. I tried to talk her out of it, but she demanded to see her.

So we walked.

Down the hill, and I mean you could see her body in the distance.

God.

When we got there, the officer proved back the sheet and Dorothy collapsed. She fainted. Thankfully, there were paramedics on scene to help her.

It's hard to believe Tatiana and I are right there watching this tragedy full of before our own eyes.

I could not believe my sweet neighbor had been murdered. She was such a nice, nice girl. My babysat her a few times when her mom would run to the store. Honestly, this one just about broke me.

Dorothy, Donnie, and Victoria's grandparents are eventually escorted to the police station.

I had to refresh my memory with the police reports about what happened next. Once the family left the scene, I entered the house. I'll read you some of it, it says. I walked in the front door. There appeared to be no signs of forced entry. The living room looked undisturbed. To the right was the kitchen, which also looked undisturbed. On the table, there was a heart shaped cake that I said, I love you, but most of the cake had been eaten. Yeah, that cake hurt my heart. Anyway, I'll keep reading.

I made my.

Way to Victoria's bedroom and it was cold because the window was wide open.

It was February.

Victoria's room was a typical preteen girls room, posters of Michael J. Fox from Teen Wolf, The Goonies, and Whitney Houston. I remember when I walked closer to her bed, I saw blood droplets which led to the open window, and the drapes had been pulled down. That made me think that Victoria was fighting her abductor as she was being taken out of the house. I wasn't sure how the perpetrator got in, but I was pretty sure how they left.

At the station, Victoria's family sits in one of the interview rooms waiting for Detective Thompson to arrive.

Asking the family to talk about it with me so soon after seemed cruel, but we couldn't waste any time, so I asked, could they think of anyone who would have wanted who may have wanted to hurt Victoria. Dorothy and the grandparents said no, absolutely not. They couldn't think of a soul who would want to hurt Victoria. They said she was the most wonderful girl. She was kind

Yeah, Victoria told me someone was giving her a weird feeling. She says she didn't like being alone with him. She said it was someone in our family.

Thirteen year old Victoria Brown was abducted from her bedroom in her own house, beaten, sexually assaulted, and murdered. Her mom, Dorothy, her fourteen year old brother, Donnie, and their grandparents are at the Mount Pine Police station talking with Detective Marcia Thompson. And Donnie just dropped a bomb. Here's more of his audio taped interview.

My sister told me that she had a strange feeling being around. Someone asked for who, and she just looked down. I asked her what that meant. Said she didn't like the way this man looked at her, touched her. It made her feel weird. She said, he gave her the creeps and she didn't want to be along with him. I asked her again who she was talking about. She said it was uncle Martin.

Well, everyone started talking at once. Dorothy was yelling at Donnie. Why didn't he ever say anything? The grandparents insisted there was no way Martin would do anything to a young girl. I had to call in another detective to help me calm things down.

Martin Brown is Dorothy's brother in law, her late husband's brother. He works at the Junior High School as a security guard. That's where Victoria went to school. Around five am, police go to Martin Brown's home and ask him to come down to the station and he does, here's Martin.

Yeah.

When the officers came to my door, I was getting ready to go to bed. They told me my niece was found dead and I was like, what, Victoria's dead. But it wasn't just that they were notifying me. They wanted me to come to the station with them. I had no idea why. I thought maybe they thought I could help find the killer. It was also hard to process Victoria is dead and they want to talk to me about it.

When Martin Brown arrived, I remember he looked disheveled. In my notes, I wrote what he was wearing a light blue work shirt, khakis, and work boots. He looked nervous, but he also looked confused. I told him what happened Victoria, purposefully leaving a lot of details out.

She got very upset.

I then wanted to know about his relationship with Victoria.

I told the detective we had a typical uncle nice relationship. I supported her and everything she did. I went to all of her soccer games. I stepped into a surrogate father role after her dad, my brother died.

I then told him what Victoria had shared with her brother Donnie, that she felt uncomfortable with him.

I asked him why he thought that would be.

I had no idea why Victoria would have said that, and I was hurt that she felt that way. I'd never done anything to a child, any child. I never did anything to her. I wouldn't and couldn't. I mean, come on, I had a daughter myself around the same age. I had no answers for the detective. I did know one thing. I didn't kill my niece. I loved her, and I told the detective. I worked that night. I worked security at the high school Valentine's Day dance, so

So I had to verify his whereabouts, and I hoped for this family's sake.

It all checked out.

By Sunday morning, police finished processing the scene. They dust for fingerprints and take pictures both inside the house and where Victoria's body was found outside, and they find no signs of force entry. Tatiana and I never get to sleep that night. When police come to her house, we tell them what we know, which isn't much actually, just that we heard screams sometime before two am, but that was it. We didn't see anything at all. I feel so bad that was happening so close to us and

I'm outside the home of an unthinkable crime which took place last night. Thirteen year old Victoria Brown was abducted from her own home and dragged out of.

Her bedroom window.

She was murdered and her body was found only fifty yards behind her house. Police have no suspects yet some of the families in the neighborhood worry this young girl might be the victim of a serial killer who's been terrorizing the Midwest for years.

So, starting back in the late seventies, the Midwest child killer murdered four little girls, ranging in ages from.

Five to eight.

Now, those victims weren't from Mount Pine. One victim was from our state, the others were from neighboring states. Yes, some details were similar to what happened in the Brown case. The killer would come in the house through an unlocked window or door, usually during the summer months, abduct the child always girls, and make them away from the house, where he would sexually assault them and stab them to death. Because there were some similarities, we called the FBI and

We called a press conference.

That Sunday night. There's a vigil outside the Brown's home. I swear the whole town turns out. Even though I didn't know Victoria, I mean, she was three years younger than me, didn't matter. It felt like we had lost one of our own family members.

My heart broke for missus Brown and Donnie. My mom brought dinner over that night. I mean, we didn't know what else we could do.

I wanted to go hug them. Instead, we just hugged each other.

Detective Marsha Thompson is also at the vigil.

I kept scanning the crowd for anything or any one strange. I didn't see anything that piqued my interest or looked suspicious. It was so sad that poor, poor family. The next day, it was a Monday, the coroner's office called with some important information. Victoria's cause of death was strangulation. In my notes from that it says I went back and reread the interview I conducted, and the interviews the other the other officers had conducted. It was then I noticed a

I knocked on the door.

The door opened with only a crack, and a man with salt and pepper hair was standing in the living room. I asked him his name. He asked why. Why, then said I'm Frank Hartford.

I'm Frank Hartford.

Back in nineteen eighty six. Frank Hartford is a middle aged truck driver. He's tall and burly, with a raspy cigarette voice, a little rough around the edges, is putting it nicely.

I asked him if I could come in and ask him some questions, but he told me, in no uncertain terms, no, without a search warrant, I couldn't come in.

Then he abruptly closed the door.

I don't know how to explain it, but I had a feeling. I had a bad feeling about him, so I went back to run a Frank Hartford through the system.

Detective Thompson learns the house on Allendale Lane belonged to Frank's mother, who died two years before, and Frank's got a criminal record. He had a domestic violence charge, which was dropped in an animal cruelty charge for which he pleaded guilty. He paid a fine and got probation.

I did some more digging and learned that Frank Hartford had a fifteen year old son named Stephen. I called Dorothy Brown, Victoria's mother, to see if she knew anything about Frank or Stephen Hartford. Her reaction said everything.

Mount Pine Police Detective Marcia Thompson is investigating the murder of thirteen year old Victoria Brown.

I called Victoria's mother, Dorothy, to see if she knew either Frank or Stephen Hartford who lived down the street, and she said yes. Four months prior to her daughter's murder, she caught the son, Stephen, breaking into a car and she called the police on him. Dorothy asked, you don't think he had anything to do with Victoria, do you? I told her I was going to investigate some more. When I hung up with Dorothy, I dove back into

Her daughter over it? That seems pretty severe.

Fifteen year old Stephen Hartford is in the same grade as Donnie, Victoria's older brother. Donnie and Stephen aren't friends, but they ride the same bus to and from school.

I asked Donnie about Stephen, but he really didn't know much about him. He didn't have any information that could help us. I knew what I had was thin, but it was basically a hunch, but a possible motive. So I went to the prosecutor anyway, hoping we could get a search warrant for the Hartford home based on the

Police spend four hours searching the Hartford house but can't find anything incriminating. Then in an old beat up freezer in the garage they do.

We found a bag of clothes. There was a sweater with what looked like blood particles. There was also a pair of jeans with what looked like blood and on the knees dried mud or dirt.

In the bag were socks and tennis shoes.

Those two had blood on them and the bottom of the shoes they were caked in mud. And all those clothes we found belonged to Stephen Hartford. In order to arrest Stephen Hartford, we needed to know if the blood on the clothes was victorious. Now, remember this was before DNA, so we would just match the blood type.

During this time, police units have Stephen Hartford under surveillance. They don't want him fleeing or committing another crime.

Several long days later, the results came back. Victoria's blood type matched what was found on Stephen's sweater, jeans, socks, and shoes.

Almost two weeks after Victoria Brown's murder, Stephen Hartford is arrested and charged with first degree murder and sexual assault.

We picked him up as he got off the school bus. He had no emotion whatsoever. At the police station. Tried to get information from him, but he remained silent. He wouldn't cooperate. His dad wasn't helpful either, And bear in mind too, he was a juvenile, so we had to go through.

A juvenile process.

We felt strongly that he should be tried as an adult. The prosecutor felt the same way, and so Stephen Hartford would be tried as an adult.

Detective Thompson tells Donnie and his mother, Dorothy, their fifteen year old neighbor was arrested for killing Victoria, and they have very different reactions. Donnie wants to kill him, and Dorothy cries and blames herself.

Dorothy Brown crumbled. She sobbed and crumbled. She said, if she hadn't turned him in for breaking into that car, her daughter would still be here.

When my friends and I learn of Stephen Hartford's arrest, well, once again we are stunned. Not only was another young girl murdered, this time it was at the hands of one of our classmates.

They were both my neighbors, the Browns and the Hartford's. I mean, how was I ever going to feel safe again?

You know?

My parents actually took me to a psychologist after Stephen's arrest.

They were worried about me.

Six months later, the trial begins. Prosecutor Laura Wells tries the case for the state.

I had no doubt that the right person was on trial, furious murder. We had it all. We had motive revenge, We had physical evidence, victorious blood on his clothes. And we had more. We had doctor Marcus Summers, a geologist who specializes in analyzing soil samples.

Prosecutor Wells gets me the audio tapes of the trial.

Doctor Summers, do you saw me swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth will help you?

God, I do you may be seated.

So my expertise is in glacier movements, how the earth was formed, and how that.

Soil is unique.

My colleagues and I can usually tell within a few inches exactly where soil came from and the sample of the source where the victim's body was found matched the sample that we found on the pants of the defendant in matched in color, mineralogy, and grain size, and after testing, we concluded that there was a less than one percent chance that this sample came from any other site within one hundred miles.

Pathologist Michael Tappt, who performed the autopsy, also testifies Victoria.

Was manually strangled with direct pressure to the neck with the fingers of a person's right hand. It would have taken approximately three to seven minutes for Victoria to die.

Stephen Hartford never takes the stand, but his father, Frank Hartford does. He testifies that his son was not capable of sexually assaulting and murdering Victoria Brown. He says his son was home during the time of the crime and he has no idea how Stephen's clothes ended up with blood and mud on them in a bag in the garage freezer.

His defense was shit, he had no good sense.

After an eight day trial and only three hours of deliberations, the jury comes back with a verdict of guilty. Stephen Hartford is sentenced to life without parole.

Thank you, Jerry for your service.

Today fort is a jury.

The trial was over, but it wasn't getting any easier. Losing our friends and classmates like we were. It was getting harder and harder to live and feel safe in Mount Pine.

Although Stephen Hartford would be spending his life behind bars and he couldn't hurt anyone else in Mount Pine. It was all for what? For revenge because Victoria's mom turned him in.

Was that really the reason he murdered Victoria?

Unfortunately we may never know, and I'm more convinced than ever that we're cursed. It's actually baked into our soil. Next time on The Murder Years.

He was the coolest, just a real kind person.

A popular teacher is murdered in his own home.

No one who knew him would ever want to hurt him.

Except for one person, and I swear in.

That moment his face changed right before our eyes.

The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and iHeartMedia Executive producer Eliza Rosen for AYR Media co executive producer Paulina Williams. Written by Leah Rothman, directed by Michael Celtisch. Original concept developed in partnership with Anne, Margaret Johns and Greg Spring. Casting by Eisenberg Beans Casting Senior Associate Producer, Eric Newman, Associate producer Jill Pushesnik. Editing and sound design by Tristan Bankston, mastering by Cameron Taggie, Audio engineering by