August 25, 2025 • 45 mins
On Valentine’s Day in 2007, 39-year-old Jodine Serrin was brutally murdered and desecrated in her own bed – while her parents were just down the hall. Over the next 10 years, using new forensic techniques, the Carlsbad Police Department identified her killer. But when they did, everyone was forced to confront the chilling realization that this man had been leading a double life – on one hand, living like you and I, acting as a father, partner and employee. On the other, he was a monster.
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.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Speaker 2 (00:30):
My name's Ched Power streaming on Disney Plus. Glenn Powell
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Speaker 3 (00:39):
That was one how of a performance, but with football.
I like Key Powers.
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Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett and I
have a story today that is going to stay with
you and be worn. It is not for the faint
of heart. What was done to the victim and how
she was found is truly one of the most haunting
images that I've had to convey in probably over six
hundred episodes at this point. But I am going to
walk you through it all, from the night of the
(01:22):
murder on Valentine's Day two thousand and seven, to the
brand new forensic techniques used today to identify the killer,
and ultimately to the chilling realization that our suspect was
leading a double life.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
On one hand, he.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Was moving about the world like you and I, acting
out the part of father, partner, and friend. He lived
and worked in the very town where he also took
on the role of monster, a man who set up
a crime scene in a way that allowed him to
watch as he desecrated the corpse of a young woman
he'd killed in her own apartment. This is the story
(01:59):
of Jodye Saren. It's Valentine's Day two thousand and seven,
(02:34):
and even after fifty three years of marriage, Art and
Lois Saren don't skip out on a chance for a
romantic date night of dinner and a.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Movie to celebrate.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
They try to plan a day just for themselves because,
like many parents, decades of their lives have been consumed
with taking care of their six kids, and even more
so for them because their youngest daughter, thirty nine year
old Jodine, who goes by Jody, she had developmental disabilities
that were told gave her the mental capacity of a
girl in her early teens. And Jody lived on her own,
(03:06):
but in many ways she was still dependent on her parents.
They checked in on her every day. They helped her
get from place to place because she didn't drive, But
on this day they hadn't been able to get hold
of her. Seventy two year old Lois tried pushing it
out of her mind, like just one day where she
and her husband could just focus on themselves, it wouldn't
(03:26):
be the end of the world. But all through dinner
it was like nagging at her, and as she sat
in the dark of the movie theater, she just couldn't
focus on the screen. With every scene change, she just
grew more and more anxious, till she couldn't take it anymore,
Like what's the point of being there if she can't
actually enjoy it? Whatever feeling was crawling under her skin,
(03:48):
she just had to give in, So mid movie, she
and Art leave the theater. It's around ten PM when
the Sarans get to Jody's condo. At first, they knock
and win, expecting to hear their daughter's footsteps see the
knob turn, but there's nothing. So Art pulls out his
spare key, unlocks the door, and tries to push it open,
(04:10):
but it barely budges. The chain is latched from the inside,
and this stops them cold because Jody never chains her door,
And now the Sarans are starting to panic. So at
seventy seven years old, Art throws himself against the door
and breaks it down. Now the lights are on inside
(04:32):
the condo and the Sarans head straight for their daughter's bedroom.
Art opens the door, and even though the room is dark,
in the shadows, he sees two people in bed. It
looks like Jody with a man, and it looks like
they're having sex. And he's obviously taken aback, probably a
little embarrassed, probably mad at whoever this man is, so
(04:53):
he quickly shuts the door and calls out is basically like, listen,
you need to get decent.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You both need to come out.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
To the living room. We are gonna be here waiting
for you. And honestly, I would probably be stewing a
little bit, but a few minutes go by, and then
some more and no one comes out to join Art
and Lois in the living room, not even Jody. So
I don't know if it's stewing as much as it
is just like something's wrong, Like they're getting curious something's
(05:18):
going on. So Art gets up to check again, just
to like nudge the two along. But this is when
everything shifts, not just like his perception of things, but
it's like Art's whole world flips on its axis in
this moment and forever his life is going to be changed.
When he opens the door, the man isn't in Jody's
(05:39):
room anymore. It is just his daughter, laying naked and
lifeless on the bed, covered in blood. She's not breathing,
she's actually cold to the touch, all of which Art
tells to a nine to one one operator in a
frantic call. Based on their recommendation, he moves Jody from
the bed to the floor to begin CPR. There is
(06:00):
no saving her, and when first responders get to this scene,
it is quote immediately clear to them that Jody is dead,
and given the state of her body, she has likely
been dead for several hours, way before the sarans even
got to her condo.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
So it's not like art could have stopped anything when
they got there.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
No, the medical examiner will end up determining that Jody
died around noon that day, so almost ten hours before
they got there, which.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I imagine has to be some relief.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Like, I mean to even for a moment think that
you were just sitting feet away as someone killed your
daughter would be mental torture. But then there's that relief
for a second. But you also then have to reconcile
what it was you actually walked in on, which was
this man desecrating Jody's corpse, And in that moment, I
don't know how much relief there is in that.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Yeah, and they were all in the apartment like at
the same time. Yeah, did this guy escape through a
window or something.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
No.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So, the way that Jody's condo is laid out, it's
kind of split down the middle by a dividing wall.
So when you walk in the front door, you can
either turn one way and go to the bedroom, or
you can turn the other way and get to the
kitchen and living room. Oh so with the Sarans sitting
in the living room, this guy could run right out
of the front door without them actually even knowing, and
(07:14):
investigators used bloodhounds to track the man sent from the
condo out the front door, down Jody's street, all the
way to a main road where he'd tossed his sweatshirt
into a bush. But then that's where the scent stops.
Their man is long gone, but he did leave plenty
behind at the scene, and not just physical evidence. There
(07:36):
is evidence of how devious and methodical this man was.
I mean, it is clear that he took his time
setting up this crime scene in exactly the way he wanted.
Sheets and blankets had been placed over the windows in
Jody's room, and a full length mirror was moved next
to the bed so this guy could see what it
was he was doing to Jody. He had beaten her
(07:58):
over the head strang but she must have fought back
because she had defensive wounds and bruising all over, and
along with sexually assaulting her corpse, the man also inflicted
at least one cut, a laceration across her throat that
likely happened post mortem. This guy clearly had a plant
around what he was doing to Jody, but her parents
(08:20):
busting her front door down was obviously not part of
the plant, and in his hurry to leave, he made
some mistakes. First of all, there is blood all over
Jody's room and in the bathroom, on the walls, the carpet,
the linens, I mean, it's everywhere, as is his DNA
and tons of partial fingerprints. And in his rush to
(08:42):
sneak out without being seen by Jody's parents, he'd even
left his sneakers behind. And these sneakers actually end up
being a major clue because they weren't just like kicked
off randomly. They had been taken off and neatly placed
next to the rest of Jody's shoes by the front door,
which is where Jody always instructed her guests to remove
(09:02):
and place their shoes before coming inside. Like Jody was
like super neat and tidy, especially when it came to
her place. So this tells investigators that whoever killed Jody
must have been invited in.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
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(09:37):
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Speaker 2 (09:46):
My name's Chened Powers, streaming on Disney Plus. Glenn Powell
is Chad Powers.
Speaker 5 (09:52):
Who is that guy?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
He's doing a missus doubtfire.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
There was one hell of a performance.
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But with football, I'll I keep you are a puzzle.
A brand new original series. Every choice, every mistake carry
you to this fock you were born.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
So this moment crying.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Shot Powers, a new original series exclusively on Disney Plus.
Eighteen plus subscription required decency's apply.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Aside from Art's own work on the condo door, there
were no signs of force entry to Jody's place, and
there were even dishes for two in the sink, which
made it seem like things had started out friendly with
whoever this person was before they took an unthinkable turn.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Well, and it is like Valentine's Day, like dishes for
two seems kind of like a date date dish.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
But whatever this started off as like, Given the state
of the condo and the story that the evidence told,
it seemed like like almost in an instant, things switched
from good to bad. The change from neatly arranged shoes
and dishes placed in the sink to rage filled violence
in the bedroom suggested to detectives very early on that
drug use may have been a part of the picture,
(11:02):
but it would only have been on the part of
the offender, because Jody's parents were clear she did not
use drugs, and her autopsy would later confirm that.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Now, I know it was dark and like obviously traumatic
on multiple levels, but was art able to see what
this guy looked like at all when he first saw
him in Jody's bedroom.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So in initial interviews, he actually claims to have gotten
a good look at the suspect, like enough to say
that he was five eight to six feet tall, a
little chubby, and I think his brain was like trying
to fill in the gaps because early on he was
even convinced that it was someone Jody knew, someone specific
named Robert Burns. This was a guy that had similar
developmental disabilities as Jody. They used to have some sort
(11:43):
of relationship at some point, which would have put them together,
maybe on Valentine's Day, but investigators quickly rule Robert out
because of his alibi, and they would later confirm it
definitely wasn't him because his DNA did not match what
was left at the crime scene, and with him ruled out,
then all they've got is like a description of a
kind of chubby guy who's about six feet tall.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
Well, and like you said, like all this DNA.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
And that, but any hopes of a quick slam dunk
get crushed because even though they had the DNA and
DNA that's good enough to go into the state and
national databases, this dude is a ghost.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
He's not in any database.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Because like this is a case where we don't have
a lot of these where it's like what two thousand
and seven, you can put it in the database? Is there?
The database is populated, people know how it works, and
still he doesn't.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Exist, which seems bonkers time because of how like you said,
methodical this was. It doesn't feel like a first time.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Like ahow, it's a shock to everyone. I mean, the
only thing I think they assume is that like, whatever
this guy has done, he just hasn't gotten caught for it,
because nothing about this, like you said, is giving like
first time offender. Yeah, but also I kept thinking, I
wonder what the crime scene would have looked like had
this man been interrupted, was he planning on cleaning up?
(13:04):
Would he have even left Jody there? Like we usually
talk about m based on what's been left behind.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
But maybe he wouldn't have left anything exact hind if
he had had enough time.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Exactly Jody's dad could have completely changed the trajectory of things,
like dude didn't even have time to put on his shoes,
so what else did he not have time to do?
So they've got to find someone who's not in a database,
who Jody either knew or recently met and would willingly
let into her home. They start by building out the
(13:36):
timeline of her last known movements. The last confirmed contact
Jody had with anyone was a phone call with her
mom on the thirteenth, just the day before, and she'd
actually told her mom on the phone that she was
planning to go to a Valentine's Day party on the fourteenth,
but we know she never made it to that party.
There were several voicemails from people wondering where she was.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Do they think that she met up with this guy
on the fourteenth or I mean, is it possible that
he was actually there on the thirteenth? Like her time
with death is new and on the fourteenth, But I mean,
I have to wonder how long they were together before
that happened.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Yeah, that's the big question. When did she meet him
and where? Now Interestingly, they come to learn that while
Jody didn't have a full time job, she was very
involved in volunteer work and would help out at nursing
homes or facilities for people with similar developmental disabilities, and
one of the facilities that she would go to was
co located with a substance abuse treatment place, which, considering
(14:34):
their early theory that the offender was on drugs, they
begin to wonder if maybe she cross paths with someone
around there, and not even necessarily that date, because she
wasn't volunteering on the fourteenth.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
Right, but maybe someone saw her, had been following her,
had had some contact before.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Yeah, or even just ran into her another time and
then on this day was like, yeah, hey remember me. However,
because the other thing about Jody, she was trusting, very
overly say trusting of strangers. She was the kind of
person who saw everyone as a friend and was so
innocent in her thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So detectives actually hear that Jody would have let anybody
into her home.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Which makes those like neatly placed shoes and dishes a
little less like.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
They mean less, right, right, it just had to be
in my mind someone that was like nice to her
right to start out. But we know that switch from
good to bad happened really quick, and unfortunately, knowing this
now makes narrowing down a suspect pool early on nearly impossible.
So detectives spend the first weeks of their investigation making
a hail marry list of anyone and everyone who could
(15:41):
possibly be responsible people in the area, people Jody was
associated with or might have crossed paths with, people they're
tipped off to. I mean, there are over fifty men
on this list, and they go out and knock on
all these guys doors. They swab every single one of
them and send each and every swab to the lab
for comparison, but there are no matches, and when they
(16:04):
reach the bottom of their list, there really aren't any
other obvious directions for investigators to go in. By this point,
the case has been highly publicized as the quote Valentine's
Day murder. Tips are coming in by the hundreds, but
like nothing is panning out. So at one point detectives
even reach out to the VDOC Society, which is a
(16:25):
group of retired detectives, FBI agents, forensic experts, whatever. Like
Basically they bring together anyone who's like an expert in
their field. They're located in Pennsylvania, and they take on
some of the coldest, most baffling murder cases that no
one else can crack. They'll like come in and consult
for you. You have to present your case whatever. But
even they don't have a magic wand I mean they
can suggest what type of offender this guy is, maybe
(16:49):
confirm that some of the theories police had are probably right,
but they can't make this guy materialize.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
And it's so much more frustrating when you have all
this DNA on fileh and like I want to say,
no one, but no one else right now, Like they've
already tested it against fifty guys and the database and
like and nothing is hitting I know.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
So this is the same.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Story that we know and hate. Weeks turn into months
and then turn into years, and then with every day
that passes, they just hope and pray that their guy
will slip up and his DNA will get collected. Until
then this case just kind of ends up looming over
Carlsbad PD as it gets passed from one detective to
the next and the next, and it becomes sort of
(17:32):
the department.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Wide white whale.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Everybody wants to see this thing get solved, and they
try everything. A fifty two thousand dollars reward, pleads to
the media for the San Diego Union Tribune. Jody's family
even puts her cold case information on display in public buses,
just in case there's someone out there with info, Like
if there is someone out there with info though they
are holding on tight to their secret. But lucky for police,
(17:57):
we are about to hit an era of investment stigating
where DNA can do all the talking. In twenty sixteen,
this is now nine years after JODI's murder, a new
detective takes over the case, Lieutenant Eric Covanda, and this
is just after the PD decided to tap Parabon Nano
Labs in Virginia to do forensic phenotyping with the DNA
(18:19):
sample they have. Now, I know we've touched on this before,
but for like our new crime junkies, Britt, would you mind.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Obviously, the phenotype composits can predict suspects eye color, hair color,
skin tone, even like facial structure. Based on the DNA makeup,
there are obviously like a ton of other factors at
play that might make someone look different, right, like weight,
facial hair, right, and like substance use can change your parents.
(18:45):
But this gives police kind of like a baseline of
some key characteristics that they can at least use to
like help rule people in or out. Like eye color
that's pretty like cut and dry exactly.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
So Jody's case was actually the first time that Carl's
bad PDA ever used this kind of technology. And Lieutenant
Covanda says, he's sort of treating the composite as a filter.
It might not look exactly like the suspect, but if
a person of interest pops up with, like you said,
a different eye color, different hair color, skin color, he
can at least like rule people out much quicker. Right,
(19:16):
So they get this composite back, and Lieutenant Covanda literally says,
it looks like every other surfer dude out there right now, which.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
I've seen a lot of the pairabon composits, and they
kind of they do just look like a guy.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
They all blend into the same person. It was like
very cool.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
The first couple of times we saw it and like
it's just the same dude.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Yeah, eventually we're like, god it so truly you are
just looking for like color of like eyes, hair or
something like that. So yeah, they end up getting this
sort of nondescript white guy with bluish green eyes, dirty
blonde hair, fair skin, and some freckling. But the trick
is they do have the ability to make some tweaks
using the information that they have or based on their theories,
(19:58):
like substance use, right, you said it was a part
of profile, and substance use usually alter someone's appearance.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
So Kovanda had the lab increase.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
The composites, BMI had him age him a little bit,
adding like deeper creases a.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Five o'clock shadow. So that's the photo that they.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Released to the public on the tenth anniversary of JODI's murder.
And they do this on the steps of the San
Diego courthouse and immediately tips start pouring in, tips that
they probably had like not in a way that they've.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Seen in a long time.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
But even with this influx of new information, nothing pans out. Still,
this new technology has really gotten Lieutenant Colevanda's wheels turning
He's made a lot of connections by that point with
people in like the DNA science world, and he's learning
about all of the other ways that they can use
DNA to get more info info like a suspect's name,
(20:50):
with something called YSTR profiling, which that's a method used
to analyze DNA on the Y chromosome, and that is
what's passed down from father to son verse virtually unchanged.
And since last names are also typically passed down the
paternal line, why profiling testing can be used to predict
a person by their last name by comparing their y
profile to entries already in DNA databases. But you have
(21:14):
to remember that there are certain limitations when it comes
to this kind of testing. Things that can break the
pattern like infidelity or genetic mutations or adoption or adoption right,
that's actually one of the most common. But listen, take
what you can get right, and then we'll figure out
the next steps from there. So this again is like
a first for Carl's bad PDA. This is the first
(21:35):
time they're ever using this kind of technology as well, and.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
They do get a last name after all.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
The YSTR work miracle, which of course is like a
detective right out of CSI Miami, taking off his sunglasses
and like squinting into the sun, you can see it right.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
Oh yeah, for sure, these detectives.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Could not help themselves. They begin saying, it's going to
take a miracle this one.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Apps can help teenagers connect, learn and create, but not
every app is right for every teen Parents should have
a choice in which online services their teenagers can access.
That's why Instagram supports the initiative for an EU Digital
Majority age, requiring parental approval before teenagers can access online services,
(22:23):
including social media. Learn more at instagram dot com slash
parental Approval. This political ad was brought to you by Instagram.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
Detectives spend the coming year looking for their miracle, but
it turns out there was no one they could find
with that last name who also fit the composite sketch.
So it was looking more and more like one of
those pattern breakers happened in this family line, infidelity, adoption, something.
But in the year or less that it's taken to
(22:54):
feel pretty sure of this. Guess what happens? Twenty eighteen
is upon us.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Oh and with all this science talk, you're talking about
the Golden State killer.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Golden State killer gets caught using the most current version
of what we all now know as IgG investigative genetic genealogy.
You know, Golden stated left his DNA all over crime scenes,
but he, like this one, wasn't in the database. So
instead of looking for the offender himself, GSK investigators decided
to look for distant family members whose DNA might be
(23:25):
on file in public databases like jedmatch and then create
this extensive family tree that might connect back to their suspect. Now,
when they started down this path, it took them four
months to catch a serial killer and rapist who eluded
them for decades. So when Lieutenant Covanda sees this, this
gets his gears spinning, forget turning, they are like almost
(23:48):
smoking right Like here he is working on another case
where the offenders DNA is all over the crime scene
and a full profile is in CODIS, but they just
keep striking out. So Covanda starts doing his homework trying
to figure out if he could make use of the
same techniques, and it just so happens that around the
same time, this is May of twenty eighteen, the lab
(24:10):
that did the initial phenotyping for Jody's case comes back
to Carl's Bad PD and basically says like, Hey, by
the way, we've still got your offenders DNA on file
from that test that we did last year. Do you
want us to evaluate it using IgG ah yes, please, yes,
please exactly like you do not have to ask twice.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
So they do this, they get the blessing, and just
two months later, the lab reaches back out. Lieutenant Covanda
says he literally gets on a zoom call with them
where they share their screen. They're showing what he calls
a hasty family tree, which basically shows the closest connections
and the most recent common ancestors associated with the DNA sample.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Now it's not one name. There are a.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Few possibilities, but now it's up to Carl's Bad PD.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Run each one of these down.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Okay, and of these names, like, are any of them
miracles like the ystr suggested?
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Surprisingly no, Lieutenant Covanda actually said that the lab wasn't
really focusing on the miracle last name. And you know,
when they got a few of them back, they there
were some that they discounted pretty quickly, Like there was
one last name, Mabrito that they just kind of brushed
aside for a couple of reasons, Like they told the
detective a Mobrito is of Italian origin, and the offenders
(25:27):
DNA suggested someone of Northern European descent, and b they're like,
this Mabrito guy is dead.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
So dead before two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
No, he was alive in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
But this is why it is always good to gut
check yourself, not to get too tied up in what
you expect something to be, because basically, investigators get all
the way to the end of the list of all
these last names and people that the lab really thought
it could be, and they still have nothing to show
for it. But Lieutenant Covanda is not willing to give
(25:58):
up just yet. If you want to get something solved,
like the GSK case, why not go to the exact
person who helped solve it, and that is Barbara Rayvenor.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Barbara isn't a cop, she's not a detective. She is a.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Retired seven year old patent lawyer who just happens to
be really really good at genealogy, which she only discovered
after retiring, by the way, when she started mapping her
own heritage as a hobby, and that hobby quickly turned
into volunteering as a search angel. That's someone who helps
adoptees find their biological parents by creating family trees from DNA.
(26:34):
And when she got really good at that, police department
started calling. So Lieutenant Covanda gets a hold of Barbara's number,
and while he's in northern California trying to get some
more reference DNA samples for Jodie's case, he calls her
up and invites her to breakfast with him and this
other investigator from the DA's office named Tony Johnson. She
says sure, So they go to breakfast together in what
(26:56):
Barbara describes as this total hole in the wall, and
they're eating eggs and pancakes and talking about genealogy, and
Lieutenant Covanda says, it's just like mind confetti for him,
because all the labs he'd spoken to before had basically
just told him how much he should pay them and
how long it would take. Here is Barbara totally like
(27:18):
pulling back the curtain explaining her entire process, and.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Does she agree to take on the case.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
After this meeting, Lieutenant Covanda gives Barbara access to the
offender's DNA profile in JED match and she goes to work.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
So is her process different than that original lab.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
It's the same, She's just better at it.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Because interestingly, Barbara actually comes back to Govanda with a
name that was on.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
The first lab's list.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Wait, Mabrito, Mibrito, that's the one that the other lab
had totally discounted.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
But Barbara is saying this she.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Believes is where Carl's BADPEDI needs to spend their time
because this last name actually does have a connect to
get this the Miracle last name. What Yeah, Because when
Barbara looks deep into the genealogy, she sees a double
adoption in the Miracle family. So basically, at some point,
a man with the last name Miracle had a son
(28:15):
named Robert who was adopted and took on the Italian
last name Mobrito. Robert then has two sons of his own, Stephen,
who gets adopted and David, who carried on the Mobrido
last name.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
So it could potentially be Stephen or David.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Or even their dad, Robert. Colvanda is gonna need DNA
from all three to be sure, but he is feeling
so confident in a matter of like a year, he
went from an endless pool of suspects to three. Now,
as it turns out, both Stephen and David were deceased
at this point. They both died after JODI's murder, so
(28:51):
that doesn't rule them out, but it does make getting
their DNA slightly more challenging, right.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Or at least it might have.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
You see, Stephen passed away in an accident in twenty seventeen,
which meant that his DNA was actually still on file
at the Medical Examiner's office.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
So they get it, they run it, and it's not Stephen.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
As for the dad, Robert, he was totally estranged from
his sons and living in a different area at the
time of the murder. Plus just looking at his age
and capability, like they didn't think they were necessarily compatible
with the specific manner of the crime, which really like,
if they're going to look at anyone, their next person
they want to look at is David. Now they find
(29:31):
out he passed away in twenty eleven and his DNA
is nowhere to be found, but he does have an
ex wife and an eighteen year old son that are
both still living right there in Carlsbad. So Coolvanda gets
this idea to have the lab do a sort of
paternity test where they could use the ex wife's DNA
(29:52):
the son's DNA to basically reconstruct David's. But obviously, like
he's going to need permission for that, and at this point,
no one in the Mobrito family even knows that police
are like going down this road.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Can you imagine like the police showing up at your
door and being like, hey, we think your ex husband
did this absolutely horrific thing ten years ago. Ture to
about it.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Every time there's an IgG salve, Yes, I do imagine
this specific thing exactly. But they, at least in this case,
they're a little like more surreptitious than that. So on
the evening of October twenty sixth, twenty eighteen, Lieutenant Covanda
and Tony Johnson they show up at the home of
David's ex Marissa Mobrito. It's actually Marissa and David's son
who answers the door, and we're gonna use a pseudonym
(30:37):
for him and call him Dan. So Dan answers the door.
He goes to get his mom, who is out in
the backyard having an afterwork drink, and he says, there's
some Carl's Bad detectives here and they want to talk
to you. And of course Mom's first thought is like,
oh my god, what did my kid do?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
But right away when she goes inside and talks to
the detectives, they put that thought out of her mind.
First thing they say is no, but he's in trouble.
We're here to investigate a cold case. Now Marissa's totally confused,
but she agrees to sit down with them, and that's
when they start explaining the details of JODI's case. Now,
because Jodie's story got so much coverage, Marissa sort of
(31:14):
remembered hearing about it. But in her mind at this point,
she's like asking the question, right, like, what is any
of this?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Why are you here with me? Right?
Speaker 4 (31:23):
And this is when Lieutenant Covanda starts explaining all of
the genetic genealogy work that he's been doing. But the
way that they were explaining it, I think it maybe
seemed like they were looking for either a cousin or
an uncle or relative of David's dad.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Even not even David.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
So she's not thinking in this moment that her ex
husband has anything to do with this crime, And so
Marissa starts giving investigators David's whole family history. She says
that his heritage was actually somewhat complicated.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Which they obviously kind of know already.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Yeah, And she confirms the double adoption stuff, the miracle
last name, and then she eventually tells them that David
took his own life unexpectedly in twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
That's how he died.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
And when she's done laying everything out, they're like, Okay, well,
would you and your son be willing to give your
DNA to rule you out of like this whole situation.
And obviously both Marisa and Dane are like, yeah, totally.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
But investiators want to use this DNA to confirm David's involvement.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Yeah, And it's not totally clear to me if they're
like trying to skirt around the truth a little bit,
or if Marissa doesn't totally understand the gravity of why
they're asking this, because I do know that, Like when
they first brought up David's name during the visit, Marissa
got really upset and she straight up says, like, if
you think David did this, you need to get the
out of my house.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
You're out of your mind.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
Oh, they might have like backed off.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah, So after that, it seems like all the questions
kind of focused more on just like David's family. But
looking back, you can see why they might have wanted
to use any means necessary to get her to talk,
because every suspicion and they had every DNA clue led
them to the right David. And when the results came
back on Dan and Marissa's DNA, the lab says they
(33:10):
are confident David is their guy. David murdered Jodine Sarin.
But before Covanda is going to tell this to Marissa,
before he even tells Jody's family, he wants to be
one hundred and ten percent certain. I mean, this information
is going to totally upend both families lives, right, So
(33:31):
he wants to go back to Marissa one more time,
and this time around, his questions are a bit different.
They are more pointed. He wants to know about Marissa's
relationship with David, he wants to know about their sex life,
and he's got Jody's case file with him and he's
taking everything down in a notebook. And Marissa, in this
second one, she's starting to get really frustrated. She's like,
(33:51):
all of these questions are about David and not his family,
like do you think he did this? And the reality
must be setting in because she starts hyper ventilating, and
that's when she sees it. One of the images Covanda
brought with him from JODI's file is visible. It's from
the crime scene and it's not anything graphic, but it
(34:13):
makes her sick to her stomach, nonetheless, because it's a
photo of the suspects sneakers, of David's sneakers, and Mursa
was sure of it because she was the one who
bought those sneakers for him.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
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every app is right for every teen Parents should have
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That's why Instagram supports the initiative for an EU Digital
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(34:50):
including social media. Learn more at instagram dot com slash
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Speaker 4 (35:00):
Investigators obviously noticed Marissa's reaction to the sneakers, and so
they ask her do these look familiar? And in that moment,
she says, no, it's a lie. But I mean, she
can barely process what's going on in her mind just
immediately goes to her son. She's like, how in the
world am I gonna tell this to Dan? And so
she really just says no to buy herself some time,
(35:22):
like she has a ton to digest, And even though
she's totally flustered, she doesn't kick investigators out of her
house or anything. She continues answering their questions about her
and David's life together, their separation, and then ultimately David's
untimely death in twenty eleven. And as she's telling them
this story of the days and events leading up to
(35:43):
his death, something clicks for both her and police kind
of at the same time. You see, she had never
known why David took his own life.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
He didn't leave behind a note, nothing.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
I mean, his poor son is the one who found
him when he and his mom came back from a trip.
David was actually staying with them at the time, sleeping
on the couch, and Dan found his dad dead of
an overdose that ends up getting ruled a suicide. They
never knew why, but now she's realizing maybe this was why,
(36:17):
because Marissa tells investigators that a week before David took
his own life, there was this incident that happened. He
was driving in Oceanside, which is just the town over
from Carlsbad, when his truck broke down.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
So he's behind his.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Truck trying to push it when an officer from Oceanside
PD stopped him and said that he matched the description
of a suspect that they had in an Oceanside bank robbery.
So the officer asks him, would you be willing to
give your DNA? And David consented to that. Officer took
an oral swab, got a photo of David, lets him go,
(36:51):
and it's after.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
This that David began to spiral.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Marissa says, I mean he spent the next week freaking out,
acting super strange, and I don't mean just like general anxiety.
He was losing it. At one point he was like
even rubbing spices all over his face. What And at
the time he tried to say it was like helping
him with headaches or like fine lines or something, But
even then Marissa knew that something was off, like this
(37:18):
isn't normal behavior for him or for anyone.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
But at the time she's not connecting it to anything.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
No.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
I mean, like she knew about the stop and the
DNA swab, and like she knew that that happened, but
I guess she really didn't think anything of it at
the time. I mean, it's not like she's thinking David's
DNA is going to connect him to the brutal murder, yeah,
from a couple of years before. And she didn't even
make the connection after his death because, by the way,
the whole bank robbery thing that really had nothing to
(37:45):
do with David. And because of that, guess what, they
never had to run david swab or put it into codis,
which is probably the very thing David feared so much
that it drove him to suicide. So it's not till now,
sitting with Lieutenant Covanda in her house, seeing the photo
(38:05):
of David sneakers at the crime scene, that Marissa is
starting to put the pieces together, and so is Lieutenant Colevanda,
But his mind is spinning for a different reason, because
if Oceanside PD still has David's DNA from that twenty
eleven swab, he might be able to do a direct
comparison with the DNA found at Jody's crime scene and
(38:27):
sure enough, by some miracle is the magic word for
this episode, Oceanside PD has it.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
So on November seventh, Covanda sends the sample to the
lab to be tested for the first time since it
was taken seven years ago. It takes two days for
the results to come back, and when they do, it
is a match, which means that now Covanda is one
hundred and ten percent sure he can finally tell the
serans that after eleven years, the weight is over and
(38:57):
they were so close to losing hope. Finally they know
who that man was in Jody's room that Valentine's Day
back in two thousand and seven. Now detectives can't give
them every answer like where Jody might have come into
contact with this guy or why he even attacked her.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Well, that was gonna be my next question. Did David
have any connection to her?
Speaker 4 (39:17):
There was nothing, none that they can find. Like so
many of the IgG solves that we've seen over the years,
his name never so much as came up in the
case file from even a random tip like this guy
was not on their radar at all. Now they did
find out that in the past he'd abused drugs. Marissa
thought he'd been clean and sober like her for years
(39:39):
when they were raising their son together, and even after
they split up, she was like letting him stay at
her place on her couch. But it's very possible he
was using again. Also, I think about that substance abused
clinic that was next to the place that Jody volunteered,
so like that had he been there, So this is
the thing, right, So this is how it all got
teed up. We know he used or used to use
(39:59):
drug rugs. We know this clinic was there, So I
was gonna say, this could be somewhere that they would
have met, but I don't know because it never really
got run down. And like we see this all the time.
That kind of stuff, like making those connections is all
stuff that you learn when you're like building a case.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Against someone, like for a trial.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Yeah, but I'm seeing this all the time with these
IgG cases. When you work backwards, and especially when the
person is deceased, like you don't have to go back
and figure out the like where and whatever to like.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Prove the little details to build the full puzzle out.
You kind of have the picture at the beginning yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
And so investigators just don't and listen. On one hand,
I get it, like there's a hundred other unsolved cases
like JODI's that they need to focus on. They don't
need to be creating work for themselves. But it still
kills me because we talked about this at the top.
We know how devious this crime was. Was this really
a one off? What if he did commit other crime?
Speaker 5 (40:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (40:59):
I mean we know, Oh, his DNA in the database
hasn't matched anything else. But like we said the m O,
what if he would have cleaned up? What if there's
nothing left? What if by tracking him we can figure
out where they met and then that shows an EMO
to like other missing people or something like Again, I
have eight zillion questions after a case like this, especially
like who was this guy? How did he have a
(41:20):
wife and a kid and just live a normal life?
Did he actually live a normal life? Or were there
red flags? Could anyone have seen this coming? And normally
these are questions that you and I spiral on and
we get left with and then we have to move
on to the next case. But not this time, because
this time our reporter Nicole Kagan, traveled out to California
(41:43):
and met with the one person who had all the
answers that I'm looking for, the one person who could
give us insight into who David Mibrito was in two
thousand and seven, can you.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
Say and spell your name for us?
Speaker 6 (41:59):
Marisa rsa maab Riito. He was my family, he's my
son's dad, gave me the best thing in the world
and did the most horrific thing to somebody in the world.
I don't know how to reconcile those two.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
But Marissa has tried.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
She's gone back over every moment since meeting David on
the beach in nineteen ninety five, and she's had to
rewire her brain to understand how he could have been
capable of such a vicious crime all along. And yes,
there were potentially signs, but how do you know what
to look for if no one talks about it. In
(42:39):
the interview, there was a moment where Nicole, our reporter,
is like, are you sure you're good with all of
this being on the record? Yeah, and Marissa's like, yes,
this is my truth, and this is David's truth as
I know it, And you guys, this is a side
of the story that we almost never get to tell. You,
and we didn't want to cut it short by trying
to squeeze it all into one episode, and more importantly,
(43:00):
I wanted you to hear it directly from Marissa in.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Her own words.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
So, because Jodine Sarin was the seven of diamonds on
a cold case playing card deck before her case got solved,
we have dedicated a full episode of The Deck to
Marissa's attempt at solving her own mystery. How could the
man she loved and trusted have committed this unthinkable crime? Now,
(43:25):
new episodes of the other weekly true crime show I host,
The Deck. By the way, this is if you didn't
know now you know those come out every Wednesday. But
because we've paired these episodes together, we're making this week's
episode of The Deck available.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Right now in the Crime Junkie Fan Club.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
So if you're in the fan club, you don't have
to wait, And if you don't mind waiting, make sure
you follow The Deck wherever you get your podcasts so
you can listen first thing on Wednesday. You can find
(44:06):
all the source material for this episode on our website,
Crimejunkie podcast dot com. And if you want to listen
to more episodes like this and bonus episodes we've never released,
and every episode completely ad free.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Be sure to join our fan club.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
You'll also get early access to new episodes every week,
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Speaker 5 (44:28):
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie podcast.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
And we actually have something special for you guys next week,
so don't miss it and don't forget to go check
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(44:54):
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Speaker 6 (45:00):
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(00:21):
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Speaker 2 (00:30):
My name's Ched Power streaming on Disney Plus. Glenn Powell
is Chad Powers? Is that guy? He's doing a Missus doubtfire.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
That was one how of a performance, but with football.
I like Key Powers.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
If you are a puzzle a brand new original series,
every choice, every mistake carry you to this spot.
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You were born for this moment.
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Pre Crime Chad Powers, a new original series exclusively on
Disney Plus eighteen plus Subscription required decencies.
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Apply, high crime Junkies.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Brett and I
have a story today that is going to stay with
you and be worn. It is not for the faint
of heart. What was done to the victim and how
she was found is truly one of the most haunting
images that I've had to convey in probably over six
hundred episodes at this point. But I am going to
walk you through it all, from the night of the
(01:22):
murder on Valentine's Day two thousand and seven, to the
brand new forensic techniques used today to identify the killer,
and ultimately to the chilling realization that our suspect was
leading a double life.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
On one hand, he.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
Was moving about the world like you and I, acting
out the part of father, partner, and friend. He lived
and worked in the very town where he also took
on the role of monster, a man who set up
a crime scene in a way that allowed him to
watch as he desecrated the corpse of a young woman
he'd killed in her own apartment. This is the story
(01:59):
of Jodye Saren. It's Valentine's Day two thousand and seven,
(02:34):
and even after fifty three years of marriage, Art and
Lois Saren don't skip out on a chance for a
romantic date night of dinner and a.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Movie to celebrate.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
They try to plan a day just for themselves because,
like many parents, decades of their lives have been consumed
with taking care of their six kids, and even more
so for them because their youngest daughter, thirty nine year
old Jodine, who goes by Jody, she had developmental disabilities
that were told gave her the mental capacity of a
girl in her early teens. And Jody lived on her own,
(03:06):
but in many ways she was still dependent on her parents.
They checked in on her every day. They helped her
get from place to place because she didn't drive, But
on this day they hadn't been able to get hold
of her. Seventy two year old Lois tried pushing it
out of her mind, like just one day where she
and her husband could just focus on themselves, it wouldn't
(03:26):
be the end of the world. But all through dinner
it was like nagging at her, and as she sat
in the dark of the movie theater, she just couldn't
focus on the screen. With every scene change, she just
grew more and more anxious, till she couldn't take it anymore,
Like what's the point of being there if she can't
actually enjoy it? Whatever feeling was crawling under her skin,
(03:48):
she just had to give in, So mid movie, she
and Art leave the theater. It's around ten PM when
the Sarans get to Jody's condo. At first, they knock
and win, expecting to hear their daughter's footsteps see the
knob turn, but there's nothing. So Art pulls out his
spare key, unlocks the door, and tries to push it open,
(04:10):
but it barely budges. The chain is latched from the inside,
and this stops them cold because Jody never chains her door,
And now the Sarans are starting to panic. So at
seventy seven years old, Art throws himself against the door
and breaks it down. Now the lights are on inside
(04:32):
the condo and the Sarans head straight for their daughter's bedroom.
Art opens the door, and even though the room is dark,
in the shadows, he sees two people in bed. It
looks like Jody with a man, and it looks like
they're having sex. And he's obviously taken aback, probably a
little embarrassed, probably mad at whoever this man is, so
(04:53):
he quickly shuts the door and calls out is basically like, listen,
you need to get decent.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
You both need to come out.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
To the living room. We are gonna be here waiting
for you. And honestly, I would probably be stewing a
little bit, but a few minutes go by, and then
some more and no one comes out to join Art
and Lois in the living room, not even Jody. So
I don't know if it's stewing as much as it
is just like something's wrong, Like they're getting curious something's
(05:18):
going on. So Art gets up to check again, just
to like nudge the two along. But this is when
everything shifts, not just like his perception of things, but
it's like Art's whole world flips on its axis in
this moment and forever his life is going to be changed.
When he opens the door, the man isn't in Jody's
(05:39):
room anymore. It is just his daughter, laying naked and
lifeless on the bed, covered in blood. She's not breathing,
she's actually cold to the touch, all of which Art
tells to a nine to one one operator in a
frantic call. Based on their recommendation, he moves Jody from
the bed to the floor to begin CPR. There is
(06:00):
no saving her, and when first responders get to this scene,
it is quote immediately clear to them that Jody is dead,
and given the state of her body, she has likely
been dead for several hours, way before the sarans even
got to her condo.
Speaker 5 (06:16):
So it's not like art could have stopped anything when
they got there.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
No, the medical examiner will end up determining that Jody
died around noon that day, so almost ten hours before
they got there, which.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I imagine has to be some relief.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Like, I mean to even for a moment think that
you were just sitting feet away as someone killed your
daughter would be mental torture. But then there's that relief
for a second. But you also then have to reconcile
what it was you actually walked in on, which was
this man desecrating Jody's corpse, And in that moment, I
don't know how much relief there is in that.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Yeah, and they were all in the apartment like at
the same time. Yeah, did this guy escape through a
window or something.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
No.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
So, the way that Jody's condo is laid out, it's
kind of split down the middle by a dividing wall.
So when you walk in the front door, you can
either turn one way and go to the bedroom, or
you can turn the other way and get to the
kitchen and living room. Oh so with the Sarans sitting
in the living room, this guy could run right out
of the front door without them actually even knowing, and
(07:14):
investigators used bloodhounds to track the man sent from the
condo out the front door, down Jody's street, all the
way to a main road where he'd tossed his sweatshirt
into a bush. But then that's where the scent stops.
Their man is long gone, but he did leave plenty
behind at the scene, and not just physical evidence. There
(07:36):
is evidence of how devious and methodical this man was.
I mean, it is clear that he took his time
setting up this crime scene in exactly the way he wanted.
Sheets and blankets had been placed over the windows in
Jody's room, and a full length mirror was moved next
to the bed so this guy could see what it
was he was doing to Jody. He had beaten her
(07:58):
over the head strang but she must have fought back
because she had defensive wounds and bruising all over, and
along with sexually assaulting her corpse, the man also inflicted
at least one cut, a laceration across her throat that
likely happened post mortem. This guy clearly had a plant
around what he was doing to Jody, but her parents
(08:20):
busting her front door down was obviously not part of
the plant, and in his hurry to leave, he made
some mistakes. First of all, there is blood all over
Jody's room and in the bathroom, on the walls, the carpet,
the linens, I mean, it's everywhere, as is his DNA
and tons of partial fingerprints. And in his rush to
(08:42):
sneak out without being seen by Jody's parents, he'd even
left his sneakers behind. And these sneakers actually end up
being a major clue because they weren't just like kicked
off randomly. They had been taken off and neatly placed
next to the rest of Jody's shoes by the front door,
which is where Jody always instructed her guests to remove
(09:02):
and place their shoes before coming inside. Like Jody was
like super neat and tidy, especially when it came to
her place. So this tells investigators that whoever killed Jody
must have been invited in.
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Speaker 4 (10:18):
Aside from Art's own work on the condo door, there
were no signs of force entry to Jody's place, and
there were even dishes for two in the sink, which
made it seem like things had started out friendly with
whoever this person was before they took an unthinkable turn.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Well, and it is like Valentine's Day, like dishes for
two seems kind of like a date date dish.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
But whatever this started off as like, Given the state
of the condo and the story that the evidence told,
it seemed like like almost in an instant, things switched
from good to bad. The change from neatly arranged shoes
and dishes placed in the sink to rage filled violence
in the bedroom suggested to detectives very early on that
drug use may have been a part of the picture,
(11:02):
but it would only have been on the part of
the offender, because Jody's parents were clear she did not
use drugs, and her autopsy would later confirm that.
Speaker 5 (11:10):
Now, I know it was dark and like obviously traumatic
on multiple levels, but was art able to see what
this guy looked like at all when he first saw
him in Jody's bedroom.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
So in initial interviews, he actually claims to have gotten
a good look at the suspect, like enough to say
that he was five eight to six feet tall, a
little chubby, and I think his brain was like trying
to fill in the gaps because early on he was
even convinced that it was someone Jody knew, someone specific
named Robert Burns. This was a guy that had similar
developmental disabilities as Jody. They used to have some sort
(11:43):
of relationship at some point, which would have put them together,
maybe on Valentine's Day, but investigators quickly rule Robert out
because of his alibi, and they would later confirm it
definitely wasn't him because his DNA did not match what
was left at the crime scene, and with him ruled out,
then all they've got is like a description of a
kind of chubby guy who's about six feet tall.
Speaker 5 (12:04):
Well, and like you said, like all this DNA.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
And that, but any hopes of a quick slam dunk
get crushed because even though they had the DNA and
DNA that's good enough to go into the state and
national databases, this dude is a ghost.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
He's not in any database.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
Because like this is a case where we don't have
a lot of these where it's like what two thousand
and seven, you can put it in the database? Is there?
The database is populated, people know how it works, and
still he doesn't.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
Exist, which seems bonkers time because of how like you said,
methodical this was. It doesn't feel like a first time.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Like ahow, it's a shock to everyone. I mean, the
only thing I think they assume is that like, whatever
this guy has done, he just hasn't gotten caught for it,
because nothing about this, like you said, is giving like
first time offender. Yeah, but also I kept thinking, I
wonder what the crime scene would have looked like had
this man been interrupted, was he planning on cleaning up?
(13:04):
Would he have even left Jody there? Like we usually
talk about m based on what's been left behind.
Speaker 5 (13:10):
But maybe he wouldn't have left anything exact hind if
he had had enough time.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Exactly Jody's dad could have completely changed the trajectory of things,
like dude didn't even have time to put on his shoes,
so what else did he not have time to do?
So they've got to find someone who's not in a database,
who Jody either knew or recently met and would willingly
let into her home. They start by building out the
(13:36):
timeline of her last known movements. The last confirmed contact
Jody had with anyone was a phone call with her
mom on the thirteenth, just the day before, and she'd
actually told her mom on the phone that she was
planning to go to a Valentine's Day party on the fourteenth,
but we know she never made it to that party.
There were several voicemails from people wondering where she was.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Do they think that she met up with this guy
on the fourteenth or I mean, is it possible that
he was actually there on the thirteenth? Like her time
with death is new and on the fourteenth, But I mean,
I have to wonder how long they were together before
that happened.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Yeah, that's the big question. When did she meet him
and where? Now Interestingly, they come to learn that while
Jody didn't have a full time job, she was very
involved in volunteer work and would help out at nursing
homes or facilities for people with similar developmental disabilities, and
one of the facilities that she would go to was
co located with a substance abuse treatment place, which, considering
(14:34):
their early theory that the offender was on drugs, they
begin to wonder if maybe she cross paths with someone
around there, and not even necessarily that date, because she
wasn't volunteering on the fourteenth.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
Right, but maybe someone saw her, had been following her,
had had some contact before.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Yeah, or even just ran into her another time and
then on this day was like, yeah, hey remember me. However,
because the other thing about Jody, she was trusting, very
overly say trusting of strangers. She was the kind of
person who saw everyone as a friend and was so
innocent in her thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
So detectives actually hear that Jody would have let anybody
into her home.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
Which makes those like neatly placed shoes and dishes a
little less like.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
They mean less, right, right, it just had to be
in my mind someone that was like nice to her
right to start out. But we know that switch from
good to bad happened really quick, and unfortunately, knowing this
now makes narrowing down a suspect pool early on nearly impossible.
So detectives spend the first weeks of their investigation making
a hail marry list of anyone and everyone who could
(15:41):
possibly be responsible people in the area, people Jody was
associated with or might have crossed paths with, people they're
tipped off to. I mean, there are over fifty men
on this list, and they go out and knock on
all these guys doors. They swab every single one of
them and send each and every swab to the lab
for comparison, but there are no matches, and when they
(16:04):
reach the bottom of their list, there really aren't any
other obvious directions for investigators to go in. By this point,
the case has been highly publicized as the quote Valentine's
Day murder. Tips are coming in by the hundreds, but
like nothing is panning out. So at one point detectives
even reach out to the VDOC Society, which is a
(16:25):
group of retired detectives, FBI agents, forensic experts, whatever. Like
Basically they bring together anyone who's like an expert in
their field. They're located in Pennsylvania, and they take on
some of the coldest, most baffling murder cases that no
one else can crack. They'll like come in and consult
for you. You have to present your case whatever. But
even they don't have a magic wand I mean they
can suggest what type of offender this guy is, maybe
(16:49):
confirm that some of the theories police had are probably right,
but they can't make this guy materialize.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
And it's so much more frustrating when you have all
this DNA on fileh and like I want to say,
no one, but no one else right now, Like they've
already tested it against fifty guys and the database and
like and nothing is hitting I know.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
So this is the same.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Story that we know and hate. Weeks turn into months
and then turn into years, and then with every day
that passes, they just hope and pray that their guy
will slip up and his DNA will get collected. Until
then this case just kind of ends up looming over
Carlsbad PD as it gets passed from one detective to
the next and the next, and it becomes sort of
(17:32):
the department.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Wide white whale.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Everybody wants to see this thing get solved, and they
try everything. A fifty two thousand dollars reward, pleads to
the media for the San Diego Union Tribune. Jody's family
even puts her cold case information on display in public buses,
just in case there's someone out there with info, Like
if there is someone out there with info though they
are holding on tight to their secret. But lucky for police,
(17:57):
we are about to hit an era of investment stigating
where DNA can do all the talking. In twenty sixteen,
this is now nine years after JODI's murder, a new
detective takes over the case, Lieutenant Eric Covanda, and this
is just after the PD decided to tap Parabon Nano
Labs in Virginia to do forensic phenotyping with the DNA
(18:19):
sample they have. Now, I know we've touched on this before,
but for like our new crime junkies, Britt, would you mind.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
Obviously, the phenotype composits can predict suspects eye color, hair color,
skin tone, even like facial structure. Based on the DNA makeup,
there are obviously like a ton of other factors at
play that might make someone look different, right, like weight,
facial hair, right, and like substance use can change your parents.
(18:45):
But this gives police kind of like a baseline of
some key characteristics that they can at least use to
like help rule people in or out. Like eye color
that's pretty like cut and dry exactly.
Speaker 4 (18:55):
So Jody's case was actually the first time that Carl's
bad PDA ever used this kind of technology. And Lieutenant
Covanda says, he's sort of treating the composite as a filter.
It might not look exactly like the suspect, but if
a person of interest pops up with, like you said,
a different eye color, different hair color, skin color, he
can at least like rule people out much quicker. Right,
(19:16):
So they get this composite back, and Lieutenant Covanda literally says,
it looks like every other surfer dude out there right now, which.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
I've seen a lot of the pairabon composits, and they
kind of they do just look like a guy.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
They all blend into the same person. It was like
very cool.
Speaker 5 (19:33):
The first couple of times we saw it and like
it's just the same dude.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Yeah, eventually we're like, god it so truly you are
just looking for like color of like eyes, hair or
something like that. So yeah, they end up getting this
sort of nondescript white guy with bluish green eyes, dirty
blonde hair, fair skin, and some freckling. But the trick
is they do have the ability to make some tweaks
using the information that they have or based on their theories,
(19:58):
like substance use, right, you said it was a part
of profile, and substance use usually alter someone's appearance.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
So Kovanda had the lab increase.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
The composites, BMI had him age him a little bit,
adding like deeper creases a.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Five o'clock shadow. So that's the photo that they.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Released to the public on the tenth anniversary of JODI's murder.
And they do this on the steps of the San
Diego courthouse and immediately tips start pouring in, tips that
they probably had like not in a way that they've.
Speaker 3 (20:25):
Seen in a long time.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
But even with this influx of new information, nothing pans out. Still,
this new technology has really gotten Lieutenant Colevanda's wheels turning
He's made a lot of connections by that point with
people in like the DNA science world, and he's learning
about all of the other ways that they can use
DNA to get more info info like a suspect's name,
(20:50):
with something called YSTR profiling, which that's a method used
to analyze DNA on the Y chromosome, and that is
what's passed down from father to son verse virtually unchanged.
And since last names are also typically passed down the
paternal line, why profiling testing can be used to predict
a person by their last name by comparing their y
profile to entries already in DNA databases. But you have
(21:14):
to remember that there are certain limitations when it comes
to this kind of testing. Things that can break the
pattern like infidelity or genetic mutations or adoption or adoption right,
that's actually one of the most common. But listen, take
what you can get right, and then we'll figure out
the next steps from there. So this again is like
a first for Carl's bad PDA. This is the first
(21:35):
time they're ever using this kind of technology as well, and.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
They do get a last name after all.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
The YSTR work miracle, which of course is like a
detective right out of CSI Miami, taking off his sunglasses
and like squinting into the sun, you can see it right.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
Oh yeah, for sure, these detectives.
Speaker 4 (21:55):
Could not help themselves. They begin saying, it's going to
take a miracle this one.
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That's why Instagram supports the initiative for an EU Digital
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(22:23):
including social media. Learn more at instagram dot com slash
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Speaker 4 (22:33):
Detectives spend the coming year looking for their miracle, but
it turns out there was no one they could find
with that last name who also fit the composite sketch.
So it was looking more and more like one of
those pattern breakers happened in this family line, infidelity, adoption, something.
But in the year or less that it's taken to
(22:54):
feel pretty sure of this. Guess what happens? Twenty eighteen
is upon us.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
Oh and with all this science talk, you're talking about
the Golden State killer.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Golden State killer gets caught using the most current version
of what we all now know as IgG investigative genetic genealogy.
You know, Golden stated left his DNA all over crime scenes,
but he, like this one, wasn't in the database. So
instead of looking for the offender himself, GSK investigators decided
to look for distant family members whose DNA might be
(23:25):
on file in public databases like jedmatch and then create
this extensive family tree that might connect back to their suspect. Now,
when they started down this path, it took them four
months to catch a serial killer and rapist who eluded
them for decades. So when Lieutenant Covanda sees this, this
gets his gears spinning, forget turning, they are like almost
(23:48):
smoking right Like here he is working on another case
where the offenders DNA is all over the crime scene
and a full profile is in CODIS, but they just
keep striking out. So Covanda starts doing his homework trying
to figure out if he could make use of the
same techniques, and it just so happens that around the
same time, this is May of twenty eighteen, the lab
(24:10):
that did the initial phenotyping for Jody's case comes back
to Carl's Bad PD and basically says like, Hey, by
the way, we've still got your offenders DNA on file
from that test that we did last year. Do you
want us to evaluate it using IgG ah yes, please, yes,
please exactly like you do not have to ask twice.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
So they do this, they get the blessing, and just
two months later, the lab reaches back out. Lieutenant Covanda
says he literally gets on a zoom call with them
where they share their screen. They're showing what he calls
a hasty family tree, which basically shows the closest connections
and the most recent common ancestors associated with the DNA sample.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Now it's not one name. There are a.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Few possibilities, but now it's up to Carl's Bad PD.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Run each one of these down.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Okay, and of these names, like, are any of them
miracles like the ystr suggested?
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Surprisingly no, Lieutenant Covanda actually said that the lab wasn't
really focusing on the miracle last name. And you know,
when they got a few of them back, they there
were some that they discounted pretty quickly, Like there was
one last name, Mabrito that they just kind of brushed
aside for a couple of reasons, Like they told the
detective a Mobrito is of Italian origin, and the offenders
(25:27):
DNA suggested someone of Northern European descent, and b they're like,
this Mabrito guy is dead.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
So dead before two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
No, he was alive in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
But this is why it is always good to gut
check yourself, not to get too tied up in what
you expect something to be, because basically, investigators get all
the way to the end of the list of all
these last names and people that the lab really thought
it could be, and they still have nothing to show
for it. But Lieutenant Covanda is not willing to give
(25:58):
up just yet. If you want to get something solved,
like the GSK case, why not go to the exact
person who helped solve it, and that is Barbara Rayvenor.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Barbara isn't a cop, she's not a detective. She is a.
Speaker 4 (26:13):
Retired seven year old patent lawyer who just happens to
be really really good at genealogy, which she only discovered
after retiring, by the way, when she started mapping her
own heritage as a hobby, and that hobby quickly turned
into volunteering as a search angel. That's someone who helps
adoptees find their biological parents by creating family trees from DNA.
(26:34):
And when she got really good at that, police department
started calling. So Lieutenant Covanda gets a hold of Barbara's number,
and while he's in northern California trying to get some
more reference DNA samples for Jodie's case, he calls her
up and invites her to breakfast with him and this
other investigator from the DA's office named Tony Johnson. She
says sure, So they go to breakfast together in what
(26:56):
Barbara describes as this total hole in the wall, and
they're eating eggs and pancakes and talking about genealogy, and
Lieutenant Covanda says, it's just like mind confetti for him,
because all the labs he'd spoken to before had basically
just told him how much he should pay them and
how long it would take. Here is Barbara totally like
(27:18):
pulling back the curtain explaining her entire process, and.
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Does she agree to take on the case.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
After this meeting, Lieutenant Covanda gives Barbara access to the
offender's DNA profile in JED match and she goes to work.
Speaker 5 (27:31):
So is her process different than that original lab.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
It's the same, She's just better at it.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Because interestingly, Barbara actually comes back to Govanda with a
name that was on.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
The first lab's list.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Wait, Mabrito, Mibrito, that's the one that the other lab
had totally discounted.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
But Barbara is saying this she.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
Believes is where Carl's BADPEDI needs to spend their time
because this last name actually does have a connect to
get this the Miracle last name. What Yeah, Because when
Barbara looks deep into the genealogy, she sees a double
adoption in the Miracle family. So basically, at some point,
a man with the last name Miracle had a son
(28:15):
named Robert who was adopted and took on the Italian
last name Mobrito. Robert then has two sons of his own, Stephen,
who gets adopted and David, who carried on the Mobrido
last name.
Speaker 5 (28:28):
So it could potentially be Stephen or David.
Speaker 4 (28:31):
Or even their dad, Robert. Colvanda is gonna need DNA
from all three to be sure, but he is feeling
so confident in a matter of like a year, he
went from an endless pool of suspects to three. Now,
as it turns out, both Stephen and David were deceased
at this point. They both died after JODI's murder, so
(28:51):
that doesn't rule them out, but it does make getting
their DNA slightly more challenging, right.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Or at least it might have.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
You see, Stephen passed away in an accident in twenty seventeen,
which meant that his DNA was actually still on file
at the Medical Examiner's office.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
So they get it, they run it, and it's not Stephen.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
As for the dad, Robert, he was totally estranged from
his sons and living in a different area at the
time of the murder. Plus just looking at his age
and capability, like they didn't think they were necessarily compatible
with the specific manner of the crime, which really like,
if they're going to look at anyone, their next person
they want to look at is David. Now they find
(29:31):
out he passed away in twenty eleven and his DNA
is nowhere to be found, but he does have an
ex wife and an eighteen year old son that are
both still living right there in Carlsbad. So Coolvanda gets
this idea to have the lab do a sort of
paternity test where they could use the ex wife's DNA
(29:52):
the son's DNA to basically reconstruct David's. But obviously, like
he's going to need permission for that, and at this point,
no one in the Mobrito family even knows that police
are like going down this road.
Speaker 5 (30:05):
Can you imagine like the police showing up at your
door and being like, hey, we think your ex husband
did this absolutely horrific thing ten years ago. Ture to
about it.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
Every time there's an IgG salve, Yes, I do imagine
this specific thing exactly. But they, at least in this case,
they're a little like more surreptitious than that. So on
the evening of October twenty sixth, twenty eighteen, Lieutenant Covanda
and Tony Johnson they show up at the home of
David's ex Marissa Mobrito. It's actually Marissa and David's son
who answers the door, and we're gonna use a pseudonym
(30:37):
for him and call him Dan. So Dan answers the door.
He goes to get his mom, who is out in
the backyard having an afterwork drink, and he says, there's
some Carl's Bad detectives here and they want to talk
to you. And of course Mom's first thought is like,
oh my god, what did my kid do?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (30:53):
But right away when she goes inside and talks to
the detectives, they put that thought out of her mind.
First thing they say is no, but he's in trouble.
We're here to investigate a cold case. Now Marissa's totally confused,
but she agrees to sit down with them, and that's
when they start explaining the details of JODI's case. Now,
because Jodie's story got so much coverage, Marissa sort of
(31:14):
remembered hearing about it. But in her mind at this point,
she's like asking the question, right, like, what is any
of this?
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Why are you here with me? Right?
Speaker 4 (31:23):
And this is when Lieutenant Covanda starts explaining all of
the genetic genealogy work that he's been doing. But the
way that they were explaining it, I think it maybe
seemed like they were looking for either a cousin or
an uncle or relative of David's dad.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Even not even David.
Speaker 4 (31:41):
So she's not thinking in this moment that her ex
husband has anything to do with this crime, And so
Marissa starts giving investigators David's whole family history. She says
that his heritage was actually somewhat complicated.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Which they obviously kind of know already.
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Yeah, And she confirms the double adoption stuff, the miracle
last name, and then she eventually tells them that David
took his own life unexpectedly in twenty eleven.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
That's how he died.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
And when she's done laying everything out, they're like, Okay, well,
would you and your son be willing to give your
DNA to rule you out of like this whole situation.
And obviously both Marisa and Dane are like, yeah, totally.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
But investiators want to use this DNA to confirm David's involvement.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Yeah, And it's not totally clear to me if they're
like trying to skirt around the truth a little bit,
or if Marissa doesn't totally understand the gravity of why
they're asking this, because I do know that, Like when
they first brought up David's name during the visit, Marissa
got really upset and she straight up says, like, if
you think David did this, you need to get the
out of my house.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
You're out of your mind.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
Oh, they might have like backed off.
Speaker 4 (32:46):
Yeah, So after that, it seems like all the questions
kind of focused more on just like David's family. But
looking back, you can see why they might have wanted
to use any means necessary to get her to talk,
because every suspicion and they had every DNA clue led
them to the right David. And when the results came
back on Dan and Marissa's DNA, the lab says they
(33:10):
are confident David is their guy. David murdered Jodine Sarin.
But before Covanda is going to tell this to Marissa,
before he even tells Jody's family, he wants to be
one hundred and ten percent certain. I mean, this information
is going to totally upend both families lives, right, So
(33:31):
he wants to go back to Marissa one more time,
and this time around, his questions are a bit different.
They are more pointed. He wants to know about Marissa's
relationship with David, he wants to know about their sex life,
and he's got Jody's case file with him and he's
taking everything down in a notebook. And Marissa, in this
second one, she's starting to get really frustrated. She's like,
(33:51):
all of these questions are about David and not his family,
like do you think he did this? And the reality
must be setting in because she starts hyper ventilating, and
that's when she sees it. One of the images Covanda
brought with him from JODI's file is visible. It's from
the crime scene and it's not anything graphic, but it
(34:13):
makes her sick to her stomach, nonetheless, because it's a
photo of the suspects sneakers, of David's sneakers, and Mursa
was sure of it because she was the one who
bought those sneakers for him.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Apps can help teenagers connect, learn and create, but not
every app is right for every teen Parents should have
a choice in which online services their teenagers can access.
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(34:50):
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Speaker 4 (35:00):
Investigators obviously noticed Marissa's reaction to the sneakers, and so
they ask her do these look familiar? And in that moment,
she says, no, it's a lie. But I mean, she
can barely process what's going on in her mind just
immediately goes to her son. She's like, how in the
world am I gonna tell this to Dan? And so
she really just says no to buy herself some time,
(35:22):
like she has a ton to digest, And even though
she's totally flustered, she doesn't kick investigators out of her
house or anything. She continues answering their questions about her
and David's life together, their separation, and then ultimately David's
untimely death in twenty eleven. And as she's telling them
this story of the days and events leading up to
(35:43):
his death, something clicks for both her and police kind
of at the same time. You see, she had never
known why David took his own life.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
He didn't leave behind a note, nothing.
Speaker 4 (35:56):
I mean, his poor son is the one who found
him when he and his mom came back from a trip.
David was actually staying with them at the time, sleeping
on the couch, and Dan found his dad dead of
an overdose that ends up getting ruled a suicide. They
never knew why, but now she's realizing maybe this was why,
(36:17):
because Marissa tells investigators that a week before David took
his own life, there was this incident that happened. He
was driving in Oceanside, which is just the town over
from Carlsbad, when his truck broke down.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
So he's behind his.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Truck trying to push it when an officer from Oceanside
PD stopped him and said that he matched the description
of a suspect that they had in an Oceanside bank robbery.
So the officer asks him, would you be willing to
give your DNA? And David consented to that. Officer took
an oral swab, got a photo of David, lets him go,
(36:51):
and it's after.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
This that David began to spiral.
Speaker 4 (36:56):
Marissa says, I mean he spent the next week freaking out,
acting super strange, and I don't mean just like general anxiety.
He was losing it. At one point he was like
even rubbing spices all over his face. What And at
the time he tried to say it was like helping
him with headaches or like fine lines or something, But
even then Marissa knew that something was off, like this
(37:18):
isn't normal behavior for him or for anyone.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
But at the time she's not connecting it to anything.
Speaker 3 (37:23):
No.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
I mean, like she knew about the stop and the
DNA swab, and like she knew that that happened, but
I guess she really didn't think anything of it at
the time. I mean, it's not like she's thinking David's
DNA is going to connect him to the brutal murder, yeah,
from a couple of years before. And she didn't even
make the connection after his death because, by the way,
the whole bank robbery thing that really had nothing to
(37:45):
do with David. And because of that, guess what, they
never had to run david swab or put it into codis,
which is probably the very thing David feared so much
that it drove him to suicide. So it's not till now,
sitting with Lieutenant Covanda in her house, seeing the photo
(38:05):
of David sneakers at the crime scene, that Marissa is
starting to put the pieces together, and so is Lieutenant Colevanda,
But his mind is spinning for a different reason, because
if Oceanside PD still has David's DNA from that twenty
eleven swab, he might be able to do a direct
comparison with the DNA found at Jody's crime scene and
(38:27):
sure enough, by some miracle is the magic word for
this episode, Oceanside PD has it.
Speaker 5 (38:33):
Oh my god.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
So on November seventh, Covanda sends the sample to the
lab to be tested for the first time since it
was taken seven years ago. It takes two days for
the results to come back, and when they do, it
is a match, which means that now Covanda is one
hundred and ten percent sure he can finally tell the
serans that after eleven years, the weight is over and
(38:57):
they were so close to losing hope. Finally they know
who that man was in Jody's room that Valentine's Day
back in two thousand and seven. Now detectives can't give
them every answer like where Jody might have come into
contact with this guy or why he even attacked her.
Speaker 5 (39:13):
Well, that was gonna be my next question. Did David
have any connection to her?
Speaker 4 (39:17):
There was nothing, none that they can find. Like so
many of the IgG solves that we've seen over the years,
his name never so much as came up in the
case file from even a random tip like this guy
was not on their radar at all. Now they did
find out that in the past he'd abused drugs. Marissa
thought he'd been clean and sober like her for years
(39:39):
when they were raising their son together, and even after
they split up, she was like letting him stay at
her place on her couch. But it's very possible he
was using again. Also, I think about that substance abused
clinic that was next to the place that Jody volunteered,
so like that had he been there, So this is
the thing, right, So this is how it all got
teed up. We know he used or used to use
(39:59):
drug rugs. We know this clinic was there, So I
was gonna say, this could be somewhere that they would
have met, but I don't know because it never really
got run down. And like we see this all the time.
That kind of stuff, like making those connections is all
stuff that you learn when you're like building a case.
Speaker 5 (40:16):
Against someone, like for a trial.
Speaker 4 (40:18):
Yeah, but I'm seeing this all the time with these
IgG cases. When you work backwards, and especially when the
person is deceased, like you don't have to go back
and figure out the like where and whatever to like.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Prove the little details to build the full puzzle out.
You kind of have the picture at the beginning yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:36):
And so investigators just don't and listen. On one hand,
I get it, like there's a hundred other unsolved cases
like JODI's that they need to focus on. They don't
need to be creating work for themselves. But it still
kills me because we talked about this at the top.
We know how devious this crime was. Was this really
a one off? What if he did commit other crime?
Speaker 5 (40:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (40:59):
I mean we know, Oh, his DNA in the database
hasn't matched anything else. But like we said the m O,
what if he would have cleaned up? What if there's
nothing left? What if by tracking him we can figure
out where they met and then that shows an EMO
to like other missing people or something like Again, I
have eight zillion questions after a case like this, especially
like who was this guy? How did he have a
(41:20):
wife and a kid and just live a normal life?
Did he actually live a normal life? Or were there
red flags? Could anyone have seen this coming? And normally
these are questions that you and I spiral on and
we get left with and then we have to move
on to the next case. But not this time, because
this time our reporter Nicole Kagan, traveled out to California
(41:43):
and met with the one person who had all the
answers that I'm looking for, the one person who could
give us insight into who David Mibrito was in two
thousand and seven, can you.
Speaker 5 (41:56):
Say and spell your name for us?
Speaker 6 (41:59):
Marisa rsa maab Riito. He was my family, he's my
son's dad, gave me the best thing in the world
and did the most horrific thing to somebody in the world.
I don't know how to reconcile those two.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
But Marissa has tried.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
She's gone back over every moment since meeting David on
the beach in nineteen ninety five, and she's had to
rewire her brain to understand how he could have been
capable of such a vicious crime all along. And yes,
there were potentially signs, but how do you know what
to look for if no one talks about it. In
(42:39):
the interview, there was a moment where Nicole, our reporter,
is like, are you sure you're good with all of
this being on the record? Yeah, and Marissa's like, yes,
this is my truth, and this is David's truth as
I know it, And you guys, this is a side
of the story that we almost never get to tell. You,
and we didn't want to cut it short by trying
to squeeze it all into one episode, and more importantly,
(43:00):
I wanted you to hear it directly from Marissa in.
Speaker 3 (43:03):
Her own words.
Speaker 4 (43:04):
So, because Jodine Sarin was the seven of diamonds on
a cold case playing card deck before her case got solved,
we have dedicated a full episode of The Deck to
Marissa's attempt at solving her own mystery. How could the
man she loved and trusted have committed this unthinkable crime? Now,
(43:25):
new episodes of the other weekly true crime show I host,
The Deck. By the way, this is if you didn't
know now you know those come out every Wednesday. But
because we've paired these episodes together, we're making this week's
episode of The Deck available.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Right now in the Crime Junkie Fan Club.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
So if you're in the fan club, you don't have
to wait, And if you don't mind waiting, make sure
you follow The Deck wherever you get your podcasts so
you can listen first thing on Wednesday. You can find
(44:06):
all the source material for this episode on our website,
Crimejunkie podcast dot com. And if you want to listen
to more episodes like this and bonus episodes we've never released,
and every episode completely ad free.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Be sure to join our fan club.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
You'll also get early access to new episodes every week,
and you can go there now to listen to the
Deck episode that pairs with this one.
Speaker 5 (44:28):
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie podcast.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
And we actually have something special for you guys next week,
so don't miss it and don't forget to go check
out the Deck wherever you get your podcasts. Crime Junkie
(44:54):
is an Audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve
Speaker 6 (45:00):
One
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