July 25, 2025 • 40 mins
In 2000 and 2001, three women were brutally murdered in South Florida, their bodies discovered by passers-by. There were few leads, and many obstacles. Det. Zachary Scott, from the Broward Sheriff’s Office, takes Enrique through the twists and turns of a case that followed the trail of a serial killer into South America, and wasn’t resolved until two decades later.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
From School of Humans and iHeart podcasts This is Cold
Case Files Miami. I'm your host Heendrique Santos. In the
summer of two thousand, the bodies of two women, thirty
five year old Kimberly Dietz Livesey and twenty one year
(00:25):
old Sia DMAs were found brutally murdered. Their bodies had
been stuffed inside luggage and abandoned in Browd County, just
north of Miami Dade County. The police investigated the murders
and collected evidence, but unfortunately they had no suspects in
the case. The following year, in August two thousand and one,
another woman, twenty four year old Jessica Good, was found
(00:46):
dead in Biscayne Bay in Miami. In Jessica's case, police
had a person of interest that they were not able
to locate him, and there were still no leads on
who had murdered Kimberly and Sia. Years passed and it
began to seem like the familes of the three women
would never learn who had done this to their loved ones. However,
in August twenty twenty one, two decades after the murders,
(01:09):
Miami PDE and the Broward Sheriff's Office made a remarkable
announcement they had officially identified the person who'd killed Kimberly Dietz,
Livesey Ci Ademus, and Jessica Good. It was a Brazilian
man named Roberto Wagner Fernandes. Fernandez had been a licensed
pilot in Brazil who'd moved to Miami in the late
nineteen nineties. In the summer of two thousand and one,
(01:31):
he was working as a local tour guide. He'd fled
the US shortly after Jessica's murder. It took decades of
police work across multiple departments and international boarders to solve
these murders. To walk us through how it happened, we're
talking to Detective Zachary Scott from the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Detective Scott has been on the force since two thousand.
(01:53):
In twenty twenty, after seven years on the homicide unit,
he joined his department's newly minted cold case unit. Detective Scott,
thank you for speaking to us today. First, let's start
with when did you join the Roward County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I joined BSO in March of two thousand.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I'm curious what do you like most about your work
with cold cases.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I think it's just you know, you get to when
you go back through some of these cases and it's
kind of like a time capsule sometimes, and you see
how hard the original viscators worked to get to the
point where you can identify a suspect and to be
able to kind of finish that job, to me is
very rewarding, and most importantly for the surviving families, because
(02:39):
you know, the longer case sits open and unsolved, you know,
they start to lose hope. So if we can find
some way to give them that hope back and know
that people will be held accountable, I enjoy.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
That, you know, and in this podcast we enjoy hearing
from those behind the badge that really put so much
effort into trying to solve these these cases. And the
frustration right to maybe having a hunch or having some
ideas but not having the concrete evidence. How much does
that weigh on you? Sometimes a lot?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I mean it's huge in every I think if you've
ever worked, you know, investigations, especially with homicides, when you
can't get that suspect named, or you can't figure out
you know, or you just hit a wall and there's
no leads. It's like having, you know, that an itch
in the back that you just can't reach, but it
(03:28):
never goes away. And that's, you know, from a cold
case perspective, that's something we run into because you know,
and I'm guilty of it. I didn't want to give
up my cases to anybody else if they were open
and unsolved. I wanted to keep them. But sometimes you
have to recognize that. Look, if people could dedicate more time,
or you just need a different set of eyes to
(03:49):
look at a case, it's probably your best bet.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Can you take us back? Then? Two women were found
brutally murdered and dismembered in the summer of two thousand
and you walk us through the initial investigation.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Sure, And actually I had just gotten out of the
academy when the first case happened, which was Kim's case,
and that was in June of two thousand. A person
driving by saw a suitcase on the side of a
pretty good sized roadway, and when they checked the suitcase
to see if there's anything evalue in it or anything
to get back to the original owner, they discovered the
(04:26):
body of a deceased female inside she was not dismembered,
but she was definitely manipulated physically and crushed to the
point where she would fit in the suitcase. So it
was definitely a very violent, brutal homicide. And the suitcase
was not like thrown into the woods. This was right
next to the roadway, so it was not something that
(04:46):
was trying to be hidden, which kind of gives you
a whole other insight to the mentality behind this crime.
In CIA's case, which was in August of the same year,
so just over a month and a half later, similarly,
a Duffel bag was seen on the side of the
road by someone walking their dog. There had been a
decent amount of media coverage on the first case, so
(05:09):
any suitcase on the side of the road, people were
calling nine one one, and in this case, that call
got a deputy to respond, and when they investigated the
Duffel bag they also found the body of it seized
female inside, and that was Ceadmus. The difference in the
condition between the two scenes was that Ceo was also
wrapped in plastic and then put in the bag, so
(05:30):
slightly different, But the fact that there were two bags
deceased females side of the road in the same county.
You know, we have to start thinking about are these connected,
And that's kind of where the investigation started.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So besides obviously their bodies and the briefcase and the
Duffel bag, what other evidence was collected?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Obviously anything around those suitcases, any you know what you
would probably just look at and disregard as litter or
things along those lines, we have to consider that that
might be you know, valuable evidence. So what we call
trace evidence, which is anything that's you know, small around
the bag that whoever dropped that bag there would have
to either cross through or maybe dis you know, maybe
(06:14):
they're the ones who dropped it. We're going to collect
for evidence. In cus case, that plastic wrap turned out
to be a very valuable piece of evidence for us
because plastic holds on to a lot more than fabric
as far as fingerprints are concerned. And actually in her
case they were able to get a fingerprint from the
inside of that plastic wrapping. On both cases, they were
(06:35):
able to obtain a DNA profile off of the handle
of the suitcase.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Could you walk us through the theory of collecting evidence
in the process, Like when the CSI team shows up
and collecting evidence. Is it always understood how it might
be useful anything that because you mentioned the area, anything
that's around.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean, I think everybody usually has the same
mentality when they go out there. As far as you know,
we don't know what's going to be valuable. You know,
at this point, as we start digging into the investigations,
as we start getting circumstances more clear, we dig into
the backgrounds of our victims, and especially once we start
talking about potential suspects. These items that we thought maybe
(07:15):
didn't mean anything, could mean everything. So you have to
kind of approach her from that standpoint. We collected all
and then later on if it doesn't, you know, it
doesn't turn out to be of significant value, Okay, then
we get rid of it. Then, but we only get
one shot at that crime scene in the first time.
I think over the years it's changed because you also
see the potential of where science can go with evidence,
(07:39):
and you have to keep that in mind as well. Okay,
we collect this evidence, we analyze it. Nothing of value
came out of it, well, nothing came out of it
now with the technology we have now. But if you
talk to guys in the seventies and try to explain
what DNA was, they'd look at you like you were crazy.
If you talk to guys like me in the two
(08:00):
thousands and you start talking about what's being done now
with genetic genealogy, we'd look at you like you're crazy.
So it's amazing how quickly these developments can happen. So
now for me, when I talk about collecting evidence, you
also have to look at it from the standpoint of
down the road a guy like me and cold case
gets your case file. You know, have we preserved the
(08:22):
evidence to the best of our ability for new science
that hasn't even been invented yet.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And that speaks to the importance of documentation, right knowing
that you may have to hand this case off to
somebody else, and who knows when or how many years
or time we might go by before somebody you know,
picks that up. And the truth is maybe you're not around.
So you've got to make sure you document everything to
leave the right evidence there and in place so that
(08:47):
somebody else can pick up on.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, one hundred percent, I mean, And that's and it's
a tough thing to think about when you're pouring so
much of yourself into these cases. You take a personal investment.
You never want to think, Okay, I'm going to hand
this off, or this case is going to go cult.
No one who goes to a scene wants to ever
think that this is going to be one of those cases.
So the unfortunate reality is is that there are always
(09:10):
going to be cases that are or that may stay
open for some time, and you do have to consider
the fact that maybe you won't be around to see
it through, and that's you know, that's a that's a
tough pill swallow as well. But you're right, I think
that that documentation is crucial. I know when I pull
a case, you know from the vault on our cold cases,
(09:31):
you know, it can make all the difference in the world.
How well they documented it, how well they preserved it,
you know, how much detailed information they kept.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Going back to the two cases that we're talking about today,
was there any DNA evidence found? Did you receive any leads?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
So with Kim's case, they were able to find a
single DNA profile, mail in origin and single source from
the handle of the suitcase. Now that's great, but at
the time you have to also look at it in
the context this is a suitcase on the side of
the road and the DNA is on the outside, so
could it be incidental contact that anybody had with that suitcase.
(10:08):
So part of that evidence collection is also collecting DNA
samples from people who you know, have made contact the
person who called it in. We've got to make sure
we have their standard so that we can rule them
out as being the contributor. If paramedics were involved, other
responding officers. All that we have to obtain, so we
make sure that whatever profile we have left on that
(10:30):
handle wasn't somebody who we can explain. But even then,
it is a suitcase, you know, and suitcases get handled.
Now further down the line and the investigation in CIA's case,
they were also able to extract a single source mail
profile from the handle of the Duffel bag, and that
one took a little longer to get, but when they
(10:51):
analyzed that profile, it was identical to the one on cans.
So now that profile suddenly has a lot more value
to it. So at the early onset of both those cases,
you had a fingerprint on CS case and you had
the sand DNA profile on both cases. Now bigger than
that in the suitcase that Kim was in. They did
(11:15):
find a ticket stub from a flight and a passenger's
name on it. Now, the problem was it was only
a partial stub. They knew it was a London to
Miami flight, but they didn't know what year because that
part was cut off. And the other thing that you know,
as investigators in cold case we look at was we
(11:36):
take it for granted is that okay, well, surely travel
records we can look this up. Well, at the time,
this is prior to nine to eleven, and the records
were a lot sketchier and not real consistent, so they
weren't able to immediately say, okay, when did this person
take this flight, so we can at least get a
time frame on this ticket stamp and where are they
(11:56):
because obviously, if you have a name inside of a
suitcase next to a victim, that's a pretty valuable clue.
So that was another lead that was that was being followed,
but it was going to take extensive record checking before
they could finally figure it out.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So you have the briefcase with one body, you have
a duffel bag duffle bag with another body, and you
have DNA matching on both. Yes, that is the moment
that you then determine that what you have as a
serial killer on your hands.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, definitely we have a link, you know. Now, obviously
there's always precautions. You don't want to necessarily say, hey,
these cases are connected because you may get tunnel vision.
But that was a pretty clear indicator that we're dealing
with at least one subject in both cases. Now, then
you have to caution yourself, but are we dealing with
just one subject?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You know?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Could this be something where it's two people working together,
you know, So you don't want to isolate just one
theory until you can kind of rule things out based
on where the evidence takes You.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Take us back and you mentioned how technology has changed
through the time and science to help solve a lot
of these cases. What was DNA testing like back in
two thousand and one comparing to how it is now?
What's different? What's changed?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Probably the most significant change from my standpoints investigators, it's
a lot more sensitive now, so it can detect smaller
and smaller amounts and give you more of a full profile.
So that's been a huge improvement over the years, and
there's been different ways that they can analyze the DNA.
You know, if you only have a partial profile, you know,
(13:24):
you don't get a full profile that gives you a
full snapshot of a person's identity. But they can do
different things now to kind of give you more information
and then also do a comparison to a direct profile
so that you can still identify someone with some pretty
impressive numbers as opposed to just you know, maybe it's them.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
In two thousand and one, the body of Jessica Good
was found in Biscayne Bay here in Miami, and police
did have a suspect, though he'd fled to Brazil before
he could be questioned or arrested. Was there a belief
that he may have been connected to the two women
Kimberlyancia whose bodies were found in Broward County.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Not initially for a couple of reasons. So after the
two cases in Brower were determined to be linked, we
formed a task force with the Sheriff's Office, FBI, other
municipalities in Brower County. And part of what that task
force would do is if other cases were reported that
had anything similar in circumstance. Now, in this case, the
(14:23):
reason that they were made aware of Jessica's case is
because both victims in Broward were sex workers. They were
known to work at Biscaying Boulevard in Day County, even
though both of them had residences in Broward. Jessica was
also a sex worker, So any murders of people in
that high risk lifestyle, they were going out to, you know,
(14:46):
if anything, just to get a view of the scene,
talk to the investigator, see if there was anything that
correlated with their cases. So they did go initially to
Jessica's call, and she was not in a bag, she
was not in a suitcase. She was actually in a
body of water. The injury pattern was different, so initially
they didn't think it was going to be connected. They
just felt like, Okay, well it is a high rist
(15:08):
lifestyle and unfortunately we see a lot of these type
of cases.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You said the body was found in the water. I'm
curious does water ruin evidence, specifically when it comes to
DNA and her fingerprints.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
It can. Obviously, the longer a body is in water,
it's going to break down the evidence physically, more especially saltwater.
But depending how long the victim's been in that body
of wire will determine how much it damages that DNA.
But again with the improvements in the science, we see
more and more success with them able to get information
(15:40):
from that DNA than we used to, certainly more than
what they had back in two.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Thousand and one. I'm here with Detective Zachary Scott for
the Broward Sheriffs Cold Case Unit. He's discussing the cases
of Kimberly Deets livesey see A Demus, and Jessica Good,
three South Florida women who were brutally murdered in two
(16:06):
thousand and two thousand and one. So when did Kimberly
and see his cases go cold?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I would say probably in the early two thousands. The
suspects DNA profile and fingerprint were put into the national databases.
So if anybody was arrested, or any other crimes were
committed and that DNA or that fingerprint was found and submitted,
everybody would know, all the bells and whistles would go off.
And years went by and nothing changed. None of those
(16:34):
alarms went off, no evidence was submitted that matched. So
it was one of those things that they couldn't sustain
a task force for much longer than that. No leads
were coming in that were determined to be credible. So
I would say probably in the early two thousands, you
could say it was called the task force was dissolved,
but the case was still maintained and kept open.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Let's fast forward to twenty eleven. It was a huge
break in the case, right, Can you walk us through
what happened? Sure?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
So, my understanding is that the City of Miami received
a grant where they could do more advanced testings on
evidence for their open homicides, and Jessica's case was one
of those cases. When that evidence was processed, they were
able to get a complete profile of DNA from Jessica.
And when that profile was uploaded into the database, it
(17:22):
connected the cases. That was the alarms, the bells and
whistles we were hoping to get. So now you had
Jessica's case, Kim's case, and CU's case all linked by
the same male DNA profile. The advantage that we had
was that City of Miami had already come up with
a very strong candidate for who that DNA belonged to,
(17:42):
and that was Roberto Fernandez.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Was this the first time it was believed Fernandez was
connected to all three cases? Yes, had your department suspected
him before.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
No, he was never on the radar. We'd never heard
of him. He had no real records in Brara County
that he would have come up on. The only thing
that I identified him initially was that DNA and then
later on through that single fingerprint.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So when did the Browie County Sheriff's Office become involved
in the investigation and the search for Fernandez.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So in twenty eleven when that profile hit, obviously everybody
needed to sit down at the table right away, and
that's where they kind of learned that there were changes
in Jessica's investigation that happened after the task force guys
had left, where basically her boyfriend had come forward and
had additional information that he had spoken to Jessica just
prior to her death and that Jessica had given him
(18:32):
information about who she was going to be with, and
that allowed them to identify Roberto as a suspect.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
As you explained, all three of these women all struggled
with substance abuse and at times engaged in sex work.
Can you talk about how that connected to this case?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yes, Well, obviously you know with Sia and Kim, with
our cases, we knew that they both had had histories
of arrests in prostitutions in the same area in Daye
County on Biscayne Boulevard, and then later once Jessica's case
was linked through physical evidence, she was also known to
frequent that same area for the same type of work.
(19:08):
So when you have that type of location connection as well,
now you have the circumstantial meeting the physical evidence wise,
and it just allows you to kind of hone in
more on a suspect. Now, like I said, we were
fortunate that city of Miami already had a great lead
from that interview that they conducted. So now that we
knew at least a potential suspect, and you can start
(19:30):
delving in his background and you start to realize that
he's got a history of frequenting those type of sex workers,
so you can kind of see where they cross paths.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
How did you make that link to know that Fernandez
had reached out to these type of women and they
had a relationship with sex workers.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's my understanding with Miami's case, when they had they
were given a vehicle description that Jessica had given her
boyfriend the night she was murdered, and it was a
tour company, and she had said, hey, here's the name
of the tour company and the phone number on the side.
So when they went to the tour company to see
who was driving the van that night, that's when they said, oh, well,
it's only one person, and that's Roberto Fernandez. And they
(20:08):
said that it's odd that they were asking because he
had shown up at work and he had huge scratches
down his face, and they said, well, what happened, and
they thought he was joking, but he told them he goes, oh,
I got in a fight with a prostitute, and they
seem to think that that was kind of common that
he would talk about that that was something he did.
Later when we started communicating with authorities in Brazil, they
(20:31):
also kind of clued the investigators in that he had
a history of engaging with prostitutes to the point where
he became an issue with his marriage that he actually had,
and that he had also been a suspect in other
crimes involving prostitutes in Brazil.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Do you think Fernandez had other victims besides these three women.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I do. I think that if you look at the timeframe,
I mean, our two cases were about six weeks apart
from each other. But Jessica's case was over a year
from CS case, and I think someone who has this
type of compulsion, I don't think that they hold off
that long unless they're locked up and secured somewhere, and
he wasn't. I think he definitely has a history, probably
(21:12):
in more in Brazil than we're probably aware of. I know,
we've done a lot of research on our cases to
see if there's a correlation, and you know, oddly enough,
in researching one of our cases, we were able to
identify a different serial killer, you know, thinking that Fernandis
may have been responsible for that case. So I think
he does have other victims, they just we haven't been
(21:34):
able to identify.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Net Wow. So fernand has had a pretty violent history
in Brazil, right, you had mentioned that. Let's let's review
some of that. He was a suspect in a rape
case back in two thousand and three, and in nineteen
ninety six he'd been acquitted of the murder of his wife.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So when they reached out to Brazil, So obviously, at
this point in the case, when we figure out all
three cases are linked, the other thing you have to
do is you have to confirm everything. So, okay, the
computers telling us this is the same DNA profile, but
the only way admissible in court we're going to be
able to prove that is to get a fresh sample
from Fernandez and match it to the same profile. So obviously,
(22:12):
say Miami had tried to find Fernandez immediately once he
was identified, and they determined he had flown back to
Brazil literally the day after Jessica's murder. So we make
contact with the government in Brazil and ask for assistance
in obtaining a DNA sample, and they basically said, well,
we don't we don't do that. We can't collect DNA
from as citizen unless they've been charged of the crime
(22:32):
here in Brazil. We asked four fingerprints and they said,
well that that's no problem because he's been arrested quite
a few times. So they brought up the case in
nineteen ninety six. He was married, has a daughter. He
gets in an argument with his wife regarding his frequenting
of prostitutes, and during the course of the arguments he
shoots his wife, I believe five or six times. At trial,
(22:54):
he is able to convince the jury it was self
defense and he has acquitted. Right after that acquittal is
when he comes to the US and we later find
out the reason behind that is that his wife's family,
at the news of the acquittal had basically put a
contract out on him, and several attempts apparently were made
on his life, so he fled the country. Otherwise he
(23:17):
probably wouldn't have made it much longer. Now, the two
thousand and three case where he's a rape suspect, that's
interesting because that's after Jessica's murder, when he flees back
to Brazil, so he picks up right where he left off.
And on that case, I believe it eventually fell apart
because the victim on that case disappeared. So that creates
(23:38):
a whole other question about what he was doing and
the activities he engaged in once he returned to Brazil.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
When did your office here that Fernandez had possibly died
back in two thousand and five, and can you describe
the circumstances of his death? Do we know how he died?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
After long discussions with the Brazilian government about Okay, we
can't collect the DNA for you, the decision was made. Well,
then can when we send a team to Brazil and
maybe not get a sample directly from him, because we
wouldn't have a warrant to do so in a foreign country.
But you can find other ways to obtain a suspect's
potential DNA with things that they discard. So the idea
(24:14):
was if we had a team that was out there
working with the Brazilian Central Authority, maybe they could find
a DNA sample. Because the other thing is is that
while the DNA would connect all three cases, without his swab,
you can't confirm it's him. You know, c His case
has a fingerprint, but Kim's case only has the DNA,
So we needed that swab. So when they went to
(24:35):
Brazil in twenty eleven and they met with the Brazilian
National Police, they basically said, look, we've done a lot
of background and we do have reports that he had
died in a plane crash in Paraguay in two thousand and.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Five, in a plane crash. M Now that sounds kind
of suspicious, though. Did anybody did you think maybe this
sounds a little suspicious, maybe this something's being fake?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, actually it was. The Brazilian National Police felt it
was very suspicious. When apparently, when Fernandez had returned to Brazil,
the contract on his life was active and people again
were attempting to take him out, so he obtained some
type of unemployment where he was flying planes in between Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay,
(25:19):
and on one of the such flights there was a crash.
He was listed as the only person on board. The
body was collected in Paraguay transport to Brazil, but no
one had seen it. No one saw the body, no
one had identified the body, and it was immediately put
in a grave. So that was the first red flag.
The investigators from the US and Brazil both went to
(25:40):
the cemetery, spoke to the caretaker and he said that
the grave was empty. He said, no, they told us
the body burned up, so it's an empty box in there.
So it was their belief that he had faked his
death to get out, you know, to stop the contract
on his life if they thought he was dead. There
were other things that came up in court records where
some property had been transferred or some judgments had been
(26:02):
made after he was supposedly dead. So there was a
few indicators that this whole story about the plane crash
may have been a ruse to kind of convince people
he was no longer alive.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Wow, how do you confirm something like this?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
There's really only one way. You got to find a
body that's obviously tricky in someone else's country where we
don't have authority, But that was going to be the
only way we could do it.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I'm back with Detective Zachary Scott. When we left the
Broward Sheriff's Office in Miami Police Department had recently learned
that the man they believed killed Kimberly, Dietz, livesey See Ademus,
and Jessica Good had potentially been killed in a plane
crash in South America in two thousand and five. However,
many people believed this man, Roberto Wagner Fernandez, may have
(26:51):
faked his death, and he may have had good reason to.
In the late nineteen nineties, after Fernandez was acquitted of
his wife's murder in Brazil, it was said her family
may have put a hit out against him. By twenty eleven,
police in the US felt like they were close to
solving these murders, but they needed Fernandez's DNA to match
the DNA they'd found for Jessica, Kimberly and Sia. To
(27:14):
do that, they'd need the help of Brazilian authorities, and
for an international case like this, you mentioned the Brazilian authorities,
what other departments are involved? Do you need to work
with or do you need to work together with collab
with to really get this done? Is it complicated?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
In this case, it was extremely complicated. Like several countries,
we do not have an extradition agreement with Brazil, so
they can't arrest him for our crimes, even if we
have ar restaurants, which were put in the system pretty
early on once he was identified, so that if he
did try to re enter the country, he would have
been detained. But outside of that, even if they were
(27:53):
to rest him in Brazil, they would never extra dine
him to the US. So we were kind of at
a standstill with that because we if we can't extradne them,
we can't take them to trial. So there really wasn't
at the time in twenty eleven, anything that could be
done if he doesn't leave the country and set foot
in the US or another country that we do have
an extradition agreement with. So while Brazil was extremely helpful,
(28:17):
their hands were tied as well, and the case kind
of stood that way for a while.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
When were you able to actually obtain the DNA that
you needed. When was the DNA actually confirmed? Did you
meet with the daughter to get her DNA? Was another
family member?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
So yes, the Brazilian authorities had identified Roberto Fernandez's daughter
was still living in Brazil. They were obviously estranged after
the murderer of her mother, and they had done background
in surveillance to see if she was in any communication
and they didn't find any. So as our resource that
we knew was there, but we still had to dig
up that coffin. That was the only way to know.
(28:54):
So we reached out through in our own government, the
Department of State, the Departiment of Justice, the FBI. They
liaisoned with the Brazilian Central Authority, the Brazilian National Police,
and they said, look, we've just had this situation happened
in Cuba. Would Brazil be willing to go along the
same lines when it comes to Roberto Fernandez? And there
(29:16):
was a lot of back and forth, a lot of
negotiations our State Attorney's office, the US Attorney's office, and
eventually there was a limited agreement that if we could
establish that Fernandez was indeed still alive, that they would
entertain the concept. So that took us into about twenty nineteen,
and at that point we began to try to file
(29:37):
for an order of exhammation to dig up the grave
to see if he was in there. As reported, That
kind of stalled, it was fought. It was, you know,
because again it was just hadn't been done before. And
that's one of the things with this case that I'm
most proud of is that Look, too many times you'll
see guys I'll say either, well, you know your victim
was in a high risk lifestyle. You know, it's just
(29:59):
a murder, or just one little case. I'm not going
to cause an international incident. And the encouragement I would
say to anybody who works these cases is swing for
the fences. Every murder is important, and yeah, create a
national incident absolutely, because you know, if it was your
loved one, you would want every single effort made, and
we have to go into it thinking that way. So
(30:21):
eventually they were able to get the order approved, and
then COVID happened, so then nobody wanted to dig up
anybody or do anything with biological material for a while.
Eventually they were able to exhume the grave and they
did find remains inside, so we made contact with his
daughter for a reference sample and compared that to the remains,
(30:44):
and they were able to determine in the Brazil crime
lab that the bones are the father of the daughter's sample.
Now that's great, We've established paternity in another country, but
it still doesn't link our cases until we get that
back to our samples. So that was a whole other battle.
During COVID, no one wanted to send biological material. Eventually
(31:05):
we were able to come up with a system where
a sample profile was created like computer wise, and they
were able to analyze it that way and confirm that
Fernandez was the person in the grave and was also
the person whose DNA is in our crime scenes.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Wow, were you able to inform the families of what
happened right at that moment? What was that moment? Like
that experience like for you?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
It was it was very rewarding. It was it was
tough because like Kim at the time, she had a
daughter who was one when she was murdered. Her daughter
now is twenty one when I'm talking to her and
about to have her child. So it was a it
was a full circle moment. It was it was rewarding,
and it was good to be able to give that
(31:51):
answer to those families. You know, now it's not as
rewarding because he got away with it. You know, in
my book, I take some small pleasure in knowing that
his last moments on earth were probably spent in sheer
terror as that plane was going into the ground. But
that's not enough for me personally. But what I will
say rewarding wise is that, you know, look, I was
just the guy at the end of the line. There
(32:12):
were so many investigators, detectives that worked on these cases
through the years, who never wanted to give up on
these cases. Being able to reach out to them and
tell them, hey, we got it, there was for me
probably a little you know, more personally rewarding, just because
I know that feeling, you know, when you have that
case that you just can't can't forget.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Was this the first case of a serial killer you
ever worked?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
No, No, but definitely one that on this scale as
far as just having to deal with international diplomacy and
so many different agencies, This was definitely the first time
I've ever had that big of a involvement in that
type of case. So yeah, but I've had a couple
other cases, like with cereals.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
As complex as this, probably not.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
No, this is going to take the cake definitely as
far as complex, just because you do have that international element.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
How common are serial killers?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
You know? I don't know if there's a way to
know for sure, because you know, every homicide you kind
of hope this is the one and only that your
suspect has committed. But if someone's willing to commit it,
I mean, you get circumstances that kind of give you
an idea of lead towards motive. But when you find
those cases where it just seems to be random or
victim of opportunity, it's hard to know for sure if
(33:32):
your case is the first time that person has done it.
So I don't know that they're super common, but I
do think that it's real hard to know.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
We talked about the improvements in technology. I want to
get back to that for a second. This case was
twenty years old. Do you feel that the improvements in
technology and science moving forward would lead to more cold
cases being solved?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
One percent? Yeah, I think that that's that's going to
be the bulk of what solves cold cases. You know,
there is that human side that witnesses will You may
find a witness that was previously not interviewed, or you know,
relationships go sour and suddenly someone wants to, you know,
dig up all the dirt. But at the end of
the day, when it comes to going to trial, credibility
(34:13):
is always going to be an issue. With people who
wait to give their information or who come forward after many,
many years, the question is always going to be asked,
what's their motivation? Evidence of science and it doesn't have
a motivation, It is what it is, so it usually
carries a little more weight when it comes to the
prosecution side. So I definitely think that as these advances happen,
it's going to allow these more of these cases to
(34:35):
reach a conclusion.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
And closing, I want to talk a bit about the
misconceptions in the public about cold cases. What are investigative
techniques you can you can do or technologies you can
use to restart an investigation.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Right now, the big focus and popularity is on genealogy,
and it is a huge resource for us, but it
does have its limits, and it doesn't it's not going
to happened in a fifty two minute episode like on TV.
It's going to take months, if not years, and then
sometimes it doesn't get you where you need to go.
You know, it's not always a success story. But the
(35:11):
key is is that you at least try. Our unit
is three guys, that's it, and that's the one thing
that every day we remind each other we got to do.
We have to at least try. Yes, I know the
odds are against this. I know eight times out of
ten this is not going to work, but we're going
to try. Because you can't tell a family, hey, we
did everything we could unless you literally did everything you could.
So I'd say that that biggest misconception is just, hey,
(35:34):
it's a great story that you see, But for every success,
there's probably about three or four that just didn't get
there where we're at right now. But I do have
hopes for science in the future, and I hear it
all the time. There's just so many things that get
improved and innovated that I think that there will always
be these huge leaps and bounds that we can take
and we can go back to these old cases and
(35:55):
find some answers.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Detective Scott. At the beginning, you mentioned how fulfilling it
is to solve these cases and why you're so passionate
about your work. What's the personal or emotional toll of
working on these cases? What can you you know, these
cases that sometimes, as you've detailed for us, go unsolved
for many years, sometimes lifetimes.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
The personal toll is probably there's a few. I mean,
if you put all your energy, effort, passion into cases,
maybe you're not putting it into other areas of your
life that you should. I know this is a newsflash
to anybody listening, but cops sometimes don't have great marriages,
and I think that sometimes it's because we do get
(36:38):
focused on this and it's just you have to remind
yourself of that balance. I know I've had to work
on it. I have a great support system with my
wife and my family that if I didn't have, I
probably wouldn't be able to keep going back in and
on these cases. And then the other reality is is
that you try and you try, and sometimes it's just
not the time. You know, we're not in the time
when this case is going to get solved, and that's
(36:59):
all hard thing to adjust to. You don't want to
necessarily take a step back, but you have to remember
there's there's cases and cases stacking up behind you, you know,
and sometimes you have to move on, you know. So
the personal toll is just being able to accept that
and have hope. That's the other thing that's stuff to do,
because you hit enough brick wallity you want to stop
(37:20):
running into them, but you know, we have to keep
trying to knock them down.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Absolutely. It makes me think of this past weekend, I
was honored with the Presidential Award with the South Florida
PBA by STEDMN Stall the President, and I made it
a point to think, like you mentioned, the support systems,
those family members, the sons, daughters, significant other spouses, moms, dads,
you know, those are the real MVPs when it comes
(37:44):
to law enforcement that are really there all the time
and they keep everyone together right.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Absolutely, one hundred percent. There's no way I could. I've
been doing this for twenty five years now, and there's
no way I would have made it this far without them.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Thank you for your service. Is there anything else you'd
like to say or anything I've I've missed?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Detective know and thank you for doing shows like this
because you know, I think if people can kind of
hear that, you know, there are lots of guys out
there who are still trying, you know, scratching away that
there is hope out there. That's the one thing we
could always use more of.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Tick to Scott, thank you so very much for your
time and for the amazing work you do and for
helping families get some closure for what is otherwise a
very tragic and senseless act. It's really interesting to see, uh,
fascinating really the way you've detailed the work and what happens,
and all the time and effort that goes into, you know,
building these cases and preserving the scenes and bringing these
(38:35):
these people to justice.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Thank you, sir. If you have information to share on
any cold case, please call or send in a tip
with your local crime stoppers or law enforcement department in Miami.
That number is three zero five four seven one tips.
That's three zero five four seven one eight four seven seven.
You can also visit crime Stoppers three h five and
(39:00):
select give a tip Cold Case Files Miami. As a
production of Iheart'smichael Duda podcast Network and School of Humans,
I'm your host, Imbrique Santos. This show was written and
(39:23):
researched by Marissa Brown. Our lead producer is Josh thing.
He Delis Perez is our senior producer, sound design and
mix by Josh Thain, fact checking by Savannah Hugley. Our
production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers include me Imbriques Santos,
Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley from School of Humans.
(39:45):
For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From School of Humans and iHeart podcasts This is Cold
Case Files Miami. I'm your host Heendrique Santos. In the
summer of two thousand, the bodies of two women, thirty
five year old Kimberly Dietz Livesey and twenty one year
(00:25):
old Sia DMAs were found brutally murdered. Their bodies had
been stuffed inside luggage and abandoned in Browd County, just
north of Miami Dade County. The police investigated the murders
and collected evidence, but unfortunately they had no suspects in
the case. The following year, in August two thousand and one,
another woman, twenty four year old Jessica Good, was found
(00:46):
dead in Biscayne Bay in Miami. In Jessica's case, police
had a person of interest that they were not able
to locate him, and there were still no leads on
who had murdered Kimberly and Sia. Years passed and it
began to seem like the familes of the three women
would never learn who had done this to their loved ones. However,
in August twenty twenty one, two decades after the murders,
(01:09):
Miami PDE and the Broward Sheriff's Office made a remarkable
announcement they had officially identified the person who'd killed Kimberly Dietz,
Livesey Ci Ademus, and Jessica Good. It was a Brazilian
man named Roberto Wagner Fernandes. Fernandez had been a licensed
pilot in Brazil who'd moved to Miami in the late
nineteen nineties. In the summer of two thousand and one,
(01:31):
he was working as a local tour guide. He'd fled
the US shortly after Jessica's murder. It took decades of
police work across multiple departments and international boarders to solve
these murders. To walk us through how it happened, we're
talking to Detective Zachary Scott from the Broward Sheriff's Office.
Detective Scott has been on the force since two thousand.
(01:53):
In twenty twenty, after seven years on the homicide unit,
he joined his department's newly minted cold case unit. Detective Scott,
thank you for speaking to us today. First, let's start
with when did you join the Roward County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
I joined BSO in March of two thousand.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I'm curious what do you like most about your work
with cold cases.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I think it's just you know, you get to when
you go back through some of these cases and it's
kind of like a time capsule sometimes, and you see
how hard the original viscators worked to get to the
point where you can identify a suspect and to be
able to kind of finish that job, to me is
very rewarding, and most importantly for the surviving families, because
(02:39):
you know, the longer case sits open and unsolved, you know,
they start to lose hope. So if we can find
some way to give them that hope back and know
that people will be held accountable, I enjoy.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
That, you know, and in this podcast we enjoy hearing
from those behind the badge that really put so much
effort into trying to solve these these cases. And the
frustration right to maybe having a hunch or having some
ideas but not having the concrete evidence. How much does
that weigh on you? Sometimes a lot?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I mean it's huge in every I think if you've
ever worked, you know, investigations, especially with homicides, when you
can't get that suspect named, or you can't figure out
you know, or you just hit a wall and there's
no leads. It's like having, you know, that an itch
in the back that you just can't reach, but it
(03:28):
never goes away. And that's, you know, from a cold
case perspective, that's something we run into because you know,
and I'm guilty of it. I didn't want to give
up my cases to anybody else if they were open
and unsolved. I wanted to keep them. But sometimes you
have to recognize that. Look, if people could dedicate more time,
or you just need a different set of eyes to
(03:49):
look at a case, it's probably your best bet.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Can you take us back? Then? Two women were found
brutally murdered and dismembered in the summer of two thousand
and you walk us through the initial investigation.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Sure, And actually I had just gotten out of the
academy when the first case happened, which was Kim's case,
and that was in June of two thousand. A person
driving by saw a suitcase on the side of a
pretty good sized roadway, and when they checked the suitcase
to see if there's anything evalue in it or anything
to get back to the original owner, they discovered the
(04:26):
body of a deceased female inside she was not dismembered,
but she was definitely manipulated physically and crushed to the
point where she would fit in the suitcase. So it
was definitely a very violent, brutal homicide. And the suitcase
was not like thrown into the woods. This was right
next to the roadway, so it was not something that
(04:46):
was trying to be hidden, which kind of gives you
a whole other insight to the mentality behind this crime.
In CIA's case, which was in August of the same year,
so just over a month and a half later, similarly,
a Duffel bag was seen on the side of the
road by someone walking their dog. There had been a
decent amount of media coverage on the first case, so
(05:09):
any suitcase on the side of the road, people were
calling nine one one, and in this case, that call
got a deputy to respond, and when they investigated the
Duffel bag they also found the body of it seized
female inside, and that was Ceadmus. The difference in the
condition between the two scenes was that Ceo was also
wrapped in plastic and then put in the bag, so
(05:30):
slightly different, But the fact that there were two bags
deceased females side of the road in the same county.
You know, we have to start thinking about are these connected,
And that's kind of where the investigation started.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
So besides obviously their bodies and the briefcase and the
Duffel bag, what other evidence was collected?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Obviously anything around those suitcases, any you know what you
would probably just look at and disregard as litter or
things along those lines, we have to consider that that
might be you know, valuable evidence. So what we call
trace evidence, which is anything that's you know, small around
the bag that whoever dropped that bag there would have
to either cross through or maybe dis you know, maybe
(06:14):
they're the ones who dropped it. We're going to collect
for evidence. In cus case, that plastic wrap turned out
to be a very valuable piece of evidence for us
because plastic holds on to a lot more than fabric
as far as fingerprints are concerned. And actually in her
case they were able to get a fingerprint from the
inside of that plastic wrapping. On both cases, they were
(06:35):
able to obtain a DNA profile off of the handle
of the suitcase.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Could you walk us through the theory of collecting evidence
in the process, Like when the CSI team shows up
and collecting evidence. Is it always understood how it might
be useful anything that because you mentioned the area, anything
that's around.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean, I think everybody usually has the same
mentality when they go out there. As far as you know,
we don't know what's going to be valuable. You know,
at this point, as we start digging into the investigations,
as we start getting circumstances more clear, we dig into
the backgrounds of our victims, and especially once we start
talking about potential suspects. These items that we thought maybe
(07:15):
didn't mean anything, could mean everything. So you have to
kind of approach her from that standpoint. We collected all
and then later on if it doesn't, you know, it
doesn't turn out to be of significant value, Okay, then
we get rid of it. Then, but we only get
one shot at that crime scene in the first time.
I think over the years it's changed because you also
see the potential of where science can go with evidence,
(07:39):
and you have to keep that in mind as well. Okay,
we collect this evidence, we analyze it. Nothing of value
came out of it, well, nothing came out of it
now with the technology we have now. But if you
talk to guys in the seventies and try to explain
what DNA was, they'd look at you like you were crazy.
If you talk to guys like me in the two
(08:00):
thousands and you start talking about what's being done now
with genetic genealogy, we'd look at you like you're crazy.
So it's amazing how quickly these developments can happen. So
now for me, when I talk about collecting evidence, you
also have to look at it from the standpoint of
down the road a guy like me and cold case
gets your case file. You know, have we preserved the
(08:22):
evidence to the best of our ability for new science
that hasn't even been invented yet.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
And that speaks to the importance of documentation, right knowing
that you may have to hand this case off to
somebody else, and who knows when or how many years
or time we might go by before somebody you know,
picks that up. And the truth is maybe you're not around.
So you've got to make sure you document everything to
leave the right evidence there and in place so that
(08:47):
somebody else can pick up on.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Yeah, one hundred percent, I mean, And that's and it's
a tough thing to think about when you're pouring so
much of yourself into these cases. You take a personal investment.
You never want to think, Okay, I'm going to hand
this off, or this case is going to go cult.
No one who goes to a scene wants to ever
think that this is going to be one of those cases.
So the unfortunate reality is is that there are always
(09:10):
going to be cases that are or that may stay
open for some time, and you do have to consider
the fact that maybe you won't be around to see
it through, and that's you know, that's a that's a
tough pill swallow as well. But you're right, I think
that that documentation is crucial. I know when I pull
a case, you know from the vault on our cold cases,
(09:31):
you know, it can make all the difference in the world.
How well they documented it, how well they preserved it,
you know, how much detailed information they kept.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Going back to the two cases that we're talking about today,
was there any DNA evidence found? Did you receive any leads?
Speaker 2 (09:45):
So with Kim's case, they were able to find a
single DNA profile, mail in origin and single source from
the handle of the suitcase. Now that's great, but at
the time you have to also look at it in
the context this is a suitcase on the side of
the road and the DNA is on the outside, so
could it be incidental contact that anybody had with that suitcase.
(10:08):
So part of that evidence collection is also collecting DNA
samples from people who you know, have made contact the
person who called it in. We've got to make sure
we have their standard so that we can rule them
out as being the contributor. If paramedics were involved, other
responding officers. All that we have to obtain, so we
make sure that whatever profile we have left on that
(10:30):
handle wasn't somebody who we can explain. But even then,
it is a suitcase, you know, and suitcases get handled.
Now further down the line and the investigation in CIA's case,
they were also able to extract a single source mail
profile from the handle of the Duffel bag, and that
one took a little longer to get, but when they
(10:51):
analyzed that profile, it was identical to the one on cans.
So now that profile suddenly has a lot more value
to it. So at the early onset of both those cases,
you had a fingerprint on CS case and you had
the sand DNA profile on both cases. Now bigger than
that in the suitcase that Kim was in. They did
(11:15):
find a ticket stub from a flight and a passenger's
name on it. Now, the problem was it was only
a partial stub. They knew it was a London to
Miami flight, but they didn't know what year because that
part was cut off. And the other thing that you know,
as investigators in cold case we look at was we
(11:36):
take it for granted is that okay, well, surely travel
records we can look this up. Well, at the time,
this is prior to nine to eleven, and the records
were a lot sketchier and not real consistent, so they
weren't able to immediately say, okay, when did this person
take this flight, so we can at least get a
time frame on this ticket stamp and where are they
(11:56):
because obviously, if you have a name inside of a
suitcase next to a victim, that's a pretty valuable clue.
So that was another lead that was that was being followed,
but it was going to take extensive record checking before
they could finally figure it out.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
So you have the briefcase with one body, you have
a duffel bag duffle bag with another body, and you
have DNA matching on both. Yes, that is the moment
that you then determine that what you have as a
serial killer on your hands.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
Yeah, definitely we have a link, you know. Now, obviously
there's always precautions. You don't want to necessarily say, hey,
these cases are connected because you may get tunnel vision.
But that was a pretty clear indicator that we're dealing
with at least one subject in both cases. Now, then
you have to caution yourself, but are we dealing with
just one subject?
Speaker 1 (12:40):
You know?
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Could this be something where it's two people working together,
you know, So you don't want to isolate just one
theory until you can kind of rule things out based
on where the evidence takes You.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Take us back and you mentioned how technology has changed
through the time and science to help solve a lot
of these cases. What was DNA testing like back in
two thousand and one comparing to how it is now?
What's different? What's changed?
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Probably the most significant change from my standpoints investigators, it's
a lot more sensitive now, so it can detect smaller
and smaller amounts and give you more of a full profile.
So that's been a huge improvement over the years, and
there's been different ways that they can analyze the DNA.
You know, if you only have a partial profile, you know,
(13:24):
you don't get a full profile that gives you a
full snapshot of a person's identity. But they can do
different things now to kind of give you more information
and then also do a comparison to a direct profile
so that you can still identify someone with some pretty
impressive numbers as opposed to just you know, maybe it's them.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
In two thousand and one, the body of Jessica Good
was found in Biscayne Bay here in Miami, and police
did have a suspect, though he'd fled to Brazil before
he could be questioned or arrested. Was there a belief
that he may have been connected to the two women
Kimberlyancia whose bodies were found in Broward County.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Not initially for a couple of reasons. So after the
two cases in Brower were determined to be linked, we
formed a task force with the Sheriff's Office, FBI, other
municipalities in Brower County. And part of what that task
force would do is if other cases were reported that
had anything similar in circumstance. Now, in this case, the
(14:23):
reason that they were made aware of Jessica's case is
because both victims in Broward were sex workers. They were
known to work at Biscaying Boulevard in Day County, even
though both of them had residences in Broward. Jessica was
also a sex worker, So any murders of people in
that high risk lifestyle, they were going out to, you know,
(14:46):
if anything, just to get a view of the scene,
talk to the investigator, see if there was anything that
correlated with their cases. So they did go initially to
Jessica's call, and she was not in a bag, she
was not in a suitcase. She was actually in a
body of water. The injury pattern was different, so initially
they didn't think it was going to be connected. They
just felt like, Okay, well it is a high rist
(15:08):
lifestyle and unfortunately we see a lot of these type
of cases.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You said the body was found in the water. I'm
curious does water ruin evidence, specifically when it comes to
DNA and her fingerprints.
Speaker 2 (15:20):
It can. Obviously, the longer a body is in water,
it's going to break down the evidence physically, more especially saltwater.
But depending how long the victim's been in that body
of wire will determine how much it damages that DNA.
But again with the improvements in the science, we see
more and more success with them able to get information
(15:40):
from that DNA than we used to, certainly more than
what they had back in two.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Thousand and one. I'm here with Detective Zachary Scott for
the Broward Sheriffs Cold Case Unit. He's discussing the cases
of Kimberly Deets livesey see A Demus, and Jessica Good,
three South Florida women who were brutally murdered in two
(16:06):
thousand and two thousand and one. So when did Kimberly
and see his cases go cold?
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I would say probably in the early two thousands. The
suspects DNA profile and fingerprint were put into the national databases.
So if anybody was arrested, or any other crimes were
committed and that DNA or that fingerprint was found and submitted,
everybody would know, all the bells and whistles would go off.
And years went by and nothing changed. None of those
(16:34):
alarms went off, no evidence was submitted that matched. So
it was one of those things that they couldn't sustain
a task force for much longer than that. No leads
were coming in that were determined to be credible. So
I would say probably in the early two thousands, you
could say it was called the task force was dissolved,
but the case was still maintained and kept open.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Let's fast forward to twenty eleven. It was a huge
break in the case, right, Can you walk us through
what happened? Sure?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
So, my understanding is that the City of Miami received
a grant where they could do more advanced testings on
evidence for their open homicides, and Jessica's case was one
of those cases. When that evidence was processed, they were
able to get a complete profile of DNA from Jessica.
And when that profile was uploaded into the database, it
(17:22):
connected the cases. That was the alarms, the bells and
whistles we were hoping to get. So now you had
Jessica's case, Kim's case, and CU's case all linked by
the same male DNA profile. The advantage that we had
was that City of Miami had already come up with
a very strong candidate for who that DNA belonged to,
(17:42):
and that was Roberto Fernandez.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Was this the first time it was believed Fernandez was
connected to all three cases? Yes, had your department suspected
him before.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
No, he was never on the radar. We'd never heard
of him. He had no real records in Brara County
that he would have come up on. The only thing
that I identified him initially was that DNA and then
later on through that single fingerprint.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So when did the Browie County Sheriff's Office become involved
in the investigation and the search for Fernandez.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So in twenty eleven when that profile hit, obviously everybody
needed to sit down at the table right away, and
that's where they kind of learned that there were changes
in Jessica's investigation that happened after the task force guys
had left, where basically her boyfriend had come forward and
had additional information that he had spoken to Jessica just
prior to her death and that Jessica had given him
(18:32):
information about who she was going to be with, and
that allowed them to identify Roberto as a suspect.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
As you explained, all three of these women all struggled
with substance abuse and at times engaged in sex work.
Can you talk about how that connected to this case?
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Yes, Well, obviously you know with Sia and Kim, with
our cases, we knew that they both had had histories
of arrests in prostitutions in the same area in Daye
County on Biscayne Boulevard, and then later once Jessica's case
was linked through physical evidence, she was also known to
frequent that same area for the same type of work.
(19:08):
So when you have that type of location connection as well,
now you have the circumstantial meeting the physical evidence wise,
and it just allows you to kind of hone in
more on a suspect. Now, like I said, we were
fortunate that city of Miami already had a great lead
from that interview that they conducted. So now that we
knew at least a potential suspect, and you can start
(19:30):
delving in his background and you start to realize that
he's got a history of frequenting those type of sex workers,
so you can kind of see where they cross paths.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
How did you make that link to know that Fernandez
had reached out to these type of women and they
had a relationship with sex workers.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's my understanding with Miami's case, when they had they
were given a vehicle description that Jessica had given her
boyfriend the night she was murdered, and it was a
tour company, and she had said, hey, here's the name
of the tour company and the phone number on the side.
So when they went to the tour company to see
who was driving the van that night, that's when they said, oh, well,
it's only one person, and that's Roberto Fernandez. And they
(20:08):
said that it's odd that they were asking because he
had shown up at work and he had huge scratches
down his face, and they said, well, what happened, and
they thought he was joking, but he told them he goes, oh,
I got in a fight with a prostitute, and they
seem to think that that was kind of common that
he would talk about that that was something he did.
Later when we started communicating with authorities in Brazil, they
(20:31):
also kind of clued the investigators in that he had
a history of engaging with prostitutes to the point where
he became an issue with his marriage that he actually had,
and that he had also been a suspect in other
crimes involving prostitutes in Brazil.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Do you think Fernandez had other victims besides these three women.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
I do. I think that if you look at the timeframe,
I mean, our two cases were about six weeks apart
from each other. But Jessica's case was over a year
from CS case, and I think someone who has this
type of compulsion, I don't think that they hold off
that long unless they're locked up and secured somewhere, and
he wasn't. I think he definitely has a history, probably
(21:12):
in more in Brazil than we're probably aware of. I know,
we've done a lot of research on our cases to
see if there's a correlation, and you know, oddly enough,
in researching one of our cases, we were able to
identify a different serial killer, you know, thinking that Fernandis
may have been responsible for that case. So I think
he does have other victims, they just we haven't been
(21:34):
able to identify.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Net Wow. So fernand has had a pretty violent history
in Brazil, right, you had mentioned that. Let's let's review
some of that. He was a suspect in a rape
case back in two thousand and three, and in nineteen
ninety six he'd been acquitted of the murder of his wife.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
So when they reached out to Brazil, So obviously, at
this point in the case, when we figure out all
three cases are linked, the other thing you have to
do is you have to confirm everything. So, okay, the
computers telling us this is the same DNA profile, but
the only way admissible in court we're going to be
able to prove that is to get a fresh sample
from Fernandez and match it to the same profile. So obviously,
(22:12):
say Miami had tried to find Fernandez immediately once he
was identified, and they determined he had flown back to
Brazil literally the day after Jessica's murder. So we make
contact with the government in Brazil and ask for assistance
in obtaining a DNA sample, and they basically said, well,
we don't we don't do that. We can't collect DNA
from as citizen unless they've been charged of the crime
(22:32):
here in Brazil. We asked four fingerprints and they said,
well that that's no problem because he's been arrested quite
a few times. So they brought up the case in
nineteen ninety six. He was married, has a daughter. He
gets in an argument with his wife regarding his frequenting
of prostitutes, and during the course of the arguments he
shoots his wife, I believe five or six times. At trial,
(22:54):
he is able to convince the jury it was self
defense and he has acquitted. Right after that acquittal is
when he comes to the US and we later find
out the reason behind that is that his wife's family,
at the news of the acquittal had basically put a
contract out on him, and several attempts apparently were made
on his life, so he fled the country. Otherwise he
(23:17):
probably wouldn't have made it much longer. Now, the two
thousand and three case where he's a rape suspect, that's
interesting because that's after Jessica's murder, when he flees back
to Brazil, so he picks up right where he left off.
And on that case, I believe it eventually fell apart
because the victim on that case disappeared. So that creates
(23:38):
a whole other question about what he was doing and
the activities he engaged in once he returned to Brazil.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
When did your office here that Fernandez had possibly died
back in two thousand and five, and can you describe
the circumstances of his death? Do we know how he died?
Speaker 2 (23:52):
After long discussions with the Brazilian government about Okay, we
can't collect the DNA for you, the decision was made. Well,
then can when we send a team to Brazil and
maybe not get a sample directly from him, because we
wouldn't have a warrant to do so in a foreign country.
But you can find other ways to obtain a suspect's
potential DNA with things that they discard. So the idea
(24:14):
was if we had a team that was out there
working with the Brazilian Central Authority, maybe they could find
a DNA sample. Because the other thing is is that
while the DNA would connect all three cases, without his swab,
you can't confirm it's him. You know, c His case
has a fingerprint, but Kim's case only has the DNA,
So we needed that swab. So when they went to
(24:35):
Brazil in twenty eleven and they met with the Brazilian
National Police, they basically said, look, we've done a lot
of background and we do have reports that he had
died in a plane crash in Paraguay in two thousand and.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Five, in a plane crash. M Now that sounds kind
of suspicious, though. Did anybody did you think maybe this
sounds a little suspicious, maybe this something's being fake?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, actually it was. The Brazilian National Police felt it
was very suspicious. When apparently, when Fernandez had returned to Brazil,
the contract on his life was active and people again
were attempting to take him out, so he obtained some
type of unemployment where he was flying planes in between Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay,
(25:19):
and on one of the such flights there was a crash.
He was listed as the only person on board. The
body was collected in Paraguay transport to Brazil, but no
one had seen it. No one saw the body, no
one had identified the body, and it was immediately put
in a grave. So that was the first red flag.
The investigators from the US and Brazil both went to
(25:40):
the cemetery, spoke to the caretaker and he said that
the grave was empty. He said, no, they told us
the body burned up, so it's an empty box in there.
So it was their belief that he had faked his
death to get out, you know, to stop the contract
on his life if they thought he was dead. There
were other things that came up in court records where
some property had been transferred or some judgments had been
(26:02):
made after he was supposedly dead. So there was a
few indicators that this whole story about the plane crash
may have been a ruse to kind of convince people
he was no longer alive.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Wow, how do you confirm something like this?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
There's really only one way. You got to find a
body that's obviously tricky in someone else's country where we
don't have authority, But that was going to be the
only way we could do it.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I'm back with Detective Zachary Scott. When we left the
Broward Sheriff's Office in Miami Police Department had recently learned
that the man they believed killed Kimberly, Dietz, livesey See Ademus,
and Jessica Good had potentially been killed in a plane
crash in South America in two thousand and five. However,
many people believed this man, Roberto Wagner Fernandez, may have
(26:51):
faked his death, and he may have had good reason to.
In the late nineteen nineties, after Fernandez was acquitted of
his wife's murder in Brazil, it was said her family
may have put a hit out against him. By twenty eleven,
police in the US felt like they were close to
solving these murders, but they needed Fernandez's DNA to match
the DNA they'd found for Jessica, Kimberly and Sia. To
(27:14):
do that, they'd need the help of Brazilian authorities, and
for an international case like this, you mentioned the Brazilian authorities,
what other departments are involved? Do you need to work
with or do you need to work together with collab
with to really get this done? Is it complicated?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
In this case, it was extremely complicated. Like several countries,
we do not have an extradition agreement with Brazil, so
they can't arrest him for our crimes, even if we
have ar restaurants, which were put in the system pretty
early on once he was identified, so that if he
did try to re enter the country, he would have
been detained. But outside of that, even if they were
(27:53):
to rest him in Brazil, they would never extra dine
him to the US. So we were kind of at
a standstill with that because we if we can't extradne them,
we can't take them to trial. So there really wasn't
at the time in twenty eleven, anything that could be
done if he doesn't leave the country and set foot
in the US or another country that we do have
an extradition agreement with. So while Brazil was extremely helpful,
(28:17):
their hands were tied as well, and the case kind
of stood that way for a while.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
When were you able to actually obtain the DNA that
you needed. When was the DNA actually confirmed? Did you
meet with the daughter to get her DNA? Was another
family member?
Speaker 2 (28:33):
So yes, the Brazilian authorities had identified Roberto Fernandez's daughter
was still living in Brazil. They were obviously estranged after
the murderer of her mother, and they had done background
in surveillance to see if she was in any communication
and they didn't find any. So as our resource that
we knew was there, but we still had to dig
up that coffin. That was the only way to know.
(28:54):
So we reached out through in our own government, the
Department of State, the Departiment of Justice, the FBI. They
liaisoned with the Brazilian Central Authority, the Brazilian National Police,
and they said, look, we've just had this situation happened
in Cuba. Would Brazil be willing to go along the
same lines when it comes to Roberto Fernandez? And there
(29:16):
was a lot of back and forth, a lot of
negotiations our State Attorney's office, the US Attorney's office, and
eventually there was a limited agreement that if we could
establish that Fernandez was indeed still alive, that they would
entertain the concept. So that took us into about twenty nineteen,
and at that point we began to try to file
(29:37):
for an order of exhammation to dig up the grave
to see if he was in there. As reported, That
kind of stalled, it was fought. It was, you know,
because again it was just hadn't been done before. And
that's one of the things with this case that I'm
most proud of is that Look, too many times you'll
see guys I'll say either, well, you know your victim
was in a high risk lifestyle. You know, it's just
(29:59):
a murder, or just one little case. I'm not going
to cause an international incident. And the encouragement I would
say to anybody who works these cases is swing for
the fences. Every murder is important, and yeah, create a
national incident absolutely, because you know, if it was your
loved one, you would want every single effort made, and
we have to go into it thinking that way. So
(30:21):
eventually they were able to get the order approved, and
then COVID happened, so then nobody wanted to dig up
anybody or do anything with biological material for a while.
Eventually they were able to exhume the grave and they
did find remains inside, so we made contact with his
daughter for a reference sample and compared that to the remains,
(30:44):
and they were able to determine in the Brazil crime
lab that the bones are the father of the daughter's sample.
Now that's great, We've established paternity in another country, but
it still doesn't link our cases until we get that
back to our samples. So that was a whole other battle.
During COVID, no one wanted to send biological material. Eventually
(31:05):
we were able to come up with a system where
a sample profile was created like computer wise, and they
were able to analyze it that way and confirm that
Fernandez was the person in the grave and was also
the person whose DNA is in our crime scenes.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Wow, were you able to inform the families of what
happened right at that moment? What was that moment? Like
that experience like for you?
Speaker 2 (31:28):
It was it was very rewarding. It was it was
tough because like Kim at the time, she had a
daughter who was one when she was murdered. Her daughter
now is twenty one when I'm talking to her and
about to have her child. So it was a it
was a full circle moment. It was it was rewarding,
and it was good to be able to give that
(31:51):
answer to those families. You know, now it's not as
rewarding because he got away with it. You know, in
my book, I take some small pleasure in knowing that
his last moments on earth were probably spent in sheer
terror as that plane was going into the ground. But
that's not enough for me personally. But what I will
say rewarding wise is that, you know, look, I was
just the guy at the end of the line. There
(32:12):
were so many investigators, detectives that worked on these cases
through the years, who never wanted to give up on
these cases. Being able to reach out to them and
tell them, hey, we got it, there was for me
probably a little you know, more personally rewarding, just because
I know that feeling, you know, when you have that
case that you just can't can't forget.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Was this the first case of a serial killer you
ever worked?
Speaker 2 (32:36):
No, No, but definitely one that on this scale as
far as just having to deal with international diplomacy and
so many different agencies, This was definitely the first time
I've ever had that big of a involvement in that
type of case. So yeah, but I've had a couple
other cases, like with cereals.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
As complex as this, probably not.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
No, this is going to take the cake definitely as
far as complex, just because you do have that international element.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
How common are serial killers?
Speaker 2 (33:10):
You know? I don't know if there's a way to
know for sure, because you know, every homicide you kind
of hope this is the one and only that your
suspect has committed. But if someone's willing to commit it,
I mean, you get circumstances that kind of give you
an idea of lead towards motive. But when you find
those cases where it just seems to be random or
victim of opportunity, it's hard to know for sure if
(33:32):
your case is the first time that person has done it.
So I don't know that they're super common, but I
do think that it's real hard to know.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
We talked about the improvements in technology. I want to
get back to that for a second. This case was
twenty years old. Do you feel that the improvements in
technology and science moving forward would lead to more cold
cases being solved?
Speaker 2 (33:52):
One percent? Yeah, I think that that's that's going to
be the bulk of what solves cold cases. You know,
there is that human side that witnesses will You may
find a witness that was previously not interviewed, or you know,
relationships go sour and suddenly someone wants to, you know,
dig up all the dirt. But at the end of
the day, when it comes to going to trial, credibility
(34:13):
is always going to be an issue. With people who
wait to give their information or who come forward after many,
many years, the question is always going to be asked,
what's their motivation? Evidence of science and it doesn't have
a motivation, It is what it is, so it usually
carries a little more weight when it comes to the
prosecution side. So I definitely think that as these advances happen,
it's going to allow these more of these cases to
(34:35):
reach a conclusion.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
And closing, I want to talk a bit about the
misconceptions in the public about cold cases. What are investigative
techniques you can you can do or technologies you can
use to restart an investigation.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Right now, the big focus and popularity is on genealogy,
and it is a huge resource for us, but it
does have its limits, and it doesn't it's not going
to happened in a fifty two minute episode like on TV.
It's going to take months, if not years, and then
sometimes it doesn't get you where you need to go.
You know, it's not always a success story. But the
(35:11):
key is is that you at least try. Our unit
is three guys, that's it, and that's the one thing
that every day we remind each other we got to do.
We have to at least try. Yes, I know the
odds are against this. I know eight times out of
ten this is not going to work, but we're going
to try. Because you can't tell a family, hey, we
did everything we could unless you literally did everything you could.
So I'd say that that biggest misconception is just, hey,
(35:34):
it's a great story that you see, But for every success,
there's probably about three or four that just didn't get
there where we're at right now. But I do have
hopes for science in the future, and I hear it
all the time. There's just so many things that get
improved and innovated that I think that there will always
be these huge leaps and bounds that we can take
and we can go back to these old cases and
(35:55):
find some answers.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Detective Scott. At the beginning, you mentioned how fulfilling it
is to solve these cases and why you're so passionate
about your work. What's the personal or emotional toll of
working on these cases? What can you you know, these
cases that sometimes, as you've detailed for us, go unsolved
for many years, sometimes lifetimes.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
The personal toll is probably there's a few. I mean,
if you put all your energy, effort, passion into cases,
maybe you're not putting it into other areas of your
life that you should. I know this is a newsflash
to anybody listening, but cops sometimes don't have great marriages,
and I think that sometimes it's because we do get
(36:38):
focused on this and it's just you have to remind
yourself of that balance. I know I've had to work
on it. I have a great support system with my
wife and my family that if I didn't have, I
probably wouldn't be able to keep going back in and
on these cases. And then the other reality is is
that you try and you try, and sometimes it's just
not the time. You know, we're not in the time
when this case is going to get solved, and that's
(36:59):
all hard thing to adjust to. You don't want to
necessarily take a step back, but you have to remember
there's there's cases and cases stacking up behind you, you know,
and sometimes you have to move on, you know. So
the personal toll is just being able to accept that
and have hope. That's the other thing that's stuff to do,
because you hit enough brick wallity you want to stop
(37:20):
running into them, but you know, we have to keep
trying to knock them down.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Absolutely. It makes me think of this past weekend, I
was honored with the Presidential Award with the South Florida
PBA by STEDMN Stall the President, and I made it
a point to think, like you mentioned, the support systems,
those family members, the sons, daughters, significant other spouses, moms, dads,
you know, those are the real MVPs when it comes
(37:44):
to law enforcement that are really there all the time
and they keep everyone together right.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Absolutely, one hundred percent. There's no way I could. I've
been doing this for twenty five years now, and there's
no way I would have made it this far without them.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Thank you for your service. Is there anything else you'd
like to say or anything I've I've missed?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Detective know and thank you for doing shows like this
because you know, I think if people can kind of
hear that, you know, there are lots of guys out
there who are still trying, you know, scratching away that
there is hope out there. That's the one thing we
could always use more of.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Tick to Scott, thank you so very much for your
time and for the amazing work you do and for
helping families get some closure for what is otherwise a
very tragic and senseless act. It's really interesting to see, uh,
fascinating really the way you've detailed the work and what happens,
and all the time and effort that goes into, you know,
building these cases and preserving the scenes and bringing these
(38:35):
these people to justice.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
Thank you, sir. If you have information to share on
any cold case, please call or send in a tip
with your local crime stoppers or law enforcement department in Miami.
That number is three zero five four seven one tips.
That's three zero five four seven one eight four seven seven.
You can also visit crime Stoppers three h five and
(39:00):
select give a tip Cold Case Files Miami. As a
production of Iheart'smichael Duda podcast Network and School of Humans,
I'm your host, Imbrique Santos. This show was written and
(39:23):
researched by Marissa Brown. Our lead producer is Josh thing.
He Delis Perez is our senior producer, sound design and
mix by Josh Thain, fact checking by Savannah Hugley. Our
production manager is Daisy Church. Executive producers include me Imbriques Santos,
Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley from School of Humans.
(39:45):
For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Enrique Santos
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