August 20, 2025 • 28 mins
The search for nine-year-old Candy Rogers haunted Spokane for generations. Could the killer’s family hold the final clue to solving the case? And just how far would detectives need to dig for the truth?
After decades with no answers, forensic DNA revealed her killer and solved one of America’s most enduring missing persons cases. In part two, we follow how modern science cracked a 62-year unsolved case, delivering justice and closure to one of the nation’s most haunting cold cases.
America’s Crime Lab is a true crime podcast about how science solves cold cases, missing persons, and other unsolved cases. Hosted by journalist and clinical psychologist Elin Lantz Lesser, and powered by Othram’s forensic DNA lab, the show connects the science to the story, revealing what really happens in the lab and why it matters.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
There's going to be a moment in time or use
the cold case detective or the only person in the
world that knows who killed that person.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
When police discovered the body of nine year old Candy
Rogers in the woods outside of Spokane, Washington, she'd been
raped and strangled. The attack was so brutal that it
shook veteran officers. Many had a hard time speaking about
what they'd seen at the crime scene. For sixty two years,
(00:47):
all leads turned up cold, and Candy's murder became the
largest case file in Spokane's history. But in twenty twenty one,
detectives had their first big break. This is America's Crime Lab.
I'm Alan Lancelesser. This is part two of the Candy
(01:10):
Rogers case. If you've missed the previous episode, you'll want
to go back and listen. Producer Katherine Fenalosa is here.
So when we left the story, seamen from Candy's underwear
had been tested and once they had a DNA profile,
Authroom did forensic genetic genealogy and that led them to
three brothers.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, the three Hoff brothers, and all three did live
in Spokane, but unfortunately they've all since died. So investigators
looked to see if any of them had children, and
two of the brothers did not, but one did. John
ray Hoff actually had four kids. And Sergeant Zach Stormant
decides to reach out to Kathy, a daughter, and Kathy
(01:53):
actually agrees to meet with Sergeant Stormant at the police
station along with her own daughter.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So what do we know about Kathy's dad, Well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
He grew up in Spokane. He was the oldest of
the three brothers. And Alan, do you remember the boys
home that David Middelman asked Sergeant Stormant to look into.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, that came up when they were doing genealogy research.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So Athram found a clue showing that someone in the
killer's family was connected to a boy's home in Washington State,
and Sergeant Stormant says, it turns out that John ray
Hoff actually spent some time living at that home.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
He's got stealing, he stole a car, he did some
PEFs type stuff. His parents were concerned enough about his
behavior that somehow they came to the agreement that he
was going to join the army early at seventeen, and
they signed in for him to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
So John ray Hoff joins the army and he ends
up serving as an inventory clerk while he's deployed to Korea. Now,
while he's gone Alan, his wife actually has an affair
with one of his brothers, and that detail will become
important later, so just kind of like tuck that away.
He returns to the Spokane area and in nineteen fifty nine,
(03:05):
when Candy is murdered, John ray Hoff is twenty years
old and he's living just a mile from Candy's house.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Did they know each other? I mean, did he know
Candy's family at all?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
So there is a connection. John ray Hoff had a
younger stepsister who was just a year older than Candy,
and she was also in the Campfire Girls, you know
that group sort of like the girl Scouts that Candy
was a part of. But police don't think that John
ever actually met Candy.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It still just shows what a small world it is.
So he had these early run ins with police. Are
there any other red flags?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Well, a few years after Candy's murder, John ray Hoff
is convicted of assault. He pretended he was interested in
an apartment and when he arrived to look at it,
he attacks the female property manager. He actually strangles and
undresses her, and he ties her up with her own clothing,
which is also how Candy was restrained. Luckily, the property
(04:08):
manager survives the attack. John ray Hoff serves six months
in jail and he's declared a deserter and he's discharged
from the Army and Alan. There's also another murder that
happens about six months after Candy's.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Death, a girl named Sherry Edgel.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Sherry is also nine years old when she's abducted, assaulted,
and strangled. Her body was found in a blood soaked
nightgown in a tall, grassy area off a highway and Aylen.
This happened about forty five minutes from the boy's home,
where John ray Hoff had spent some time several years before.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
This guy has ties to that area because that base
over there is Lewis McCord. It's a Joint Army Air
Force base and he did spend some time serving there
as well, and it makes me wonder about him.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
That case is still unsolved.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Those two cases have some strange similarities. And what happens
to John ray Hoff after he's kicked out of the army.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So he sells silverware door to door for a time,
then he works in a lumberyard and a meatpacking plant.
And then when he's thirty one, he takes his own life.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Oh wow, do we know why he killed himself?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Well, at the time, he was married with four children,
and his family just thought he was depressed.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
At any point in the investigation, was his name on
any suspect list.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
No, his name never pops up on detective's radar until
Authrem builds out the family tree. And that's all based
on the DNA from the seamen found on Candy's underwear.
And now Sergeant Stormant is sitting across the table from
John Rayhoff's daughter Kathy and his granddaughter.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Of it was I'm destroying what I would view as
my father. I'm seeing it personally because I don't know
how she sees her own and I'm thinking, God, this
is horrible. And same with the daughter who's thinking about Grandpa.
You're essentially pulling up their route and tearing it out
(06:23):
of the ground and saying, now, your family is not
what you think. She was very affected by what happened
to Candy. It was the horror of what happened to
this little girl. And anybody that knows this case knows
Candy Candy w have died very hard there's no other
way to say it.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And the whole case could rest on this moment because
Kathy could get up and walk away.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean, he knows he has to win her trust.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
It does not take a lot to turn one of
these from stone cold. No one's ever going to solve
this to red hot. I am a cold case detective
and I think you can help me with a homicide.
And it's a lightning bolt. So few people are going
to be hit with this opportunity or responsibility or dread.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I wonder what Kathy's thinking at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Sergeant Stormant says she was listening super intently when her
father died. She was nine years old, just like Candy.
And in this moment, it's becoming very clear to Kathy
that her father is a prime suspect in Spokane's oldest
cold case, and that detectives need her DNA, and Kathy
(07:51):
agrees to give a sample.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
She very willingly gave that. I collected buckle swaps from
her at that moment, and obviously I had a million
more questions for I told her we're going to talk more,
but I wanted to get the DNA to the lab.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Sergeant Stormant literally races out of the room with Kathy's
DNA because he wants to get it to the lab
before they close. And he meets Britney right from the
State Crime Lab.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And she has tested so many DNA samples on this
case trying to find her guy, and it's always been nope.
And she met me at the window and I said,
this is the one, this is the case, and she
kind of she was, we'll see. There's been so many
Brittany worked I believe through the night on this. She
had that done in twenty four hours and it is
(08:48):
a lightning bolt moment for both of us. It's incredible.
It is like, holy, forgive my language, holy shit, this
is that actually going to be the end of the
Candy Rogers case.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So Allen, while Sergeant Storman is incredibly excited to have
Kathy's DNA tested, he's also really nervous because remember I
mentioned earlier that while her dad was serving in Korea,
her mom had an affair with one of his brothers.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yes, so I mean, as you worried about paternity.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, so there's still a possibility that it could actually
be one of his brothers.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And families being what they are, Kathy believes she knows
who her dad is, but I've got to make sure.
I'm worried about what do we know.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So he reaches out to Kathy's mom, who's still alive,
and amazingly, she agrees to talk to him.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And with some conversation, and we got very much into
the personal life. And I hate having those conversations, especially
with an older lady. I feel you know a duty
to respect your elders, and I'm having conversations about paternity.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
And this is where it gets a little even more complicated,
because David Middleman says Kathy's DNA test comes.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Back her doing the DNA test then further confirmed that
she was in a parent child relationship with the contributor.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
So Kathy is the child of the murderer. Yeah, exactly,
But with this whole affair her mom had, we don't
know if the killer is actually John ray Hoff or
one of his brothers.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Correct, And all of these questions and sort of messy
family dynamics make it so tricky for Sergeant Stormant. Even
though he's getting closer to an answer.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
There's a lot of overwhelming joy in it, but I
didn't want to embrace that yet. There was a horrible
process that I still had to go through. I felt
a lot of pressure on it.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So what's this process he's talking about? I mean, how
do you narrow down which of the three brothers committed
the crime? They're all dead and John ray Hoff is
the only one who had kids.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Right, So really, the only thing investigators can do is
test John ray Hoff's own DNA to prove either that
he's the killer or to rule him out.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Which would mean one of his brothers is the real killer.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And the thing is Alan David Milman says, testing John
ray Hoff's DNA is way more complicated than getting DNA
from a mouth swab.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So the investigators pursued a search warrant that allowed them
to believe it or not, exhume the remains of this person.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
They have to dig up his body, and then I'm
guessing if it's not him, they've got to go through
this whole process exhuming the bodies of his brothers too.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, and the search could actually be even wider than that.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
You can never be sure, right, because who's to say
that there wasn't a half brother that nobody knows about
or a secret brother that no one knows about.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I mean, when it comes down to it, families have
secrets and who knows what anyone wants to admit to.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, that is so true, and it gets even worse.
So Sergeant Strumant reaches back out to Kathy and her
mom because he needs to find out where John ray
Hoff is buried so they can exhume his body.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Dad was buried and still intact, hadn't been cremated. That
led to another horrible revelation, as he was buried in
the same cemetery as Candy. She's in a mausoleum there
at Riverside State Park, and he was buried in a
plot about several hundred yards away, and that was disgusting
to me and disgusting to them as well.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
To their credit, Sergeant Strumant gets a warrant to exhume
John ray Hoff's body, and when he arrives at the cemetery,
he brings a few people. Brittany right from the State
Crime Lab, there's someone from the Medical Examiner's office, and
there's a funeral director now Allen. It's been fifty years
since John ray Hoff's body was buried, so they're not
(13:12):
really sure what they're going to find.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
We were concerned about water infiltration, We were concerned about collapse
on the coffin, and we started with a back coage,
just digging very carefully, and we actually saw as we
were going that we could see a collapse.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
So there's a vault around the area where his coffin
was buried, and it was built with pieces of concrete
rather than poured concrete, so.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
They're pretty fragile, and the pressure of digging caused it
to collapse. And then we started digging by hand. So
that was myself and two detectives with just buckets, just
scooping dirt in until we got to the lid, and
good luck again was on our side. The vault was dry,
(14:00):
hadn't been filled with water. Brittany was concerned enough that
we didn't know what's going to yield DNA here. We
decided we're going to take the whole body.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
So they take his entire body back to the police
evidence facility and Alan. Initially they actually have trouble getting
DNA from his remains, but ultimately they're able to get
some from his teeth.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
The DNA test on the body comes back very definitively,
but it's one of those astronomical numbers that it's definitive.
So at this point we know it is John and
not one of the brothers.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So John ray Hoff was in fact the killer.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yes, and this is a huge effort. So everyone is
massively relieved, including David Middleman.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
I think there was a lot of pressure applied to
Detective Stormant, to the agency as a whole, because they
are going out of their comfort zone trying a new technique.
They had been faced only with failure and previous attempts
to identify him. So there's a lot of naysayers. Several
labs had said this work can't be done. They refused
(15:11):
to take the work and thought it was impossible. Is
Detective Stormant chasing a white whale? And perhaps the most
wild thing of all is he had never been under
consideration for being related to this case.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It's honestly shocking that for six decades, John ray Hoff
was never on the suspect list I know.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So Sergeant Stormant decides to hold a press conference to
announce who the killer is and in November twenty twenty one,
Kristin Middleman travels to Spokane for the event.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
I will remember every part of that day for the
rest of my life. It was a snowy day in Spokane, Washington.
It was hard to get into the airport. We drove
up to where the press conference was being held, and
I don't know what I thought I expected. I think
I expected a few people, but there were. It was
(16:00):
a full room. The entire police station was filled.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Once it was sold, I just started looking up everybody
that was involved in it that I could to find
who wants to know.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
And that's because this case affected so many people. Yeah,
I mean Alan, remember the men who died during the
helicopter crash while they were searching for candy, and then
all of these detectives over the years who really became
so emotionally invested in the case.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I have a picture up here on my wall. God,
this is Roscoe Gearing And you got to think of
the people at the time. Roscoe served in the Marine
Corps and landed on Okinawa. Oh I'm sorry. His daughter's
(16:52):
got a hold of me. After it was announced it
was solved, and incredibly, they knew a lot about this case.
They said that their dad and other detectives at dinner
would sit and talk about it. Unfortunately, Rosco had passed away,
but they said their dad had mentioned a belt buckle.
He says, his dad knew that if they'd know him
(17:13):
by his belt buckle, and that was new to me.
I hadn't heard that before. But I think that speaks
to how she was restrained, obviously, But I wish he'd
have been around to find out. Those guys that took
me under their wing, and when they retired, essimply took
(17:34):
those boxes and put them on my desk. I felt
responsibility to them, and almost silly and undeserving of being
the one in the seat when the stars aligned, when
something like authorm emerged and in this incredible technology.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Back at the press conference, current and former detectives are
gathered and Kristin Middleman notices one older who is visibly emotional.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
And so I introduced myself and said, can I help?
Are you okay? And the person told me that they
were actually the detective that found Candy Rogers that day,
sixty two years ago, and he would have been very young.
He was in his nineties, and he was ninety three
years old, I believe, at the press conference, and he
(18:26):
said one sentence. I waited every single day my entire
life to hear this answer, this can't come fast enough.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And yeah, it hit him so hard. Yeah, I said,
he thank god it lived long enough to see it's all.
They took it very personally.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Now, Allen, after all of this, there's still the question
of what do you do with John ray Hoff's body.
I mean, no one was comfortable with the fact that
he had originally been buried so close to Candy, just
knowing her family has been walking near his grave when
visiting hers. I mean, it's kind of creepy. So Sergeant
(19:37):
Stormant reaches out to John ray Hoff's wife and his daughter.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Kathy, and they were both of the opinion, now, we
don't want him to go back there. They had the
same he shouldn't be there with her, So we arranged
to have his headstone destroyed and that was done.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
They eventually cremate his body and bury him in a
different cemetery.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And how is Kathy dealing with all of this?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
So this has been incredibly hard on her and her siblings.
Speaker 6 (20:10):
Disbelief, but not that I didn't believe it, but it's
just it takes a while for it to sink in.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
And anger, sadness.
Speaker 7 (20:23):
It's just really sad to find out that it's someone
that not even that it's just your dad, but just
someone in your family could.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Do something like that and he committed suicide. I had
lived most of my life thinking he did it because
he was very depressed or something, and now I think, no,
you know, that's he was evil. He was evil, and
he was it wasn't escape away from it, but he
(20:50):
got to He got to die with people thinking he
was an upstanding man and he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Sixty two years later, we finally know that John Rayhoff
is the person who raped and murdered Candy Rogers. And
to think that so many labs said they couldn't work
on this case because the DNA was so small and degraded.
I mean, this was so close to being an unsolvable case.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Yeah, And at the time it kind of came down
to luck. Paul Hols was working with the Spokane Police
Department and he'd just come off the Carla Walker case
with AUTHORM. So it was really a situation where detectives
had run out of all options, and Paul was like,
wait a second, I think authoram can actually crack this case.
(21:47):
And David Middleman says, in a lot of ways, the
Candy Rogers case was a turning point.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
We've demonstrated now that it doesn't matter where you're from
when the crime happened, what the circumstances were. If there's
an unsolved crime and there's DNA evidence, there's an answer
that's waiting.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And now that we do have an answer in Candy
Rogers murder, does that help us understand other details of
the crime, like what actually happened that night?
Speaker 8 (22:16):
Kind of?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I mean, Sergeant's stormant has a few theories. So first
he mapped out where authorities found the boxes of mints
that she was selling.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Some of the mint boxes were found right on the roadway.
One other box was found a little bit off. There's
a little off rent that kind of goes into a
wooded area. Can't help but wonder if that is where
he assaulted her, and what his intent was, if it
was to assault and let her go.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Oh so why didn't he Well, Allen, if you remember,
both Candy's family and the police immediately just had a
feeling that something was wrong.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I wonder if because the parents were looking so quickly,
and if you look at the geography, that little area
looks up back up the hill where her house is,
and that area would have been flooded with people looking
flashlights and police cars everywhere, and he had to come
up with a different plan. And if sexual assault changed
(23:12):
to buying time and restraining or somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So maybe he panicked and took her. But how does
her body end up in the woods?
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Well, the theory goes that since John Rayhoff had been
in the military, he may have been familiar with the
woods because they were around a military base that was
in the process of being decommissioned, so it also would
have been fairly vacant.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
He would have known those buildings were available. And we
know that Candy was held for a period of days,
and I go back to we know what she ate.
She ate that cookie at Grandma's house, and then at
autopsy it looks like she's eating an orange. She was restrained.
Her body was found with her hands were free, but
her feet were bound but agature. Her hands had obviously
(24:00):
been bound at some point, and a ligature is found
around her neck, presumably the one from her hands was
moved to her neck when she ultimately was killed. I
suspect that he obviously couldn't take her home, he had
a family there. I think that those are the most
likely spot that he could have had privacy.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Sergeant Stormann says this is all speculation on his part,
and he's actually hoping that someone will read through the
case file because it's all public now, and see if
his theory adds up and there's something else that happened.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
Alan.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
After Othram was able to point detectives to Candy's killer,
Spokenne City officials had a request.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
They had a backlog of I believe it was thirty
eight unidentified human remains. They said, we will fund clearing
and identifying every single one of them using your methods.
We're in twenty twenty five and their backlog is clear,
but we continue to work cases with the PD there
and the Medical Examiner's office in real time.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
You can see how even though we know who killed Candy,
there are still so many questions. And I get the
feeling that Sergeant Stormant isn't ready to completely walk away
from this case.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
And maybe that's why stories like these capture our attention.
I mean, they are so horrific, and maybe the only
way to process it is to try to understand what
makes people go off the deep end in the first place.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
It's incredible what one person's selfish actions in a small
amount of time to damage and the ripple effect that
spread through the decades can have. It's incredible.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
I'm very very sorry for what my dad did, and
he took her life.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
Horribly, and that he took her mom's life really took
her dad's life. He took more lives than one. And
even though I didn't do it and I'm not responsible,
I hope that it gives me snowing that even though
it's not really justice because he doesn't get any punishment,
(26:25):
but that his name has this on it now and
they can know it's solved and everybody can know it's.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
Done next time.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
On America's Crime.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
Lab, this is the second largest case of unidentified human
remains in this country, Sucker only two the World Tracer.
She couldn't believe it, and she was in shock and disbelief,
and I remember her even telling me, I'm not gonna
believe it until I have his ashes in my hand.
Speaker 10 (27:14):
That is an absolutely daunting undertaking to try and identify
all those people, but it's exactly the right thing to do.
Doing the right thing isn't always easy, but it's always
the right thing.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
America's Crime Lab is produced by Rococo Punch for Kaleidoscope.
Erica lance is our story editor and sound design is
by David Woji. Our producing team is Catherine Fedalosa and
Jessica Albert. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne, Mangesh Hadikadour
and David and Kristin Middleman and from iHeart Katrina Norville
and Ali Perry. Special thanks to Connell Byrne, Will Pearson,
(27:55):
Carrie Lieberman, Nikki Etoor, Nathan Etowski, John Burbank, and the
entire team Authrum, I'm Allen lance lessor thanks for listening.
There's going to be a moment in time or use
the cold case detective or the only person in the
world that knows who killed that person.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
When police discovered the body of nine year old Candy
Rogers in the woods outside of Spokane, Washington, she'd been
raped and strangled. The attack was so brutal that it
shook veteran officers. Many had a hard time speaking about
what they'd seen at the crime scene. For sixty two years,
(00:47):
all leads turned up cold, and Candy's murder became the
largest case file in Spokane's history. But in twenty twenty one,
detectives had their first big break. This is America's Crime Lab.
I'm Alan Lancelesser. This is part two of the Candy
(01:10):
Rogers case. If you've missed the previous episode, you'll want
to go back and listen. Producer Katherine Fenalosa is here.
So when we left the story, seamen from Candy's underwear
had been tested and once they had a DNA profile,
Authroom did forensic genetic genealogy and that led them to
three brothers.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Yeah, the three Hoff brothers, and all three did live
in Spokane, but unfortunately they've all since died. So investigators
looked to see if any of them had children, and
two of the brothers did not, but one did. John
ray Hoff actually had four kids. And Sergeant Zach Stormant
decides to reach out to Kathy, a daughter, and Kathy
(01:53):
actually agrees to meet with Sergeant Stormant at the police
station along with her own daughter.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
So what do we know about Kathy's dad, Well.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
He grew up in Spokane. He was the oldest of
the three brothers. And Alan, do you remember the boys
home that David Middelman asked Sergeant Stormant to look into.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, that came up when they were doing genealogy research.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
So Athram found a clue showing that someone in the
killer's family was connected to a boy's home in Washington State,
and Sergeant Stormant says, it turns out that John ray
Hoff actually spent some time living at that home.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
He's got stealing, he stole a car, he did some
PEFs type stuff. His parents were concerned enough about his
behavior that somehow they came to the agreement that he
was going to join the army early at seventeen, and
they signed in for him to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
So John ray Hoff joins the army and he ends
up serving as an inventory clerk while he's deployed to Korea. Now,
while he's gone Alan, his wife actually has an affair
with one of his brothers, and that detail will become
important later, so just kind of like tuck that away.
He returns to the Spokane area and in nineteen fifty nine,
(03:05):
when Candy is murdered, John ray Hoff is twenty years
old and he's living just a mile from Candy's house.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Did they know each other? I mean, did he know
Candy's family at all?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
So there is a connection. John ray Hoff had a
younger stepsister who was just a year older than Candy,
and she was also in the Campfire Girls, you know
that group sort of like the girl Scouts that Candy
was a part of. But police don't think that John
ever actually met Candy.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It still just shows what a small world it is.
So he had these early run ins with police. Are
there any other red flags?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Well, a few years after Candy's murder, John ray Hoff
is convicted of assault. He pretended he was interested in
an apartment and when he arrived to look at it,
he attacks the female property manager. He actually strangles and
undresses her, and he ties her up with her own clothing,
which is also how Candy was restrained. Luckily, the property
(04:08):
manager survives the attack. John ray Hoff serves six months
in jail and he's declared a deserter and he's discharged
from the Army and Alan. There's also another murder that
happens about six months after Candy's.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Death, a girl named Sherry Edgel.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Sherry is also nine years old when she's abducted, assaulted,
and strangled. Her body was found in a blood soaked
nightgown in a tall, grassy area off a highway and Aylen.
This happened about forty five minutes from the boy's home,
where John ray Hoff had spent some time several years before.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
This guy has ties to that area because that base
over there is Lewis McCord. It's a Joint Army Air
Force base and he did spend some time serving there
as well, and it makes me wonder about him.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
That case is still unsolved.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Those two cases have some strange similarities. And what happens
to John ray Hoff after he's kicked out of the army.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So he sells silverware door to door for a time,
then he works in a lumberyard and a meatpacking plant.
And then when he's thirty one, he takes his own life.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Oh wow, do we know why he killed himself?
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Well, at the time, he was married with four children,
and his family just thought he was depressed.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
At any point in the investigation, was his name on
any suspect list.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
No, his name never pops up on detective's radar until
Authrem builds out the family tree. And that's all based
on the DNA from the seamen found on Candy's underwear.
And now Sergeant Stormant is sitting across the table from
John Rayhoff's daughter Kathy and his granddaughter.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Of it was I'm destroying what I would view as
my father. I'm seeing it personally because I don't know
how she sees her own and I'm thinking, God, this
is horrible. And same with the daughter who's thinking about Grandpa.
You're essentially pulling up their route and tearing it out
(06:23):
of the ground and saying, now, your family is not
what you think. She was very affected by what happened
to Candy. It was the horror of what happened to
this little girl. And anybody that knows this case knows
Candy Candy w have died very hard there's no other
way to say it.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
And the whole case could rest on this moment because
Kathy could get up and walk away.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah, I mean, he knows he has to win her trust.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
It does not take a lot to turn one of
these from stone cold. No one's ever going to solve
this to red hot. I am a cold case detective
and I think you can help me with a homicide.
And it's a lightning bolt. So few people are going
to be hit with this opportunity or responsibility or dread.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I wonder what Kathy's thinking at this point.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Sergeant Stormant says she was listening super intently when her
father died. She was nine years old, just like Candy.
And in this moment, it's becoming very clear to Kathy
that her father is a prime suspect in Spokane's oldest
cold case, and that detectives need her DNA, and Kathy
(07:51):
agrees to give a sample.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
She very willingly gave that. I collected buckle swaps from
her at that moment, and obviously I had a million
more questions for I told her we're going to talk more,
but I wanted to get the DNA to the lab.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Sergeant Stormant literally races out of the room with Kathy's
DNA because he wants to get it to the lab
before they close. And he meets Britney right from the
State Crime Lab.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
And she has tested so many DNA samples on this
case trying to find her guy, and it's always been nope.
And she met me at the window and I said,
this is the one, this is the case, and she
kind of she was, we'll see. There's been so many
Brittany worked I believe through the night on this. She
had that done in twenty four hours and it is
(08:48):
a lightning bolt moment for both of us. It's incredible.
It is like, holy, forgive my language, holy shit, this
is that actually going to be the end of the
Candy Rogers case.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
So Allen, while Sergeant Storman is incredibly excited to have
Kathy's DNA tested, he's also really nervous because remember I
mentioned earlier that while her dad was serving in Korea,
her mom had an affair with one of his brothers.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yes, so I mean, as you worried about paternity.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Yeah, so there's still a possibility that it could actually
be one of his brothers.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
And families being what they are, Kathy believes she knows
who her dad is, but I've got to make sure.
I'm worried about what do we know.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So he reaches out to Kathy's mom, who's still alive,
and amazingly, she agrees to talk to him.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
And with some conversation, and we got very much into
the personal life. And I hate having those conversations, especially
with an older lady. I feel you know a duty
to respect your elders, and I'm having conversations about paternity.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
And this is where it gets a little even more complicated,
because David Middleman says Kathy's DNA test comes.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Back her doing the DNA test then further confirmed that
she was in a parent child relationship with the contributor.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
So Kathy is the child of the murderer. Yeah, exactly,
But with this whole affair her mom had, we don't
know if the killer is actually John ray Hoff or
one of his brothers.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Correct, And all of these questions and sort of messy
family dynamics make it so tricky for Sergeant Stormant. Even
though he's getting closer to an answer.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
There's a lot of overwhelming joy in it, but I
didn't want to embrace that yet. There was a horrible
process that I still had to go through. I felt
a lot of pressure on it.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
So what's this process he's talking about? I mean, how
do you narrow down which of the three brothers committed
the crime? They're all dead and John ray Hoff is
the only one who had kids.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Right, So really, the only thing investigators can do is
test John ray Hoff's own DNA to prove either that
he's the killer or to rule him out.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Which would mean one of his brothers is the real killer.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And the thing is Alan David Milman says, testing John
ray Hoff's DNA is way more complicated than getting DNA
from a mouth swab.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
So the investigators pursued a search warrant that allowed them
to believe it or not, exhume the remains of this person.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
They have to dig up his body, and then I'm
guessing if it's not him, they've got to go through
this whole process exhuming the bodies of his brothers too.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, and the search could actually be even wider than that.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
You can never be sure, right, because who's to say
that there wasn't a half brother that nobody knows about
or a secret brother that no one knows about.
Speaker 5 (12:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
I mean, when it comes down to it, families have
secrets and who knows what anyone wants to admit to.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Yeah, that is so true, and it gets even worse.
So Sergeant Strumant reaches back out to Kathy and her
mom because he needs to find out where John ray
Hoff is buried so they can exhume his body.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Dad was buried and still intact, hadn't been cremated. That
led to another horrible revelation, as he was buried in
the same cemetery as Candy. She's in a mausoleum there
at Riverside State Park, and he was buried in a
plot about several hundred yards away, and that was disgusting
to me and disgusting to them as well.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
To their credit, Sergeant Strumant gets a warrant to exhume
John ray Hoff's body, and when he arrives at the cemetery,
he brings a few people. Brittany right from the State
Crime Lab, there's someone from the Medical Examiner's office, and
there's a funeral director now Allen. It's been fifty years
since John ray Hoff's body was buried, so they're not
(13:12):
really sure what they're going to find.
Speaker 1 (13:14):
We were concerned about water infiltration, We were concerned about collapse
on the coffin, and we started with a back coage,
just digging very carefully, and we actually saw as we
were going that we could see a collapse.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
So there's a vault around the area where his coffin
was buried, and it was built with pieces of concrete
rather than poured concrete, so.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
They're pretty fragile, and the pressure of digging caused it
to collapse. And then we started digging by hand. So
that was myself and two detectives with just buckets, just
scooping dirt in until we got to the lid, and
good luck again was on our side. The vault was dry,
(14:00):
hadn't been filled with water. Brittany was concerned enough that
we didn't know what's going to yield DNA here. We
decided we're going to take the whole body.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
So they take his entire body back to the police
evidence facility and Alan. Initially they actually have trouble getting
DNA from his remains, but ultimately they're able to get
some from his teeth.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
The DNA test on the body comes back very definitively,
but it's one of those astronomical numbers that it's definitive.
So at this point we know it is John and
not one of the brothers.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So John ray Hoff was in fact the killer.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yes, and this is a huge effort. So everyone is
massively relieved, including David Middleman.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
I think there was a lot of pressure applied to
Detective Stormant, to the agency as a whole, because they
are going out of their comfort zone trying a new technique.
They had been faced only with failure and previous attempts
to identify him. So there's a lot of naysayers. Several
labs had said this work can't be done. They refused
(15:11):
to take the work and thought it was impossible. Is
Detective Stormant chasing a white whale? And perhaps the most
wild thing of all is he had never been under
consideration for being related to this case.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
It's honestly shocking that for six decades, John ray Hoff
was never on the suspect list I know.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So Sergeant Stormant decides to hold a press conference to
announce who the killer is and in November twenty twenty one,
Kristin Middleman travels to Spokane for the event.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
I will remember every part of that day for the
rest of my life. It was a snowy day in Spokane, Washington.
It was hard to get into the airport. We drove
up to where the press conference was being held, and
I don't know what I thought I expected. I think
I expected a few people, but there were. It was
(16:00):
a full room. The entire police station was filled.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Once it was sold, I just started looking up everybody
that was involved in it that I could to find
who wants to know.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
And that's because this case affected so many people. Yeah,
I mean Alan, remember the men who died during the
helicopter crash while they were searching for candy, and then
all of these detectives over the years who really became
so emotionally invested in the case.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I have a picture up here on my wall. God,
this is Roscoe Gearing And you got to think of
the people at the time. Roscoe served in the Marine
Corps and landed on Okinawa. Oh I'm sorry. His daughter's
(16:52):
got a hold of me. After it was announced it
was solved, and incredibly, they knew a lot about this case.
They said that their dad and other detectives at dinner
would sit and talk about it. Unfortunately, Rosco had passed away,
but they said their dad had mentioned a belt buckle.
He says, his dad knew that if they'd know him
(17:13):
by his belt buckle, and that was new to me.
I hadn't heard that before. But I think that speaks
to how she was restrained, obviously, But I wish he'd
have been around to find out. Those guys that took
me under their wing, and when they retired, essimply took
(17:34):
those boxes and put them on my desk. I felt
responsibility to them, and almost silly and undeserving of being
the one in the seat when the stars aligned, when
something like authorm emerged and in this incredible technology.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Back at the press conference, current and former detectives are
gathered and Kristin Middleman notices one older who is visibly emotional.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
And so I introduced myself and said, can I help?
Are you okay? And the person told me that they
were actually the detective that found Candy Rogers that day,
sixty two years ago, and he would have been very young.
He was in his nineties, and he was ninety three
years old, I believe, at the press conference, and he
(18:26):
said one sentence. I waited every single day my entire
life to hear this answer, this can't come fast enough.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And yeah, it hit him so hard. Yeah, I said,
he thank god it lived long enough to see it's all.
They took it very personally.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Now, Allen, after all of this, there's still the question
of what do you do with John ray Hoff's body.
I mean, no one was comfortable with the fact that
he had originally been buried so close to Candy, just
knowing her family has been walking near his grave when
visiting hers. I mean, it's kind of creepy. So Sergeant
(19:37):
Stormant reaches out to John ray Hoff's wife and his daughter.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Kathy, and they were both of the opinion, now, we
don't want him to go back there. They had the
same he shouldn't be there with her, So we arranged
to have his headstone destroyed and that was done.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
They eventually cremate his body and bury him in a
different cemetery.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And how is Kathy dealing with all of this?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
So this has been incredibly hard on her and her siblings.
Speaker 6 (20:10):
Disbelief, but not that I didn't believe it, but it's
just it takes a while for it to sink in.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
And anger, sadness.
Speaker 7 (20:23):
It's just really sad to find out that it's someone
that not even that it's just your dad, but just
someone in your family could.
Speaker 6 (20:29):
Do something like that and he committed suicide. I had
lived most of my life thinking he did it because
he was very depressed or something, and now I think, no,
you know, that's he was evil. He was evil, and
he was it wasn't escape away from it, but he
(20:50):
got to He got to die with people thinking he
was an upstanding man and he wasn't.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Sixty two years later, we finally know that John Rayhoff
is the person who raped and murdered Candy Rogers. And
to think that so many labs said they couldn't work
on this case because the DNA was so small and degraded.
I mean, this was so close to being an unsolvable case.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Yeah, And at the time it kind of came down
to luck. Paul Hols was working with the Spokane Police
Department and he'd just come off the Carla Walker case
with AUTHORM. So it was really a situation where detectives
had run out of all options, and Paul was like,
wait a second, I think authoram can actually crack this case.
(21:47):
And David Middleman says, in a lot of ways, the
Candy Rogers case was a turning point.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
We've demonstrated now that it doesn't matter where you're from
when the crime happened, what the circumstances were. If there's
an unsolved crime and there's DNA evidence, there's an answer
that's waiting.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
And now that we do have an answer in Candy
Rogers murder, does that help us understand other details of
the crime, like what actually happened that night?
Speaker 8 (22:16):
Kind of?
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I mean, Sergeant's stormant has a few theories. So first
he mapped out where authorities found the boxes of mints
that she was selling.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Some of the mint boxes were found right on the roadway.
One other box was found a little bit off. There's
a little off rent that kind of goes into a
wooded area. Can't help but wonder if that is where
he assaulted her, and what his intent was, if it
was to assault and let her go.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Oh so why didn't he Well, Allen, if you remember,
both Candy's family and the police immediately just had a
feeling that something was wrong.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
I wonder if because the parents were looking so quickly,
and if you look at the geography, that little area
looks up back up the hill where her house is,
and that area would have been flooded with people looking
flashlights and police cars everywhere, and he had to come
up with a different plan. And if sexual assault changed
(23:12):
to buying time and restraining or somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So maybe he panicked and took her. But how does
her body end up in the woods?
Speaker 3 (23:22):
Well, the theory goes that since John Rayhoff had been
in the military, he may have been familiar with the
woods because they were around a military base that was
in the process of being decommissioned, so it also would
have been fairly vacant.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
He would have known those buildings were available. And we
know that Candy was held for a period of days,
and I go back to we know what she ate.
She ate that cookie at Grandma's house, and then at
autopsy it looks like she's eating an orange. She was restrained.
Her body was found with her hands were free, but
her feet were bound but agature. Her hands had obviously
(24:00):
been bound at some point, and a ligature is found
around her neck, presumably the one from her hands was
moved to her neck when she ultimately was killed. I
suspect that he obviously couldn't take her home, he had
a family there. I think that those are the most
likely spot that he could have had privacy.
Speaker 3 (24:23):
Sergeant Stormann says this is all speculation on his part,
and he's actually hoping that someone will read through the
case file because it's all public now, and see if
his theory adds up and there's something else that happened.
Speaker 8 (24:37):
Alan.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
After Othram was able to point detectives to Candy's killer,
Spokenne City officials had a request.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
They had a backlog of I believe it was thirty
eight unidentified human remains. They said, we will fund clearing
and identifying every single one of them using your methods.
We're in twenty twenty five and their backlog is clear,
but we continue to work cases with the PD there
and the Medical Examiner's office in real time.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
You can see how even though we know who killed Candy,
there are still so many questions. And I get the
feeling that Sergeant Stormant isn't ready to completely walk away
from this case.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
And maybe that's why stories like these capture our attention.
I mean, they are so horrific, and maybe the only
way to process it is to try to understand what
makes people go off the deep end in the first place.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
It's incredible what one person's selfish actions in a small
amount of time to damage and the ripple effect that
spread through the decades can have. It's incredible.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
I'm very very sorry for what my dad did, and
he took her life.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
Horribly, and that he took her mom's life really took
her dad's life. He took more lives than one. And
even though I didn't do it and I'm not responsible,
I hope that it gives me snowing that even though
it's not really justice because he doesn't get any punishment,
(26:25):
but that his name has this on it now and
they can know it's solved and everybody can know it's.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
Done next time.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
On America's Crime.
Speaker 9 (26:51):
Lab, this is the second largest case of unidentified human
remains in this country, Sucker only two the World Tracer.
She couldn't believe it, and she was in shock and disbelief,
and I remember her even telling me, I'm not gonna
believe it until I have his ashes in my hand.
Speaker 10 (27:14):
That is an absolutely daunting undertaking to try and identify
all those people, but it's exactly the right thing to do.
Doing the right thing isn't always easy, but it's always
the right thing.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
America's Crime Lab is produced by Rococo Punch for Kaleidoscope.
Erica lance is our story editor and sound design is
by David Woji. Our producing team is Catherine Fedalosa and
Jessica Albert. Our executive producers are Kate Osborne, Mangesh Hadikadour
and David and Kristin Middleman and from iHeart Katrina Norville
and Ali Perry. Special thanks to Connell Byrne, Will Pearson,
(27:55):
Carrie Lieberman, Nikki Etoor, Nathan Etowski, John Burbank, and the
entire team Authrum, I'm Allen lance lessor thanks for listening.
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