September 15, 2025 • 46 mins
In 2003, an LAPD cold case detective digging through old case files finds a piece of forgotten evidence that belongs to an unidentified woman found murdered off Mulholland Drive in 1969. As he searches for her identity, he uncovers eerie parallels to another young woman killed nearby just months earlier. And he starts to wonder — are these cases linked by coincidence... or by a killer who's never been caught?
Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.
Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!
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- If you or someone you know has information about Reet Jurvetson, you can call the LAPD’s anonymous tip line at 877-527-3247 or you can submit a tip anonymously to LA Crimestoppers at 800-222-TIPS or lacrimestoppers.org.
- If you or someone you know has information about Marina Habe, you can call the LASD’s homicide bureau at 323-890-5500 or you can submit a tip anonymously to LA Crimestoppers at 800-222-TIPS or lacrimestoppers.org.
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Crime Junkie is hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Apply, high crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and
I'm Britt and the story I have for you today
is a perfect example of why we need to keep
cold cases alive by talking about them and revisiting them
with fresh eyes. Because when a detective went the extra
mile to name a victim who couldn't speak for herself,
his work led to a break in a case that
(01:46):
seemed impossible to solve for decades, and it led him
to another case that could be connected. But police still
need more information to solve these cases once and for all.
So we need you crime junkies to listen closely and
share these details far and wide in case someone out
there is sitting on answers. This is the story of
(02:07):
the Mulholland Drive murders. It's January two thousand and three,
(02:42):
and homicide detective Cliff Shepherd is kicking off his year
digging through boxes of paperwork in the LAPDS Archive unit.
Detective Shepherd's an almost three decade vet of the department
and he's recently been assigned to the cold case unit,
so he's reviewing cases from the late nineteen sixties, especially
with evidence that can be tested with new technology.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
But the archives are a disaster.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
I mean, over the year's files have gone missing or
haven't been logged correctly. Some case materials haven't been touched
in decades, and so he's sorting through it all, trying
to make sense of a backlog that's been gathering dust,
skimming case summaries, trying to figure out which files are
even complete. But when he pulls one box off the
shelf and lifts the lid, he sees something that should
(03:28):
never ever be in these boxes, a tan lace brawl
stained with blood, not sealed, not tagged, just like shoved
in this box with yellowing case files. And this is
not how he should be finding evidence. But like, on
the other hand.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
It like it's evidence.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
It's still evidence, like evidence with blood on it that
may still be testable, which is like kind of exactly
what he's looking for, right, So he sees the file,
it's in belongs to the case of someone known only
as Jane Doe fifty nine, because she was County's fifty
ninth Jane Doe found in nineteen sixty nine. Even if
the blood just belongs to this victim, like, he sees
huge potential to be able to use it to give
(04:09):
her a name, which might actually kickstart an investigation that,
as he goes on to Reed, didn't make it very far.
So what he sees is that on November sixteenth, nineteen
sixty nine, a fifteen year old boy was hiking Mulholland
Drive to go birdwatching when he found the woman's body
in a ravine, tangled up in branches and brushed about
fifteen feet down the hillside. Lapd arrived on the scene
(04:33):
by nightfall and determined that the victim was white, about
twenty three years old five nine, and she had been
stabbed in the neck over one hundred and fifty times
with what police thought was likely a small knife. Now
to them, it looked like she'd been stabbed while laying
on her back, like maybe her killer like sat on
top of her to like subdue her, and she had
(04:53):
her head turned to one side because most of her
wounds were on the side of her neck, but she
fought back or at least tried to block the blade
from coming down on her because she had defensive wounds
on her hands. Now, police didn't find the murder weapon
at the scene, but they were pretty sure of one thing.
This wasn't where she was killed. There were bloody drag
(05:14):
marks left on Mulholland Drive, like her killer had parked there,
dragged her across the road and then put her body
over the edge of the ravine until it fell down
the hillside.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Were there any tire tracks nearby?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
None were mentioned in the case file, but you can
see faint tire marks in some of the crime scene photos.
Like problem is police wouldn't have known how relevant they
actually were because this was a busy road, so like
it could have nothing to do with this.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Okay, if this was a busy road, like, how did
no one see someone dumping a body here?
Speaker 5 (05:45):
Well, Mholland Drive had or still has probably some stretches
with like houses right by the road, and then stretches
that had just like hills and ravines on both sides.
So the area where this woman was found was more secluded,
like still near some houses, but like none of them.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Overlooked this specific stretch.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
So no one would have seen this car stop from
their window or anything like that, and it's very possible
they dumped her in the overnight hours, when traffic and
activity in the homes would have been light. There's not
an exact time of death, though. All the coroner could
tell during her autopsy was that she had been dead
like twenty four to forty eight hours and she had
(06:24):
eaten about two hours before she died.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
And there were no signs of sexual assault. Her clothes
a sweater, cordora.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Jacket, jeans, boots, and that tan lace bra those were
all still intact, and not much else is found at
the scene until a few days later, when a road
worker turned in a pair of prescription glasses found nearby.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Now, these were either missed by the investigators who did
the initial search.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Or they were left there after and like so therefore
might not even be relevant. But either way, they looked
like men's glasses and therefore theoretically could be connected to
their killer, definitely not victims. Now, the CBC reported that
work had already been done on this lead back in
the day, and all that police really got to was
that the prescription was for a very near sighted man,
(07:09):
but the brand was pretty common, so like it wasn't
something they could actually trace.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
Could there be any DNA still on the.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Glasses, So Detective Shepherd told us that the glasses weren't
in evidence when he picked up the file, so like,
I don't know if they're lost, I don't know if
they were destroyed over time, but there's no trace of them.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
And so like when he there's no trace of them,
So there's no trace DNA to test, right, did they
try to test her bra or anything else at the time, Well,
detective told us that.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Back then all the bra could have been tested for
was blood tight, but he didn't even know for sure
if they did that or not. He also said that
no one scraped under her fingernails or anything, so, like,
you know, there were definitely missed opportunities for sure, And
when no one came forward to claim this woman's body,
that's when she became known as Jane do fifty nine.
(07:56):
They tried iding her using the clothing that she was
found in. They thought that basically what she was wearing
was a little heavy for la even in November. Plus
some of the clothes were made outside of the US,
so they contacted law enforcement in Canada and Interpol checked
with police throughout the US ran her fingerprints, but nothing
came up. And after that the case just went real cold,
(08:18):
real fast.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
So this is what Detective Shepherd starts out with.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
This isn't the kind of case he usually looks for,
like no ID, no suspects, all the evidence is basically gone.
And to top it all off, Jane do fifty nine
was cremated by the coroner's office because her body was
never cleaned. But there is this bloody braw which at
this point is like a north Star for him. Now.
Detective Shepherd told us that LAPD was a little behind
(08:43):
other departments on when they started testing DNA, but they
finally got it going at around two thousand and one
when the cold case unit was formed, So this is
like two years before he picks up the case file.
So right away he submits the broad to the state's
Missing Person's DNA program, and that was lagging behind. And
this is really what he needs because he's looking to
(09:04):
ID the victim first and foremost, so results are going
to take a while and Detective Shepherd has to put
any investigation kind of on the back burner until he
has something to investigate.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
But even with one hundred and thirty three.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Cold cases on his plate, this one stays in the
back of his mind and he doesn't know what it
is that jogs his memory or why it happens. One
random day in two thousand and five, but he starts
thinking about the book Helter Skelter by Vincent Boliosi. It
was a book that he read back in nineteen seventy six,
like very early on in his career, the author was
(09:40):
a prosecutor in one of the most infamous murder trials
in American history, the Tate LaBianca case, which I'm sure
like a lot of crime junkies know about, and Helter
Skelter was basically like the first definitive account of the
Manson family and their crimes. Anyway, for some reason, he
feels compelled to pick this book up again and what
he In the epilogue there is a paragraph about Jane
(10:04):
Doe fifty nine. In it, Buliosi floats his theory that
Jane Do fifty nine's murder might have been linked to
the Manson family because of when she died. Her body
was found a week and a half after the mysterious
death of a Manson follower. By that time, the Manson
family was under investigation for multiple murders, so Boliosi wonders
(10:25):
whether she may have witnessed the follower's death and then
was killed to keep her from talking about it. Now
Bolosi is clear that he doesn't have any evidence to
back this theory up. But honestly, it's not even all
the Manson stuff that catches this detective's attention most. I mean, yes,
it's interesting, yes, it's how he got here, But it's
another detail in that paragraph that stands out to Detective Shepherd.
(10:49):
Buliosi mentions the name of another young woman, seventeen year
old Marina Haba, who was also brutally stabbed to death
just ten months before Jane do fifty nine, and her
body was found within two miles of Jane fifty nine
in a different ravine off Mulholland Drive. And now Detective
Shepherd is thinking, what if these two young women are connected,
(11:12):
and if so, are they really connected to the Manson
family or does he have a different serial killer on
his hands?
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Speaker 5 (12:12):
When Detective Shepherd looks into Marine's case, he learns that
it wasn't investigated by LAPD. It was in a different jurisdiction,
so the Sheriff's department took it, which may be why
neither department made any connection initially, even though Buliosi eventually did.
But because Detective Shepherd doesn't have the case file, he
starts by reading through old news coverage. He learns that
(12:34):
in December of nineteen sixty eight, Marina, a college freshman
and aspiring artist, was home for winter break after her
first semester at the University of Hawaii. She was staying
at her mom's house off Sunset Boulevard, right where West
Hollywood borders Beverly Hills. On the night of December twenty nine,
Marina went out with friends to celebrate New Year's a
little early and around three thirty AM, so this would
(12:56):
have been the morning of the thirtieth. Now, her mom
fi heard her sports car pull into the driveway, and
then seconds later she heard another car outside, one with
loud pipes. It sounded kind of like an older model.
It's been reported that she told detectives she looked out
her window and she saw Marina's car parked in the
driveway with a man standing next to it, and then
(13:18):
another car, a black sedan, was also parked in the driveway. Now,
I'm sure this all happens fast, but the black sedan
starts backing out and the man runs toward it, yelling
something like go before jumping in, and they speed off
just as Marina's mom goes outside. But when she's out there,
there's no sign of Marina. Even though when her mom.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Checked her car.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
The keys are like still in the ignition, and in
an instant, this bad feeling just courses through her mom,
and by three p forty five she was on the
phone with police reporting her daughter missing. When they arrive
at the house, all she could tell them about the
man she saw was that he was young.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Like not super helpful.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Police do check out Marina's car, and they made note
that the glasses her mom said that she needed for
driving and likely kept in her car, those were missing.
They also noticed that the emergency brake was pulled all
the way up, like as far as it can go.
And I don't know exactly how they got to this
from that, but they thought whoever pulled it used more
(14:18):
force than Marina could have, they say, because she was
a smaller girl, and like, I don't know what this
car is, but like I can fully pull up my heart.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
So I'm even thinking of like the trucks that I
used to drive in high school like this.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I don't know how accurate this is.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Maybe we don't know the cars at the time, or
maybe men didn't know women at the time.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
That's probably that one.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
So even though police were quick to dismiss missing teen
girls as runaways at the time that didn't happen here.
They actually took Marina's disappearance seriously right away, and that
might have been because Marina's mom told them that they
had a close relationship, Marina didn't need to keep secrets
from her, and because her mom was an actress and
her dad, a writer in Switzerland, was in the industry too.
(15:00):
Police wondered right off the bat if Marina may have
been kidnapped for ransom. So while her mom waited by
the phone for a ransom call, police worked on building
a timeline of Marina's last known movements, pieced together by
questioning the friend she went out with the night before
and her date, a family friend named John, who she
(15:20):
had known since she was little, and John told police
that Marina came over to his house in bel Air
on Sunday afternoon around eight thirty pm. They gotten a
limo with this group of friends, one of their dads
had arranged it, and they went to a club called Troubadour,
which is still in West Hollywood today. The group left
at around eleven thirty pm, and the limo dropped Marina
(15:41):
and John back off at his house. He says they
hang out until like three p fifteen in the morning,
when Marina left to make the twenty minute drive from
his house back to hers, so that timeline would put
her back at around three thirty in the morning, exactly
when her mom heard her car pull in. And we
asked Detective Shepherd what he thought about all of that,
like if he thought Marina drove herself, and he says, yes,
(16:04):
he didn't think that whoever took Marina would go to
the trouble of driving her car back to her house
and like parking it in the driveway. He thinks it's
more likely that she made it home and then was
just taken as she pulled in.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
Okay, And we totally believe John right, Like, I know
anyone theoretically could have followed her, but can anyone confirm
that Marina was actually there for those four hours where
he said she was?
Speaker 4 (16:28):
So that's the thing.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
It seems like John was cooperative with police when they
talk to him, but we don't know if anyone backed
up his story or if police just kind of took
him at his word. I would love to ask John,
but we just missed our window. He passed away in
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
And what did any of the other friends say, Like,
how was Marina that night? Was anything like off?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So this is the good news.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
So we actually did get a hold of someone who
was with her that night, like in that group, and
it's Marina's best friend's boyfriend. And he told us the
same thing he told police back then, like everyone had
a good time. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
There was no drama that he noticed. But and this
hasn't been reported as far as we know, he said
that there was a rumor going around that night that
(17:13):
Marina's boyfriend was married John.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
So this is the cat.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
He didn't know the guy's name, but it was whatever
guy she was with that night, and that night her
date was introduced to them as her boyfriend.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
So like we think, so I can't prove it.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Yeah, we don't have anything saying definitively.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
And we showed him a photo of John, and he
said John's face looked familiar, but all these years later,
like he couldn't be sure if that is the person
who was with them that night. Now, he did remember
that the man she was with seemed a little older
than the rest of the group, most of them were
around eighteen to twenty one. I know John was twenty three,
which you know and at that age it can feel older.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
And I had our reporter.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Try and find out whether or not John was married
at the time. Turns out John was. He and his
his wife got married and had a child in nineteen
sixty seven, So why was he out on a date
with a seventeen year old And I don't know if
his wife was asking the same question. But they got
divorced in nineteen seventy, a little over a year and
(18:14):
a half after Marina's murder, But then they remarried in
seventy two and then split for good a few years
after that. So scandalous If it was him, I say if,
because again, we don't have one hundred percent confirmation that
John was the one with Marina. And according to the
Chicago Tribune, Marina's family said she and John were just
(18:35):
friends and she had a different boyfriend who they didn't name. Then,
a college friend of Marina's told the Honolulu Star Advertiser
that Marina had decided not to come back to the
University of Hawaii after winter break because apparently her boyfriend
was going to be discharged from the army soon and
they planned to get engaged over the holidays, so Marina
wanted to transfer to a school in California to be
(18:58):
closer to him. John wasn't serving in the army before
the holidays, but he'd just graduated from college in nineteen
sixty eight, So maybe Marina was talking about him, but
for whatever reason, like she like fudged some details, like
it's the only thing I can if she's talking about him,
Like some of the details are wrong, right, like right?
Speaker 6 (19:17):
And does the family know who the other guy is?
And they just like weren't saying is he real? Could
you have made up a fake boyfriend because she was
dating this older guy she knew it'd be a little
bit scandalous.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Marina's parents have passed away. Friends we reached out to
haven't gotten back to us. Like I said, we got
that one person who was there that night, and our
FOYA request was denied, so we haven't seen the case files.
That being said, if anyone out there does know anything
about this, or you were there or friends or connected
to the family, email me tips at audio check. Now
(19:49):
her missing person's case only stayed a missing person's case
for two days because on New Year's Day Marina's body
was found. It was actually her purse that was found
first at a mo hole in Vista Point. Nothing seemed
to be missing, there's still money, credit cards, some kind
of id inside, and then her body was found a
few hours later at around four pm, not far away.
(20:12):
Police knew it was her right away because she was
still wearing the outfit John described to them brown capris,
a white turtleneck and a fur trimmed coat. She'd been
stabbed at least twice in the neck, had six or
seven stab wounds on the front and back of her torso,
and there were signs that she had been strangled as well,
and she had what looked like a cigarette burn on
(20:34):
her skin, and along with two black eyes, her body
was badly bruised. Now, the coroner couldn't confirm sexual assault
at the time, but we spoke with detectives who said
that Marina had been sexually assaulted and it seemed like
a sexual assault kit was done, but we are still
unclear what happened to that kit based on our reporting.
(20:54):
Now here's the part that really stands out.
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Speaker 5 (21:21):
When Marina was found, rigor mortis was still setting in
and fresh blood found in her lungs and airways hadn't clawted.
Blood usually drives and clots pretty quickly, so that combined
with the rigor, meant that she likely died within eight
to twelve hours of being found, so probably between four
(21:41):
am and eight am on January first, right, and very interesting.
She had eaten recently and the food had moved to
her small intestine, which happens about two to five hours
after a meal, so that narrowed down her time of
death just a few hours after she ate.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
An interesting flag that Jane Doe also ate two hours
before she had died, like almost like someone had had
a meal with both of them, like they had both
eaten a meal with possibly their killer before being killed.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yes, and it could have been multiple people, because that's
an idea that was entertained because they believe more than
one knife was used to kill Marina. The coroner noted
some of the stab wounds had two sharp edges, other
ones had one sharp and one rounded caveat here is. Yes,
that could mean different types of knives, but it also
(22:36):
apparently can also just mean different angles of entry, So
could be multiple, could just be one.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
But two makes sense, like at least to me, knowing
that Marina's mom saw like a guy buy the car
and then another guy who yelled go right clearly to
the other person that he was with driving.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Probably yeah, right, yeah, But the question still is who
and why. It didn't seem like a ransom plot to
police anymore though, I mean, they never got any demands
before finding her, but they quickly find a new angle
to explore. They said there had been multiple sexual assault
attempts in Marina's neighborhood before she went missing, and they
(23:12):
started to consider whether her kidnapping might have been connected
to those, so they put word out about this, even
questioned at least one guy that they suspected in another abduction,
but nothing ever stuck to him relating to Marina. In
August nineteen sixty nine, they investigated the Michigan co ed
killer John Collins, because he'd allegedly killed girls from northern
(23:34):
California earlier that year. But John didn't even arrive in
California until June of nineteen sixty nine, which is months
after Marina's murder, so he gets ruled out. Then came
the Manson murders later that August. Then Jane Do fifty
nine was found dead that November, and in December, state
officials sent LAPD a list of unsolved cases that might
(23:57):
match the Manson family m o particularly violent stabbing deaths,
and that list included Marinas and Jane do fifty nines. Initially,
they thought maybe Marina was stabbed with the same knife
used in the tape murders by the Manson family, but
that couldn't be proven, and then there was nothing else
physically connecting the cases. So even though moore was able
(24:20):
to happen in Marina's case than in Jane Do fifty nine,
they both ended up in the same spot by two
thousand and five, cold as ice until detective Shepherd gets
that bee in his bonnet and rereads Helter Skelter. But
he has the benefit of hindsight, so he knows investigators
in nineteen sixty nine were eager to tie almost every
(24:41):
unsolved stabbing murder to the Manson family at the time,
and he's taking Boliosi's theory with a grain of salt,
like to him, yeah, okay, the Manson angle is possible,
but without proof of that, anything is really possible.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
So Manson stuff aside. Does he think that the two
are connected for sure?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Though he thinks there are a lot of similarities worth
looking into, and he wants to see if Marina's sexual
assault kit still exists so he can run DNA tests,
because if Marina and Jane Do fifty nine were killed
by the same person, the answer to both cases might
lie in one piece of evidence. So soon after he
contacts the sheriff's department about Marina's case, but he can't
(25:22):
get much out of them. No one there seems to
be actively working her case or even knows much about it.
And it's not like he can go over there. He
has no jurisdiction there. He can't go banging down doors,
so he just like ends up not being able to
get answers on her case or answers as to where
that kit is or if it still exists.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
Right, it could just be like stuffed in a box somewhere.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Like the bra he found exactly, and he ends up
hitting another wall even in his own case, because the
DNA that he does have isn't the slam dunk he
was hoping for.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
In May two thousand and.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Six, so this is three years after he submitted that
bloody braw or testing. Detective Shepherd gets word that the
lab was able to recover a female DNA profile, but
the only national database they can put it into right
now is CODIS, which isn't showing any matches. So this
is great if you can ever find a family member
(26:17):
to compare it to, but until then, she's gonna still
be Jane do fifty nine, So Detective Shepherd has no
choice at the time but to shift focus and tackle
other cases with more promising leads. Over the next few years,
his work helps bring down serial killers like I don't
know if you've heard of them, Rodney al Kala, the
Dating Game killer, Lonnie Franklin, and Chester Turner. In early
(26:41):
twenty twelve, he is set to retire, but still in
the months before he does, like he just wants to
see Jane Doe's case solved, so he reaches out to
media outlets while he's like wrapping things up, hoping someone's
going to run her story and someone out there will
see it. Someone out there is looking for her, but
almost everyone he turns to turns him down, telling him
(27:03):
to call back when he has a suspect and a
better story.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
But he won't have a suspect until he gets an ID,
which he can't without press, which.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's giving them.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Exactly one person hears him though, Michelle McNamara.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
Michelle, So for those of you who don't know, she
was an incredible true crime journalist who wrote like infamous
book I'll Be Gone in a Dark, It's incredible. Highly recommend.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Yeah, she's she's pretty big in like the true crime space, right,
and she is kind of like us, right, she's like
doing her blog. You're not like tied down by like
these big organizations above you, like telling you what you
have to.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
Kind of pick and choose. Yeah, she's gonna come and.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
She's like, I'll absolutely take this on. But unfortunately, right
then that's not what moves the needle, so no one
comes forward with new information. By February twenty twelve, when
Detective Shepherd retires after thirty seven years with lapd. He
hands the case off to another detective, Louis Rivera, and
hopes that someone someday will bring Jane do fifty nine's
(28:06):
name to light. But his work wasn't for nothing, because
in twenty fifteen, Detective Rivera gets a call from the
Coroner's office. They've just heard from a woman in Canada
who thinks Jane Doe fifty nine may be her sister
Rite and guess how she made the connection Michelle's blog.
(28:29):
She ends up telling Detective Rivera that she learned about
the case from a friend. She came across the blog
post which had a picture of Jane Doe fifty nine's
face taken during her autopsy, and she thought the woman
in the picture looked like this woman, Rite Rite Yerwitzen.
She was only nineteen when she left Toronto for la
in late nineteen sixty nine. Her friends and family lost
(28:52):
contact with her after that, and no one had seen.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Or heard from her sins. So Detective Rivera asks for
photos of ate, descriptions of her jewelry.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Anything that he can compare. I mean, you know, DNA
is going to be like the ultimate judge. But before
they can even get to talking about that, The description
this woman gives of her sister's jewelry seals the deal
for him. She says her dad had two rings made
from an old pair of cufflings, one for each of
his daughters, and a ring found on his Jane Doe
matches the one Rite's sister has, so after all these years,
(29:25):
they finally know who she is. Jane Do fifty nine
is rete Yurvtsen and DNA ends up confirming it.
Speaker 6 (29:33):
I can't imagine that, like what it must be like
to find out that your sister, who you thought was
just gone gone like it's got her life, like it
was actually murder.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
And and not being able to claim her body as heartbreaking.
And because so much evidence was destroyed. Even though Detective
Rivera knows who ret is, he has to start his
investigation from scratch to figure out who would want her dead.
Speaker 7 (29:58):
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Speaker 5 (30:17):
Village so Detective Rivera travels to Montreal to interview Riet's
family and friends. He learned that Ried was the youngest
daughter of prominent Estonian refugees. Her mom's uncle was actually
the last president of Estonia before the Soviets took power,
and Reed was the free spirit of the family. She
(30:39):
spoke three languages, loved to make art, and she even
sewed her own clothes. And after she graduated from high school,
she moved in with her grandmother in Toronto and got
a job at a post office. But before she left Montreal,
she met a guy there in a cafe named Jean
or John.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
John, like Marina's friend John. I realize it's a common name,
but like.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Even though it is a wild coincidence, police say it
is just a coincidence. Okay, now, this John, I'm gonna
call him Jehans was a John. This Jean might have
had a French accent, so he was probably French Canadian,
and he had like long, feathered, like sixties rocker hair,
whereas Marina's John was clean cut. So anyways, it seems
(31:27):
like Rit fell hard for this guy. Sometime around September
of nineteen sixty nine, she followed him to La, likely
by bus, where he was thought to be staying with
another friend of his, also named wait for it, Jean
or John, also from Montreal. God, I'm gonna call him
roommate Jean, and then I'll call the other guy, boyfriend Jehan.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
And then there's also John with Marine Marina's John. Yes,
you got it.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
So on October thirty first, nineteen sixty nine, this is Halloween,
Riet sent a final postcard to her family from La
and she wrote that she was happy, she was going
to the beach a lot and the people were super nice.
But this was the last anyone ever heard from her.
Years later, a friend of Reed's ran into roommate Jean
back in Montreal, long before Reet was ever identified, and
(32:14):
asked him about her, and roommate Jean said, yeah, she's
stayed with us for a couple of weeks. Everything was good,
but then she just left. Now, Reed did plan to
visit her brother in Arizona. La was always supposed to
be just like a pit stop, but we know she
never made it to Arizona. So her friend asked roommate
Jean if he had any idea where Ree could have gone.
(32:36):
But he's like, no, all.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I know is that she left at the time.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Reed's friend didn't speak French well and roommate Jean didn't
speak English well, so it is also possible something was
lost in translation, or maybe he knew more but like
she didn't know how to get it out of him.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
I don't know, okay, But if she disappeared in La
and her brother was I assume expecting her in Arizona,
why didn't anyone report her missing or would be the
first time did they? And the police missed it.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Her family never filed the missing person's report. Detective Rivera told.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
Us that because Reet was so independent and her family,
we found out was like super religious and strict, so
everyone kind of assumed she just chose to cut ties
with them and she was like starting over in La.
And they did actually send a friend living down there
to check on her at the address written on the postcard,
but when the friend rang the buzzer, a caretaker answered
(33:28):
and told her that Rit moved out a while ago,
didn't leave.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
A forwarding address.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
So this friend never went inside and knocked on Reed's
door or anything. And at one point, it's not like
her family wasn't looking for her, like they even hired
a PI to find her, but nothing came of it,
and they said that the sketches police circulated of Jane
Do fifty nine didn't look anything like Reed, so they
wouldn't have recognized her through those. And by the way,
Red's family was okay with us covering her story, but
(33:55):
they wanted privacy and they didn't want to speak for it.
But in an inmore, her sister said they always believed
would reconnect with them some day, like they never imagined
even in all their searching, that she was actually dead.
And the CBC found a note written by Riet's mom
asking anyone with information about her daughter to call her
collect So all those years they never stopped looking for answers,
(34:17):
even before her mom died, and in two thousand and six,
Detective Rivera was fully ready to pick up that baton
that she had been caring before her death. And he
starts with the address on the postcard Read sent, hoping
somebody like a neighbor could give him information about Read's
last days and about these Jen guys. But the apartment building,
(34:38):
which in sixty nine stood right next to Paramount Studios,
it had been demolished by then. Now he does eventually
find a former owner, but they don't have any records
from the time.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
And we're sure that roommate Jean isn't Marina's John or
that Marino's boyfriend. There's so many John's and like there's yes,
so feel so unlikely.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Yeah, I know we've talked about boyfriend John was very different.
The roommate Jean didn't match Marina's John either. Okay, so
just as like a quick description boyfriend John, He's taller,
He's like over five nine, has long dark hair, dark eyes.
Roommate Jean shorter, around five six. He had short, black hair,
blue eyes. Marina's John didn't look like either of those guys. Oka,
(35:21):
at least not in the black and white photos I've seen.
It seems like he had short, lighter hair, light eyes.
Even though interesting fact, her John, Marina's John did spend
time in Europe growing up, like I don't know if
he ever lived in France specifically, and it seemed like
he moved out of California pretty soon after Marina's murder,
like probably before even got there, and then never lived
(35:44):
anywhere near her apartment or had any ties to Canada
as far as we know.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
Okay, So why haven't either of the Jean guys come forward?
If they have nothing to hide exactly, they'd be like,
what in their seventies now, Yeah, I mean they or
someone who knew them.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Should still be out there.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
Yeah, have to still be out there.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
So yeah, that's how Detective Rivera feels like. The problem
is nobody seems to remember these guys' last names after
all these years, and tracking down two guys name Jean
from Montreal who were in La in sixty nine feels
like looking for a needle in a haystick. Yeah, but
Canadian media outlets do manage to track down a painter
who said that he remembered boyfriend Jean back then. This
(36:27):
painter was a waiter in Montreal and saw him with
Reat a few times, and he thinks boyfriend Jean was
a maybe a medical student, maybe his name was Pierre,
but still no last name. So this painter and a
friend of Reid's eventually sit down with a forensic artist
to create sketches of both of these gens, which LAPD
(36:48):
releases to the public. But even having sketches, those haven't
led anywhere. We're gonna put them in the show notes
in case anyone recognizes these guys all these years later,
but like, who are they?
Speaker 6 (36:59):
So I won't bring up the Johns again. But in
the end, is there even a solid connection between these
two cases.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Detective Rivera doesn't really get to dive into Marina's case
right away, right like, that didn't happen for him because
we know they didn't have the files, they didn't have anything.
It doesn't happen for him till like twenty sixteen this time,
even though there's still no one actively working the case,
the sheriffs do pull those case files that Detective Shepherd
couldn't get access to, and he told us that after
(37:27):
kind of looking at everything, his gut feeling.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Is that these are actually separate cases.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
He's not closing the door on a connection between Marina's
case and Reed's case. There's always a chance they were
killed by the same person, but with everything he knows,
it feels unlikely to him.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
And maybe trying to connect these cases to the Manson
family and then each other led to like blind spots.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Yeah for police over the years.
Speaker 6 (37:53):
So if we look at them separately, what are each
of their like individual theories for each case? If they
aren't and they are standalone like what does what does
that even look like?
Speaker 5 (38:03):
So in Marina's case, we're for sure side eyeing John. Okay, right,
but there are other roads to go down. Detective Shepherd
told us Marina's dad apparently had ties to the OSS,
like the early version of the CIA during World War Two,
and Detective Shepherd said that he'd heard rumors or theories
(38:23):
that the dad's work might have somehow led to her murder.
Speaker 6 (38:26):
Oh what was his work?
Speaker 5 (38:28):
So I asked our reporter Malika Dhaliwall to find out.
It turns out he was training US soldiers in psychological warfare. Okay, yes,
so he was a journalist and his main job was
to make and distribute Allied propaganda to demoralize Germans. But
he also interrogated German POWs in one case for three
(38:52):
days straight, so he probably made some dangerous enemies along
the way. And I would love to go all the
way down this rabbit hole. I mean, but this is
all we know though, Like again, props to Molica because
you can't even just google this stuff, Like the CIA
started to declassify OSS records in the eighties and now
(39:13):
they're stored in the National Archives like in person. Oh
so you have to like be there to access them, right, which, like,
we are not located there, and we didn't have time
to go for the reporting. So she got creative. I
guess some antique dealers sell World War two letters, and
she found an online antique store selling a letter Marina's
dad wrote to his superiors detailing some of his post
(39:37):
war work.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Which is like wild. Yeah, but here's the thing.
Speaker 5 (39:41):
All of that said, according to Detective Shepherd, it is
probably unrelated because to him, and I understand what he's saying.
To him, Marina's murder seems more like a random act
of violence, possibly sexually motivated, rather than like a targeted.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Attack to like get to some else.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
Yes, now, Marina's step brother actually mentioned one possible suspect
that fits in a nineteen eighty eight LA magazine piece.
He claimed that a detective believed Marina might have been
killed by a biker and a drug dealer named Spanky
because interesting fact, police actually when they found her body,
(40:21):
they found an old motorcycle frame at the crime scene,
and they actually took the whole thing into evidence.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
And could they tie this guy to that motorcycle frame?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
Marina's brother didn't say why the detective suspected him? Like
in my mind, that's like, oh, I heard motorcycle gang
and I know there's that piece there, like I'm tying
that together, But no one ever really does. Now, we
were able to identify Spanky as a man named Kirk
Smith who has a criminal record a mile long. He
would have been about eighteen in sixty nine when Marina
(40:53):
was murdered, and the first charge we found on his
record was from just a year later in nineteen seventy,
when he was a rated for narcotics possession after an
LAPD raid. In nineteen seventy six, this guy escaped prison
while serving a ten year sentence don't know what four
and then he went on to rob seventeen banks before
being caught and charged with armed robbery. By nineteen eighty
(41:16):
he'd escaped again, and while he was in jail awaiting
trial for the attempted murder of other inmates in nineteen
eighty one, he became a suspect in a beating, murder
and a stabbing. But wait, there's more. While in prison,
he joined the Aryan Brotherhood. In nineteen eighty seven, he
got involved in their conspiracy to murder correctional officers as
(41:38):
revenge for the shooting of another member.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Now we don't know.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
If those were all the charges he faced. We submitted
a Foyer request for his full file, but we haven't
received that yet, and then he died in nineteen ninety eight,
so we can't go and try and talk to him.
Speaker 6 (41:54):
One of the most frustrating things kind of across the
board that I've felt while you've been telling me about
this is like how we can't get access to anything.
But also I feel like we wouldn't need to spiral
as much if someone could just get their hands on
her sexual assault.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Kits, which we might so from what Detective Rivera remembers,
like there is physical evidence in her case that hasn't
been tested yet. Now is that the sexual assault kit?
Is it something else? I don't know, and I don't
know what if anything has been done, will be done,
or could be done.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
And the question is do they still have it?
Speaker 5 (42:29):
Because I do know that at some point there was
a pipe burst at the evidence facility, and so it's
possible that the reason we haven't seen or heard anything
about this is that there's been water damage, Like we
haven't confirmed that with the Sheriff's department, because it seems
like somehow there still isn't anyone working Marina's case, So
(42:49):
like that's bad news, but also good news because maybe
it is just sitting there and nobody's gone looking for it.
But like we're running out of time, and like if
someone in the sh Araf's office is hearing this, like
even just going down and knowing that that was there.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
That this could be solved, Like I beg of you
to take twenty minutes.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Now we know most of the evidence in Reed's case
is long gone. Detective Rivera told us that the bloodstained
bra has been tested to death and only reads Dana
profile has been pulled from it. And he said that
Read's murder going back to like are they connected? He
just said Reads felt different, like it was so personal
and so full of rage, Like you have to be
(43:32):
angry to stab someone one hundred and fifty times, and
that's usually the kind of violence Detective Rivera sees when
the attacker is like an intimate partner. Now, both detectives
believe the key to solving Reed's case lies in finding
those two gens, especially the one that she followed to La.
But maybe like Michelle McNamara's blog. One day this episode
(43:55):
will find the right person who remembers John.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Now.
Speaker 5 (44:00):
By this point, Detective Rivera has retired too, but he
still works Riet's case as a reserve officer on a
part time basis. All of Marina's family and most of
Read's immediate family who knew her are gone now, so
Detective Rivera is relying on the public. You guys, to
come forward with tips, So talk to your parents, talk
(44:20):
to your grandparents, share this episode, especially if they lived
in La or Canada at the time, and contact police
if you know anything. Did you know Marina and have
information about her boyfriends or anyone who drove a black sedan,
Call if you were with her that night at the
Troubadour or saw a black sedan in that area. Were
you on a bus with Rite from Toronto to La
(44:41):
in the late summer fall of nineteen sixty nine. Did
you work with her at the post office in Toronto
and saw her?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Was John? Honestly?
Speaker 5 (44:48):
If you know any French Canadian men with the name
Jean or Pierre who lived in La in sixty nine,
or if you lived at the Hollywood Executive Apartments on
Melrose Avenue near Paramount Studios in and then finally, you know,
there's a possibility if you went to medical school in
Montreal or Toronto in the late nineteen sixties and knew
of anyone who was at medical school with you who
(45:10):
moved to la soon after graduation. Like these are all
the little things they're hoping like sparks memories for people.
So we're going to put in the show notes exactly
who to call for each case, because again Read's case
and Marina's case are held by different jurisdictions. But if
you know anything, please check the show notes for this episode.
(45:43):
You can find all the source material for this episode
on our website, Crime Junkie podcast dot com. And if
you want to listen to more episodes like this and
all of our episodes completely add free, be sure to
join our fan club. We'll put a link to that
in the show notes. You'll also get early access to
new episodes every week week as well, and you.
Speaker 6 (46:01):
Can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
We will be back next week with a brand new episode.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. I think Chuck
would approve.
Speaker 7 (46:38):
At Kildare Village members get more like now during our
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Chad Powers?
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Is that guy?
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He's doing a missus doubtfire.
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Speaker 5 (01:25):
Apply, high crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, and
I'm Britt and the story I have for you today
is a perfect example of why we need to keep
cold cases alive by talking about them and revisiting them
with fresh eyes. Because when a detective went the extra
mile to name a victim who couldn't speak for herself,
his work led to a break in a case that
(01:46):
seemed impossible to solve for decades, and it led him
to another case that could be connected. But police still
need more information to solve these cases once and for all.
So we need you crime junkies to listen closely and
share these details far and wide in case someone out
there is sitting on answers. This is the story of
(02:07):
the Mulholland Drive murders. It's January two thousand and three,
(02:42):
and homicide detective Cliff Shepherd is kicking off his year
digging through boxes of paperwork in the LAPDS Archive unit.
Detective Shepherd's an almost three decade vet of the department
and he's recently been assigned to the cold case unit,
so he's reviewing cases from the late nineteen sixties, especially
with evidence that can be tested with new technology.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
But the archives are a disaster.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
I mean, over the year's files have gone missing or
haven't been logged correctly. Some case materials haven't been touched
in decades, and so he's sorting through it all, trying
to make sense of a backlog that's been gathering dust,
skimming case summaries, trying to figure out which files are
even complete. But when he pulls one box off the
shelf and lifts the lid, he sees something that should
(03:28):
never ever be in these boxes, a tan lace brawl
stained with blood, not sealed, not tagged, just like shoved
in this box with yellowing case files. And this is
not how he should be finding evidence. But like, on
the other hand.
Speaker 6 (03:46):
It like it's evidence.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
It's still evidence, like evidence with blood on it that
may still be testable, which is like kind of exactly
what he's looking for, right, So he sees the file,
it's in belongs to the case of someone known only
as Jane Doe fifty nine, because she was County's fifty
ninth Jane Doe found in nineteen sixty nine. Even if
the blood just belongs to this victim, like, he sees
huge potential to be able to use it to give
(04:09):
her a name, which might actually kickstart an investigation that,
as he goes on to Reed, didn't make it very far.
So what he sees is that on November sixteenth, nineteen
sixty nine, a fifteen year old boy was hiking Mulholland
Drive to go birdwatching when he found the woman's body
in a ravine, tangled up in branches and brushed about
fifteen feet down the hillside. Lapd arrived on the scene
(04:33):
by nightfall and determined that the victim was white, about
twenty three years old five nine, and she had been
stabbed in the neck over one hundred and fifty times
with what police thought was likely a small knife. Now
to them, it looked like she'd been stabbed while laying
on her back, like maybe her killer like sat on
top of her to like subdue her, and she had
(04:53):
her head turned to one side because most of her
wounds were on the side of her neck, but she
fought back or at least tried to block the blade
from coming down on her because she had defensive wounds
on her hands. Now, police didn't find the murder weapon
at the scene, but they were pretty sure of one thing.
This wasn't where she was killed. There were bloody drag
(05:14):
marks left on Mulholland Drive, like her killer had parked there,
dragged her across the road and then put her body
over the edge of the ravine until it fell down
the hillside.
Speaker 6 (05:23):
Were there any tire tracks nearby?
Speaker 5 (05:25):
None were mentioned in the case file, but you can
see faint tire marks in some of the crime scene photos.
Like problem is police wouldn't have known how relevant they
actually were because this was a busy road, so like
it could have nothing to do with this.
Speaker 6 (05:39):
Okay, if this was a busy road, like, how did
no one see someone dumping a body here?
Speaker 5 (05:45):
Well, Mholland Drive had or still has probably some stretches
with like houses right by the road, and then stretches
that had just like hills and ravines on both sides.
So the area where this woman was found was more secluded,
like still near some houses, but like none of them.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Overlooked this specific stretch.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
So no one would have seen this car stop from
their window or anything like that, and it's very possible
they dumped her in the overnight hours, when traffic and
activity in the homes would have been light. There's not
an exact time of death, though. All the coroner could
tell during her autopsy was that she had been dead
like twenty four to forty eight hours and she had
(06:24):
eaten about two hours before she died.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
And there were no signs of sexual assault. Her clothes
a sweater, cordora.
Speaker 5 (06:32):
Jacket, jeans, boots, and that tan lace bra those were
all still intact, and not much else is found at
the scene until a few days later, when a road
worker turned in a pair of prescription glasses found nearby.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Now, these were either missed by the investigators who did
the initial search.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Or they were left there after and like so therefore
might not even be relevant. But either way, they looked
like men's glasses and therefore theoretically could be connected to
their killer, definitely not victims. Now, the CBC reported that
work had already been done on this lead back in
the day, and all that police really got to was
that the prescription was for a very near sighted man,
(07:09):
but the brand was pretty common, so like it wasn't
something they could actually trace.
Speaker 6 (07:13):
Could there be any DNA still on the.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Glasses, So Detective Shepherd told us that the glasses weren't
in evidence when he picked up the file, so like,
I don't know if they're lost, I don't know if
they were destroyed over time, but there's no trace of them.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
And so like when he there's no trace of them,
So there's no trace DNA to test, right, did they
try to test her bra or anything else at the time, Well,
detective told us that.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Back then all the bra could have been tested for
was blood tight, but he didn't even know for sure
if they did that or not. He also said that
no one scraped under her fingernails or anything, so, like,
you know, there were definitely missed opportunities for sure, And
when no one came forward to claim this woman's body,
that's when she became known as Jane do fifty nine.
(07:56):
They tried iding her using the clothing that she was
found in. They thought that basically what she was wearing
was a little heavy for la even in November. Plus
some of the clothes were made outside of the US,
so they contacted law enforcement in Canada and Interpol checked
with police throughout the US ran her fingerprints, but nothing
came up. And after that the case just went real cold,
(08:18):
real fast.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
So this is what Detective Shepherd starts out with.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
This isn't the kind of case he usually looks for,
like no ID, no suspects, all the evidence is basically gone.
And to top it all off, Jane do fifty nine
was cremated by the coroner's office because her body was
never cleaned. But there is this bloody braw which at
this point is like a north Star for him. Now.
Detective Shepherd told us that LAPD was a little behind
(08:43):
other departments on when they started testing DNA, but they
finally got it going at around two thousand and one
when the cold case unit was formed, So this is
like two years before he picks up the case file.
So right away he submits the broad to the state's
Missing Person's DNA program, and that was lagging behind. And
this is really what he needs because he's looking to
(09:04):
ID the victim first and foremost, so results are going
to take a while and Detective Shepherd has to put
any investigation kind of on the back burner until he
has something to investigate.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
But even with one hundred and thirty three.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
Cold cases on his plate, this one stays in the
back of his mind and he doesn't know what it
is that jogs his memory or why it happens. One
random day in two thousand and five, but he starts
thinking about the book Helter Skelter by Vincent Boliosi. It
was a book that he read back in nineteen seventy six,
like very early on in his career, the author was
(09:40):
a prosecutor in one of the most infamous murder trials
in American history, the Tate LaBianca case, which I'm sure
like a lot of crime junkies know about, and Helter
Skelter was basically like the first definitive account of the
Manson family and their crimes. Anyway, for some reason, he
feels compelled to pick this book up again and what
he In the epilogue there is a paragraph about Jane
(10:04):
Doe fifty nine. In it, Buliosi floats his theory that
Jane Do fifty nine's murder might have been linked to
the Manson family because of when she died. Her body
was found a week and a half after the mysterious
death of a Manson follower. By that time, the Manson
family was under investigation for multiple murders, so Boliosi wonders
(10:25):
whether she may have witnessed the follower's death and then
was killed to keep her from talking about it. Now
Bolosi is clear that he doesn't have any evidence to
back this theory up. But honestly, it's not even all
the Manson stuff that catches this detective's attention most. I mean, yes,
it's interesting, yes, it's how he got here, But it's
another detail in that paragraph that stands out to Detective Shepherd.
(10:49):
Buliosi mentions the name of another young woman, seventeen year
old Marina Haba, who was also brutally stabbed to death
just ten months before Jane do fifty nine, and her
body was found within two miles of Jane fifty nine
in a different ravine off Mulholland Drive. And now Detective
Shepherd is thinking, what if these two young women are connected,
(11:12):
and if so, are they really connected to the Manson
family or does he have a different serial killer on
his hands?
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Speaker 5 (12:12):
When Detective Shepherd looks into Marine's case, he learns that
it wasn't investigated by LAPD. It was in a different jurisdiction,
so the Sheriff's department took it, which may be why
neither department made any connection initially, even though Buliosi eventually did.
But because Detective Shepherd doesn't have the case file, he
starts by reading through old news coverage. He learns that
(12:34):
in December of nineteen sixty eight, Marina, a college freshman
and aspiring artist, was home for winter break after her
first semester at the University of Hawaii. She was staying
at her mom's house off Sunset Boulevard, right where West
Hollywood borders Beverly Hills. On the night of December twenty nine,
Marina went out with friends to celebrate New Year's a
little early and around three thirty AM, so this would
(12:56):
have been the morning of the thirtieth. Now, her mom
fi heard her sports car pull into the driveway, and
then seconds later she heard another car outside, one with
loud pipes. It sounded kind of like an older model.
It's been reported that she told detectives she looked out
her window and she saw Marina's car parked in the
driveway with a man standing next to it, and then
(13:18):
another car, a black sedan, was also parked in the driveway. Now,
I'm sure this all happens fast, but the black sedan
starts backing out and the man runs toward it, yelling
something like go before jumping in, and they speed off
just as Marina's mom goes outside. But when she's out there,
there's no sign of Marina. Even though when her mom.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
Checked her car.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
The keys are like still in the ignition, and in
an instant, this bad feeling just courses through her mom,
and by three p forty five she was on the
phone with police reporting her daughter missing. When they arrive
at the house, all she could tell them about the
man she saw was that he was young.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Like not super helpful.
Speaker 5 (13:58):
Police do check out Marina's car, and they made note
that the glasses her mom said that she needed for
driving and likely kept in her car, those were missing.
They also noticed that the emergency brake was pulled all
the way up, like as far as it can go.
And I don't know exactly how they got to this
from that, but they thought whoever pulled it used more
(14:18):
force than Marina could have, they say, because she was
a smaller girl, and like, I don't know what this
car is, but like I can fully pull up my heart.
Speaker 6 (14:26):
So I'm even thinking of like the trucks that I
used to drive in high school like this.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
I don't know how accurate this is.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
Maybe we don't know the cars at the time, or
maybe men didn't know women at the time.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
That's probably that one.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
So even though police were quick to dismiss missing teen
girls as runaways at the time that didn't happen here.
They actually took Marina's disappearance seriously right away, and that
might have been because Marina's mom told them that they
had a close relationship, Marina didn't need to keep secrets
from her, and because her mom was an actress and
her dad, a writer in Switzerland, was in the industry too.
(15:00):
Police wondered right off the bat if Marina may have
been kidnapped for ransom. So while her mom waited by
the phone for a ransom call, police worked on building
a timeline of Marina's last known movements, pieced together by
questioning the friend she went out with the night before
and her date, a family friend named John, who she
(15:20):
had known since she was little, and John told police
that Marina came over to his house in bel Air
on Sunday afternoon around eight thirty pm. They gotten a
limo with this group of friends, one of their dads
had arranged it, and they went to a club called Troubadour,
which is still in West Hollywood today. The group left
at around eleven thirty pm, and the limo dropped Marina
(15:41):
and John back off at his house. He says they
hang out until like three p fifteen in the morning,
when Marina left to make the twenty minute drive from
his house back to hers, so that timeline would put
her back at around three thirty in the morning, exactly
when her mom heard her car pull in. And we
asked Detective Shepherd what he thought about all of that,
like if he thought Marina drove herself, and he says, yes,
(16:04):
he didn't think that whoever took Marina would go to
the trouble of driving her car back to her house
and like parking it in the driveway. He thinks it's
more likely that she made it home and then was
just taken as she pulled in.
Speaker 6 (16:16):
Okay, And we totally believe John right, Like, I know
anyone theoretically could have followed her, but can anyone confirm
that Marina was actually there for those four hours where
he said she was?
Speaker 4 (16:28):
So that's the thing.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
It seems like John was cooperative with police when they
talk to him, but we don't know if anyone backed
up his story or if police just kind of took
him at his word. I would love to ask John,
but we just missed our window. He passed away in
twenty twenty four.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
And what did any of the other friends say, Like,
how was Marina that night? Was anything like off?
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So this is the good news.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
So we actually did get a hold of someone who
was with her that night, like in that group, and
it's Marina's best friend's boyfriend. And he told us the
same thing he told police back then, like everyone had
a good time. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood.
There was no drama that he noticed. But and this
hasn't been reported as far as we know, he said
that there was a rumor going around that night that
(17:13):
Marina's boyfriend was married John.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
So this is the cat.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
He didn't know the guy's name, but it was whatever
guy she was with that night, and that night her
date was introduced to them as her boyfriend.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
So like we think, so I can't prove it.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
Yeah, we don't have anything saying definitively.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
And we showed him a photo of John, and he
said John's face looked familiar, but all these years later,
like he couldn't be sure if that is the person
who was with them that night. Now, he did remember
that the man she was with seemed a little older
than the rest of the group, most of them were
around eighteen to twenty one. I know John was twenty three,
which you know and at that age it can feel older.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
And I had our reporter.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Try and find out whether or not John was married
at the time. Turns out John was. He and his
his wife got married and had a child in nineteen
sixty seven, So why was he out on a date
with a seventeen year old And I don't know if
his wife was asking the same question. But they got
divorced in nineteen seventy, a little over a year and
(18:14):
a half after Marina's murder, But then they remarried in
seventy two and then split for good a few years
after that. So scandalous If it was him, I say if,
because again, we don't have one hundred percent confirmation that
John was the one with Marina. And according to the
Chicago Tribune, Marina's family said she and John were just
(18:35):
friends and she had a different boyfriend who they didn't name. Then,
a college friend of Marina's told the Honolulu Star Advertiser
that Marina had decided not to come back to the
University of Hawaii after winter break because apparently her boyfriend
was going to be discharged from the army soon and
they planned to get engaged over the holidays, so Marina
wanted to transfer to a school in California to be
(18:58):
closer to him. John wasn't serving in the army before
the holidays, but he'd just graduated from college in nineteen
sixty eight, So maybe Marina was talking about him, but
for whatever reason, like she like fudged some details, like
it's the only thing I can if she's talking about him,
Like some of the details are wrong, right, like right?
Speaker 6 (19:17):
And does the family know who the other guy is?
And they just like weren't saying is he real? Could
you have made up a fake boyfriend because she was
dating this older guy she knew it'd be a little
bit scandalous.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Marina's parents have passed away. Friends we reached out to
haven't gotten back to us. Like I said, we got
that one person who was there that night, and our
FOYA request was denied, so we haven't seen the case files.
That being said, if anyone out there does know anything
about this, or you were there or friends or connected
to the family, email me tips at audio check. Now
(19:49):
her missing person's case only stayed a missing person's case
for two days because on New Year's Day Marina's body
was found. It was actually her purse that was found
first at a mo hole in Vista Point. Nothing seemed
to be missing, there's still money, credit cards, some kind
of id inside, and then her body was found a
few hours later at around four pm, not far away.
(20:12):
Police knew it was her right away because she was
still wearing the outfit John described to them brown capris,
a white turtleneck and a fur trimmed coat. She'd been
stabbed at least twice in the neck, had six or
seven stab wounds on the front and back of her torso,
and there were signs that she had been strangled as well,
and she had what looked like a cigarette burn on
(20:34):
her skin, and along with two black eyes, her body
was badly bruised. Now, the coroner couldn't confirm sexual assault
at the time, but we spoke with detectives who said
that Marina had been sexually assaulted and it seemed like
a sexual assault kit was done, but we are still
unclear what happened to that kit based on our reporting.
(20:54):
Now here's the part that really stands out.
Speaker 7 (20:59):
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Speaker 5 (21:21):
When Marina was found, rigor mortis was still setting in
and fresh blood found in her lungs and airways hadn't clawted.
Blood usually drives and clots pretty quickly, so that combined
with the rigor, meant that she likely died within eight
to twelve hours of being found, so probably between four
(21:41):
am and eight am on January first, right, and very interesting.
She had eaten recently and the food had moved to
her small intestine, which happens about two to five hours
after a meal, so that narrowed down her time of
death just a few hours after she ate.
Speaker 6 (22:00):
An interesting flag that Jane Doe also ate two hours
before she had died, like almost like someone had had
a meal with both of them, like they had both
eaten a meal with possibly their killer before being killed.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yes, and it could have been multiple people, because that's
an idea that was entertained because they believe more than
one knife was used to kill Marina. The coroner noted
some of the stab wounds had two sharp edges, other
ones had one sharp and one rounded caveat here is. Yes,
that could mean different types of knives, but it also
(22:36):
apparently can also just mean different angles of entry, So
could be multiple, could just be one.
Speaker 6 (22:41):
But two makes sense, like at least to me, knowing
that Marina's mom saw like a guy buy the car
and then another guy who yelled go right clearly to
the other person that he was with driving.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Probably yeah, right, yeah, But the question still is who
and why. It didn't seem like a ransom plot to
police anymore though, I mean, they never got any demands
before finding her, but they quickly find a new angle
to explore. They said there had been multiple sexual assault
attempts in Marina's neighborhood before she went missing, and they
(23:12):
started to consider whether her kidnapping might have been connected
to those, so they put word out about this, even
questioned at least one guy that they suspected in another abduction,
but nothing ever stuck to him relating to Marina. In
August nineteen sixty nine, they investigated the Michigan co ed
killer John Collins, because he'd allegedly killed girls from northern
(23:34):
California earlier that year. But John didn't even arrive in
California until June of nineteen sixty nine, which is months
after Marina's murder, so he gets ruled out. Then came
the Manson murders later that August. Then Jane Do fifty
nine was found dead that November, and in December, state
officials sent LAPD a list of unsolved cases that might
(23:57):
match the Manson family m o particularly violent stabbing deaths,
and that list included Marinas and Jane do fifty nines. Initially,
they thought maybe Marina was stabbed with the same knife
used in the tape murders by the Manson family, but
that couldn't be proven, and then there was nothing else
physically connecting the cases. So even though moore was able
(24:20):
to happen in Marina's case than in Jane Do fifty nine,
they both ended up in the same spot by two
thousand and five, cold as ice until detective Shepherd gets
that bee in his bonnet and rereads Helter Skelter. But
he has the benefit of hindsight, so he knows investigators
in nineteen sixty nine were eager to tie almost every
(24:41):
unsolved stabbing murder to the Manson family at the time,
and he's taking Boliosi's theory with a grain of salt,
like to him, yeah, okay, the Manson angle is possible,
but without proof of that, anything is really possible.
Speaker 6 (24:55):
So Manson stuff aside. Does he think that the two
are connected for sure?
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Though he thinks there are a lot of similarities worth
looking into, and he wants to see if Marina's sexual
assault kit still exists so he can run DNA tests,
because if Marina and Jane Do fifty nine were killed
by the same person, the answer to both cases might
lie in one piece of evidence. So soon after he
contacts the sheriff's department about Marina's case, but he can't
(25:22):
get much out of them. No one there seems to
be actively working her case or even knows much about it.
And it's not like he can go over there. He
has no jurisdiction there. He can't go banging down doors,
so he just like ends up not being able to
get answers on her case or answers as to where
that kit is or if it still exists.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
Right, it could just be like stuffed in a box somewhere.
Speaker 5 (25:44):
Like the bra he found exactly, and he ends up
hitting another wall even in his own case, because the
DNA that he does have isn't the slam dunk he
was hoping for.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
In May two thousand and.
Speaker 5 (25:56):
Six, so this is three years after he submitted that
bloody braw or testing. Detective Shepherd gets word that the
lab was able to recover a female DNA profile, but
the only national database they can put it into right
now is CODIS, which isn't showing any matches. So this
is great if you can ever find a family member
(26:17):
to compare it to, but until then, she's gonna still
be Jane do fifty nine, So Detective Shepherd has no
choice at the time but to shift focus and tackle
other cases with more promising leads. Over the next few years,
his work helps bring down serial killers like I don't
know if you've heard of them, Rodney al Kala, the
Dating Game killer, Lonnie Franklin, and Chester Turner. In early
(26:41):
twenty twelve, he is set to retire, but still in
the months before he does, like he just wants to
see Jane Doe's case solved, so he reaches out to
media outlets while he's like wrapping things up, hoping someone's
going to run her story and someone out there will
see it. Someone out there is looking for her, but
almost everyone he turns to turns him down, telling him
(27:03):
to call back when he has a suspect and a
better story.
Speaker 6 (27:07):
But he won't have a suspect until he gets an ID,
which he can't without press, which.
Speaker 4 (27:11):
It's giving them.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Exactly one person hears him though, Michelle McNamara.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
Michelle, So for those of you who don't know, she
was an incredible true crime journalist who wrote like infamous
book I'll Be Gone in a Dark, It's incredible. Highly recommend.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
Yeah, she's she's pretty big in like the true crime space, right,
and she is kind of like us, right, she's like
doing her blog. You're not like tied down by like
these big organizations above you, like telling you what you
have to.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
Kind of pick and choose. Yeah, she's gonna come and.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
She's like, I'll absolutely take this on. But unfortunately, right
then that's not what moves the needle, so no one
comes forward with new information. By February twenty twelve, when
Detective Shepherd retires after thirty seven years with lapd. He
hands the case off to another detective, Louis Rivera, and
hopes that someone someday will bring Jane do fifty nine's
(28:06):
name to light. But his work wasn't for nothing, because
in twenty fifteen, Detective Rivera gets a call from the
Coroner's office. They've just heard from a woman in Canada
who thinks Jane Doe fifty nine may be her sister
Rite and guess how she made the connection Michelle's blog.
(28:29):
She ends up telling Detective Rivera that she learned about
the case from a friend. She came across the blog
post which had a picture of Jane Doe fifty nine's
face taken during her autopsy, and she thought the woman
in the picture looked like this woman, Rite Rite Yerwitzen.
She was only nineteen when she left Toronto for la
in late nineteen sixty nine. Her friends and family lost
(28:52):
contact with her after that, and no one had seen.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Or heard from her sins. So Detective Rivera asks for
photos of ate, descriptions of her jewelry.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Anything that he can compare. I mean, you know, DNA
is going to be like the ultimate judge. But before
they can even get to talking about that, The description
this woman gives of her sister's jewelry seals the deal
for him. She says her dad had two rings made
from an old pair of cufflings, one for each of
his daughters, and a ring found on his Jane Doe
matches the one Rite's sister has, so after all these years,
(29:25):
they finally know who she is. Jane Do fifty nine
is rete Yurvtsen and DNA ends up confirming it.
Speaker 6 (29:33):
I can't imagine that, like what it must be like
to find out that your sister, who you thought was
just gone gone like it's got her life, like it
was actually murder.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
And and not being able to claim her body as heartbreaking.
And because so much evidence was destroyed. Even though Detective
Rivera knows who ret is, he has to start his
investigation from scratch to figure out who would want her dead.
Speaker 7 (29:58):
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terms and conditions. It's the Private Sale, Grand Finale Final
week at Kildare.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
Village so Detective Rivera travels to Montreal to interview Riet's
family and friends. He learned that Ried was the youngest
daughter of prominent Estonian refugees. Her mom's uncle was actually
the last president of Estonia before the Soviets took power,
and Reed was the free spirit of the family. She
(30:39):
spoke three languages, loved to make art, and she even
sewed her own clothes. And after she graduated from high school,
she moved in with her grandmother in Toronto and got
a job at a post office. But before she left Montreal,
she met a guy there in a cafe named Jean
or John.
Speaker 6 (30:58):
John, like Marina's friend John. I realize it's a common name,
but like.
Speaker 5 (31:03):
Even though it is a wild coincidence, police say it
is just a coincidence. Okay, now, this John, I'm gonna
call him Jehans was a John. This Jean might have
had a French accent, so he was probably French Canadian,
and he had like long, feathered, like sixties rocker hair,
whereas Marina's John was clean cut. So anyways, it seems
(31:27):
like Rit fell hard for this guy. Sometime around September
of nineteen sixty nine, she followed him to La, likely
by bus, where he was thought to be staying with
another friend of his, also named wait for it, Jean
or John, also from Montreal. God, I'm gonna call him
roommate Jean, and then I'll call the other guy, boyfriend Jehan.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
And then there's also John with Marine Marina's John. Yes,
you got it.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
So on October thirty first, nineteen sixty nine, this is Halloween,
Riet sent a final postcard to her family from La
and she wrote that she was happy, she was going
to the beach a lot and the people were super nice.
But this was the last anyone ever heard from her.
Years later, a friend of Reed's ran into roommate Jean
back in Montreal, long before Reet was ever identified, and
(32:14):
asked him about her, and roommate Jean said, yeah, she's
stayed with us for a couple of weeks. Everything was good,
but then she just left. Now, Reed did plan to
visit her brother in Arizona. La was always supposed to
be just like a pit stop, but we know she
never made it to Arizona. So her friend asked roommate
Jean if he had any idea where Ree could have gone.
(32:36):
But he's like, no, all.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I know is that she left at the time.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Reed's friend didn't speak French well and roommate Jean didn't
speak English well, so it is also possible something was
lost in translation, or maybe he knew more but like
she didn't know how to get it out of him.
Speaker 6 (32:50):
I don't know, okay, But if she disappeared in La
and her brother was I assume expecting her in Arizona,
why didn't anyone report her missing or would be the
first time did they? And the police missed it.
Speaker 4 (33:05):
Her family never filed the missing person's report. Detective Rivera told.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
Us that because Reet was so independent and her family,
we found out was like super religious and strict, so
everyone kind of assumed she just chose to cut ties
with them and she was like starting over in La.
And they did actually send a friend living down there
to check on her at the address written on the postcard,
but when the friend rang the buzzer, a caretaker answered
(33:28):
and told her that Rit moved out a while ago,
didn't leave.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
A forwarding address.
Speaker 5 (33:33):
So this friend never went inside and knocked on Reed's
door or anything. And at one point, it's not like
her family wasn't looking for her, like they even hired
a PI to find her, but nothing came of it,
and they said that the sketches police circulated of Jane
Do fifty nine didn't look anything like Reed, so they
wouldn't have recognized her through those. And by the way,
Red's family was okay with us covering her story, but
(33:55):
they wanted privacy and they didn't want to speak for it.
But in an inmore, her sister said they always believed
would reconnect with them some day, like they never imagined
even in all their searching, that she was actually dead.
And the CBC found a note written by Riet's mom
asking anyone with information about her daughter to call her
collect So all those years they never stopped looking for answers,
(34:17):
even before her mom died, and in two thousand and six,
Detective Rivera was fully ready to pick up that baton
that she had been caring before her death. And he
starts with the address on the postcard Read sent, hoping
somebody like a neighbor could give him information about Read's
last days and about these Jen guys. But the apartment building,
(34:38):
which in sixty nine stood right next to Paramount Studios,
it had been demolished by then. Now he does eventually
find a former owner, but they don't have any records
from the time.
Speaker 6 (34:49):
And we're sure that roommate Jean isn't Marina's John or
that Marino's boyfriend. There's so many John's and like there's yes,
so feel so unlikely.
Speaker 5 (35:01):
Yeah, I know we've talked about boyfriend John was very different.
The roommate Jean didn't match Marina's John either. Okay, so
just as like a quick description boyfriend John, He's taller,
He's like over five nine, has long dark hair, dark eyes.
Roommate Jean shorter, around five six. He had short, black hair,
blue eyes. Marina's John didn't look like either of those guys. Oka,
(35:21):
at least not in the black and white photos I've seen.
It seems like he had short, lighter hair, light eyes.
Even though interesting fact, her John, Marina's John did spend
time in Europe growing up, like I don't know if
he ever lived in France specifically, and it seemed like
he moved out of California pretty soon after Marina's murder,
like probably before even got there, and then never lived
(35:44):
anywhere near her apartment or had any ties to Canada
as far as we know.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
Okay, So why haven't either of the Jean guys come forward?
If they have nothing to hide exactly, they'd be like,
what in their seventies now, Yeah, I mean they or
someone who knew them.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Should still be out there.
Speaker 6 (36:03):
Yeah, have to still be out there.
Speaker 5 (36:04):
So yeah, that's how Detective Rivera feels like. The problem
is nobody seems to remember these guys' last names after
all these years, and tracking down two guys name Jean
from Montreal who were in La in sixty nine feels
like looking for a needle in a haystick. Yeah, but
Canadian media outlets do manage to track down a painter
who said that he remembered boyfriend Jean back then. This
(36:27):
painter was a waiter in Montreal and saw him with
Reat a few times, and he thinks boyfriend Jean was
a maybe a medical student, maybe his name was Pierre,
but still no last name. So this painter and a
friend of Reid's eventually sit down with a forensic artist
to create sketches of both of these gens, which LAPD
(36:48):
releases to the public. But even having sketches, those haven't
led anywhere. We're gonna put them in the show notes
in case anyone recognizes these guys all these years later,
but like, who are they?
Speaker 6 (36:59):
So I won't bring up the Johns again. But in
the end, is there even a solid connection between these
two cases.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
Detective Rivera doesn't really get to dive into Marina's case
right away, right like, that didn't happen for him because
we know they didn't have the files, they didn't have anything.
It doesn't happen for him till like twenty sixteen this time,
even though there's still no one actively working the case,
the sheriffs do pull those case files that Detective Shepherd
couldn't get access to, and he told us that after
(37:27):
kind of looking at everything, his gut feeling.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Is that these are actually separate cases.
Speaker 5 (37:33):
He's not closing the door on a connection between Marina's
case and Reed's case. There's always a chance they were
killed by the same person, but with everything he knows,
it feels unlikely to him.
Speaker 6 (37:44):
And maybe trying to connect these cases to the Manson
family and then each other led to like blind spots.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Yeah for police over the years.
Speaker 6 (37:53):
So if we look at them separately, what are each
of their like individual theories for each case? If they
aren't and they are standalone like what does what does
that even look like?
Speaker 5 (38:03):
So in Marina's case, we're for sure side eyeing John. Okay, right,
but there are other roads to go down. Detective Shepherd
told us Marina's dad apparently had ties to the OSS,
like the early version of the CIA during World War Two,
and Detective Shepherd said that he'd heard rumors or theories
(38:23):
that the dad's work might have somehow led to her murder.
Speaker 6 (38:26):
Oh what was his work?
Speaker 5 (38:28):
So I asked our reporter Malika Dhaliwall to find out.
It turns out he was training US soldiers in psychological warfare. Okay, yes,
so he was a journalist and his main job was
to make and distribute Allied propaganda to demoralize Germans. But
he also interrogated German POWs in one case for three
(38:52):
days straight, so he probably made some dangerous enemies along
the way. And I would love to go all the
way down this rabbit hole. I mean, but this is
all we know though, Like again, props to Molica because
you can't even just google this stuff, Like the CIA
started to declassify OSS records in the eighties and now
(39:13):
they're stored in the National Archives like in person. Oh
so you have to like be there to access them, right, which, like,
we are not located there, and we didn't have time
to go for the reporting. So she got creative. I
guess some antique dealers sell World War two letters, and
she found an online antique store selling a letter Marina's
dad wrote to his superiors detailing some of his post
(39:37):
war work.
Speaker 4 (39:37):
Which is like wild. Yeah, but here's the thing.
Speaker 5 (39:41):
All of that said, according to Detective Shepherd, it is
probably unrelated because to him, and I understand what he's saying.
To him, Marina's murder seems more like a random act
of violence, possibly sexually motivated, rather than like a targeted.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
Attack to like get to some else.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
Yes, now, Marina's step brother actually mentioned one possible suspect
that fits in a nineteen eighty eight LA magazine piece.
He claimed that a detective believed Marina might have been
killed by a biker and a drug dealer named Spanky
because interesting fact, police actually when they found her body,
(40:21):
they found an old motorcycle frame at the crime scene,
and they actually took the whole thing into evidence.
Speaker 6 (40:28):
And could they tie this guy to that motorcycle frame?
Speaker 4 (40:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (40:32):
Marina's brother didn't say why the detective suspected him? Like
in my mind, that's like, oh, I heard motorcycle gang
and I know there's that piece there, like I'm tying
that together, But no one ever really does. Now, we
were able to identify Spanky as a man named Kirk
Smith who has a criminal record a mile long. He
would have been about eighteen in sixty nine when Marina
(40:53):
was murdered, and the first charge we found on his
record was from just a year later in nineteen seventy,
when he was a rated for narcotics possession after an
LAPD raid. In nineteen seventy six, this guy escaped prison
while serving a ten year sentence don't know what four
and then he went on to rob seventeen banks before
being caught and charged with armed robbery. By nineteen eighty
(41:16):
he'd escaped again, and while he was in jail awaiting
trial for the attempted murder of other inmates in nineteen
eighty one, he became a suspect in a beating, murder
and a stabbing. But wait, there's more. While in prison,
he joined the Aryan Brotherhood. In nineteen eighty seven, he
got involved in their conspiracy to murder correctional officers as
(41:38):
revenge for the shooting of another member.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Now we don't know.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
If those were all the charges he faced. We submitted
a Foyer request for his full file, but we haven't
received that yet, and then he died in nineteen ninety eight,
so we can't go and try and talk to him.
Speaker 6 (41:54):
One of the most frustrating things kind of across the
board that I've felt while you've been telling me about
this is like how we can't get access to anything.
But also I feel like we wouldn't need to spiral
as much if someone could just get their hands on
her sexual assault.
Speaker 5 (42:11):
Kits, which we might so from what Detective Rivera remembers,
like there is physical evidence in her case that hasn't
been tested yet. Now is that the sexual assault kit?
Is it something else? I don't know, and I don't
know what if anything has been done, will be done,
or could be done.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
And the question is do they still have it?
Speaker 5 (42:29):
Because I do know that at some point there was
a pipe burst at the evidence facility, and so it's
possible that the reason we haven't seen or heard anything
about this is that there's been water damage, Like we
haven't confirmed that with the Sheriff's department, because it seems
like somehow there still isn't anyone working Marina's case, So
(42:49):
like that's bad news, but also good news because maybe
it is just sitting there and nobody's gone looking for it.
But like we're running out of time, and like if
someone in the sh Araf's office is hearing this, like
even just going down and knowing that that was there.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
That this could be solved, Like I beg of you
to take twenty minutes.
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Now we know most of the evidence in Reed's case
is long gone. Detective Rivera told us that the bloodstained
bra has been tested to death and only reads Dana
profile has been pulled from it. And he said that
Read's murder going back to like are they connected? He
just said Reads felt different, like it was so personal
and so full of rage, Like you have to be
(43:32):
angry to stab someone one hundred and fifty times, and
that's usually the kind of violence Detective Rivera sees when
the attacker is like an intimate partner. Now, both detectives
believe the key to solving Reed's case lies in finding
those two gens, especially the one that she followed to La.
But maybe like Michelle McNamara's blog. One day this episode
(43:55):
will find the right person who remembers John.
Speaker 4 (43:59):
Now.
Speaker 5 (44:00):
By this point, Detective Rivera has retired too, but he
still works Riet's case as a reserve officer on a
part time basis. All of Marina's family and most of
Read's immediate family who knew her are gone now, so
Detective Rivera is relying on the public. You guys, to
come forward with tips, So talk to your parents, talk
(44:20):
to your grandparents, share this episode, especially if they lived
in La or Canada at the time, and contact police
if you know anything. Did you know Marina and have
information about her boyfriends or anyone who drove a black sedan,
Call if you were with her that night at the
Troubadour or saw a black sedan in that area. Were
you on a bus with Rite from Toronto to La
(44:41):
in the late summer fall of nineteen sixty nine. Did
you work with her at the post office in Toronto
and saw her?
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Was John? Honestly?
Speaker 5 (44:48):
If you know any French Canadian men with the name
Jean or Pierre who lived in La in sixty nine,
or if you lived at the Hollywood Executive Apartments on
Melrose Avenue near Paramount Studios in and then finally, you know,
there's a possibility if you went to medical school in
Montreal or Toronto in the late nineteen sixties and knew
of anyone who was at medical school with you who
(45:10):
moved to la soon after graduation. Like these are all
the little things they're hoping like sparks memories for people.
So we're going to put in the show notes exactly
who to call for each case, because again Read's case
and Marina's case are held by different jurisdictions. But if
you know anything, please check the show notes for this episode.
(45:43):
You can find all the source material for this episode
on our website, Crime Junkie podcast dot com. And if
you want to listen to more episodes like this and
all of our episodes completely add free, be sure to
join our fan club. We'll put a link to that
in the show notes. You'll also get early access to
new episodes every week week as well, and you.
Speaker 6 (46:01):
Can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
We will be back next week with a brand new episode.
Speaker 4 (46:29):
Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. I think Chuck
would approve.
Speaker 7 (46:38):
At Kildare Village members get more like now during our
Private Sale, where members get up to twenty percent of
our usual exceptional village prices. These offers are for members only,
so sign up at Kildare Village dot com and see
terms and conditions. It's the Private Sale, Grand Finale, Final
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