Episode 614 - Season 6 Finale

You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand. KFI AM six forty heard everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. On any given day in Southern California, hundreds of investigators are working more than ten thousand unsolved cases. That's thousands of friends and families who have lost loved ones, thousands of people who got away with a crime, and thousands of murderers who still walk the streets. Killers who may be your neighbor, go to your church, or could be dating a

close friend. For the next two hours will highlight cases that have gone cold, baffled investigators, or just needs that one witness to speak up. This is Unsolved with Steve Gregory. Welcome to the Unsolved Season six finale. I'm Steve Gregory. It's been another action pack season with fascinating cases and great detectives. The show continues to be one of the most popular weekend shows in Southern

California, and we've got you to thank for that. So let's get started and remember all of these cases are available twenty four to seven on the iHeartRadio app. This kicked off season six. It's episode six oh one, The Bloody Bedroom, Los Angeles County Sheriff's homicide case number zero eight three DASH three four three one two DASH one three four nine DASH zero one one the murder of seventeen year old Christina Rosenberger. Cold case Detective Sean McCarthy is a friend

of the show and a frequent contributor. He told us about a case from nineteen eighty three that happened in the city of our t show. It seemed like a normal day for the young teen who went to school and worked at a large retail company. But little did the girl know that when she was dropped off at Cerrito's High School on the morning of December twelfth, that would be the last time anyone would see her alive. This is the case of

the Bloody Bedroom. Christina Rosenberg was a high school student. Her daily routine during the school year was to be driven to school by her mother approximately seven thirty in the morning. She attended classes until the late morning, approximately eleven forty five. She would generally return home, change clothes, and then go to a local Sears and Roebook department store. It was a big, big department store back in nineteen eighty. This particular day, December twelfth, in

nineteen eighty three. All of those things happened up to the point of her leaving school in the late morning hours. At that point it becomes very cloudy what happened. The assumption was that she went home, and there is evidence that she went home, and she did prepare for her job. But at that point, the preparation for leaving for her job is where things changed. And her mother, Rebecca, returned home in the early evening hours and everything

seemed normal. She assumed that Christina was at work. She had a brother who was also at home. He had a friend over there watching Monday night football. Everything seemed normal. It wasn't until and this includes her mother actually going into her bedroom for whatever reason, and nothing seemed out of sorts. And it wasn't until her boyfriend at the time and I only refer to him as Hector, called and inquired about Christina and her whereabouts, and the assumption

was she was at work. Hector said he had been trying to get a hold of her and was unsuccessful. He actually well the family members, the mom, Rebecca and the brother, said they didn't know where she was at

and could only assume that she was at work. And at some point Hector actually came to the house, went into her bedroom, looked around, didn't see anything out of the ordinary, at least initially, and there was a bag of coins that she had, and he saw that the coins were missing, and he made the assumption, oh, she must be at the mall. She must have went to the mall or something, because the bag of coins are gone. And he left and went searching for her in a local

mall and at some point he comes back to the residence. He was unsuccessful finding her, went back into her bedroom and he found some bloodstains on the wall, and he went. He went and contacted Rebecca's mother and said, are you aware of of the bloodstains? And he brought her into the bedroom and he showed her the bloodstains, and now she became concerned and everybody began

taking attempting to locate her. Rebecca had a brother in law who was a lieutenant on the Sheriff's department at Lakewood Station, which is Artisia is policed by Lakewood Station, and he called. She called the lieutenant and told told him about what they had found, and she was concerned about it. And during the conversation with him, she was standing in the bedroom and she inadvertently discovered the body of her daughter underneath the bed, and that's where the investigation began.

The blood on the wall, detective was the was this blood splatter a blood smear, blood spatter spatter? Yeah, based on something like that, on a splatter, what typically causes a splatter like that, Well, it could be a lot of It could be a lot of things. It could be it could be if there's not any And it clearly wasn't a lot because the boyfriend didn't even notice it the first time he was in the room until it wasn't until the second time that he came into the room after he went

out searching for her at the mall that he discovered. It wasn't It wasn't a large amount of blood on the walls when the body was discovered and the body was covered at least the perpetrator attempted to cover the body with a quilt.

And you can see the quilt and yeah, you're showing me now the photos of the scene where we see the uh, the young lady on the floor, and you also see the pictures where she was underneath the bed looks like a twin size mattress with frame and she's under there, and then that there's a light blue, dark blue, white striped afghan quilt that's that was

covering her presumably partially partially covering her. Okay, And for the sake of your listeners, since this is radio, it's clear to me, I think it's you don't have to be a homicide detective to surmise that the body was was purposely hidden hidden there, uh put there in attempts to at least uh delay the discovery of the body. So with your experience, then does that

indicate that whoever did this was in a hurry? Possibly, But if you're going to take the time to take a full grown female and however you got her underneath that bed, whether you're drug or there pushing her under there, it's not something that that's it's gonna there's a process and it's going to take a few minutes. And just from looking at scene photos, whoever did this I don't think was in such a hurry that they felt like because if they

did, they would have just got out of there right away. I mean they would have just left the body. There's a part of me that says, why why you can hear the entire episode six oh one on the iHeartRadio app. Okay, if I am six forty heard everywhere live on the iHeartRadio app, I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. If you're listening on the app, you can send us a tip about a case, a story idea, or a comment about the show. Just tap the red microphone on the

app and record your message. Welcome back to the season six finale. Up next, an insider's look at La County's cadaver Dogs. This is episode six h two. In this edition, we meet handlers for two of the cadaver dogs from the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The dog's only purpose is sniffing out human remains. Now they're used for both homicide investigations and recovery efforts. We were invited to meet firefighter paramedics Nick Bartel and Eddie Ruiz along with their

dogs six and Harper. Now we had to do the interview outside so the guys could take care of their dogs. So you're gonna hear a lot of wind at times, and we apologize for that, but it's worth it. So meet the dead body dogs. It's part of our ongoing crime fighter series. Let's talk a little bit about the cadaver dog. Is that the original or official name for those dogs, so they kind of changed it now they're known as Human Remains Detection dogs Human Remains Detection dogs. Correct, and you're

in the department. We have four active Human Remains Detection dogs right now. HRD is the acronym we use HRD. Okay, Now, that's a tool obviously primarily for search and rescue, right correct. Yeah, have you ever been called out to crime scenes or if you help it all and anything like that. So a lot of our callouts, I would say, the vast majority of our callouts, typically at least once a month, are for within

La County. We get burned out structures with possible homeless encamments involved or known missing persons inside that will have to go search moments after the they've put out the fire. So well, let's go back and talk a little bit about the dogs. So are all four dogs the same breed of dog. They're the same breed. They're all black Labradors, but they come from different places except for two of them. They're actually brothers, which Clifford there from the

same linder. Okay, So, Eddie, what's your dogs name? My dog's Harper Harper. Yeah, and then what about your neck? Six? He's six because he has a six in his left ear. He was the sixth in the litter. Oh, and what about the name of your dog? So the way that they named the dogs from where we get them, it's it's a nonprofit, so people who donate to that nonprofit get to name the dogs that get trained there. So let's go back then, this nonprofit,

how do you acquire the dogs? And is this something you guys wanted to do or is this something you were told you had to do. So for me, I've always thought having a dog and having it be able to go to work with you was an awesome idea. So when the opportunity came where they were seeking you can I handlers? I applied. I wasn't Toad. I applied because I always wanted a dog to take with me to work,

especially if fire station had dogs are awesome in the fire station. So I applied, went through the whole process and got selected to be a K nine handler. What's the process so extensive? Yeah, they changed it I think a little bit now. But when we went through it, you had to submit a letter of what was it. You had to submit a letter to our chief of USAR program telling them that you had interest in it. So let's say USAR is the acronym for Urban search and Rescue currectly, so

we had to submit that letter. Then we had to attend that orientation where current knine handlers told us what it entails and how your life's going to change, because they're way through twenty four to seven. After that it was a panel interview with some of the current knine handlers and the chief of the USAR program and personnel from the nonprofit who trains these dogs. They were there because they want to be able to see who we are and see our background.

And then after that you get selected, either you get selected or not, and then you move on to that. But that's actually being a candidate, and that's after you've already taken nine week long courses to become a search and rescue specialist. Nine weeks so nine one week courses, okay, over a time period over I did mine in a year, just about a calendar year,

and I think I needed the same. So you take all these nine classes and that allows you to work as a search and rescue specialist for the County of Los Angeles, and then once you do that, then you can kind of fall into a specialty. And then canine is the most time consuming by far of any of them. We require between four to eight trainings a month on top of your normal work schedule, and those are four hour minimum

of four hour trainings, sometimes twice a week, sometimes more. There's just constantly we're being called to do. That's not including the searches that we do on top of all that. So Eddie and I right now have to do four trainings a month because we're certified. Four trainings a month, plus the local call outs, plus all these other meet and greets and things that we have to do. So it's it's a constant, it's life changing, but

we love it. So my trajectory into this program was different. Like when I got on the job, I thought, oh, there's guys with dogs. This is amazing. I want to do that. But the way the older canine handlers were that they're like, you don't want to do this, it's too much work. So through the department you'd always hear, yeah, it's cool, but you never want to do it. It's too much work.

So I'm always thinking to myself like, oh, it's too much work, but they do that because they want you to keep coming back, and so that's kind of how they get the ones that they want as are the people that hear this over and over and over and then keep gravitating towards it. These courses that you take, though, how are they different from any

other USAR course or any other firefighter course? How are these different? So these are like the standard USAR classes that we got to take, like courses that involved like doing knots, and so there's the core classes, the core classes. So it's either ropes and knots and we're doing high angle low angle rescue type of scenarios, or we're we're shoring up buildings for collapse and we're doing this, and we're doing that. There's so many different things that we

have to know. We're jack of all trades, masters of none. So, like you were talking about the core class, you're taking the core classes that a lot of other agencies have done. But what makes our department different. We're the only urban search and rescue team in the country that does not allow civilians. So I would say the majority, the vast majority of canine handlers are civilian handlers, So we don't allow that because we want to. I want Eddie to be able to run his dog and then put his dog

away and then go work and do something else. So everybody has the same fundamental train so we can all do each other's role our position perfectly cross trained. Yeah, but then we have those specialties on top of that where we kind of that's what we'd like to do. So in addition to being a firefighter, you're also certified in search and rescue urban search and rescue. You're also canine certified, and you're also paramedics. So yeah, I would say

first and foremost for firefighters. Then second of all, we're paramedics. Eddie and I are both paramedics. That's our primary role as firefighter paramedics, and then search and rescue, and then on top of that, we're canine handlers. So we have four different things that are all taking parts of our time, which makes me tired. So think about it, like, so a civilian is able to just simply go to trainings do the dog thing, but

I'm working ten to fourteen to twenty four hours ships a month. I'm going to four to eight dog trainings on top of that a month and whatever Urban search and rescue, just the core hours that I need to put in, plus paramedic recertifications and this and that. There's this constantly a battle for time, and I gotta spend time with family. You can hear the entire episode six h two on the iHeartRadio app kf I AM six forty live and on

demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. Welcome back to the season six finale. In episode six oh three, we wanted to do something a little different, so we decided to highlight murders that happened between Thanksgiving and New Year's Here's a case from our episode Holiday Homicides. Our

first case comes out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Thanksgiving twenty sixteen, twenty eight year old Joel Michael Guy Junior traveled from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, back home to Knoxville, Tennessee, where he reunited with his three sisters and their parents for Thanksgiving festival. At the end of the evening, the three daughters, who all lived in Tennessee, returned to their homes. Junior was left alone with his parents. Joel Guy Senior who was sixty one, and Lisa Guy,

who was fifty five. Junior and his three half sisters attended what was to be the last event at the Knoxville House Thanksgiving on Thursday, November twenty fourth, twenty sixteen. Now Here is some background on all of the principles. Joel Michael Guy Senior was a pipeline engineering designer. Now Lisa Guy. The mom was a human resources account's payable administrator. The son, Joel Michael Guy Junior, graduated from the Louisiana School from Math, Science and the Arts

in natchetochis in twenty oh six. He previously attended Hannville High School. He'd never worked and had always been supported by his family. Junior was described by others as distant, an outsider, never bothered to establish a relationship with anyone in or outside of his family. His mother doated on him and bragged about him quite a bent. He spent a semester at George Washington University, then attended Louisiana State University. As a student, he lived in Baton Rouge until

the murders in twenty sixteen. He wanted to become a plastic surgeon. The Guys had recently sold their Knoxville house and planned to retire and move out of town. They also planned to stop providing money to Junior. Now, in the event of the parent's death, the son was to receive five hundred thousand dollars in life insurance money. Prosecutors say Junior hatched an elaborate plot to stab both parents, dismember and dissolve their remains clean, and burn down some of

the house, as well as framed the father for the crime. Again another warning, some of this is very graphic, So let's go back to November twenty sixth. Officials say that's when Junior attacked and killed his father with a knife in a second floor exercise room while his mother was out shopping for groceries at Walmart. The scene showed evidence of a struggle, with torn blinds, blood on the wall and corner, and an overturned bowflex machine. The mom,

Lisa Guy, arriving home. She entered through the front door, dropped the groceries on the floor of the foyer, proceeded upstairs. She was attacked then killed with a knife. Nine of her ribs were severed. Now, this all started because Lisa's boss was suspicious of her absence from work and called police for a welfare check. At first, Knox County officers Stephen Ballard and

Jeremy McCord found a seemingly empty house on Golden View Lane. The property had been for sale, remember they were retired and wanted to move out of town, but there was no real estate lock on the front door. They found that the doorknob of a back door had been removed and installed on the front

door. Through the front door, they could see groceries on the floor, including perishable items such as bacon, sausage, and ice cream, and through the hole left by the missing back door knob, they could sense heat and a strange smell coming from the house. An officer used a garage door opener in one of the cars to gain access to the house. Now. When they first walked in, they found a table with the wallets from the parents

and a sledgehammer on top, and then another table with long guns. Downstairs, the stove was on and the contents of a pot were boiling. At the bottom of the stairs were the grocery items that were seen earlier. The officers went up the stairs and they heard a barking dog. They looked down a hallway, and they saw the father's hands on the floor and discovered the

dismembered corpses in solution in a bathroom. Among other items investigators found upstairs were sewer lining cleaner, a bag of baking soda, drain cleaner, hydrochloric acid, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, and a bleached sprayer and drain opener. Investigators say they also noticed a note in an open suitcase with the name and address

of a Louisiana Ace hardware store with a notation about sewer line cleaner. Investigators soon discovered the father's hands were removed at the wrists and left nearby on the exercise room floor. The head of Junior's mother was removed. It was carried downstairs, placed in a pot on the stove, and heated. At the trial, the forensic examiner testified the head was not just severed, but broken off with force. Both the mom and the dad also had their arms and

legs disarticulated, that means broken apart from the joints. The father was disjointed at the waist, the mother at the knees. Their limbs and torsos were placed in a bin full of chemicals to dissolve. Each body had a large gash inflicted after death so that the chemicals would more quickly seep into the body's mean cavities. Now through all of this, Junior had sustained several cuts to

his hands, including a deep cut to his left thumb. Later that afternoon, he was seen in Walmart in the first aid section buying bandages and ointment for the wounds to his hands. He also purchased alcohol and hydrogen peroxide. On that Sunday of the Thanksgiving weekend, Junior drove back to Baton Rouge to

have his wounds treated at the Student Clinic. Now, by the time that the officers had discovered the scene, they put out an all points bulletin the FBI, Knox County Sheriff's Office, and the East bat Rouge shap Parff's office. Placed Junior under surveillance for a few days, and they eventually apprehended him on the twenty ninth as he was entering his car in an apartment complex in

the Baton Rouge area. In fact, surveillance footage caught him on several cameras buying the supplies he would later use to murder and try to dissolve his parents. He used cash for every transaction and self checked out most of the time. He bought the supplies for the murder as early as November seventh, that's

the premeditation. He purchased several of those items at ACE Hardware, muriatic acid, food grade hydrogen peroxide, and then on November eighteenth, he was seen in a home depot buying bleach sprayers, extension cords, and a timer. He was at a sporting goods store on November nineteenth buying a knife, and on the twenty first, he was seen at a Knoxville Walmart buying a plastic blue tote bag large enough for the dismemberment bodies to dissolve in. They also

found a meat grinder in the trunk of his car. During the investigation, detectives also found what they called a book of premeditation. It was a handwritten journal found in the junior's backpack. It contained detailed notes outlining his intent to murder and destroy the remains of his parents. Now Here are excerpts of one page. Again, folks, it's it's graphics, but this this gives you an idea of just the heinousness of this crime. One of the pages had

the following notes. Get killing knives quiet multiple, Get carving knives to make small pieces. Get sledgehammer to crush bones. Bring blender and food grinder to grind meat. Get bleach denature proteins. Does not matter where they're killed. Just get rid of bloody spots to prevent evidence of time of death. In parentheses, not the mattress or couches. Next point, get rid of bodies inside house. There in my DNA already there then he has written, then

crossed out. Open up doggie door to provide entryway he needs to be blamed. Not intruder. Flush chunks down toilet in parentheses. Not garbage disposal. Next point, get plastic sheeting for disposal process. He writes this down then crosses it out. Get hollow point bullets just in case will be seen buying bullets. Just use computer room gun check to make sure there are bullets. Last resort he's not alive, to claim her half of the insurance money all

mine in parentheses, five hundred thousand dollars. Flood the house, covers up forensic evidence, turn heater up as high as it goes, speeds decomposition. Bleach reacts with luminol just like blood, dous area with bleach, big Sprayer, lie Lye, trash compactor, question mark, body gives times of death alibi, don't have to get rid of body if there's no forensic evidence on the body, and then in cap in all caps his fingerprints and DNA.

Junior was eventually apprehended, as I mentioned, after a bunch of surveillance from multiple agencies. He ended up leading not guilty, but he filed a motion that he be given the death penalty if he's ever convicted. Junior's defense council presented no evidence on his behalf. The trial took four days. Junior was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. He was also convicted of abuse of a corpse. Currently he's imprisoned at Last Anyone Knows at the Northwest Correctional

Complex in Tiptonville, Tennessee. Now you can hear the entire episode six' oh three on the iHeartRadio app kf I Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. Welcome back to the season six finale. A couple of years ago, Sergeant Pete Hitsch with the LA County Sheriff's Cyber Crimes and Fraud Bureau reached out about a new tool to track down cyber criminals, social media fraudsters, and pedophiles. Meet the four

leg electronics sniffing Canines. This is episode six oh six on the iHeartRadio app. In this episode, we go where no journalists have gone before, the inner sanctum of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Fraud and Cybercrimes Bureau. The campus is well hidden and serves as the nerve center from monitoring cybercrime, conducting

investigations, and training. We were invited by Sergeant Pete Hish, a team leader who also became the handler for the region's first electronics detection canine, and you're not going to believe what these dogs can do. It's part of our ongoing crime Fighter series. Sergeant, thank you for joining us. Welcome,

so great to be here. One of the things I wanted to talk about, first of all, let's let's get an overview of what your role is here, and then I want to get right in to one of the coolest pieces of tech that you have, which really isn't high tech but does a high tech mission. But first give us an overview what you do here. Sure, I'm a sergeant here with the Sheriff's Department. I supervise our cyber Fraud Crimes team, and basically we investigate everything cyber if it has to do

with the Internet, we get the cases and we investigate it. We have a team of seven detectives. Another sergeant, my partner, Sergeant Sergio A. Reyes, He is also a part of the team and supervises our North part of the team. We do cryptocurrency investigations, We do cyber fraud, we do extortions, We do online narcotics and gun trafficking cases and basically anything that has to do with the media or correction with the with the Internet,

we we deal with. Well, when you when you talk about with the media, you're talking because media is also not only is it journalism, but it's also like you you call hard drives and whatnot, that's also media. Oh yeah, that's all digital media, all digital media. So that's what you're dealing with. How busy are you? Extremely busy? It's it's incredibly busy, and it is getting busier exponentially as time goes on and as technolology

advances and makes it easier for criminals to do things. They do it more frequently, easier, and they are really fleecing the citizens of La County out of a lot of money. Going back then, historically, sergeant, do you remember and recall when this bureau came to be. I do recall it was called the Commercial Crimes Bureau before that was forgery, fraud, then Commercial Crimes Bureau. Then several years ago the department saw a need to include the

cyber portion of it because that was becoming more prevalent. This is fifteen years ago or so. When this occurred, it started to become more prevalent. You know, we're seeing crimes in cyber. So they changed the name again to the Fraud and Cyber Crimes Bureau and started a cyber mission as well. And along the way, in addition to you having to keep an eagle eye on how technology has evolved, you've got to keep up with that too.

Not only are you keeping an eye on what the technology is out there, but you also have to figure out a way to com bad that tech being used for bad And so what kind of challenge is that keeping up with the bad guys it's a huge challenge. There's a couple aspects to that, and one is getting a detective onto the team who is first of all, a good detective. And that's not the hard part, because these detectives come up

through the department as detectives in other places. When we get them, they're good detectives, but they don't have the cyber background, and that's where we start. We have to get them the cyber training. And that's not something you can just learn overnight. It takes years sometimes to learn certain aspects of cyber to be able to be an effective detective at it. And it's not

only time consuming, it's very costly. The training that's out there that we need to get our detectives to can range from maybe one thousand dollars up to ten thousand dollars for a one week class, and that becomes expensive. One of the things I want to talk about what really draws me to your agency is the use of a canine in your department and your bureau. Now. I did a new story a long time ago, but I don't think people truly understand that that you have a canine program here. Talk about that.

Yes, we do, and quite honestly, I was where you were thinking dogs and cyber Wait a minute, how does that go together? How does that mix? You got the oldest like dogs on the planet and you know that species next to some of the most high tech stuff in the world, exactly, And like you opened up the show with, it's not a high

tech thing. It's very low tech. It's very traditional. We've had canines doing hunting for things and using to work to do jobs forever, right, and now we're have them in the digital age, and they're quite honestly very effective. And it surprised me at first. I was kind of apprehensive at

the whole idea is like, really can this happen? When I first heard about them a few years back, and I started doing research and seeing stories put out by other places that these dogs are actually becoming a vile asset to those departments and and coming up with with valuable evidence that's being used to convict

people criminals and put them in jail. So I decided to do some research into it and and educate myself on the program and see, you know, how this whole program works, and and wrote up a plan to be able to get it here at the Sheriff's Department. Where did you first see it in motion? Well, I didn't see it. I heard it the Homeland

Security Investigations. We were doing a mission with them unrelated to K nine's, and one of the special agents came up to me and says, hey, did you know that there was a program out there that can assist your department in obtaining a trained K nine and using them? And he kind of let me in on the program and who who this nonprofit organization was, and so I did some research on them and they uh. And after a while I contacted them and said, hey, you know, we might be interested in

this. Can you explain to me what's how this works? They did, gave me all the information they they gave me, and I wrote up the plan and presented it to my chain of command. All the way up. They very apprehensive too, like I was like, wait a minute, we never heard of this, what's going on right? Right? And but after a while they warmed up to it and just give it a shot and see

what happens. And that's a good thing about our department is we're very we always try to look for the leading edge, even if we're going to take a chance on something, if it can help the community, if it can be something that's going to set our department, you know, ahead, let's give it a shot and see what happens. And what year were we talking about? This was twenty twenty is when when we started to put all this together a few years back. Yeah, I'm trying to remember, yeah,

because that was right at the forefront of the pandemic. Correct, Yeah, And I think I did my first story on it probably in twenty twenty one, twenty yeah, I think so early twenty one, maybe like that. Yeah, yeah, And so what we're talking about is Satoshi. Yes, and tell us who Saitoshi is. Satoshi is our dog, my dog. He's a black English Labator retriever, a male and I've had him for about two and a half years. He was donated to us by the nonprofit that

I spoke about, Operation Underground Railroad. And I don't know if many people know about this organization, but they're a nonprofit who works in combating human trafficking and child exploitation and they if you've recently, there was a movie that just came out, the Sound of Freedom I believe it was, and that movie is based on the founder, who was a who was a Homeland Security special agent himself, who left that agency to start this this this organization, and

they've been very a very good partner of our department. You can hear the entire episode six oh six on the iHeartRadio app kf I AM six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory, and this is Unsolved. Welcome back to the Unsolved Season six finale. In episode six h nine, we look at a case where a young girl was shot and killed

during the service of a search warrant in Willowbrook. The girl was merely standing in her driveway next door when she was hit by a bullet from an assault

rifle. Los Angeles County Sheriff's homicide case number zero zero six DASH one eight three four zero DASH two one three six DASH zero one one the murder of twenty eight year old Michael Johnson, along with the related Los Angeles County Sheriff's cold case number zero zero six DASH one eight six nine two DASH two one three six DASH zero one one the death of twelve year old Janet Aultmurano cold

case detectives Sewn McCarthy and Rich Tomlin are regular contributors to the show. They've brought us many cold cases that they've picked up having never seen them before. But on rare occasions they present cases that they were involved with years ago, but they still elude them. In fact, this pair of cases, though separate, are connected. McCarthy and Tomlin were not only at both scenes in

twenty oh six, both cases still haunt them to this day. We begin with Detective McCarthy and an overview of the first case of the deadly search warrant. October twenty eight, two thousand and six. Shortly after ten pm, a party appeared to be a block party according to witnesses, in the twenty one hundred block of the East one hundred and seventeenth Street in unincorporated Los Angeles, and the basic area is south central Los Angeles between Alameda and Woomington.

That's the general area where this incident occurred. According to witnesses block party, They estimated anywhere between fifty and seventy five people were milling around in the street. We later learned that it was a birthday party and it was predominantly local street gang members from two different crypt street gangs. Mona Park is one of the crip gangs, and one hundred and seventeenth Street is the other. Now,

back in six those two gangs were for the most part allies. They got along, they lived in the same general area, they coexisted together, and they got along. And that's not always the case with crip gangs, but Mona Park one hundred and seventeenth Street at at the time did get along. Shortly after ten o'clock, witnesses said you could feel tension in the air.

A couple of guys had arrived on motorcycles and they said, immediately upon their arrival, you could sense a lot of tension in the air, people milling about, and they could feel something was bad was going to happen. Shortly after that, a male exited one of the houses, and every witness that we had said he had a handgun, some of the automatic handgun, and he didn't care who saw him with that handgun, and he did a

bee line straight towards the guy on the motorcycle who had arrived. There was a very brief argument and then the shooting started and four people got shot, including the guy in the motorcycle, whose name was Michael Johnson. Michael was killed three other people were wounded. One was an associate of Michael, but two of them were just party goalers that had no relationship. He was just

indiscriminately shooting. His target was Michael Johnson. Everybody, for the most part fled the area and didn't come back, but there was one witness in particular who stayed there, and as we found out later in our investigation, the reason he stayed there is one of the wounded was his brother. And he told first responders, the patrol deputies, I witnessed this, I know who

did it, and I'm willing to tell the detectives. So they kept him at the location until we got there, and as you already know, it's a while before homicide detectives arrived on scene. And he told us when we got there, who did this? He said, said the guy's name, and he says he run, He runs the neighborhood. He's a big narcotic stealer in the neighborhood. I'm tired of him causing the problems that he's causing. And the obvious primary reason for him to talk to us was his brother

was seriously wounded. So we had an identification. Now it was only one witness. We basically have a personal motive that had a gang aspect to it, and as you well know Steve, witnesses and gang shootings don't like to cooperate with the police. But because of the personal relationship he had with Michael, he was willing to talk to us, so we proceeded with our investigation.

We have a suspect. We believe he's a credible suspect. We also had some information from anonymous sources that identified the same person as the killer and the shooter, so we felt pretty good about pursuing our investigation with him as our target. So obviously, in an investigation a homicide where a gun's used, we want to recover evidence. And what's the biggest prize in a gang shooting is the gun that was used in the crime. So we did some

follow up. We identified several locations that our target owned resonances in the same general area, and we authored search warrants to search and hopefully get the weapon used in the crime. And it was a few weeks after the shooting. All the logistical stuff that goes into a search warrant, authoring the search warrant, getting judges on board to approve the warrant. It takes a little bit of time, but we and we had several different teams served the warrants at

these locations that were owned by our primary suspect. During the service of those warrants, everything went well. We you know, the biggest concern when you serve a search warrant is was it done safely? Was anybody injured as a result of it? Did we have to injure anybody or shoot anybody during the service of the warrant. Everything went very smoothly. It was it was on a it was in the evening hours and I'll get into that a little bit later, and it was just the sun was just going down. It was

just getting dark. It was late October, around Halloween time change. You can hear this entire episode six nine on the iHeartRadio app k i AM six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app This is Unsolved with Steve Gregory. Welcome back to the Unsolved Season six finale. The entire season, along with all our episodes, is available twenty four to seven on the iHeartRadio app. A woman killed in nineteen seventy nine was recently identified through DNA, but

those behind her death are still out there. This is episode six eleven Sahara Sue Doe, Las Vegas Metro Police Department, Homicide case number seven nine DASH five three eight eight five the cold case murder of Gwen Marie's Story also known as Jane Doe, nicknamed Sahara Sue. We were tipped off about an interesting case in Las Vegas regarding the recent identity of a young woman who has found murdered in nineteen seventy nine. Her body was discovered near what was then the

Sahara Hotel near the Strip. There was no DNA back then, and in an odd twist, the teenager had dentures, so identification with tental records was not possible. But in December of twenty twenty three, there was a breakthrough and we found out there is a California connection, So we headed out to Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Metro Police Department where we spoke with cold case

Detective Terry Miller about the case of Sahara Sue Doe. In August fourteenth, nineteen seventy nine, at approximately nine pm, a male was on his way to work at a local grocery store, cutting across the desert to make sure he gets to work on time and sees what he believes is a dead body. He initially thought it was a male. He ran to the nearest gas station, called nine one one, summoned police. Upon patrol arriving at the scene, they discovered the body of a white female adult, partial nude,

laying in the road. So the area that she's found was on Las Vegas Boulevard, just west of Las Vegas Boulevard south of Sahara, and it's where the first l Rancho hotel and casino which later becomes I believe the Thunderbird Casino and then something else. There used to be cottages behind the casino area that had been torn down, so there was roadway like asphalt roadway throughout that area, but they had been torn down, so it was considered to be a

desert area. At that point, she is lying face down and it appeared that she had suffered some sort of trauma. Homicide detectives were summoned to the scene and at that point began their investigation. This is about nine PM, so it had just really started getting dark at that point, and they also during that time started to conduct a canvas into any surrounding businesses that were in

the area, and they came across a liquor store. There was an employee in the liquor store who recalled a female matching the description of our deceitan who'd been in the store with a white male. She described him as being approximately six feet tall, then build like a darker blonde hair, but she stated he had a mustache that was a little bit darker than his head hair.

She said he spoke very softly. She recalled that he had purchased a bottle of alcohol and a soft drink, and that he had the female with him. They used her to make a compositive confirmation that the decedent was the same person that had been in her store at approximately seven point thirty eight o clock that night earlier. She was immediately brought down to Metro's police department and a

composite was done of the male that she was with at that time. To move the case forward, they attempted to do fingerprints for identification of this female,

who they thought was between sixteen to early twenties. She was tiny and it appeared that she had nice nails, manicure, pedicure, but she didn't have any shoes on at this point, and they started to look at other cases in the area, possibly anybody that had attempted sexual assault on anyone else that whole area, but nothing seemed to pan out for them, And in the end, the case probably goes close to forty four years before we're able

to you solve it and get who we termed or named Sahara sudo it's true name. Now, your when did you first lay lay eyes on this case? I think it was like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Do you when you first open a book like that, because we're looking at the book now, which appears to be what five inches tall five six inches tall of papers in a three year ring binder, When you looked at something like this, and this turned out to be quite a historic

case for the Las Vegas area, right it was. Throughout the years, this case has been picked up by numerous detectives on our department as science and DNA advanced. The testing to try to get her identified was used throughout the years hoping that, you know, we could give her her name back and some resolution to her family. So when you first laid eyes on that and you opened the book as a cold case detective, because I mean also,

let's tell everyone that you know you spent some time here. You're a retired detective who came back to work as a cold case investigator. So when you open this book and you look at it, what's where's the first place you go? Forensics? Okay? And what did what did you find out first? Well, one of the things that's recently come to light with the Golden

State Killer, for instance, is forensic genetic genealogy. And our sheriff is very committed to us to try to get these cold cases solved and brought up to a modern standard. And by that it means using all of technology that we have to try to identify our unidentified victims of homicide as well as any unsolved homicides that we have. So forensically, I looked at it like,

can we do genealogy FGG on this case? And in working with our DNA forensic lab, we were able to determine that we had enough as well as names the national set of for missing Children's right. Yes, Nick Mick is the children and we sent this case in I believe it was twenty twenty two to Oathrom This case had gone to. We'd worked it with the FBI,

we'd worked it with Border and Protections forensic unit. It had gone to and that's the pollen that we were trying to see if we could determine where she came from by pollen that was on her clothing at the time of her death. Also, we worked with name Is, Nick, Mick Bodie and Oathrom, using you know, all the testing that they had available in an attempt to get her identified. So before we break here real quick, so let's

go down because you you're using some vernacular, so let's explain. So Oathram is it's a forensic lab that's in Woodland, Texas, Okay, that uses whole genome sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy an attempt to help us solve these cases. And you listed the other and I believe that was the missing Person's database, right, So what are the other you You rattled off some acronyms there,

and I just want to make sure I know what they are. So names is a database that's used for adult missing persons unidentified persons that have gone missing, and it's a database that choose worldwide in an attempt to try to locate for instance, you have a body that's found in let's say California and it's on the border of Nevada. So what they'll do is they'll look at

all of through the corner's office in the police departments. They'll use that database to see if it matches anything that we have, if we can get DNA and see if we can identify that person. And Nick Mick is the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and because we felt that Sahara sudo was so young, they enlisted the assistance of Nick Mick in an attempt to try to help us use whatever sciences and databases that are available to get her identified.

You can hear this entire episode six' eleven on the iHeartRadio app kf I AM six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is Unsolved. Thanks for joining us on our season six finale. In episode six twelve, we visit the Riverside County District Attorney's office about a case involving a woman and a long haul truck driver. He's in prison

for her murder, but she's still unidentified. Riverside County District Attorney Cold case number ri IF one five to two for zero two a murdered Jane Doe. The Riverside County DA announced it had some evidence to get them closer to the identity of a woman who was killed in the early nineties and left buried under brush and shrubbery off Highway ninety five near Blythe. In twenty ten, that

woman's killer was convicted. In fact, Keith Hunter Jesperson also known as the Happy Face Killer, confessed to the murder along with many others, but to this day, the woman he brutally killed and left near Blythe has remained unidentified. So we headed out to the Riverside County DA's office where we spoke with

senior investigator Ebony Cavanis about the mysterious murdered hitchhiker. So in August August thirtieth of nineteen ninety two, an unidentified female body was located in off the Highway ninety five, seven miles north of the city of Blythe. At the time, the body was in moderate to severe decomposation. We had no leads regarding that case, and at the time the autopsy determined that the cause of death

was undetermined. So fast forward from nineteen ninety two to nineteen ninety four, a reporter from the Oregonian newspaper received a letter from anonymous writer who claims to have murdered the woman that we found in Blythe along with four other women. So in that letter he confessed to vettering five women and he signed the letter with a happy face, and that's when he was deemed the happy Face killer at that point. So, in nineteen ninety five, Clark County Sheriff's Department

from Vancouver, Washington arrested Jessperson for the murder of another woman. He confessed to that murder and also said he killed a total of eight women at that

time, one of them being the body that we found in Blythe. So, in nineteen ninety six, Riverside Sheriff Investigator Rich Massan and Sergeant Rich dollar Hide went to Salem Penitentiary to interview Jessperson, and during the interview he gave us information that coincided to the physical description of the female, the placement of her body, the crime scene, the location, and with all of that information were able to convict him January eighth, twenty ten for that Riverside homicide,

in which he was sentenced to twenty five years to life, serving that time in Oregon. At this point, though, the missing part of this puzzle is you still don't have an identity the woman, do you? We do not, and that's what we've been working very hard on trying to do.

At this point, we have no name or who she was. She had no identification on her, and nothing has come up to even help us with her identification whatsoever, other than submitting her DNA to family Tree and creating a family tree within that website is a directed to consumer website, and we're able to find some possible paternal relatives of hers, but they don't know who she is. They have no name for her, and didn't know that they

had a sibling that was missing. So now we're working on contacting the maternal side of the family. And that's why we're reaching out to the public, because if anyone has any information regarding this homicide, or maybe they're some similarities in a missing relative that they had, that they can reach out to us and provide us with some type of information. Did jesperson indicate at all who she might have been or did he ever have a name for her? He

called her Claudia, but that possibly is not her name. He said that she gave him the name of Claudia, but when we re interviewed him in twenty twenty three, he said that may have not been her name. So he did provide us with a physical description of her, which definitely helped out when we had to do the pheno typing and the sketches, So that was kind of the help that we got from him. He also was able to clarify a few things regarding the murder, like maybe her lifestyle, her demeanor,

the clothing. He verified a few of the sketches that we had, but other than a physical description, a timeline, and a possible name, he wasn't able to provide us with much else. With your experience, he apparently gave you enough information that you were able to file the charges against him

and get him convicted of the murder of this woman. Right correct, Yes, But do you believe he's being truthful that he doesn't remember much about her beyond that, or do you think or do you think he's holding back because sometimes serial killers like to hold stuff back, they do. I agree with

you, there's no way to determine if he's being truthful or not. But he was so detailed regarding the murder itself and the crime scene and her physical description when we found her, including her clothing, that we do believe some of the things he's saying is truthful. Also, his truck logs and fuel receipts show he was in the area during that time. So talk about jessperson,

what is it he did and who was he? So? Keith Hunter Jefferson was a serial killer who killed women in Oregon, Washington, California, and Florida. So he states that he sometime the summer of nineteen ninety two, which we were able to determine that it was August of nineteen ninety two. He said that he was in a break check area conducting brake adjustments for

a long haul truck that he drives. So at the time he was a long haul truck driver and he drove a nineteen eighty nine purple Peterbilt long haul truck. He said that he was in a break check area off the Eye or Interstate fifteen South near the Cahoone Pass in the Victorville area while he was working under his truck. He says he hears a woman's voice approach him and asks for a ride. Once he agrees to give her a ride. He says that she waves to a man in a Alberson's truck who takes off,

so he agrees to take her for a ride. She wants to go to the Los Angeles area, and he said she's very adamant about it, and her familiarity with the different freeways in LA made him believe that she was familiar with the area also too, He said he doesn't know very many Albersons that are in that area, so he believes she may have come from the Vegas or the Barstow area, so he agrees to give her a ride. At that truck stop, he says, I have a long haul delivery. I

have to deliver in Phoenix at a specific time. I can't take you to LA, but I can take you to Cabazon. So they get in the truck, they drive to Cabazon. They continue I ten eastbound stop at Cabazon for a brief period of time, he gasses up, does some adjustments to his truck. She decides she wants to continue on to India. You can hear the entire episode six twelve on the iHeartRadio app kaf I AM six forty live and on demand on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory and this is

Unsolved. Welcome back to our season six finale. Investigators with the Upland Police Department finally revealed details of a case going back to twenty twenty two involving a young man who had no enemies, no grudges, but a bright future ahead. This is Episode six thirteen, Upland Police Department Homicide Case Number two to two DASH two zero five DASH zero zero two, the murder of Malik McGee.

This is our first case with the Upland Police Department. Investigators had hoped to get more clues on this is our attack, but after nearly a year and a half, officials say it was time to turn to the public for help. For the first time, Malik's mother, Seanna Frasier, spoke publicly about the loss of her son. Life has been this horrible. I have emotions that I never had before. He always had a voice, used to sing in church. They took a one of a kind person away from me

and this world. He did a lot for me as a mother. He did things that I never ever got to accomplish or do. Malik was from Victorville, but on July twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, at around one in the morning, he was performing at the Lava Lounge on Foothill Boulevard near Mulberry Avenue. That would be his last gig. Lead Detective Steve Wuino and Sergeant Jacob Kirk walk us through the case of the murdered musical medical student.

Prior to his death, Malik was performing as a musician at Hookah Lounge and around the nine hundred block of West Foothill Boulevard. It's the intersection of Foothill in Mulberry. When Malik exited the Hookah Lounge and entered his car, a suspect fired multiple times, striking the leak in the leg and torso. Milik fled the parking lot in his vehicle and collided in the center medium of Foothill Boulevard, just west of the location. He was transported to a local trauma

center where he was pronounced deceased. Based on the evidence we collected, we believe his murder was planned and premeditated. We have a video surveillance showing that the suspect rapped at the location about an hour prior to the shooting to scot out the best shooting angles to where Malik's vehicle was and we're seeking the public's help, so let's go back. Penis a picture this Hookah Lounge, the Lava Lounge on Foothill Boulevard and Mulberry Avenue. What kind of an area is

that? Is it? Is it? You know, residential? Mostly? Is it businesses? Well, Football Boulevard for the most part in the city of Upland is all business the entire strip from the time you enter to the time you exit out. But just north and south of those of the strait and those businesses is all residential. So you have a mix the business or the strip. Mall style parking lot is where the Hookah Lounge was located at

and just directly behind that is plethor of apartments. You had video tape, some sort of surveillance video that it's helped you with this it right correct? Can you talk about and describe what you saw in that video on the video about an hour prior to the actual shooting. And this took days of trying to scout out the location or the different videos that we have of the actual

event. We see a subject v an hour before the subject walks in the north alley behind the business Strip mall and eventually comes out to the east side of the first set of buildings. You can see the suspects standing around, looking at one spot and then moving to another spot where he then produces We believe it was a hand on or a shoulder rifle due to the quality of one of the videos. It looks like it's a shoulder rifle and points in

the exact direction of Malik's car. It appears that he wasn't satisfied with that location, so he went to another location into the exact setting, pointing out to where Malik's car was at. Describe for people what a shoulder rifle is. It could be an AR fifteen style weapon or a small caliber nine millimeter rifle short barrowed, but it's it appeared to be he was putting the buttstock into his shoulder and pointing towards a vehicle, or just stretching his arms out.

Like I said, The quality was wasn't the best on that one photo, so it could have been his arms that was stretched out to You said just a few moments ago, also that you had multiple angles of video. Is that right correct? So, Detective you said a few moments ago that you had multiple angles of video. What did some of those videos show you? Well, the one we released shows the suspect in the rear alleyway walking. This is prior to the shooting itself, walking casually to one of his

locations and then walking back to a different location. Then you did say, if I understood you correctly, you were talking about you saw this person, and have you identified gender? We could say we believe it's a Malia. Okay, so this guy you've identified, you said it looked like he was scoping out the place. Well, what led you to believe that? And what do you think he was specifically looking for? And I don't even believe

that it's a beliefs He was looking at several different shooting platforms. He went to several different locations where you could clearly observe Malik's car at and he pointed what appeared to be a weapon at that car to see if he had the proper angle. What does that tell you this was pre planned, premeditated and a heinous crime. Now when you've got multiple angles like that where they all equally as grainy, because I saw the one that you released publicly, it

was black and white. It wasn't very detailed, it wasn't high death. But what did the other angles show you anything at all that gives you any kind of a description. Well, the one that was released, it gives a clear indication of the clothing he was wearing. And then there was a separate one that we showed where you can clearly see the outline of his body pointing a weapon at the victim's vehicle. Again, we do have other video. I can't say that it's better or worse of but these are the ones

that we decided to release to the public. And what time of the night was this. It was approximately one o'clock in the morning, one in the morning. So this nightclub, this Lava lounge, is that one of those that closes at two am? Or is well it's just a hook a lounge. And it seems that they at the time, they weren't permitted for it, but they were using the available space they had within their business to rent out for musical events or get togethers for people, and typically it would close

at two o'clock. But I don't believe that it would have closed if there was a good crowd or they were making money until whenever that people left, And was this business this Hookah lounge? You said that people get to rent it out for different things. So was this a regularly scheduled event? This was highly promoted on social media, okay, So it really was so multiple people were aware that this gathering was happening, absolutely, And was Malik being

advertised as a performer. He was, okay, so that it was very clear that everyone knew that Malik was going to be their performing. That is correct. You can hear the entire episode six thirteen on the iHeartRadio app, and that's going to do it Unsolved with Steve Gregory. The radio show is a production of the KFI News Department for iHeartMedia, Los Angeles. The program is produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez. Our field engineer as Tony Sorrentino,

and our technical director is Raoul Cortes. If you have a tip on this or any other case we've highlighted a comment or a case, just press pound two to fifty on your cell phone and say the keyword unsolved. Or if you're listening live on the iHeartRadio app, press the red microphone icon and leave us a message. This is KFI Am six four forty Kfi, a M six forty on demand