Lori's Commitment to Justice: A Deep Dive into Cold Cases

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hector Bravo.
Unhinged chaos is now insession.
Welcome back to our channels,warriors.
We are still growing.
Today, another special guestman we have a former San Diego
police officer but, aside fromthat, a homicide cold case

(00:24):
detective by the name of Lori.
Hey, lori, how's it going Good?
Thanks for having me.
Oh yeah, thanks for showing up.
I'm excited about this one.
I always, like everybody else,love true crime and I'm
interested to hear how thateverything panned out.
So you told me you wereoriginally from the East Coast,
new York.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
And then, oh, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
So I originate from Orange County, new York, which
is just north of the city, andmy father was a New York City
police officer, a lieutenant,and then my mom was a registered
nurse and I had two sisters.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
So Orange County is north of Manhattan.
Yes, so it isn't like the Bronxup there.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
It's north of the Bronx.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
North of the Bronx.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yep, it's commutable to the city.
But enough out of the city somy father can raise his kids
without the influence of thecity.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Cool.
And then you eventually findyourself in San Diego.
You said in your 20s, and youhad the aspiration to be law
enforcement.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
So what happened was I grew up with law enforcement.
My dad, all of my uncles, arevirtually in some form or
another NYPD, so I grew uparound the culture of law
enforcement and I've alwaysenjoyed it, you know, listening
to their stories and watchingthe camaraderie, but I don't do
well in the cold and in the snow, so it was never really
something I seriously consideredin New York.

(01:40):
But one of my uncles retiredNYPD and moved out to San Diego.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Okay, and he got bored, then he got hired with
San Diego PD.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
And but one of my uncles retired NYPD and moved
out to San Diego Okay, and hegot bored.
Then he got hired with SanDiego PD.
And then two of my cousinsmoved out, and one of his, his
son, and another male cousinmoved out to California.
Both got hired with San DiegoPD.
And I would come out and visit,realize that the sun really
does shine most of the year 90degrees all year round.
Beautiful, and so I thought youknow what, I'll move to San

(02:06):
Diego and let me just try thislaw enforcement thing and see
what happens.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Here.
So growing up in a household oflaw enforcement and a family of
law enforcement how does thatdeter either way as opposed to
not growing up?
Is this something that'sencouraged within the family,
discouraged within?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
the family a rite of passage?
You know, neither.
It's just.
I'm very fortunate to grow upwith a very supportive father,
very active father, very smart,well-educated, and he always
said you know, follow what'sright for you.
Nice, they would say, a civilservice job, is your best
security blanket, but followwhat you want to do, get an

(02:47):
education and just if you followyour heart and you follow your
passions, you're going to findsomething that you're really
going to enjoy.
Sweet, that's true.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
So you find yourself in San Diego.
You said you started thedepartment in 1995?
.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Where'd you go to the academy?

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I went to the regional academy up in Miramore.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
So it's the same one.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Correct the 32nd regional academy.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
How was that experience for you?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
So fun.
I had a great time.
You know I had never done themilitary and I hadn't finished
my education, so this was kindof what I felt like my college
years, my camaraderie years, andwe had a good group of people,
we had a good time, we workedhard, you do something that's

(03:33):
difficult and you overcome ittogether, teamwork, teamwork,
and you get in great shape andyou're getting paid for it.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Right.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
And at that time the Academy.
We were going in and out.
So after about three months wewould go out and phase training
for two weeks, go back to theacademy for a couple weeks, then
go back out and phase training.
So you got little doses hereand there and I remember my
first dose of policing out inthe field was my first phase
down in Central Division, whichis Logan Heights.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
I was hooked, you were hooked.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
I loved it.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
What infatuated about it?
The adrenaline rush.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Everything, I wouldn't say necessarily the
adrenaline rush.
I loved how Central cops tookcare of each other.
I really appreciated how theyalways had each other's backs.
I loved how creatively thatthey were policing.
You know my FTO was big intonarcotics so we would be, you
know, hiding in an alley lookingfor someone to do a hand to
hand, and you know I had neverseen that before.

(04:29):
So and I actually I reallyenjoy the culture of Logan
Heights.
I enjoy the people down there.
I really felt like that was areally great place to thrive as
a cop.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
It's Mexican dominated.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Mexican.
Mexicans are pretty cool andvery cool, and I just you know
the language, the food and somany families there that really
do appreciate law enforcement.
There's so many out there, so Ifelt very welcome.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
So you were saying there was techniques.
How much of the stuff outsideof the textbook were they
implementing in that centraldivision?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Boy, that's a good question.
I think I was just reallyfortunate to be around a lot of
senior people, yeah, so whatthey were was it was kind of the
generation of pop toproblem-oriented policing.
So sergeants expected squads toidentify a chronic problem in
an area and address it, and sowe did a lot of that and I

(05:29):
thought that's really cool andthat you can make a difference.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
Boy, have we come a long way from that.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Boy, have we come a long way from that.
And you know the federalgovernment would give grants out
to law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Hey, go and see a problem.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Go see your problem and attack it.
Wow, don't think they're doingthat today and I would imagine
like minimal micromanaging no,the sergeants patrol sergeants
different, different level,because they trusted their
people, because we had careerpatrol officers.
I had cops on my squad thatwere were patrol 20 years.

(06:02):
Yeah, they knew more than thesergeant sometimes, yeah, or the
patrol the patrol sergeantswere seasoned.
Yeah, they didn't worry aboutmuch they really didn't and your
senior officer was the one youwent to if you needed something,
not your sergeant.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Today, I think it's a little different and I think to
the captain huh, yeah, a lot ofquestions being asked that I
think officers should justnaturally know the answers to.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
But that's where we are.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
And we'll get into that.
So, man, perfect timing,perfect time frame.
You have the personality forthe job.
You're eager.
How much time patrol did you dobefore you started seeing that
there was other options, likedetective or?

Speaker 2 (06:45):
seeing that there was other options like detective or
so you know, my dad was ininvestigations for NYPD, so I
always knew that that wassomething that maybe I'd be
interested in.
So I was in patrol.
I did two years up atNortheastern, which is Miramar
Rancho Bernardo, mira Mesa area,which was interesting because I
had just moved to San Diego.
Bunch of drunk Marines, or Ididn't even know where I was.
I had to get out the map book.
I didn't even know where thestation was, so that was a

(07:07):
challenge, because I reallydidn't know where I was.
And then I wanted to go toCentral Division.
That's where I wanted to go.
So after two years I sent me toCentral Division, logan Heights
, which I really, really enjoyed, and in the meantime I had met
my husband, who was a patrolofficer, and we married and I
spent about four years in patrolat Central and then I went to

(07:28):
Central Division JuvenileServices.
I spent about 10 years atCentral alone in various
different capacities and that'swhy it kind of feels like home.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
That sounds like a great place to learn.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Oh, it's phenomenal, and I've been so fortunate.
My entire career I've alwayshad senior officers around me,
like my first squad, even atNortheastern 10, 15 plus senior
patrol officers right now, Iwant you to tell us the
importance of having seniorofficers willing to teach you,

(07:59):
as opposed to now.
You have the blind leading theblind mentorship is essential
for us to all grow, learn anddevelop as law enforcement
officers.
I was fortunate throughout myentire career.
Some of these individuals arestill my mentors today even some
of them that are retired.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Because they have the experience, they've been there,
they have made the mistakes andthey are trying to prevent you
from maybe making the samemistakes, and so, when you're
willing to listen, open yourears and absorb the information
they're giving you, it's onlygoing to make you grow as an
investigator or a patrol officer.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Right when you said they made the mistakes.
You gave me chills because Iwas thinking like you're right
and mistakes in law enforcementand or military can cost you
your life.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
It can cost you your life and it can cost you your
job.
True your career, right, itcould hurt you or it could hurt
your partners.
And so when you have theleadership on a squad of the
senior officer who's willing topull you aside and say, hey, you
did this, I don't want to seethat again.
This is why Right, that's howyou learn If no one pulls you
aside to say you made this verybad mistake, how would you know?

(09:10):
You may just continue doing it.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
So you mean to tell me you don't learn by getting
all kinds of bad paperworkshoved into your career file and
reprimanded?

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Or the award for just showing up to work.
No, yeah, yeah, you don't learnfrom that.
I mean, let's face it, you know, even you know athletes,
professional athletes today,when they win a game, they don't
always go back into the lockerroom and talk about what
mistakes they won, what mistakesthey made because they won.
They go back when they lose andthey say, hey, we meet these

(09:41):
critical errors.
We need to clean this up.
It's the same thing in lawenforcement If no one's pulling
you aside to say, hey, you madethis critical error, you could
have died.
I could have died or gotteninjured, or that civilian could
have gotten hurt.
If people aren't willing to dothat and if people aren't
willing to listen to thatfeedback, you don't grow and
develop.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
That's the after action report.
Develop that's an after actionreport.
We call it the military, butalso, you're right, the ego, ego
sometimes gets in the way ofpeople and they refuse to
address that.

Speaker 2 (10:13):
You know, elephant in the room.
I think it's really importantthat we admit what we don't know
Facts.
And so when I first got hired,um, and I was up at Northeastern
and I had that senior squad itwasn't that busy of a command at
the time that you know, thatwhole Del Mar 56 route wasn't
there.
Um, I would, if we were goingto a radio call and I had never
experienced that type of call Iwould send a message on the MDT

(10:34):
at the time and say meet me downthe street, let's talk about it
, let me handle it and if I'mmessing up, step in and help me
out.
Okay, but that was how I knew Icould learn, but I had people I
could trust.
And I say I don't know how to dothis and they wouldn't degrade
me, they wouldn't make me feelbad.
They would say, okay, well,let's teach you Because, let's
face it, academy is great.
A lot of foundational workthere.

(10:55):
Field training is another greatopportunity to expose you to
what's going on.
But until you get five, six,seven years on in the street, I
don't think anyone's trulycomfortable.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
I like that you said that.
Five, six, seven years plus,every day you're learning.
Every day it's something new.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
And every day the laws change.
Every day policies change.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
So it is true, yeah, you're learning.
Throughout your whole entirecareer, you're learning.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
If you stop learning, your career is halted Right and
you have stopped progressing asa leader or as a person in law
enforcement that has somethingto give your community.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Facts, facts, facts.
So when did the opportunityarise, or what did it look like
when you evolved to the nextlevel?
Was it a bulletin?
Was it an email, a lettersaying, hey, apply for this
position?

Speaker 2 (11:41):
No, the way the police department is set up they
kind of tell you hey, weanticipate hiring X amount of
detectives in February.
Okay, so at the time it was nota very difficult process.
So when I thought I wanted togo into investigations, I went
first into juvenileinvestigations because there was
a spot there and at the time wewere prosecuting juvenile crime

(12:04):
.
Because there was a spot thereand at the time we were
prosecuting juvenile crime.
So it gave me some exposure.
But it got me in the detectivebay so I could hear what's going
on and I could say, hey, I hearyou're working on this case.
I've never seen that before, Ihave not investigated that
before.
Can I go with you?
And I would just kind of gowith people to their follow-up
so I can learn how they didtheir business.
And then from there I was ableto get a detective spot, an

(12:26):
acting detective spot for the510s, which is Logan Heights,
barrio, logan, sherman Heights,golden Hill.
And that's where I got some ofmy best mentors for
investigations.
I had Lou Tumani there and MikeRebell and my sergeant was
Sharon Smith and I'm so gratefulfor those three because they

(12:48):
really gave me a solidfoundation of investigations.
Don't cut corners.
Do the job to the nth degree,finish the totality of the
investigation before you make adecision.
Make sure you follow up witheverything that you should be
following up on.
Test every piece of every itemof evidence, talk to every
witness, take nothing forgranted.

(13:08):
And phenomenal people to learnfrom Phenomenal.
And Sharon.
She's still a good friend ofmine today and I will tell you
as far as a good sergeant goes,she was not afraid to say nope,
I'm sending this report back toyou because you should be doing
X, y and Z.
She didn't let you cut corners.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
And to this day, you know, until I retired, I before
I would submit.
There's a few people I have inmy as mentors that before I
submit a report I hear theirvoice.
Did you do this?
Why didn't?
You do that, and so it makes mestop and go.
I must know subconsciously I'mcutting a corner somewhere.
Let me just do it, and it maynot turn out to be anything, but

(13:49):
you know, quite often it turnsinto something.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
Now everything you said right now don't cut corners
.
Look at every lead.
Don't take things for granted.
In current present times,policing is that being taught?

Speaker 2 (14:03):
I don't know, policing Is that being taught?
I don't know.
I don't know because I've beenin cold cases for 12 years.
My partners are the detectivesfrom 1960s, 70s, 80s and the
cold case investigators inbetween.
I don't really.
I didn't really get tooinvolved with the active
homicide teams.
But the job, for sure, I couldtell you, is changing and it

(14:24):
really is dependent on thesergeant that has the team.
What time and effort are theywilling to put into that
detective to make them trulytheir best, to truly be
effective?
And if that leadership is notthere, it's really tough for an
investigator to grow, becausethen you just bounce, you bounce
from place to place to placeand you don't really sit long
enough to really saute in a spotso you can really absorb

(14:48):
everything that you can.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
So it sounded like, by the time you hit, that you
were already well molded andtaught by the best.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
I feel like I was.
And so once I was at CentralInvestigations for a couple of
years and then my lieutenant atthe time was transferred to
backgrounds, and so Sharon saidhey, they asked for you in
backgrounds.
And I first said no thanks,that's not where I want to go.
I'm getting the hang of thisinvestigations thing.

(15:17):
I don't want to take a stepback.
I'm kind of getting the hang ofthis interview, interrogations,
evidence.
I'll lose that skill.
And Sharon, being a good mentor, said if someone asks for you,
you should really go.
And interestingly enough, theytook me and Sharon, mike Rebell
and the other sergeant andplucked us all into backgrounds.
And they did that because theykind of wanted to young up the

(15:40):
office a little bit.
Instead of having people thatare on their way out of the
career, they wanted people inthe middle of their career to
inspire, I think, and to maybegive people some energy going
through the background process.
So even though I didn't want togo there, I'm grateful I did.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
So it was a good career move for you 100%, and
for a couple of reasons.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Number one I said I'll go if you can send me sex
crimes after, because that'swhere I want to work.
But it taught me patienceBecause when you go through
backgrounds as you have, you'rewith your background investor a
long time and they ask you a lotof questions.
So you have to be patient andthen you have to learn how to
dig.
Is this person being honest?
Is this person being truthful?
What are they hiding?

(16:20):
Are they deceitful?
So I really learned patience inthat position.

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Now you learned patience, but did you also
identify reading people?

Speaker 2 (16:33):
Yes, and I was probably a little hard on my
applicants, but I do firmlybelieve that law enforcement
should not be your first everjob.
And you know there are severalpeople that didn't get hired.
But I really pushed for.
You know, and I hold those inthe military in high esteem and

(16:53):
I am grateful for their service.
So, you know, they were someonethat I always thought make good
cops, and not because they knowhow to shoot guns and they've
been in stressful situations,but because they know discipline
.
You know, and you need to havesome discipline as a cop.
But I also had several peoplethat didn't have military but
they went to college or they hadlong time careers in some other

(17:14):
fashion and they showed thatthey can be dependent upon.
You know, because we need avariety of people in law
enforcement.
You don't just need one flavorof people, you need all
different types so we can see,through a variety of different
lenses, what problems are goingon in the community and how we
can use our own perspectives tohelp solve that.
So you know, backgrounds was agreat opportunity for me to

(17:37):
hopefully inspire some peoplethat became cops.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Now, was that a promotion for you or like a
lateral Lateral, Even at thetime was?

Speaker 2 (17:44):
that a promotion for you?
Or like a lateral, Lateral,Lateral, yeah, Even at the time,
uh, even being a detective wasa lateral move from patrol, Okay
.
Eventually and I don't rememberwhat year it was it, it they
changed things and it became apromotion like a little pseudo
promotion, uh, like its own rank, Um, but when I started it was
just, it was just okay.
Yeah, my whole process forgetting hired was I had the

(18:10):
acting experience and then I hada panel of three people that I
did an interview with.
That was it.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
After backgrounds, did you go to sex crimes?

Speaker 2 (18:24):
I did as promised.
After two years in backgrounds,I was transferred to sex crimes
, which is truly where I wantedto be, and, again very fortunate
, to step into a senior squad ofinvestigators.
So many of the investigatorsthat were there, I would say a
large majority of them one, Ithink, had 10 years in sex
crimes already.
How many 10 years?
Oh my God, yeah.
Large majority of them.

(18:45):
One, I think, had 10 years insex crimes already.
How many 10 years?
Oh my God, yeah.
A lot of experience.
And then several otherinvestigators up there.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Is there a limit where they're like, hey, you
should probably leave now.
It's not good for yourwell-being.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
No, we have some people that are really dedicated
to sex crimes and child abuse.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
We've had some child abuse detectives that were there
20 years.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
How many 20 years?
Oh, no, yeah, phenomenal,phenomenal people.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
I can imagine, but the toll.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Agreed, agreed.
But you know a lot of theinvestigators.
They had some experiencesomewhere else Gangs or
narcotics Vice, Somewhere else.
One was a former evidence techfor the lab.
Before she was a sworn officershe was in the lab.
So I thought, wow, I can reallylearn a lot of evidence from

(19:29):
her evidence in lab stuff.
So again I step into anothergreat environment of senior
people.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
Just hitting home runs.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
That's what I felt like.
I was like, wow, this is great.
And so I would hear them on thephone or scheduling an
appointment to go meet with avictim or a witness or a bar or
somebody that had evidence.
And I would hear them on thephone or scheduling an
appointment to go meet with avictim or a witness or a bar or
somebody that had evidence, andI would just barge my way in and
say, hey, I heard thatconversation.
Do you mind if I go?
And they were really grateful,or it's a hey, listen, I hear
you're doing a suspect interview.

(19:57):
I'd like to sit in.
I want to hear how you do itand that's how you learn.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Closed mouths don't get fed.
That's right.
That is how you learn.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
And they were all so gracious and at the time the
lieutenant was really, reallygreat and so I really felt
supported there.
I knew again I knew there werepeople there that if I had a
question I could go ask.
And that's a key to movingforward Right, knowing what you
don't know and not being afraidto ask Absolutely.
So Moving forward Right,knowing what you don't know and
not being afraid to askAbsolutely.

(20:26):
So again, I still, youdefinitely know your stuff.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Like definitely, I can tell.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Thank you, yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Absolutely so.
Was sex crimes what you hadanticipated, or was there a
curveball in your mind Like whoa?
Maybe this wasn't what hey guys?
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(20:51):
Thank you, guys.
Appreciate all of you.
Keep pushing forward.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Make sure you hit that link in description below
definitely a curveball, and so Iremember going there and I
think I'm going to be handlingthe stranger that jumps out of
the bushes and drags somebody inthere and sexually assaults
them.
But there's actually veryrelatively few of those.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Really.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
I was surprised to learn that a majority of my
cases were some type of familialsituation where there was
someone being molested in thehome.
And so the way San Diego has itorganized is if the disclosure
of the sexual assault or thesexual abuse, if the disclosure
to law enforcement happenedafter the age of 13, then sex

(21:34):
crimes gets it.
If the disclosure happened at13 and younger, child abuse
would get it.
That's weird.
So it's the way the laws areframed and it was a better way
to kind of separate the two.
So you know, I wound upinvestigating a lot of late
disclosure child abuse cases.
So that would come through CPS,mandated reporters or somebody

(21:55):
would, at 20, 30 years old, comeforward and say hey, I was, you
know, sexually abused by thisperson, and as long as they
never reported that to lawenforcement before we can
investigate it.
And I will tell you, I at firstthought I mean, that's kind of
my first crack at cold casesright, that's a cold case.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
That is a cold case.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
So at first I thought , well, this is going to be
challenging and maybe not asrewarding as I thought it was
going to be.
But it turned out I was wrong.
It was absolutely to be able tohelp so many people who thought
there's nothing you're going tobe able to do.
For me to be able to dosomething was remarkable.

Speaker 1 (22:36):
So it can be like if a person is speaking to a
therapist and I believe one ofthe questions they ask you is
hey, have you disclosed likechild abuse or something elder
abuse we have to report it?
Is that something that getsreported to the cops?
Would you receive informationlike that?

Speaker 2 (22:50):
So they would call an 1-800 number like a child abuse
number, as long as there werestill minors, and then that
would get filtered to thedepartments that's applicable
and then it would get.
It would get to sexual abuse.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
And if they said, hey , john sexually abused me, was
there times where you looked andJohn was in fact already
incarcerated for sexual crimes?
Sure.
And it's almost like okay, well, this is connecting the dots.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
So you know, a lot of sex crimes, especially sexual
abuse, is not reported.
They go undetected for decades.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Just, you know, that's like I wouldn't even call
it a pet peeve.
It like really is probably theonly thing that will set me off.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
Yeah, I had one case it was interesting.
A minor, she was a teenager,but she disclosed that she was
sexually abused by hergrandfather.
Well, she has two older sistersand it turned out that he
sexually abused all of thembetween the age of five and 12.
And as one would age out, hewould sexually abuse the next

(23:53):
one.
So we were able to make anarrest in that case of the
grandfather, based on thedetermination of the victims, of
the willingness of the victimsto come forward, of their
willingness to be vulnerable, tocome, walk through those doors
and tell that story.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
And so we worked a lot of those cases and they're
really challenging but very,very rewarding.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
So that's my next question was was the rewarding
factor like?
Is that what made it worth it?
Was it that powerful of aexperience?

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yes, and some.
Some didn't take me long at allI you know.
I remember one case.
I got a call from a schoolresource officer who said we
have a girl in the office she'safraid to go home.
She said her father's beensexually abusing her.
So I said bring her in.
Just don't bring her home, justbring her to me.
And so I sat with her and youknow, when you're talking to
victims of sexual assault orchild abuse, you really need to

(24:51):
build rapport and take your timeand gain their trust.
And I sat with her and she toldme her story, which I mean it's
so hard to do.
It would be hard to do ifyou're telling somebody about a
consensual encounter, never mindbeing victimized, and so I said
, okay, well, you know, the bestway for me to understand your
dad's perspective is to do apretext phone call.

(25:13):
And that's when, during a lawenforcement investigation, I
have the victim and sometimesit's a witness.
But the victim call the suspecton a recorded line and I could
hear what's being said and I canguide that victim until just
you know what questions to ask.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
And you know you would have them ask an
open-ended question so you canget a narrative answer and you
can develop information at thatnarrative answer and father
spilled everything on this.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
On the recorded line.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
On the recorded line, and so we were able to get a
team together and go out andarrest him.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
Father spilled everything on this pretext, on
the recorded line, on therecorded line, and so we were
able to get a team together andgo out and arrest him.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
What advice would you have to viewers that are
victims but just are strugglingwith the fact to let anybody
know that you really have tofind someone that you can trust,
that you can talk to about it,because that's a heavy load to
handle on your own and your lifehas value.
Your life is worth the effortof somebody else to help guide
you through that process andwhether it be a therapist, you
know, and if you you know, it'snever too late and I will say

(26:18):
that you know when in lawenforcement, if we get those
reports and we can document,it's never been disclosed to law
enforcement before.
Many times it's just the factthat we have sat down and we
have listened to them, we'veheard their stories.
We respect their story, werespect their willingness to
come in and be brave.

Speaker 1 (26:36):
Their vulnerability.

Speaker 2 (26:37):
Their vulnerability when they meet with us.
Oftentimes, even with thosepretext calls, I tell them
listen.
It will be emotionallydifficult to make this call.
Be emotional, be yourself.
But I'm going to tell you atthe end of this call you have

(26:59):
regained your power back becauseyou are sitting here and they
don't know it.
And I will say most of thevictims that went through that
process with me felt very muchthat way, even if I could not
make an arrest and there'splenty of times that we won't be
able to make an arrest but thefact that you sat down and
respected somebody enough togive them your time and to hear
their story really has a lot ofvalue and it's a healing journey
for them.
And that's part of theirhealing journey Absolutely

(27:21):
Someone listening to them andtaking them seriously.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, being acknowledged.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Being acknowledged and having someone validate that
, yes, you went throughsomething very traumatic and you
are worth it.
It is worth it to try toresolve this within your own
psyche so you can have the bestlife possible, because you
deserve it.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
And it's not their fault, because I would imagine
sometimes maybe they felt likeit was their fault.
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Absolutely, and especially when it comes to the
family or friends that that'sfreaking horrible.
And many times, or clergy, orcounselor, or teacher.
Many times the shame was a bigfactor and I would have to walk
them through.
The shame is not yours to own,the shame is theirs.

(28:10):
Why are you holding on to theirshame for them, and you know
sometimes they have to hearsomething differently for it to
click Like wait a minute, why doI feel you picked on me?
You know you're the one whovictimized me.
So you know there's a lot ofservices out there that will
help victims in these situations, and whether it be through

(28:30):
coming, sometimes the advocateswill come with the victims to
the interviews with the cops.
They're more than welcome toand the law allows that to
happen.
So this way they have a supportperson there.
And so you know shame is a veryheavy load for someone,
especially if you're five, six,seven years old, and this has

(28:50):
happened.
I've had brave people comeforward and they testify, but
knowing that they just lost halftheir family because they
testified against the uncle,even though the uncle, after
prelim, pled guilty to 20, 25years.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
I would do a lot more than just testify against the
uncle.
If it was my family, you knowwhat I mean.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
I know Well some of these victims lose their family.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Even if I have video evidence of the crime.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
No frick, no, I don't .
Oh see, I can't even stomachthis.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
I know it can be very challenging and I will tell you
, I've never worked ICAC, that'sthe Internet Crimes Against
Children.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Oh man.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
And I will say hats off to them, because that is a
tough job.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
Wow, so you have been introduced to the monsters of
the world at this point in time.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
And right, because once you see it, you can't unsee
it.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
You can't unsee it, but you can defend against them.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
At this time?
Do you feel any change in yourpsyche or emotions as you're
continuing your career, or doeseverything just seem normal to
you?

Speaker 2 (29:53):
I don't think you know that until you're out of it
.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
Correct, correct, but at that time.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
At that time or in hindsight.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Can you tell me if something shifted in you?

Speaker 2 (30:01):
It definitely shifted and at the time I have two
girls and one stepson, so theirlives definitely changed.
Uh, you know, uh, my, mystepson's mom is also a cop, so
he was surrounded by two copmoms and a cop dad.
Uh, but my daughters, you know,uh, I worked sex crimes and
they were in junior high and itwas like Nope, you're not

(30:21):
sleeping over anyone's house,you're not.
You know, you're not alone witha coach.
It does change your frame ofreference considerably, and not
always for the good, or if I was.
You see things in some of thesesexual predators.
They're kind of all.
They've got this similar style,I guess I would say and if I'm

(30:42):
at someone's house and I getthis sense from somebody, I'm
out Like I'm getting my kids andI'm out.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
I was just about to ask you that, but you beat me to
the punch Working in a prison.
You're right, they have a styleto them.
They're old, they're passive,they're creepy and there's
something in the eyes.
Usually a white guy, and itdoesn't have to be.
You know what I mean.
It varies in ethnicity, but you, yes, you can tell, or we can
tell.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
You can tell, the biggest advantage I have in
investigations is they're notsophisticated criminally.
So you know very rarely and Idon't even know if I know
personally of incidents of acase that I had that I had a
gang member that was sexuallyassaulting people.
I'm certainly not saying thatdoesn't happen Right, but a lot

(31:28):
of the times you're getting theaverage Joe yeah, and so they,
number one think they could talktheir way out of it.
So they always talk.
Number two they don't thinkthey did anything wrong, truly.
And number three they are sounsophisticated they don't
understand anything about thelaw and they don't understand

(31:49):
anything about the ramifications.
They really don't think thatthey're going to get in trouble.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Well, me personally.
I think they're wired wrong inthe brain, clearly wired wrong
Right, and I only really thinkthere's only one resolution to
that.
But that's my opinion, but well, they're wired wrong.
They're wired wrong.
Absolutely, absolutely andthey're wired wrong and you can
tell right.
But that doesn't excuse it atall.
But like you cannot fix them,you know there's maybe a

(32:15):
misconception that you can fixthese individuals.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
No, I don't think you can either.
Correct.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
I don't want to hamper on this one because this,
really that topic, gives me theheebie-jeebies.
To be honest with you, man, Idon't know how.
My hat's off to you and creditto you for doing you know, the
Lord's work.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
I very much felt that way and honestly, I felt like
that barrier between that victimand that suspect.
And if I could stand up forthat victim and say you don't
get to do this.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
That's powerful.
That was very powerful.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
That's awesome, yeah.
So when did you get onto thehomicide cold case?
So I was working in sex crimesand I had just come off a big
case here in san diego and, um,my very good friend uh, my good
friend today she was also sheworked a sex crimes with me and
then she did a little stint inhomicide because they needed a
Spanish speaker.
And she came up to me one dayand said, hey, there's a spot in
cold case, you should take it,you'd be perfect.

(33:11):
And I was like well, I work sexcrimes, I don't work homicide,
so why would I take that spot?
They're not going to give methat spot.
And she said, oh, they, sonobody wanted the cold case spot
.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
There was no take-home car for the cold case
position or in general.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
You know, for the cold case position, and none of
the homicide teams wanted togive up their take-home ride.
So I thought, well, that's notan issue for me.
But I thought, well, do Ireally want to leave sex crimes?
That's where I wanted to go,but I thought well, do I?
really want to leave sex crimes.
That's where I wanted to go andshe really insisted this.
I'm so grateful because itreally was my spot.
But my girlfriend said youreally need to reach out because

(33:53):
that is your spot.
I just know it.
And I was like, well, why don'tyou take it?
She's like, no, because it'syour spot.
So I was like, well, let mejust try, because I knew I could
go back to sex crimes If Ididn't like it.
I knew I had it at home, cool.
So I reached out to thesergeant and he said, yeah, come
on over.
So in 2012, I went over to ColdCase and I remained there until

(34:16):
I retired in 2025 2012.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Trying to think what was going on in the world in
2012.
Wasn't it supposed to end, orsomething in the Mayan calendar?
Oh, I'm sure we used to callthis guy at work.
2012.
Oh, really, always saying that,yeah, so cold case.
How did the rest of thedepartment, as far as the police
officers, view cold case?
Did they view them as not anactive unit?

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Well, it has transitioned over the years, so,
and this is where you got toknow history of forensics in
order to understand where coldcase is today.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Lay it on us.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Okay, so DNA was never used in criminal
investigations until the late80s, and I think the first one
in the United States was 87.
And that was on a cold case.
Before that, the best methodthat investigators had to solve
cases was latent fingerprints,their tremendous interview and

(35:16):
interrogation skills, theirability to identify behaviors
that don't belong, theirknowledge of the area.
But DNA itself wasn't ever useduntil the late 80s, and so our
department didn't even have aDNA lab, a DNA section in our
lab, until the early 1990s.

(35:39):
Now what we did have was theserology department, and what
that means is they couldidentify blood type, right.
So if you had blood drops thatwere obviously your suspect
right, your victim is dead overhere, there's blood drops
leading away, probably yoursuspect they could swab that
blood and they could tell youwas it, what type of blood?

(36:01):
Is it A, a, positive, b, o?
And so you could rule outpeople and you could rule in
people.
They would also collect thingsthat we would normally collect
today, like cigarette butts andbeer cans, because some people
secrete their blood type intheir saliva or other bodily
fluids.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, so some people we call secretors and
non-secretors.
So they were very good atidentifying.
Oh, let me collect thisbiological evidence semen or
spit or blood so they coulddetermine if this is a secretor
or a non-secretor.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
And this is back in the day right.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
They were just collecting evidence, just
collecting evidence.
Regardless of whether they hadthe means to test it DNA-wise at
that time and I'm sure most ofthe evidence in the 70s 80s they
weren't even thinking DNACorrect.
They're just thinking I canrule people in and rule people
out.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Which is a pretty large, vast.
Yes.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
But the world was smaller then.
I mean San Diego.
We are a military town, butpeople didn't travel like they
do today.
Right, you could go have dinnerin Florida, you know, and then
come back the same day.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
That's the truth.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
It wasn't like that then, but but still, um so, so,
knowing that, and so what theywere experts at is lifting
latent prints, identifyingobjects that would have valuable
latent prints.
But also remember there wasn'ta computerized database for
latent prints until the late 90s.

(37:31):
Wow.
So if you had latent printsthat you lifted off of a cup,
the only thing they could dowith it is direct comparison, so
you'd have to have an idea ofsomebody.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
You would have to have a suspect or an individual
to match the print.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
You would have a direct.
That's all you could do, and sowhen fingerprint databases did
come on board, they wereproprietary.
So, like the San Diego, pd hadtheir own database, sheriffs had
their own database, lapd hadtheir own database, sheriffs had
their own database, lapd hadtheir own database.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
They weren't talking to each other.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
So you would have to know.
Oh, let me go ask the sheriffsto run this print.
Let me go ask this agency torun this print.

Speaker 1 (38:06):
And was that happening?

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Sometimes, yeah.
But they also we didn't have thelaws that we have today of
everybody wants to be a coach.
You get fingerprinted.
Every teacher getsfingerprinted.
We have a lot more peoplegetting fingerprinted today than
they were originally.
So you know there's so manydifferent steps into forensic
evidence that you really need toknow the history of it so you
can understand.

(38:28):
What does any information I'mgetting from this old report,
what does that mean?
What can I do with this oldreport, with this old report?
So then you fast forward.
You know in late 90s we'regetting we started our first
cold case unit, the policedepartment.
So they called themselves theheat team, the homicide

(38:48):
assessment something team, andso they went through a lot of
those cases that had obviousbiological evidence to test for
DNA, and they were.
And CODIS is another thing.
Codis wasn't a thing until thelate 90s.
What CODIS?
The Combined DNA Index.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
So that is anyone that's been convicted of a crime
.
So CODIS has Like the salivaswab.
The saliva swabs from peoplethat have been convicted of a
crime or arrested, depending onyour jurisdiction, missing,
unidentifiedidentified peopleand crime scene DNA.
So there's basically threedifferent piles of CODIS that
you can search and so, uh, if my, if I have a crime scene, if I

(39:30):
have a crime scene here and thatsame suspect left DNA here and
maybe at a rape scene, those twodifferent DNA profiles
developed from those twoseparate crime scenes will hit
in CODIS as, hey, you got thesame suspect in two crime scenes
.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
So you're trying to tell me that there was a point
in time in cold case homicideswhen there was just treasure
troves of evidence, and now youhad the ability to test it all.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yes, and that started in the 90s and so every little
bit.
So they picked through some ofthose cases with the obvious
biological fluid and again,there was a lot of direct
comparison happening, becauseCODIS was in its infancy so
there wasn't a ton of people inthere.
So when I get to cold case in2012, there was kind of a couple

(40:19):
of different philosophies going.
Number one all the good caseshave already been picked through
and any DNA that's beenidentified as suspect DNA that
has not already hidden CODIS,that person's probably dead by
now.
Right, it's been 20 years.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
That was like the consensus amongst 100%.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
So you're wasting your time.
Don't bother looking back atthose cases.
Well, it took me a back atthose cases.
Well, the it took me a coupleof years to realize.
Well, we're only talking aboutCODIS here.
Those fingerprints have come along way too.
So, um, you know, rightalongside with the, with the DNA

(40:56):
forensic explosion, has beenthe latent print, forensic
explosion and latent prints.
They were experts at collectingthem and today the systems are
very, very sensitive onidentifying people.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
What changed, what got better?

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Everything Technology just keeps getting better, like
today.
They have the federal system,so it went from proprietary to a
federal system and then thefederal system.
You know it was.
You need just like DNA.
Originally you needed a big umpiece of evidence.
You needed a lot of dna to geta result like a partial print
will work.
Now partial print will work.
They have a palm print database.

(41:28):
It's remarkable what they cando.
So you know you don't need thewhole pad anymore.
You could get a partial pad andget an identification.
So all this is happening kind ofwhen I'm there, and it was a
little slow at first.
I was like, okay, I'm lookingfor the needle in a haystack and
I solved a couple of cases withsome of the gang guys that had

(41:50):
some snitches, and so I was ableto work with them on a couple
of cases, arrested the same guytwice and he was really pissed.
I arrested him for one case andthen about a year later, I'm
like, oh my God, he did this onetoo.
So I re-arrested him while hewas in prison and so he's
definitely never getting out.
But you know, as you know all.
So DNA is also so sensitive nowthat I don't need a lot of DNA.

(42:13):
This touch DNA we call it touchDNA where we're looking at old
robbery cases, people that maybewere murdered on the street and
someone robbed them of theirwallet and you could tell maybe
their pockets are dog-eared,right.
So obviously somebody went intheir pockets.
We can swab the pockets todayand get a result of DNA of a
suspect, and we have severalcases where suspects were

(42:35):
identified on the inside pocketof a homicide victim's clothing.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
What falls off Skin cells.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Skin cells Sweat Right If they're sweating
profusely.
Nervous on drugs Maybe?
Blood or Blood, yeah, and theyreach in the pocket to grab, and
that's as fast as it is.
Sometimes they just reach in,grab the wallet and their DNA is
there.
So now, so you know, as DNAgets sensitive, as latent prints
get sensitive, we have to goback to these cases and think,

(43:02):
oh my gosh, what can we do nowthat we couldn't even do five
years ago?

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, it's moving fast, it sounds like it's moving
so fast.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
It's moving very fast .
So we're super successfulbecause we have a lot of support
from our agency, but also theDA's office has their own
dedicated cold case prosecutorsand DAIs district attorney
investigators.
But so much is happening andthen you know all this great
work is happening and then allof a sudden, a few years ago,

(43:30):
you get forensic investigativegenetic genealogy.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Which is.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
What solved the Golden State Killer case, which
is using suspect DNA to create aDNA profile, to upload into
family tree DNA and then downinto GenMatch.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
Unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
So and it's important to distinguish CODIS works on
DNA markers, that we call STRs.
Forensic InvestigativeGenealogy works on SNPs.
So they don't, they don't.
They're not the same Right.
Both have a lot of value.
Fig is also what has been usedin the Idaho college murders to

(44:10):
identify the suspect.
In that case they use genealogyfrom a nice sheet, from what I
understand.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
So genealogy when it comes to law, because everything
boils down to the law is thereanything that rules it out?
Like genealogy?
Is there complaints against it?
Like hey, this can't be usedbecause of this?

Speaker 2 (44:28):
Sure, and there always will be.
And so when we first startedafter the Golden State Killer
success story, it was like okay,we all pivoted Like find a case
that DNA has been sitting inCODIS for years and see if we
can't solve it.

Speaker 1 (44:44):
Shoot it through the.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Let's get it done, and so at first it's a slow roll
, because now we're relying onoutside labs and police
departments don't like to relyon outside labs, but we've
learned that we can trust them,and so you'd have to send an
extract of DNA to that outsidelab and from there they would
take that extract of DNA andthey would generate the SNP

(45:06):
profile SNP, snp profile andfrom there they would download
it into FamilyTreeDNA.
That is the only database,consumer database that allows us
to upload suspect DNA, suspector missing persons.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Does that require a search warrant?

Speaker 2 (45:22):
It does not, because that is their consumer product
and that is part of theirconsumer plan, their business
plan, and but they're the onlyones, we.
We don't go into ancestry.
We're not in 23andMe, we can'taccess MyHeritage because their
consumer business practices lawenforcement is not allowed in,

(45:42):
so we don't have access.
But FamilyTreeDNA does, andwhat they specifically do it's a
much smaller database,familytreedna compared to
Ancestry, which has like 20million profiles.
Familytreedna has maybe 2million.
But from there, what they cando is they can download into
GEDmatch.
And what GEDmatch is?
That started off just asgenealogists trying to help

(46:05):
people who were adopted findtheir birth family.
So it's important to point outthat Family Tree DNA, myheritage
, 23andme and Ancestry they'reall individual databases.
They don't talk to each other.
So if you and I are brother andsister and you're in Ancestry
and I'm in 23andMe, we're nevergoing to hit.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
That's cool.
We'll never relate.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
The only way we will is if you voluntarily download
your DNA from Ancestry intoGEDmatch.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Voluntarily.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Voluntarily, and I do the same, and so GEDmatch is
kind of that was created tocapture all those connections
that are being missed, becausemost people only choose one
database to be in.
So GEDmatch now has changedtheir rules of service, which is
you have to opt in for lawenforcement viewing, so

(46:57):
everything is on the up and up.
So if you are truly trying tofind me, or maybe a family
member that's been kidnapped ora family member that disappeared
, you have to opt in for policeviewing To view your profile.
Yes, and it's really importantthat, if you're in GEDmatch,
that you go back and you doublecheck that, because it's
critically important.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
I mean, that's something that I would do if I
were to do it.

Speaker 2 (47:19):
Yeah, and I think what most people don't
understand is we're also lookingfor the identification of
homicide victims that are Johnand Jane Doe's.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
It's kind of to me similar to like if you want to
give Apple access to review yourstuff so they can make better
development.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Very similar, very similar and I understand people
have privacy concerns.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Yeah, but if you've got nothing to hide, then you're
good.
But if you go to a restaurantand You're not murdering people,
you've got nothing to worryabout Exactly.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
And if you go to a restaurant and you leave your
fingerprints on the water bottleand your saliva on the cup and
you walk out the door?

Speaker 1 (47:50):
You can just swipe that up.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
And we do, but so we do have access.
That's a lot of story there,but so we do have access to
conducting genealogicalinvestigations and we are very
successful in doing that.
And so you know we're not inplaces that we shouldn't be.

(48:13):
We're in places that we have aright to be.
And then a lot of times I justreach out to people, especially
in the John and Jane Doe cases,like I have a baby case that
I've been working for 10 years.
But if I reach out to peopleand I say, listen, you're
matching as a third or fourthcousin to this child.
It's important for me to knowyour family history who are your
grandparents, where were theyborn, who were their parents?

(48:35):
Because I'm trying to get yourancestry back to a great, great,
great grandparent to see if youhave a great, great, great
grandparent in common with thischild, so I can figure out who
this child is.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
So are you trying to identify the child or are you
trying to catch the killer?

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Depends on the case.
Now, in 2004, the skeletalremains of a two to
four-year-old child boy.
We're trying to identify thechild.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
Can I ask you something?
Sure, how does a two orfour-year-old go unidentified?
Isn't there a mom, a dad,somebody saying where the hell
is my kid?

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Maybe so this child was found on a hiking trail in
rancho bernardo as a bag ofbones and some clothes, and so
we've done everything that wecan do dna wise with the
clothing and the in the bag, butit's just dna degrades over
time, especially if it's out inthe elements yeah and so, um,
you know, we don't know.
You know, identifying the childor identifying the homicide

(49:41):
victim, the John or Jane Doe, isthe first step in identifying
who the killer is.
I don't know.
I don't know if this child waskidnapped.
I don't know if this child wasabused or neglected.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
And what year?

Speaker 2 (49:53):
So the bag of bones was found in 2004.
Was found in 2004.
We can't be certain how long?
That child was out there or ifthe child was dumped there after
a significant amount of time.
I can say that, based on theclothing type, it's probably he
was probably deceased somewherewithin 10 years.
But it's too hard to tell.

(50:14):
So we are doing genealogy on.
We call them baby doe, butknowing that you know so this is
again how far we have comeforensically.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Baby doe is a name I never want to hear again.
It's like that.
I never even heard.
That's the first time hearingit.
I know it's my Didn't sit well,but.

Speaker 2 (50:33):
Yeah, it is definitely.
There's so much that has beendone on this case that is
fascinating Science is lawenforcement's friend.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
But because there's degraded bone and the DNA in the
teeth wasn't yielding a resultfor us to get a SNP profile that
I need.
There is the technology todayto get DNA from rootless hairs,
so I know when you were in lawenforcement, the follicles.
I don't even need the follicle,I just need the hair shaft.

(51:04):
I no longer need the root toget.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Rootless hairs Okay the root, okay the rootless hair
.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
So up until five, six years ago, if you had hairs in
your case, if there was no root,there was nothing we could do
with it, it's just a hair shaft.
That is not the case anymore.
The technology exists and weuse it to get DNA from rootless
hair just the hair shaft, and itcould be one pubic hair, it

(51:30):
could be a bunch of hairs.
So that's what we're doing.
Our genealogy on is the DNAthat we got from the rootless
hair technology, which sometimesisn't always the completest
profile, depending on howdegraded the DNA is.
And it's interesting becauseinitially, when we had our trace
unit, look at the hairs to tryto determine race of this child,

(51:51):
they believed the child wasmostly Caucasian, but we're now
learning through the genealogythat the child is mostly
Hispanic, originating fromMexico.
The problem that we have isthat there's not a lot of data
points in GEDmatch for peoplewho were born and raised or
originated from Mexico.
So it's really important thatwhen we contact people who were

(52:15):
born here but their grandparentsmight've been born in Mexico,
that we get as much informationas possible.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
Okay, that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Yeah, so you know when we're looking for, you know
, grandparents' birth records,because their birth records
would have their parents' nameson it.
Their marriage certificateswould have both sets of
grandparents, and so you know,we're trying to go back to that
lineage because, again, we haveto go back multiple generations
in order to find the personthat's connecting my baby Joe
with this third or fourth cousin, right?

(52:45):
So I mean there's just a lotgoing.
There's a lot that we haveaccess to today.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Now, is there patterns that you see or that
are developed, like a baby in abag abandoned on a trail?
Is there like patterns wheremaybe you've seen that before in
another scenario?

Speaker 2 (53:05):
You know what I have not Now.
We have had two children in SanDiego County go missing during
my time on the police department.
One was solved and one was JahiTurner, whose body never turned
up.
But we so immediately we testedthis child's DNA against the
mother of Jahi Turner and it'snot him.
So we know we can rule that out.

(53:26):
But we do have access toresources like NamUs, which is a
federal database of missing andunidentified children or even
adults.
So missing people are in there,but also unidentified human
remains, maybe the clothing, thelocation composites.
So every so often I get a kindof like an armchair sleuth

(53:50):
that's going through the NamUsdatabase and will send me hey,
have you thought about thischild?
It could potentially be yourbaby doe.
I'm very grateful and we'llcheck it out and we'll contact
that law enforcement agency tosee if perhaps there's a match.
We haven't been successful yet,but you know the tips do come
in that way, which is reallyreally.
It gives me hope.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
It's so wild, there's so much, it's a whole other
universe.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
It's another universe and you do step back in time.
And so the National Center forMissing and Exploited Children
reached out 10 years ago andI've been working on this case
before genetic genealogy andoffered their assistance, and
one thing that they did was weexhumed the baby, because the
baby was buried and they wereable to send I believe it was

(54:37):
the teeth to the University ofSouth Florida and the scientists
there were able to send Ibelieve it was the teeth to the
University of South Florida andthe scientists there were able
to map out the food supply chainof where this baby likely
resided, because your teeth holdon to the vitamins, the
proteins in your teeth, yournutrients in your teeth.

(54:58):
They stay there.
So, with the teeth that haven'tcome through yet, was the
proteins in your teeth, yournutrients in your teeth, if they
stay there.
So you know, with the teeththat haven't come through yet
and the teeth that were um thatcame through on the on the child
, the scientists were able tomap out regions of the United
States that this baby was likelyin utero and where this baby
was after birth.
Wow, very exciting.
And of course it's across the US Mexico border, uh border,

(55:18):
some in Texas, some here inCalifornia, but also in
southwest United States.
So science is exploding and lawenforcement should be holding
on for the ride, because it'samazing.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
I mean it's gotten ahead of law enforcement.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Yes, Now they come to us and say we can help you
solve that.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
That's so awesome.
That's so cool.
It's like teamwork it is.
That's so awesome, that's socool.
It's like teamwork.
It's like it is it's reallyexciting.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
It's a great time to be in Colgate, specifically
because there really is it's.
There's limitless opportunitiesand you know, going back to
latent prints, half of the casesthat we have solved over the
past my time there, 12, 12 yearshave been solved through latent
fingerprints.
So for any young cops out there, make sure you're lifting
fingerprints, and here's why weall have our fingerprints in the

(56:04):
database, right, we're cops,we're in law enforcement, we're
teachers, we're coaches.
You know you're in certainfederal databases, maybe for
background checks.
So there's a hundred millionprofiles in latent fingerprint
database.
Codis is very specific tosuspects, unidentified persons
or missing people, familymembers of missing people.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
So there's maybe 20, 25 million profiles when do you
think you're going to get yourhit from?

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Fingerprints.
Yeah, as a matter of fact, Irecently assisted on a cold case
out of Florida very minimally,but there was a warrant in the
system for this guy for murder,for hire, and the case was there
was a warrant out for him andhe was living out in the
Descanso area and he renewed hispassport that he had obtained

(56:54):
fictitiously and must haveforgotten.
And he did his fingerprints andthe passport office said just
wait a minute, something's notright here, contacted the US
Marshals and they arrested himand flew him back to Florida and
he pled guilty.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
That's very interesting.

Speaker 2 (57:10):
Yeah, so he flew under the radar for 50 years.
Until he renewed his passportand then gave himself up
Fingerprints caught up with him.
Wow, yeah him.
Wow, yeah, so Wow.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
Don't discount you know.

Speaker 2 (57:25):
If you're out in the field and you're collecting
evidence, lift fingerprints,take the time.
We get paid by the hour, not bythe incident or the call.
So if you're at a call, aburglary I don't care what it is
swabbing for DNA is doing afraction of the job.
You lift fingerprints or takethe item and have the crime
scene specialist lift thefingerprints.

(57:46):
We are really very successfuland if I'm that successful in
cold cases, I can imagine whathomicide and burglary and sex
crimes and child abuse all thosecases could really benefit from
that.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
So my knowledge of any of this is just the movies
or television shows.
Is there boxes of evidence percase?

Speaker 2 (58:02):
depends.
But yes, we have boxes of Ithink the oldest case we have
downstairs and uh, where we keeplike the older case files yeah,
is I think it's 1914 andthere's a box in there that says
1914.
There might not be a lot inthere.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Unsolved crime.
Yeah, so yeah we have it bydecades.
And who gets to?
Do you get assigned a case ordo you just mosey on down, pick
up the box and say I have ahunch today?

Speaker 2 (58:35):
It's a little bit of everything, okay, so I know what
cases I'm good at.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:40):
And so I tend to steer towards those cases.
Sometimes we get a call from afamily member asking for an
update and we'll go pull thatcase.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
And we'll review it.
And sometimes you're like, ohokay, it's been 10 years since
this has been looked at, let'stake another look at it.
Sometimes I might be at aretirement party and some
homicide detective that's beenretired was like oh yeah, look
at this case.
We were so close, we know this,or we know that, or it's a
tragic case.
Somebody should look at it andit might pique my interest and I

(59:11):
might go pull it.
Sometimes it's just accidental.
I might be looking forsomething else, and that's the
case of my 1973 Jane Doe case.
I was looking for somethingelse and I'm flipping through
the books and each homicide hasits own page basically.
So we have books by years, so1973, 1972, so we have a year.

(59:32):
So I'm just flipping throughlooking for something else and I
saw this case and I was like,oh, we could solve that case
today.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
What gave you that intuition?

Speaker 2 (59:41):
Because it was a Jane Doe case and as long as I have
some of her hair, clothing orDNA, we'll solve it using
forensic investigative genealogyor using the CODIS database for
the missing and unidentifiedpersons database, because family
members, if your family member,goes missing, you can upload

(01:00:01):
your DNA to CODIS into themissing persons file.
So I thought this case hasn'tbeen looked at since probably, I
would say, the mid-90s.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
Is that one of the cold cases that you solved?

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
So with a John and Jane Doe, half the victory is
identifying the person.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
So yes, we did identify her.
We have not solved her murderand it's probably because you
know time.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
How did you identify her?
Can you say how you identifiedher?

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Oh, yes, so I'll give you a little bit of the
backstory.
So Jane Doe was found in thewaters by the Coast Guard
station down by the airport, andshe was decapitated.
Her legs were sawed off and hertorso was found in a suitcase

(01:00:49):
with her hands tied behind herback and her fingertips shaved
off.
And so some fishermen at thetime it was more of a boardwalk
in front of the Coast Guardstation saw the suitcase and
were like, oh, that's weird and,you know, open, didn't quite
open it, but tore a hole in itand saw a body part.
And then it kind of lookedaround and saw, you know, a
trash bag bobbing over here anda trash bag bobbing over there
and those were her legs.

(01:01:10):
And so they called the policeand um they found, found all
pieces of her and um tried in1973 to identify her.
And the best way to do that atthe time was dental records, was
putting information out over um, you know, the news media, to
local law enforcement.
They tried identifying wherewas this suitcase purchased from

(01:01:33):
?

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Um, but never identified.
So I thought, oh well, today'swork, we can identify her.
So we exhumed her and were ableto get a partial DNA profile to
put into CODIS, the missing andunidentified person system.
But there was no hit there.
Okay, but it was a partial andthose can be really tough and

(01:01:56):
those can be really tough.
But we were able to send offsome of her I believe it was her
femur to an outside lab thatcould develop a SNP profile for
genealogy and they did that andput her genie in a database and
oftentimes you get a hit that'sthird, fourth cousins.

(01:02:17):
None of us know who our third,fourth cousins are Very rarely,
do you?
I mean, maybe some people knowtheir second cousin, but Right
right right, I do know a fewsecond cousins, but most people
don't know their third andfourth cousins.
So the genealogist handlingthat case normally leaves it to
us to make any contacts.
And she said this is like ayoung man in his 20s in New

(01:02:39):
Jersey.
That's hitting as like a fourthcousin.
Do you mind if I just call thiskid?
And I said oh sure, no problem,I wouldn't do that if it was a
suspect DNA profile.
But this is a doe and we'retrying to identify this person.
And, interestingly enough,often in these genealogical
cases we run into eitheradoptions which skew our

(01:03:01):
information, which we have toovercome, the adoption Another
curveball.
Curveball, or children that wereborn out of wedlock and no one
knew about so kind of.
There's some curveball.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
Like a bastard child.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
Yeah.
Or a love child, or maybe, likeyou know, mom and uncle had a
tryst and all of a sudden dad'snot the dad, but the uncle is,
so there could be some somethingin the family history that
didn't wasn't disclosed before.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
So, um.
So she calls this young man andhe says well, I was adopted,
but my mom, um, I have been incontact with my, my birth family
, because my mom, I'm Portugueseand my mom really wanted me
connected with my culture.
And what rang wild was, youknow, the Portuguese community
here in San Diego.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Point Loma.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
Point Loma.
Where was the body found?
Point Loma?

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
So immediately I thought, oh my gosh, that's
exciting.
So this was about two years ago, it was right before the Fourth
of July holiday, and so Icalled the adopted mom and I
explained who I am and what Iwas doing.
And she says, yeah, well, Iknow, I know his like I can't
remember exactly which family,but I'm in contact.
His cousins, you know hisgrandparents were, you know we.

(01:04:10):
We were in contact with themand they were in Newark, new
Jersey, and which, unbeknownstto me, even though I didn't grow
up too far from there, is alarge Portuguese community.
And I thought, okay, well, nowwe're starting to connect some
dots here, even though they'redifferent.
New Jersey is from mainlandPortugal, the Portuguese here
are from the Azores Islands, sothey don't really intermingle

(01:04:34):
the two cultures of Portugal.
But I mean that to me was like,okay, well, there's something
here.
I come back into the officeafter the 4th of July holiday
and the Portuguese community inNewark, new Jersey, had solved
it for me.
They're that tight-knit of acommunity that the adopted mom
contacted the family that sheknew and said hey, could you ask

(01:04:55):
around and find out, is anybodymissing from 1973?
A female, this is about her age.
We did have a kind of a facialreconstruction of her, because
we had her head of what shelooked like, which was pretty
good, and I sent it to her andshe sent it out to the people
she knew in the Portuguesecommunity and, boom, the women

(01:05:17):
that are now in their seventiesand eighties all remembered a
female that went missing.
So she even went so far as tocheck um, the um, uh death
records for me and theobituaries, and sent me her
husband's obituary, which hadthe daughter's names on it, and
so what we learned?

(01:05:39):
Um, arminda da Silva was on it.
And so what we learned, armindada Silva was her name.
And so what we learned wasArminda was born and raised in
Portugal, married in Portugal,she gave birth to her daughters
in Portugal and then her and herhusband moved to Newark, new
Jersey, to relocate in thatPortuguese community.
And really I mean it's reallynot that far from Portugal If

(01:05:59):
you're in Newark.
I mean it's really not that farfrom Portugal.
If you're in Newark, new Jerseyit's a four hour plane ride and
but it's a very largePortuguese community.
And in 1973, arminda wentmissing and last she was known
to be with someone that sheworked with at a fabrication
company and that was hersupervisor and she had two
daughters.
So when I contacted thedaughters they're like yeah, it

(01:06:22):
really can't be my mother,because we have no connection to
San Diego, nothing, zilch.
My mother didn't speak English,she didn't have the means to
get a bus fare, she wouldn'tknow how to get on an airplane.
Like it can't be my mom.
And I said, well, do you mindif I come out and meet you and
take your DNA?
And they were very graciousbecause that's a heavy phone
call, and I took their DNA andwas able to match it to my Jane

(01:06:49):
Doe.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
The femur.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Yeah, and then identify her as Arminda Da
Silva-Ribero.
And it was very emotional fortheir family because, you know,
these young girls were five andnine when their mom went missing
and so here they are thinkingthat their mom just doesn't want
to be a mom.
That's kind of how they whatthey thought, that maybe she's
just unhappy being a mom anddecided to decided to leave the

(01:07:12):
family, when in all actuality,within two months of her leaving
, disappearing from Newark, newJersey, she was found dead here
in San Diego, and whoever did itobviously knew she could be
traced through her fingerprints,probably from her immigration
here, that they shaved off herfingertips.
So that case never would havebeen solved if it wasn't for
forensic, investigative geneticgenealogy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
When you match the DNA from the daughters to the
mom, is there room for error oris it like once?
It's a direct hit, it'slegitimate.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yes, and not just you know.
So it's a direct hit both inthe genealogical database but
also with the limited DNA thatwe had, that CalDOJ was able to
match the partial DNA profilethat we had for Jane Doe and the
daughter as a mother-daughterrelationship, but also the
factors involved, the factors ofa missing woman at the same
time that she's found.

Speaker 1 (01:08:05):
That is absolutely wild, it's wild.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
So her case is unsolved in the respect of
someone has not been identifiedas being the murderer and it's
going to stay open until we do.

Speaker 1 (01:08:16):
So what goes next?
Leads motives, suspects andstuff like that.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Yeah, so you know.
I contacted members of thePortuguese community here.
I went to one of their meetinghalls and showed her picture
around and no one recognized her.
I still don't have anyone herethat knows why she was here in
San Diego or how she even gothere.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
And the individual that she was last known to be
with was not Portuguese and soshe had very limited English,
and so her daughters are kind ofdumbfounded by that.
So I don't know was she?
Was she tricked to move here toSan Diego?
Did she come voluntarily?
Was she held hostage?
Nobody knows, and the lastperson that she was known to be
with we have not fullyidentified, and that person

(01:09:01):
likely is deceased based ontheir age unbelievable yeah, so
you know, at least we were ableto give absolutely some
information, you know, and it'sreally important that we
recognize that, even though Icall and say, oh, that is your
mom, it is an exceedinglyemotional moment and my heart

(01:09:21):
really, you know, it was kind oflike a wow, like this is, we're
really doing something here forpeople.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Do you believe they found closure?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
I think they released some feelings of.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
Abandonment.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
Yes, yes, and so I think in that respect, yeah.
They realized that my momdidn't leave me.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
She couldn't come back.
Yeah, I think it's hard to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
I think it's hard to hear, but I think it's also
really rewarding for them toknow that.
Okay, and I just wish we couldhave solved it before their
father passed away.
He passed away a couple ofyears before we solved it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
The father.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
So Arminda's husband.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Passed away before we were able to solve it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
Okay, so there was no way of even talking to him, or
no, but we did go back.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
We spoke to some family members and some people
that worked with her back in 73are still alive so we were able
to contact them.
Many of them still only speakPortuguese.
So I did have a lieutenant onour department that speaks
Portuguese and he are stillalive, so we were able to
contact them.
Many of them still only speakPortuguese.
So I did have a lieutenant onour department that speaks
Portuguese and he did a lot ofinterviews.
For me it's wild and it'sinteresting.
They all remember her and theyall remember her story.
So she was never forgotten.
She was never far from theirthoughts.

Speaker 1 (01:10:32):
Man, I know earlier you were talking about that you
would actually have to go toprison and interview suspects.
How would those types of stuffcome about?

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Again, that's just where the case takes you
sometimes, and I really do enjoygoing to prisons because it is
a different world and I thinkyou could feel the energy in the
air, you could just feel it,the intimidation of just walking
through those doors.
But it is a city of its own andso, yeah, multiple times we go

(01:11:05):
to prisons to interview suspectsand one time I was a little
taken aback.
You know it's, it can beintimidating and, uh, it's not a
great room to do interviews.
Sometimes it's just kind oflike the side office.

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Oh, absolutely, You're not getting.
You're not getting a good room.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
No, no.
And so, uh, there's a couple oftimes I was like you're not
going to be far right, like thisis a big mean dude I'm going in
here to talk to Um, but uh,yeah, I, I actually really enjoy
it.
You know, one of my uh again,I've been surrounded by
phenomenal detectives, and twoof them were Sandy Opplinger and
Tony Johnson.
And Tony Johnson is still mymentor.

(01:11:44):
He has 47 years in lawenforcement and he's getting
ready to retire.
He's still working.
He still works with me in coldcases.
And um Sandy had this case whenshe was a detective with our
agency, before going to thedistrict attorney's office and
she said I know, I'm confidentthat this guy murdered this
woman in a hotel downtown.
And so she said listen, youknow, I wrote a warrant for him

(01:12:08):
back then.
He was a sex registrant.
He failed to register and hedid something else and he's in
prison for life.
She said, before I retire,let's revisit this case.
So we did and we tested somemore clothes and I can't
remember what year the case was.
It had to have been probably inthe 90s.
We retested some of herclothing, the victim's clothing,
and this suspect's DNA cameback on a belt and it was a

(01:12:34):
suspect.
She always thought it was now.
Now we don't know.
It's in the room and it's closeto the body and she's like I
know.
I know he did it, you knowbased on her experience with him
, then him absconding when shetried to narrow down a story,
his, his criminal history.
So we went up to a prison up inLA and I can't tell you which

(01:12:56):
one it was.

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
Lancaster.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
Probably, it was probably Lancaster, and so we
were talking with him.
And now he's 80 and still inpretty good shape, and we were
talking about this case.
And you know, I think one of mystrongest suits is my ability
to interview people, and it'sbecause I don't come off as a

(01:13:18):
bitch and I don't come off as anasshole, I just come off as I'm
having a conversation.
I'm just trying to solve thiscase.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
It would be the best way to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
Yeah, absolutely so.
He's been in prison for 20years.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
That individual was in prison for a murder.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
No, I can't remember exactly, but it that individual
was imprisoned for a murder no,I can't remember exactly but it
had to do with some kind ofsexual assault or sexual
registration, something likethat.
So he was not getting out, andso Sandy and I were interviewing
him.
And there's just a moment inthe interview like oh, we're
close, like we're close, and sowe just kind of kept working on

(01:13:52):
him a little bit and finally hegoes oh all right, all right,
all right, I did it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
I did it.
I might as well just tell you Iliterally was like hold on,
let's back it up a little bit.
Yeah, you're in the interviewroom.
You have a partner yeah, andthen you have the, the inmate?
Yeah.
And how does the conversationstart?
Like, hey, I'm, I'm such andsuch from san diego pd.
How do they go?
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
so I usually kind of dress like this okay sometimes
even more casual.
Okay, and hey, you know we'rewith san diego pd and then I
just go off and start talkingabout anything else okay
anything else, it doesn't matter.
Oh, how is it in here?
How's the food?
How's live?
What do you been up to?
Typical interrogation skillsyeah, this is like.
I just want him to becomfortable talking right and
seeing me not as a threat, andthat's really important you know

(01:14:37):
, right so I think people, bythe time I'm done talking, they
don't realize wow, you're reallygonna arrest me like you're
really gonna do it.
So, um, so you know, justtalking with them.
And then we just said, hey,listen, this is why we're here.
And um, you were interviewedbefore.
This one's not a secret, sothat's kind of a good

(01:14:59):
opportunity to say we'rerevisiting this case.
And finally, after about anhour and 20 minutes, listen, we
know, you did it.
This is really not.
We're not really here as anexercise to get you to say
something that isn't true.
We already know, like we know,the facts are here, we're DNAs,

(01:15:20):
we know.
So you know you're really not.
You know you're not going totell us anything that we would
be shocked at.
And you know you could tell hewas just, he wasn't a dumb guy.
To be honest, I think he justknew like I'm not getting out of
here anyway could tell he wasjust, he wasn't a dumb guy to be
honest, I think he just knewlike I'm not getting out of here
anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:15:35):
What's the point?
So you, being good at your joband being able to, you could
already see the wheel spinningin his head like he's about to
give up the goods a hundredpercent and there was a couple
of times and you know, there'sthat hesitant pause and kind of
like the eye searching or justambivalence?

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
yes, and you think, oh damn, we're gonna get to get
this.
And you know, it's almost likeyou're holding your breath.

Speaker 1 (01:15:55):
Oh yeah, dude, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
And it's very hard not to just kind of go yeah.
So once he said it, we're like,yeah, okay, well, good, I'm
glad you finally told the truth,you know.
And so let's just walk backthrough the story again.
And inside I'm like don't smile, don't, don't even look at
sandy, because I know what she'sthinking and we're just gonna
just continue doing thisconversation.
And you know, he told us thewhole story, beginning to end,

(01:16:20):
and thanked us for coming outand spending time talking with
him and and thank you, guys.
Even you're so good at what youdo he did, he said thank you,
you know I I've been debating onwhether or not I should tell
the truth and you know, knowwhat I appreciate you coming out
.
Oh you're welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:16:35):
Is there anything else I can do?

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
for you today.
All right, have a nice day.
And we left and Sandy and I gotthe car and we went.
We're going in and out Likethis is celebration.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Animal style price.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
So you know.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
So what would happen next?
What would happen next?
Would you file charges with theDA?

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
Yeah, the DA's office .

Speaker 1 (01:17:05):
So we would still put the case together present it to
the DA's office and then they'dcharge him, bring him down to
San Diego and he pled guiltybefore prelim.
Yeah, because at that pointhe's like my life's over I've
been sitting with a secret.

Speaker 2 (01:17:12):
Yeah, I'm not getting out.

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
I'm not getting out Perfect timing.
She was cool about it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
Yeah, we weren't rude , we weren't jerks.
We had another case.
It is rare in my experience tohave someone plead guilty before
a prelim, but we did haveanother case of a guy, sam
Quinton, that I interviewedagain with Sandy and he denied,

(01:17:37):
denied, denied ever being withthis.
It was a 15-year-old boy insoutheast San Diego and denied,
denied, denied.
But I had his DNA and hiscriminal history in that same
area preceding this crime wasexceedingly violent.
He held some people captive anda hostage in a house and
sexually assaulted them.
And very, very violent guy andactually he was in prison for

(01:18:03):
narcotics and, because of theway the new laws are structured,
that he was going to have anopportunity to get out.
So we put that case to theforefront because it was a
juvenile from Southeast SanDiego and it was from 87.
And we revisit the case withtoday's technology, with DNA,
dna is super sensitive and boom,we got a hit that they didn't
get before.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Did you know he was going to get out soon?

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
And is that what initiated the yeah?
How does that work?

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
So you know he was in for narcotics violations and
now he was supposed to be inthere for basically the
remainder of his life.
But the laws in California arestructured and as you know,
they're letting a lot of peopleout of prison that should not be
out of prison Thousands.
So he was one of the peoplethat was going to be slated for
a revisit to resentencing.
What I'm asking is who caughtthat?

(01:18:52):
So the DA's office.
So we've got a greatpartnership with our DA's office
.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Shout out to the DA's office on that one.

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
Absolutely.
And again, we're very unique inSouthern California, San Diego
specifically.
We have tremendous support withour DA's office from Summer
Stephan down to the cold caseunit, which has dedicated
prosecutors.
Down to the cold case unit,which has dedicated prosecutors,
which prosecuting cold cases ismore challenging because you

(01:19:18):
have to know the laws from theyear of the crime.
Wow, you have to know thesentencing guidelines for the
years of the crime.
You have to know how to navigatewhen most of your witnesses,
including officers, are deceased.
You need to know how to getthat evidence into court, you
know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
So it's a challenge you got me on the edge of my
seat right now, so you got this.
Uh, dude who's has the heinoushistory of sexually assaulting?
Taking people hostage.
Yes, about to get out.
You have his dna, so whathappens next?

Speaker 2 (01:19:51):
So he's up in San Quentin, which I do.
I've been up there a coupletimes, weirdly enough, I like
going up there because it'shistory.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
It is old.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
It's exactly what you think it is, but you could feel
that energy in the air.
I don't know how to describe it.
It's like this bustling city ofconvicts and it's both
intimidating and interesting atthe same time.
But, um, so they brought himinto a room and he was a big
dude and I thought I mean bothSandy and I are thinking, okay,

(01:20:23):
where's our?
We've got one door to get outof, okay, and I know the guards
aren't far, but they're stillsix steps away.
This guy is a big dude andwe're going to confront him with
a murder.
And, um, but nothing, nothingnegative happened, thank
goodness.
And um, he uh denied no, not me.
And and some people will denybecause they don't want to be

(01:20:45):
associated with, maybe, somesexual activity- with somebody
that's a young child or of samesex.
So we can certainly understand.
We try to overcome thoseobstacles of people telling us
the truth and really there's.
You know, in this particularcase this young man was left in
like the trolley was being builtoff of Euclid so it was kind of

(01:21:10):
like a drainage ditch over inEuclid.
This 16, 15-year-old boy wasmurdered.

Speaker 1 (01:21:17):
What was the cause of death?

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
Gosh, I don't recall.
It might have beenstrangulation, but he was also
stabbed and he was mutilated,okay, so very violent.
And you know, he was last seenby his mom leaving the house to
go meet a friend what all kidsdo, yeah, and he didn't return
home.
But, um, so we knew that therewould be an obstacle to him

(01:21:40):
confessing because of the age ofthe victim and the same sex,
and that some people don't wantto be associated right with that
type of crime.
Um, but I have dna.
So you can't tell me you don'tknow him.
And you can't tell me you don'tknow him and you can't tell me
you weren't sexually active withthis person or being sexual
around this person.
I have, especially if I have,your semen.

(01:22:00):
You can't deny it.
So if you do go ahead and denyit, I'm okay with that too,
because I could prove that's alie.
So he's the other one that pledguilty to murdering him before
prelim and just spending therest of his life in prison to
murdering him before prelim andjust spending the rest of his
life in prison.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Jesus, that's crazy, yeah, so it's truly an honor and
a privilege to work cold cases.
It really is, because, honestly, I get to work with the
investigators of the past,investigators that worked
alongside of me and used today'stechnology to solve cases.

Speaker 1 (01:22:33):
Well, if nobody's ever thanked you, I want to
thank you for doing that.
Man, that's not easy.
It seems extremely challenging.
So many moving parts.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
It is challenging, but the excitement is the moving
parts.
Right, I'm not running out to acall on scene.
Right, I'm not getting calledout in the middle of the night
to a scene.
There's a lot of activity.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
I would much rather do with you.
I scene there's a lot ofactivity.
I would much rather do with you.
I buy those games at Target,solve the mystery murder and you
know the family game and Ienjoy solving puzzles.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
And you know that's the other thing.
So you know it's a challengefor law enforcement to go knock
on a door and say, hi, I'm adetective in homicide.
Can I talk to you about themurder of your neighbor?
A lot of people are like, no.
But when I go knock on a doorand I say, uh, but when I go
knock on a door and I say, hi,I'm a cold case homicide
investigator I get the sameresponse.
I love that show, come on inand people tell me a lot because

(01:23:20):
, because they see what we havedone.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
You know, there's a lot of TV shows out there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:29):
You know some of it's not accurate, but there's a lot
of interest out there for coldcases and people wanting to help
want.
People want to be meaningful,meaningful and helpful.
So very rarely do I havesomeone say they don't want to
talk to me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
So there's a lot of people that watch this channel,
this show.
What can you tell the viewers?
What can they do to help a coldcase homicide detective Like
such as?
One thing you mentioned was,hey, giving the approval for the
genetics Right.
What is something along thoselines that the public can do to

(01:24:00):
assist?

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
This is the number one thing you can help, and it's
not just solving a homicide,but it's also identifying a
missing person and it's alsoidentifying human remains that
have no name John and Jane Does.
And it's also identifying humanremains that have no name John
and Jane Doe's.
But if you've taken a test inone of these ancestral type

(01:24:24):
sites like Ancestry, 23andme,myheritage or FamilyTreeDNA,
please I would ask that youvoluntarily download your DNA
into GEDmatch and opt in for lawenforcement viewing.
And that's really criticallyimportant for our victims who
have family lineage in Mexico,because the databases are the

(01:24:44):
more data points we have, themore successful we have, and we
don't have a lot of data pointsin Mexico, and so we are a
border city, so we have a lot ofpeople who are from Mexico or
their grandparents or greatgrandparents, and so the more
data points we have from Mexico,the better chances we have of
identifying my 2004 baby doeright, yeah, against women and

(01:25:09):
children and innocent people oridentifying people who are
missing.
You know we may have theirremains, but we don't.
You know we don't have a nameto go with it, and perhaps that
is your cousin or your aunt oryour uncle, so you know
everybody wants to help withcold cases because they are
meaningful.

(01:25:29):
We don't want to forget thesevictims.
We shouldn't, and so you know.
If you're already in one ofthose databases, please consider
downloading into GEDmatch andevery one of those sites.
You could do it directly fromthat site.
There's instructions.

Speaker 1 (01:25:43):
Which is the one, which is the company that you
said works with the.

Speaker 2 (01:25:47):
Family Tree DNA.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
Family Tree.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
DNA Allows for law enforcement to input DNA for to
download into GEDmatch so wehave access to them.
Okay, but even still, we wouldneed that profile to be
downloaded into GEDmatch withthe opt-in for law enforcement
viewing.
And also consider we're notjust a border city but we're a

(01:26:10):
very transient city.
We have a large militarypresence here.

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
So people don't stay here sometimes but four years
and then they're gone.
So a lot of our cases tend togo out of San Diego.
So if you have family thatmaybe was here just for a short
time and then moved back toBoston or New York or wherever
they're from, there may besomething here that you can help
us with.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
Now, what about as far as children?
I know they're fingerprinted atbirth, but is there anything
that a parent can do to assist?

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
Well, I mean, I think , if you're talking about your
own kids, I mean for my own kids.

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
Yeah, your own kids.

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
To your own kid.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
I have a six-year-old daughter.
Is the reason why I'm askingyeah, so I would.

Speaker 2 (01:26:51):
I would take a dna swab from them and you could
just take a q-tip and swab theinside of their mouth and stick
it in in in a um envelope not a,not a plastic envelope, but
like just a regular, uh kind oflike a cardstock type envelope
and just stick it in your sockdrawer, right?
So something horrible happensyou have our dna immediately
unbelievable right.
So I do that, you know, I knowhow to you.

(01:27:13):
I know how to fingerprint andthere's a certain way to
fingerprint which is kind ofsuper cool where you dust the
entire hand.
You use fingerprint powder andyou dust the entire hand and
then you put sticky paper overthe hand and you just massage
that sticky paper all over thehand and then you peel it off
and you have this ginormousbeautiful handprint with the

(01:27:33):
wrist marks with your fingertipsand even the side tips.
You can do that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:39):
I'm going to do that for sure, because you know God
forbid anything.

Speaker 2 (01:27:43):
God forbid.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Be proactive.

Speaker 2 (01:27:45):
Proactive, and the faster we have access to that
information, the faster we canhelp Catch somebody.
Yeah, and then just you know,be smart with your kids, Talk to
them about.
Talk to them about if you feeluncomfortable around somebody,
then you know it's your time toleave.
You don't have to have anactual reason.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Hey, my daughter.
She's very intuitive.
She, I don't know like giftedwith reading people too, that's
great, yeah, yeah, for sure,that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:28:07):
And that takes courage to say, to say this
person makes me uncomfortable,I'm leaving.

Speaker 1 (01:28:11):
I'll watch her too and I'll be like, oh, you're on
your radar's good.

Speaker 2 (01:28:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
So, as we wrap it up, I'm blown away by this
conversation, if you can giveadvice to the females, young
females, because I believeyou're one of the first women
interviewers interviewees thatI've had.
So that's an honor.
What would you give them?
For instance, I have asix-year-old daughter.
She's like Daddy I want to be apolice officer.

(01:28:41):
What can you say about thecareer through your experience?

Speaker 2 (01:28:45):
So I will say I have been blessed with my experience.
I have been so fortunate.
Really, there's never been atime in my career that I thought
I don't want to do this anymore.
As a matter of fact, when Iapproached retirement I thought,
oh my gosh, I don't get to dothis anymore.
It really is a privilege and Iwould tell anyone that's getting
into the profession today isabsorb as much as possible, ask

(01:29:08):
a lot of questions, maintainyour skills through constant
training and even just to be apolice officer, you know that
decision really shouldn't bemade when you're you know, when
you got nothing else to do right.
It's a profession where wereally have a high ethical
standard and integrity isparamount in our profession.

(01:29:29):
We have to have people who havehigh integrity standards so you
know if you want to be in lawenforcement, they're really your
.
Decision-making when you're inhigh school is critical.
Who are you hanging out with?
What do they do?
And yeah, I get it that youknow certain drugs are legal now
, but is it?
Is it acceptable to do thosedrugs and be around children?

(01:29:51):
Is it acceptable to be arounddrugs and drive a car?
You've got to be mindful of allthese things.
Driving a car.
How are you driving that car,whether you're under the
influence or not?
Are you speeding?
Are you reckless driving?
All that matters.
So start thinking in highschool about what kind of cop do
you want to be?
Even if you don't become a copuntil you're 25, they're going
to look at your history.

Speaker 1 (01:30:16):
They right, you still they're gonna look at your
history.

Speaker 2 (01:30:18):
they're gonna look at your background.
Even if you don't want tobecome a cop, it's still good
not to fucking do drugs and wild, very true.
But I think there's adesensitization of all those
things for a variety of factors.
One is that legalizing so manydrugs, and then you have the
covid generation that was homeand bored, and then people who
normally wouldn't start dabblingin drugs Correct, yeah, there's
a lot, a lot of factors there.
But you know, I think it'sreally important that you find

(01:30:39):
what you're good at and you justhold onto it and get the most
out of it that you can.
And you know some people thinkthey want to be cops and they
start and they don't like it,and that's okay.
It's always okay to to pivot.
Go be an attorney, go workprobation, go do something else
meaningful for your community.
You know I knew my familyhistory and who I was.

(01:31:00):
We are public servants.
I'm not the finance person.
I'm not going to go on WallStreet and make millions of
dollars.
It's just not me, but I could bereally effective in my
community and really appreciateand enjoy the ride, and I am so
grateful for all of myexperiences and not all of them
have been great.

(01:31:20):
They've been really challengingand really, really, really
tough, but it's an honor to beable to do that for our
community.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
It really is Well, you did really good by honoring
your family legacy by leavingyour mark.

Speaker 2 (01:31:34):
In San.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
Diego, no less, so thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (01:31:36):
Yeah, you're welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:31:37):
Wow, so I'm going to wrap it up now, but I want to
thank you for coming onto theshow and we've got to have you
on some more for other stories.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
Yeah, I've got a couple of really good ones
Fingerprints.
Don't forget fingerprints.
I have two really goodfingerprint stories that I'll
save for later, really goodfingerprint stories that I'll
save for later.
But yeah, I really appreciateit being here.
Thank you so much, and I thinkthe more people that get to know
a real cold case investigator,maybe they'll be more willing to
help out.
Absolutely, if you get a phonecall from one of us,
authenticate who we are and thenmaybe help out.

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
Kill the beans man, yeah, cool.
Well, there you guys have it,folks.
Another banger.
I want to thank you guys forwatching.
If you loved what you saw, makesure you hit that subscribe

(01:32:26):
button.
Remember, keep pushing forward.
Unhinged line.
Hector's legend engraved livinglife raw, never been tamed.
From the hood to the truthentails pen.
Hector bra Bravo on hinge storynever ends.
Thank you.

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