May 26, 2025 • 57 mins
Murder can happen anywhere, even in the seemingly secure confines of an airport hotel filled with airline personnel. In this chilling episode of Murder Book, we delve into the brutal killing of Northwest flight attendant Nancy Ludwig during what should have been a routine overnight stay at the Detroit Airport Hilton.
The horror begins with multiple sightings of a suspicious man lurking through the hallways of a hotel predominantly occupied by airline crews. When experienced flight attendant Nancy Ludwig fails to appear for her morning shuttle, no one imagines the nightmare waiting behind the door of Room 354. What crime scene specialist Lynn Helton discovers there will haunt her for the rest of her career—a scene of such extreme violence that it "hung in the air and shouted at you."
Detective Dan Snyder, a methodical investigator with an unlikely background in newspaper circulation, arrives to find evidence of torture, sexual assault, and a killer who took time to shower before fleeing with his victim's belongings. The meticulous nature of the crime points to a predator of frightening calculation, who somehow managed to blend into an environment designed for transient airline employees. Most disturbing are the witness accounts—multiple flight attendants and hotel guests who encountered the killer before and possibly after the murder, yet couldn't prevent the tragedy or immediately identify him.
What makes this case particularly chilling is how the killer exploited the vulnerabilities inherent in the airline industry's routine—the predictable schedules, the generic hotel rooms, and the trust extended to those who appear to belong. Follow us through the painstaking investigation as detectives gather evidence that will take years and significant advances in forensic science to ultimately yield results. This isn't just a murder mystery; it's a sobering glimpse into how predators move among us, hiding behind ordinary appearances while harboring extraordinary malice.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis Part 5 of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
M Johnson, a Northwest flightattendant, had a long layover in
Detroit during the day onSunday February 17th.
On Sunday February 17th, theairline had a contract with the
(00:24):
Hilton Airport Inn, which wasacross I-94 from Metropolitan
Airport on Wick Road.
Large blocks of rooms werereserved for use by flight
attendants and pilots on layover, with anywhere from 50 to 100
Northwest employees checking ineach day Between Northwest and
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three other airlines.
About 90% of the hotel's 268rooms were reserved for flight
personnel.
Mostly overs involved spendinga night, but some were just for
the day.
Johnson was on what was called asit.
She was with the crew on aDC-10 out of Minneapolis and
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since they were laying over forfive hours, the company was
required to provide a hotel roomfor them to rest in.
Her crew, of course, got offthe airport shuttle, ran and
entered the lobby At the frontdesk.
They didn't find a clerk, butthey found their keys easily
enough.
A sign-in sheet was sitting onthe counter and the day clerk
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had prepared the sheet listing ajob description, flight number,
estimated arrival and departuretimes.
The first shift clerk alsoassigned room numbers.
The Hilton used Vanguard doorlocks, which required plastic
carts that were the predecessorto today's swipe carts.
They had holes punched in theminstead of a strip along one
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side.
The Northwest employees weresupposed to show their badges,
sign in and get the room keys,but on the morning of the 17th
the keys were just sitting therefor the grabbing next to the
sheet.
Johnson's crew joked about thelax security.
Well, didn't joke exactly.
Call it a joke On overnightstays.
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For security purposes,northwest prohibited the Hilton
from assigning employees roomson the first floor.
It was too easy for a thief toget in by a window.
But first floor rooms were okayfor daytime sits and that's
what Johnson crew got.
Johnson didn't feel like sittingaround the room with the other
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three.
She wanted to get a workout in,but it was a lousy, blustery
winter day out.
So she went to the hotel'sworkout room, but it was packed.
So she decided to go for a runon the hotel's four-story
stairwell.
Nothing like running stairs toget the heart pumping and the
pose elevated.
She would stay at the hotel, orshe had stayed at that hotel
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many times and was well-versedwith the stairwell.
She ran up for flights, walkedthen back down to save the
pounding on her knees, then ranback up.
She did this repeatedly.
About 1.30 pm, near the end ofher workout, she started what
she called her cool-down phase.
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She finished running on the topfloor and planned to walk the
two hallways of the L on thefourth floor to the opposite
stairwell, walk down to three,then walk the hallways to the
opposite stairwell and continuein that fashion until she got to
the ground floor.
Something cut her cool downshort.
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She opened the doorway on thethird floor and came face to
face with a young man.
He was near the concessionvending area and carrying a
canvas bag.
He had sandy hair and waswearing jeans and tennis shoes.
Something about him, beyond hisjust suddenly being there on
the opposite side of the doorway, startled her.
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She walked past him and,instead of continuing as planned
, she went straight to her room.
Something felt wrong to me andI quit my workout, she says.
When she entered her room, oneof her co-workers said, oh,
you're done early and she saidyeah, I ran into something and I
felt uncomfortable.
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Ling Ellisworth checked in withMartha Hook and they both were
flight attendants, and when theywent up together to their rooms
on the third floor.
They both put their things intheir rooms and then walked down
the hallway to the ice machine.
There was a guy acting odd atthe candy machine.
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He had sandy hair, was wearingblue jeans and tennis shoes,
holding a duffel bag close tohis body.
He didn't seem to be looking atcandy choices.
It was more like he was hidinghis face.
He was almost pressed to themachine his back to them.
They got their eyes and walkedback to their rooms.
Ellis Worth could hear the manwalking down the carpeted
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hallway behind them.
When she got in her room shelooked out through her peephole.
The man was standing with hisback to her door, staring at
Hook's door across the hall, andthen he moved on.
Monday night, upon arriving homein Minneapolis, ann Johnson got
a call from her father.
(05:32):
He wanted to know did you hearwhat happened in Detroit?
Lynn Nelms, like Nancy Ludwig,was an add-on flight attendant
for Northwest.
She wasn't part of a regularcrew but was added to full
flights to fulfill staffingrequirements or added to flight
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segments at mealtimes.
In industry lingo, she would beeither a meal chaser or an
aircraft chaser.
She would be either a mulechaser or an aircraft chaser.
Like Ludwig, she was the onlycrew member of her flight
staying over in Detroit, likeLudwig.
About 8.45 pm Sunday night shemade her way by herself through
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the terminal to the driveway outfront to away the airport
Hilton shuttle van.
The van pulled up in the curb,the driver got out, put her back
in the storage area in the rearof the van and Nelms got on
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sitting directly behind thedriver's seat.
She was the only one on board.
Then Lewick got on and satdirectly behind her.
Nelms knew her but didn'trecognize her because Louis had
stopped over to avoid hittingher head as she entered the van
and Nancy from her seat asked isthat you, lynn?
And Nelms answered yes.
Who is it Turning to look?
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Because it was dark in the vanand she said it's me, it's Nancy
, and so they say hi.
A man came on board and, thoughthe van was nearly empty, sat
next to Nancy On the 10-minutedrive to the Hilton.
Nelms and Ludwig caught eachother up on recent flights and
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how things were going.
Nancy's day had been a bitch.
Weather delayed her flight outof Minneapolis.
She got to Las Vegas late, toomuch racing around.
She was whipped At 41, maybeshe was getting a little old for
this add-on business and theytalk about a mutual friend.
The man sat silent.
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Nums thought it odd that hewould sit next to someone on a
nearly empty van, especially ifhe didn't know who he was
sitting next to.
Since he didn't join theconversation, it was clear he
didn't know Nancy.
Nelm thought he looked stern.
He had a look on his face thatshe would remember for years.
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She said he just looked mad andlooked intense and he was just
so focused, she would say morethan a decade later.
And he kept looking sideways atNancy.
And Lynn was sure of one thingthat he was not an airline
employee.
Even given a bad day, a badflight with demanding passengers
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, no attendant would have satthere silently.
He would have had something tocontribute to the conversation
At the hotel.
The three passengers got out.
Nancy and Lynn got their bagsfrom the rear of the van and
wheeled them into the lobby.
Nancy and Lynn got their bagsfrom the rear of the van and
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wheeled them into the lobby.
As Nancy and Lynn walked to thefront desk to check in.
Chatting on the way, lynnforgot about the man and later
she would remember he didn'tcheck in David Bennett, the
front desk and night audit clerkfrom 3211, asked them which
flights they came in on andpassed them a sign-in sheet and
their plastic key cards.
Nancy and Lynn rode the elevatortogether.
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A hotel employee with a roomservice card rode with them to
the second floor and they wenton to the third.
They were no longer justengaging in idle chatter.
Nancy told her about the deathof both of her parents recently
and about the added stress oftwo tubal pregnancies that she
suffered through.
That wing of the Hilton waslaid out in a long L.
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The elevator opened onto thelonger hallway.
As they walked down the hallway, lynn asked if Nancy wanted to
meet her at 8 am in the lobby sothey could ride back to the
airport together.
Nancy's flight left a littlelater and she thought briefly
about trying to catch a littleextra sleep, but then agreed to
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meet her.
Lynn's room 341, was at the endof the first hallway.
They said good night at thedoor.
Nancy's room was 354 and it wasat the end of the shorter
hallway to the right.
Just past 354 was the doorwayto the emergency exit stairwell.
(10:13):
Ling was in the lobby the nextmorning at 8.
Nancy was supposed to get a7.30 wake-up call and meet her
in the lobby.
Nancy was late.
Lynn talked to another flightattendant she knew as they
waited for the van.
When it pulled up, lynn toldthe attendant to go on without
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her.
She wanted to wait a bit morefor Nancy For the next van.
There was a handful ofattendants waiting, still no
Nancy.
Lynn decided she would betterget going.
We'll be right back.
Frederick Roybo was also aNorthwest flight attendant.
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He got to the Hilton about 15minutes before Nelms and Ludwig.
He too was an add-on attendantand he had to be out early in
the morning.
He dropped his stuff off inroom 353, the second to last
room on the left side of thecorridor.
Rohrbaugh got a bucket of ice atthe machine down the hall and
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returned to his room, not sureyet if he would read for an hour
or watch TV before turning thelights out.
He opted for TV and at 9exactly he turned it on.
Moments later he heard twohigh-pitched noises, the first
higher and louder than thesecond.
Screams, possibly, or kidssquealing, maybe a TV in a
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nearby room.
In most hotels it's not unusualto hear odd noises at 9 pm, but
this wing of the Hilton wasreserved for airline employees
and Rohrball knew from pastexperience.
Usually very quiet People werethere to sleep and relax, not
party.
Alarmed he went to his door andlooked out the peahole.
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He saw nothing in the hole.
He heard no further sounds.
He returned to his bed andcalled down to the front desk
for an early wake-up call.
He needed to be gone by 6 am.
Phil Arcia's flight from Bostonhad gone smoothly, but his
check-in at 10.15 hadn't.
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Flight from Boston had gonesmoothly, but his check-in at
10.15 hadn't.
The heater didn't work in theroom and that he was assigned on
the second floor.
It was freezing in there andthe only room they had left was
on the first floor, room 129.
The Hilton wasn't supposed togive Northwest employees first
floor rooms, but Arcea didn'tfeel like making any show of it.
Ironically, the heat wasblasting in that room.
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It hit him in the face when heopened the door and he set his
luggage down and went straightover to the controls to shut it
off.
The heater was under the windowand the curtains were open, and
outside, in the big parking lotbetween the hotel and the
freeway, he could see a mancarrying a burgundy suitcase, a
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color required by Northwest.
The parking lot was well litand a new snowfall was thick on
the ground, turning night nearlyinto day.
The man went to the trunk of abrownish gold Monte Carlo.
Arcea was a car buff and hewould recently had a roommate
who owned a Monte Carlo, so hewas sure of the make.
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Briefly, arcea assumed the manwas a flight attendant, but only
briefly.
Arcea would consider himself atypical male flight attendant
very well groomed, prideful indress and appearance, whether in
or out of uniform.
He said quote after flying forso many years, you can tell a
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flight attendant when they areout of uniform.
We have a look.
The way we dress, the way wepresent ourselves.
We are always dresseddifferently and groomed
differently.
We didn't have the look.
He stood out like a sore thumbEnd quote.
The man's hair was messy.
He wore sneakers a definitefashion, no-no.
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He had a hooded sweatshirt withthe hood down and his pants
were rolled up at the cuffs wayup, like maybe five inches worth
A look.
If there ever was one Dressedlike that, he couldn't even be a
pilot, according to Arcia,because pilots are the worst.
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They have no sense of fashion,according to Arcia.
They're hicks when it comes todressing.
And he was one step below thatand a flight attendant would be
rolling his luggage, notcarrying it under his arm.
Then there was the way the manjust threw the luggage into the
trunk instead of setting it in.
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The man left the Monte Carlo andheaded back across the parking
lot.
Oddly, he left the car trunkopen and Arcia thought that that
was stupid, because that's agood way to lose something.
He stood by the window being agood Samaritan, making sure that
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no one came by to stealanything.
The men walked to Arcia's rightand around the corner of the
building.
Arcia was on the long hallwayof the L, around the corner of
the building, at the far end ofthe shorter part of the wing,
the emergency exit opened uponto another part of the parking
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lot.
The door was locked at night,but no alarm sounded if someone
opened it from inside.
Guests routinely propped thedoor open if they planned on
returning right away, savingthemselves a long walk to the
rooms from the lobby entrance.
Arceo stood at the windowwatching the Monte Carlo until a
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few minutes later the manreturned, this time carrying
what looked to be a bundle ofclothing and what was clearly
flight attendant stuff,including a beige overcoat with
a burgundy lining.
The way the man just threw theclothes into the trunk caught
Arceus' eye.
No concern for them whatsoever.
According to Arcia quote ouruniforms then were the most
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hideous uniforms we ever had.
But you wouldn't crush it intoa bowl and throw it into a dirty
trunk, end quote.
A lot caught Arcia's eye the waythe man was dressed, his height
5'11", his weight 175 to 180pounds.
His hair light and cut short.
His race white.
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His age no more than 30.
The man made three-bar trips tothe hotel and back to the Monte
Carlo, always with somethingbunched under the arm.
The man closed the trunk justthen.
Another car pulled into theparking lot.
The man seemed to freeze.
He stood there motionless.
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After the car passed him he gotin the Monte Carlo and drove
off, despite all Arce had seen.
There were logical explanations.
Detroit is a major hub forNorthwest and many attendants
either live in the area or rentcheap rooms to use as a home
away from home.
Perhaps he was a spouse or afriend of an attendant and was
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picking him or her up or helpingexchange dirty clothes for
clean.
You couldn't very well call thefront desk and complain about
the way someone threw clothinginto a car.
Arcea went to bed.
He had an early flight toBoston.
When he got there someone askedhim if he had heard the news.
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It was a busy morning for JoanSweet, one of the Hilton's mates
.
The hotel had had a busy nightwhich meant a lot of rooms to
clean for the next round ofcheckings.
She had a list of checkouts anddid those rooms first.
While she was working, thoseothers checked out, opening up
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more rooms for cleaning.
Finally, at maybe 12.40 pm, shewas down to the last few.
Room 354 was scheduled to beempty.
Its occupant had left at 7 amwake-up call and was supposed to
be gone by 8, but she hadn'tchecked out and the Do Not
Disturb sign hung from thedoor's exterior handle.
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So she probably had been in arush this morning and just
caught the shuttle van withoutbothering to wait in line for
checkout.
As for the sign, it didn't meanmuch to Sweet because most
people who put them out neverbothered to bring them back in.
She knocked on the door noresponse.
Knocked again, nothing.
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Hello, maid, she said.
She opened the door and crackedand said again, maid, but there
was silence.
The room was very dark, just aglow from the TV.
She flicked the light switch onby the wall near the door.
The room remained black.
She felt her way to the heavydrapes, pulled them partially
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open and turned around.
At first she thought she hadscrewed up, that she had walked
in on the woman sleeping on thefar bed, that she had not been
loud enough at the door.
And then she realized she wassurrounded by blood Blood
everywhere On the walls, thefloor, the bed next to her, the
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furniture, and that the womanmust be dead.
She fled from the room.
Paul Janiga, the Hilton's chiefengineer, was in the office on
the ground floor when he got acall from the third floor maid.
She was frantic.
There was a body on the bed inroom 354.
Janiga's first thought washeart attack, something natural
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and peaceful.
A placid body on the bed.
She's been killed, said themaid.
Janiga hurried to the room.
The do not disturb sign wasstill on the handle.
He opened the door and flickedthe switch nearby, but the light
didn't come on.
The lamp that it worked hadbeen unplugged and the cord sat
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on top of the wall counter.
The room was gloomy, despitethe light coming in from the
windows and the glow from the TV, which was turned to CNN.
Desert Storm was on Soon therewill be other non-war news for
the cable and network folks totalk about.
None were news for the cableand network folks to talk about.
He went to the windows, fullyopened the curtains and turned
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around.
He saw a lot of blood.
On the bed.
Closest to him, on the far bed,he saw bedding bunched up into
a pile, a foot stuck out of thepile.
At the opposite end he saw ahead and a gaping wound on the
neck.
He went over to the body andtouched the heel.
Part of him said this is aprank, it's not a real body.
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But the heel was real.
He touched the neck looking fora pulse.
There was none.
He left the room, closed thedoor, went down to tell his
manager.
The manager called the police.
Janiga went back up to the roomand waited outside the door so
he could open it for them assoon as they arrived.
It was President's Day, but theholiday would soon be over for
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the Romulus PD.
We'll be right back.
Michael Giroux didn't have muchseniority with the Romulus
Police Department, which was whyhe was working.
February 18, president's Day,when the call came in from the
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Hilton at 1.02 pm that there wasa body in room 354,.
He was sent to the scene.
Several hotel employees were inthe hallway and one of them let
him in.
The TV was on, giving an eerielight to the otherwise darkened
room.
He saw a woman lying face down,propped up at the waist by a
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stack of pillows.
There was blood everywhere by astack of pillows.
There was blood everywhere.
He called for other officers tojoin him at the scene and began
taking 35 millimeter andPolaroid photos.
Dan Snyder quiet, spoken, calmand methodical had an unlikely
background for a homicidedetective.
He had worked 17 years in thecirculation department for the
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Detroit News and was vested fora Teamster pension before he
decided to try his hand atpolice work.
He started as a paperboy at age12 in the Down River Detroit
suburb of Southgate and workedhis way up to district station
manager, direct station managerIn the 50s and 60s, when
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newspapers made their profits onthe labors of young boys
peddling their bikes around theneighborhood with canvas bags of
paper strapped to thehandlebars or fenders, station
managers were some of thegruffest guys in capitalism, not
Snyder.
The kids actually liked him,including young Mike San André.
San André thought the world ofhis boss enough so, in fact,
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that years later he would go towork for him as a rookie cop in
Romulus.
Among other jobs Snyder had hadwith the paper was as a jumper
on a truck throwing outboundaries of papers at stops.
A fellow jumper was KenCockrell, who would go on to
become something of a Detroitlegend, a black activist in the
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turbulent 60s, who later becamea prominent Detroit attorney and
then a city council member.
Snyder worked his way up todriver, then to station manager,
making good wages with greatFrench benefits.
He had married his high schoolsweetheart, started a family and
bought a house in a newsubdivision in Southgate.
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The future seemed set, exceptfor some reason or another he
had always wanted to be a cop In.
A neighbor down the street fromhis new house was a Wayne
County sheriff who told him theywere hiring.
Snyder, went down, took thetest, passed it, got on a list
and two years later, on March 15, 1976, at the age of 29,
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started his new career at thecounty jail downtown.
In 1981, he was assigned to thesheriff's office at Metro
Airport, but he was laid offsoon after.
Romulus was a young city then,not a lot of residents, mostly
just a bunch of farmlandsurrounding the airport.
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For 10 years Wayne Countysheriffs had patrolled the city,
but about the time Snyder waslaid off, the county
commissioners decided that itwas time for the city to hire
its own police force.
Snyder applied and startedworking in Romulus in November.
On February 18, 1991, he was adetective sergeant.
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As Romulus had grown and hiscoin fear turned into
subdivisions, so too had itspolice force to 50 members.
But just two detectivesergeants handled all the
investigations, from back checkcases to felonious assaults, to
embezzlement, to robberies, tomurder.
Snyder was a good dresser,favoring tweed sport coats and
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coordinated slacks.
Good dresser, favoring tweedsport coats and coordinated
slacks.
With his neatly groomed, sandyhair and trim mustache he looked
, wrote one reporter, more likea literature professor than a
detective.
Snyder and his wife Jean wereputting the day off to good use,
meeting with someone to put adown payment on five acres of
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land in a nearby Huron township.
At 1.20 pm Snyder got a page.
He asked the people selling theland if he could use their
phone and call into the station,and the dispatcher informed him
that they got a body at theairport Hilton.
He and his wife raced to theRamla station where he picked up
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a police car and drove to thehotel.
Arriving at 1.45 pm, giroux ledhim into room 354.
The first thing he saw was thebody covered by a bedspread, her
rear trussed up in the air, herfeet sticking out.
And then he saw the blood,everywhere Blood.
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There was a partial bloodyfootprint just inside the door,
a bloody washcloth by the sinkin the bathroom and a pool of
bloody water in the bathtubwhere it looked as if the
perpetrator had taken a showerto clean up.
Snyder moved further into thehotel room.
There was no blood.
Between the entryway and thefirst bed, between the far bed
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and the window and on the threewalls surrounding the bed and on
a chair, a table and a dresser.
There was a lot of blood.
It looked as if she had bled todeath on the bed by the window
than been picked up, bedding andall and carried to the other
bed.
The way she was propped up,snyder thought the killer might
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have had sex with her after shehad died.
He went back to the body andlooked at it closely.
Her head was nearly severed.
Her face was severely beatenand bruised, with what looked to
be numerous knife wounds andpinprick-type holes in her skin.
Her hands were lacerated fromthe fight she put up against the
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knife.
Some of her fingers nearlysevered too.
Snyder knew this was bigger thanRomulus PD.
He had his own crime sceneinvestigator.
He could have called in andthere might be noces out of
joint if he didn't.
But he made an immediatedecision to call the Michigan
State Police Crime Lab.
His people had plenty ofexperience dealing with low
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lives mostly drunks and druggiesand prostitutes working at the
airport, hotels and city barsbut something this bad at the
Hilton at the airport where thekiller could have fled by now to
any place in the world no, forthis case they would need all
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the help they could get.
The state police would have ateam of crime scene veterans to
work the scene.
He called their Northvillecrime lab and told them what he
had.
It was a decision that wouldpay off, but not for more than a
decade.
He also called to in hispartner Gordy Maleniak.
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Maleniak's pager went off as heand his wife were coming out of
an afternoon movie.
His holiday was over too.
We'll be right back.
Snyder had told him it was a badscene, but nothing prepared
Malignac for what he saw.
When he arrived about 2 pm, danwas waiting for him in the hall
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and when he got there they dida walkthrough before the state
police arrived.
Dan had said she had severewounds to the neck, but that was
an understatement.
Blood was splattered over thewalls, the bedding, the
furniture, the floor.
It was like nothing he had everseen or would see.
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It was by far the worst.
From the blood on one bed itwas clear she had been killed
there and moved to the secondbed she was face down, buttocks
propped up in the air on a bunchof pillows and bedding.
You could see dry semen thathad run out of her vagina had
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run out while she had been onher back on the other bed and
dried.
So now when you look at it, itlooked as if it had run up, not
down.
It struck Melaniac that thekiller had posed her to look
that way.
He was making a statement byleaving her in that position.
Milenia looked at the TV Desertstorm.
(30:35):
There was blood around the sinkand there was a pot of pink
water in the bottom of thebathtub a ghastly residue of the
room's last shower.
There was a bloody washcloth ontop of the vanity by the sink,
so the killer had been coolenough to clean up.
There wasn't any luggage, noclothes, no ID.
Snyder and Malenia backed outof the room.
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Malenia went knocking on doorsto see who was still there and
who had heard anything by now.
Chances were that most peoplehad checked out and headed off
who knew where Anywhere in theworld.
They had a name from the hotelmanager, nancy Ludwig, but that
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was about it no ID, noconfirmation of anything.
Malenia had little luck findingguests and move on to employees
.
He talked to the maid who foundher.
He talked to two persons at thefront desk.
About 2.45, the state crime labfolks arrived.
It was time to back to room 354.
(31:43):
Lynn Helton had reasons to smileas she put away her groceries
at her home in Wixom, a suburbnorthwest of Detroit whose rapid
change from farmland to cityhad been sparked by a sprawling
Ford Motor stamping plant thatwas no longer out in the middle
of nowhere.
(32:03):
It was a holiday for one,nowhere.
It was a holiday for one Foranother.
She was two months pregnantwith her second daughter and
thinking about breaking the newsat work now that those risky
first few weeks had passed.
Wixson was a convenient placeto live for those that they
ought to plant and a good placefor others to buy what the
(32:24):
realtors call starter home.
Hilton and her husband Tomcouldn't afford to live where he
worked as a cop in the nearbyvery affluent suburb of West
Bloomfield.
They couldn't afford Wixom andit was just up I-96 from
Northville where Hilton workedas a crime scene specialist and
(32:45):
serologist for Michigan StatePolice.
The phone rang.
It was her lab director, jimHoncher, ending her holiday.
In those pre-sale phone days hehad been having a tough time
reaching his crime scene crewwho were out enjoying their day
off, and was relieved to findLynn at home their day off.
(33:10):
And was relieved to find Lynnat home.
They had been in homicide atthe airport, hilton and he and
he filled her on what little heknew.
A flight attendant on layoverfrom Minnesota found by a
housekeeper Pretty nasty scene.
She drove the few miles over tothe state police crime lab on
Seven Mile Road, one mile southof the road that Eminem would
(33:33):
later make famous.
Haunter had been able to reachone other crime scene tech
fingerprint expert, detectiveSergeant John Terry, and the two
of them got in the state-issuedRattatrap silver van and headed
south on I-275 to I-94.
The two freeways intersectedjust west of the airport.
(33:55):
There were no seats in the backof the van, the space loaded
with gear.
Hilton had graduated fromDetroit's Mercy College in 1982
with a BS in chemistry, then gother master's in forensic
chemistry a year later from theUniversity of Pittsburgh.
Pitt has one of the bestforensic programs in the world
(34:19):
and its graduates are highlyrecruited.
Hilton was offered a job doingdrug screening and analysis in
Dade County in southern Floridathe very definition of job
security in one of the drugtrafficking centers of the world
.
But she was engaged to bemarried to Tom and wanted to
return home.
Her heart set on the statepolice.
(34:41):
While she waited for a job toopen up, she worked first as a
waitress a novel profession.
Everything you learn in lifeyou can learn from waitressing,
according to her.
Then the Federal Food and DrugAdministration in downtown
Detroit, inspecting everythingfrom potato chips to soy-based
infant formula to penicillin.
(35:02):
She also did drug screening forthe medical examiner's office
in suburban Oakland County.
After two and a half years, in1985, she was hired as a
civilian serologist with thestate police and assigned to the
Northville lab.
Her first murder scene had itsdark, decomical moments.
(35:27):
Scene had its dark, decomicalmoments.
She said, quote I rememberbeing scared, steph, not because
of what I would see, butbecause of how I would react.
I didn't want to be anythingless than professional.
I didn't want to get there andcry or throw up end quote.
This latest one would be fartoo gruesome for humor.
(35:48):
She didn't either.
She worked the scene.
Each crime scene investigatorhas a specialty, but they all
pitch in on other tasks tooShooting videos, taking
Polaroids, 35mm shots, makingsketches.
The evidence said the scenedidn't require much forensic
detective work.
Police found a baseball cap anda pair of glasses, both
(36:14):
belonging to the murderer.
They found something else.
He left behind his hearing aid.
Turns out it was thefather-in-law.
His daughter had long beenphysically abused by her husband
, something his wife anddaughter had kept secret from
him.
The daughter had beenhospitalized for a hysterectomy
(36:35):
and within hours of theoperation the husband had shown
up demanding sex at the hospitalbed.
The wife turned him down then,fearing a beating.
When she got home, told hermother.
This time, the mother told herhusband he had gone over to
(36:55):
confront his son-in-law.
An argument ensued and he wouldshut him dead.
Finding the hearing aid mightnot be slap your thighs a row a
row, but when you make yourliving at violent crime scenes.
You take your humor where youcan find it At the Hilton.
(37:19):
A uniformed Romulus cop led themto room 354.
The door was open.
Snyder gave them an overviewand then he and Melania went in
with them.
The hotel manager and twoNative Airlines officials
(37:41):
remained out in the hall as heldto look in through the open
doors.
She could see part of the bodyon the bed to the right.
The procedure was that she andTerry would work the scene,
gathering blood, semen,fingerprint, fiber evidence,
shoot a video, take rolls ofphotos but leave the body
(38:02):
undisturbed After the severalhours or so it would take them
to do that.
After the several hours or soit would take them to do that,
they would call the countymedical examiner's office in
downtown detroit, one of thebusiest emmy's offices in the
world.
The emmy's crew would arrivewithin an hour, at which point
they would roll nancy lowickonto her back, gather whatever
(38:24):
evidence presented herself, letthe em ME people make the
preliminary determination ofmanner and cause of death and
then have them take the bodyback to the morgue for the next
day's autopsy.
That was the procedure.
They had that part of it down.
(38:46):
What Helton didn't have down andwould never get over was the
violence that filled the room,literally and metaphorically.
Helton's first task wasshooting a video of the scene.
Seven minutes of silence.
That screams its violence.
It's violence and these aresome of the notes that they took
(39:14):
.
It says it starts benignly along shot from outside hallway
of the open door to room 354.
Then the camera slowly entersthe room and peers into the
bathroom On the immediate rightdoor have opened light on.
There are drops of red on thebright white tile floor.
The room is tackedly decoratedGreen floral wallpaper, bright
(39:39):
yellow counter, bright drops ofblood in the sink.
Looking down the short hallwaynow from the door to the room
proper.
On the left a long, narrow,wall-mounted desk lamp, hotel
stationery, small white plasticice bucket, tv.
(40:00):
On the corner to the right, aright foot sticking out, a right
foot sticking out, work in.
Zoom toward first bed, right armhanging of the right side, the
(40:23):
body on one bedspread covered bya secondary floral bedspread,
covered by a secondary floralbedspread, now half red, with
big blotches.
Pant to the other bed rustyorange blanket, bow up, white
sheet, stained red.
Behind it a window with gauzy,sheer drapes.
(40:47):
Pull shut, heavy drapes, pullopen, zoom in on window and wall
.
Two orange chairs to the rightsurround a round formica table.
Thick blood drops on the wallon the table on each chair, hurl
out and around the room duringthe mayhem.
Pan to wall behind the bed.
(41:09):
Zooming on painting behind thebed nearest the window.
Numerous blood drops on theglass.
Pan back to the bed with thebody and zoom in on
blood-saturated white bath matthat could cover her face that
(41:35):
there is a large gap in hermouth.
Hilton, never meticulous, turnsthe camera off, leaves the room.
Does another take to make sureshe hasn't missed anything.
Take to make sure he she hasn'tmissed anything.
Shut off door.
Zooming in on number 354.
(41:56):
Slowly enter room.
Turn to the right.
Zoom in on while white tile anddrops of blood.
Zoom in on drops of blood onthe yellow uh counter and in the
sink down the the shorthallways, right foot sticking
out, pant to head and zoom in onright hand fingers nearly
(42:18):
severe to her furious fight toavoid death.
Zoom in on bloody bath mat overthe face on bloody bath mat
over the face.
Zoom in on the smallwall-mounted table behind the
two beds.
Drops of blood were on it andthe wall behind it.
(42:45):
Zoom in on blood on the glass,on the painting over the other
bed, on the wall next to it, onthe two orange chairs, the table
, the wall next to the window,on the front of the well-mounted
heater.
To the left of the window,blood everywhere.
(43:06):
Some guy is driving a car onthe TV.
Big head is in profile Pan tothe long, well-mounted desk,
drops of blood next to the whitestationery along the front and
top of the desk and fade toblack off the desk and fade to
(43:29):
black.
So now Helton took numerousPolaroids and several rolls of
35mm film.
Then, as she took dozens ofsamples to be tested later back
at the lab, taking swabs fromLudwig's buttocks and vagina
with a sterile cotton swab andcutting fibers from various
surfaces, terry went to workpainstakingly, shining a laser
(43:57):
light about the room tohighlight otherwise invisible
fingerprints.
They had been dusted andphotographed.
If evidence was wet, theyneeded to get it dry.
The quicker it dried, the lessdegradation to any DNA it
contained.
They didn't put samples inplastic, which degrades
(44:20):
materials, but in permeablepaper envelopes paper envelopes.
Bedding was part in large paperbags as it was the bath mat and
had been wrapped about hernearly severed neck.
(44:43):
Back at the lab the beddingwould be laid out in the drying
rooms, or large, clean.
Let me see how do I put this.
(45:03):
So if the evidence was wet,they needed to get it dry.
So the quicker they dry, theless degradation to any DNA it
(45:27):
contained.
So what they did is they put itin permeable paper envelopes,
something big or large, such asthe bedding that was put in
large paper bags, as was thebath mat that had been wrapped
(45:48):
around her nearly severed neck.
Back at the lab, the beddingwould be lay out in the drying
room and they do that by layingon Lord, laid the bedding on top
of large, clean sheets ofbutcher paper, put off huge
rolls and the cotton swabs wouldbe broken off their sticks and
(46:11):
placed into cryovials, which areplastic tubes about one and a
half inches tall that werelabeled and frozen to be used as
evidence when and if themurderer was ever caught.
(46:31):
Hilton did her work calmly,methodically, no trace of how
disturbed she really was.
She had worked over other nastycrimes with Snyder one
involving the rape of an18-year-old month girl by the
mother's boyfriend, which rippedthe girl open so badly she had
(46:54):
to have a colostomy, and othermurders without him, for example
one of a woman beaten to deathso violently by her grandson
because she wouldn't give himdrug money that he had broke a
cast iron pan into pieces on herskull, but nothing would
(47:18):
approach the violence she feltnow and her reaction to it.
It wasn't until all the aspectsof the scene came together and
you really look at the body andrealize everything that had
happened to her that you couldfeel the violence in an
overpowering scene.
The violence hung in the airand it shouted at you.
(47:43):
It was the only crime scenethat ever made her feel that way
.
And the other thing that shesays is that you would have to
be a monster to do what this mandid to Nancy Ludwig and the
(48:07):
whole process he put her through.
A long, thick, heavy men'sathletic tube sack of
considerable volume had beenstuffed into her mouth, forcing
her lips to distend.
Her hands had been bound withtwine.
She clearly had put up aferocious fight and the
(48:31):
defensive wounds on her handswent to the bone.
The degree to which she foughtwas so striking, according to
Helton.
Just seeing the wounds on herhands, it was impossible to
avoid reliving what she wentthrough.
She inflicted some of her ownfacial wounds, scratches made
(48:57):
while trying to remove the gagthat was suffocating her while
she aspirated on her own blood.
There was bruising all over herface and her eyes had been
blackened from her beating.
There were pinpricks on herface where the killer had
(49:23):
lightly jabbed her with thepoint of a knife, playing with
her.
After having gotten her gag andbound, there was an elongated z
, almost like the mark of thetvl character sorrow above her
left knit um nipple.
(49:46):
Once the killer had gotten herunder control, he had played
with her.
She was tortured over a periodof time.
There were so many controllingwounds, the knife marks on her
face, all of the scrapes, andthen there was the wound that
killed her, a slashing of herthroat that would have
(50:08):
decapitated her but for herspine.
So cutting through wouldn'thave been a quick and easy
process because it's more sewingthan cutting.
So the killer used a serratedknife and you could see the soul
(50:30):
marks that it made on Nancy'sflesh.
There was blunt force trauma toher left, temporal and mid
forehead areas.
There was so much blood thateven though she had been killed
the night before, much of it wasstill wet.
Around the neck it was clear shehad been raped while on her
(50:52):
back on the far bed.
Semen had drained out of hervagina and after a period of
time long enough for the semento dry completely, the body had
been carried over to the otherbed, turned over, propped up by
four pillows, so that thebuttocks were in the air, her
(51:13):
arms dangling off the bed so shecould have been raped again
Afterwards.
The killer had smeared hissemen on her buttocks.
On her buttocks, though Heltonhad no doubt what she was
(51:33):
looking at.
A test at the scene confirmedthat it was semen.
They found bits of human fecalmatter on the floor between the
beds four racing-sized pieces.
What to make of that?
At some point, northwestofficials faxed over Nancy
Ludwig's fingerprints.
Debbie confirmed that the deadwoman was in fact Ludwig, though
(52:01):
they would wait for her husbandto make an official
identification of the body thenext day before releasing her
name.
More semen stains were found onthe pillows used to prop Ludwig
up.
Hilton cut these and backedthem too.
This second sex act and thesecond set of semen stains occur
well after Nancy Ludwig haddied.
The murderer was also anecrophiliac, helton could tell,
(52:22):
because Ludwig's vagina wasdistended.
Instead of regaining a shape asit normally would, it remained
wide open and, according toHelton, she had never seen that
before.
Because it was so unusual, thetwo-person crew from the county
(52:44):
medical examiners was finallycalled after hours of
painstaking work and arrivedabout 8 pm the body was rolled
over.
Not much examination was neededto reveal the manner of
homicide and cause the slashneck of death.
At 8.30, the body was placed ona gurney and wheeled out of the
(53:09):
room.
Tv crews outside filmed thebody and it came through the
fire exit.
It is particularly true inDetroit that if it bleeds it
leads, and the murder and rapeled the news that night and for
several thereafter night and forseveral thereafter.
(53:30):
Hilton and Terry wrapped uptheir work in the room through.
Their day was hardly overbecause they would have to start
processing the evidence andwrite reports once they got back
to Northville.
Adding to the bloody mysteryand the chills the murder gave
them was that the room wasnearly devoid of Ludwig's things
(53:51):
.
Her clothes were gone and sotoo were her flight attendant's
rolling suitcase.
Her purse, her ID, her Seikowatch was gone and her wedding
and engagement rings had beenpulled from her bloody fingers.
The only things that remainedfrom roll-up in the bedding and
overlooked by her killer were aburgundy button from her blazer,
(54:16):
a thin belt and a small goldcharm that had broken off her
bracelet.
A little goose, that was amemento from her days flying
with North Central.
The killer was a collector too.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
(54:38):
Have a great week.
Welcome to the Murder Book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis Part 5 of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
M Johnson, a Northwest flightattendant, had a long layover in
Detroit during the day onSunday February 17th.
On Sunday February 17th, theairline had a contract with the
(00:24):
Hilton Airport Inn, which wasacross I-94 from Metropolitan
Airport on Wick Road.
Large blocks of rooms werereserved for use by flight
attendants and pilots on layover, with anywhere from 50 to 100
Northwest employees checking ineach day Between Northwest and
(00:46):
three other airlines.
About 90% of the hotel's 268rooms were reserved for flight
personnel.
Mostly overs involved spendinga night, but some were just for
the day.
Johnson was on what was called asit.
She was with the crew on aDC-10 out of Minneapolis and
(01:07):
since they were laying over forfive hours, the company was
required to provide a hotel roomfor them to rest in.
Her crew, of course, got offthe airport shuttle, ran and
entered the lobby At the frontdesk.
They didn't find a clerk, butthey found their keys easily
enough.
A sign-in sheet was sitting onthe counter and the day clerk
(01:30):
had prepared the sheet listing ajob description, flight number,
estimated arrival and departuretimes.
The first shift clerk alsoassigned room numbers.
The Hilton used Vanguard doorlocks, which required plastic
carts that were the predecessorto today's swipe carts.
They had holes punched in theminstead of a strip along one
(01:54):
side.
The Northwest employees weresupposed to show their badges,
sign in and get the room keys,but on the morning of the 17th
the keys were just sitting therefor the grabbing next to the
sheet.
Johnson's crew joked about thelax security.
Well, didn't joke exactly.
Call it a joke On overnightstays.
(02:17):
For security purposes,northwest prohibited the Hilton
from assigning employees roomson the first floor.
It was too easy for a thief toget in by a window.
But first floor rooms were okayfor daytime sits and that's
what Johnson crew got.
Johnson didn't feel like sittingaround the room with the other
(02:41):
three.
She wanted to get a workout in,but it was a lousy, blustery
winter day out.
So she went to the hotel'sworkout room, but it was packed.
So she decided to go for a runon the hotel's four-story
stairwell.
Nothing like running stairs toget the heart pumping and the
pose elevated.
She would stay at the hotel, orshe had stayed at that hotel
(03:05):
many times and was well-versedwith the stairwell.
She ran up for flights, walkedthen back down to save the
pounding on her knees, then ranback up.
She did this repeatedly.
About 1.30 pm, near the end ofher workout, she started what
she called her cool-down phase.
(03:26):
She finished running on the topfloor and planned to walk the
two hallways of the L on thefourth floor to the opposite
stairwell, walk down to three,then walk the hallways to the
opposite stairwell and continuein that fashion until she got to
the ground floor.
Something cut her cool downshort.
(03:46):
She opened the doorway on thethird floor and came face to
face with a young man.
He was near the concessionvending area and carrying a
canvas bag.
He had sandy hair and waswearing jeans and tennis shoes.
Something about him, beyond hisjust suddenly being there on
the opposite side of the doorway, startled her.
(04:07):
She walked past him and,instead of continuing as planned
, she went straight to her room.
Something felt wrong to me andI quit my workout, she says.
When she entered her room, oneof her co-workers said, oh,
you're done early and she saidyeah, I ran into something and I
felt uncomfortable.
(04:29):
Ling Ellisworth checked in withMartha Hook and they both were
flight attendants, and when theywent up together to their rooms
on the third floor.
They both put their things intheir rooms and then walked down
the hallway to the ice machine.
There was a guy acting odd atthe candy machine.
(04:49):
He had sandy hair, was wearingblue jeans and tennis shoes,
holding a duffel bag close tohis body.
He didn't seem to be looking atcandy choices.
It was more like he was hidinghis face.
He was almost pressed to themachine his back to them.
They got their eyes and walkedback to their rooms.
Ellis Worth could hear the manwalking down the carpeted
(05:12):
hallway behind them.
When she got in her room shelooked out through her peephole.
The man was standing with hisback to her door, staring at
Hook's door across the hall, andthen he moved on.
Monday night, upon arriving homein Minneapolis, ann Johnson got
a call from her father.
(05:32):
He wanted to know did you hearwhat happened in Detroit?
Lynn Nelms, like Nancy Ludwig,was an add-on flight attendant
for Northwest.
She wasn't part of a regularcrew but was added to full
flights to fulfill staffingrequirements or added to flight
(05:55):
segments at mealtimes.
In industry lingo, she would beeither a meal chaser or an
aircraft chaser.
She would be either a mulechaser or an aircraft chaser.
Like Ludwig, she was the onlycrew member of her flight
staying over in Detroit, likeLudwig.
About 8.45 pm Sunday night shemade her way by herself through
(06:17):
the terminal to the driveway outfront to away the airport
Hilton shuttle van.
The van pulled up in the curb,the driver got out, put her back
in the storage area in the rearof the van and Nelms got on
(06:37):
sitting directly behind thedriver's seat.
She was the only one on board.
Then Lewick got on and satdirectly behind her.
Nelms knew her but didn'trecognize her because Louis had
stopped over to avoid hittingher head as she entered the van
and Nancy from her seat asked isthat you, lynn?
And Nelms answered yes.
Who is it Turning to look?
(06:59):
Because it was dark in the vanand she said it's me, it's Nancy
, and so they say hi.
A man came on board and, thoughthe van was nearly empty, sat
next to Nancy On the 10-minutedrive to the Hilton.
Nelms and Ludwig caught eachother up on recent flights and
(07:21):
how things were going.
Nancy's day had been a bitch.
Weather delayed her flight outof Minneapolis.
She got to Las Vegas late, toomuch racing around.
She was whipped At 41, maybeshe was getting a little old for
this add-on business and theytalk about a mutual friend.
The man sat silent.
(07:42):
Nums thought it odd that hewould sit next to someone on a
nearly empty van, especially ifhe didn't know who he was
sitting next to.
Since he didn't join theconversation, it was clear he
didn't know Nancy.
Nelm thought he looked stern.
He had a look on his face thatshe would remember for years.
(08:04):
She said he just looked mad andlooked intense and he was just
so focused, she would say morethan a decade later.
And he kept looking sideways atNancy.
And Lynn was sure of one thingthat he was not an airline
employee.
Even given a bad day, a badflight with demanding passengers
(08:28):
, no attendant would have satthere silently.
He would have had something tocontribute to the conversation
At the hotel.
The three passengers got out.
Nancy and Lynn got their bagsfrom the rear of the van and
wheeled them into the lobby.
Nancy and Lynn got their bagsfrom the rear of the van and
(08:48):
wheeled them into the lobby.
As Nancy and Lynn walked to thefront desk to check in.
Chatting on the way, lynnforgot about the man and later
she would remember he didn'tcheck in David Bennett, the
front desk and night audit clerkfrom 3211, asked them which
flights they came in on andpassed them a sign-in sheet and
their plastic key cards.
Nancy and Lynn rode the elevatortogether.
(09:08):
A hotel employee with a roomservice card rode with them to
the second floor and they wenton to the third.
They were no longer justengaging in idle chatter.
Nancy told her about the deathof both of her parents recently
and about the added stress oftwo tubal pregnancies that she
suffered through.
That wing of the Hilton waslaid out in a long L.
(09:30):
The elevator opened onto thelonger hallway.
As they walked down the hallway, lynn asked if Nancy wanted to
meet her at 8 am in the lobby sothey could ride back to the
airport together.
Nancy's flight left a littlelater and she thought briefly
about trying to catch a littleextra sleep, but then agreed to
(09:51):
meet her.
Lynn's room 341, was at the endof the first hallway.
They said good night at thedoor.
Nancy's room was 354 and it wasat the end of the shorter
hallway to the right.
Just past 354 was the doorwayto the emergency exit stairwell.
(10:13):
Ling was in the lobby the nextmorning at 8.
Nancy was supposed to get a7.30 wake-up call and meet her
in the lobby.
Nancy was late.
Lynn talked to another flightattendant she knew as they
waited for the van.
When it pulled up, lynn toldthe attendant to go on without
(10:34):
her.
She wanted to wait a bit morefor Nancy For the next van.
There was a handful ofattendants waiting, still no
Nancy.
Lynn decided she would betterget going.
We'll be right back.
Frederick Roybo was also aNorthwest flight attendant.
(10:56):
He got to the Hilton about 15minutes before Nelms and Ludwig.
He too was an add-on attendantand he had to be out early in
the morning.
He dropped his stuff off inroom 353, the second to last
room on the left side of thecorridor.
Rohrbaugh got a bucket of ice atthe machine down the hall and
(11:19):
returned to his room, not sureyet if he would read for an hour
or watch TV before turning thelights out.
He opted for TV and at 9exactly he turned it on.
Moments later he heard twohigh-pitched noises, the first
higher and louder than thesecond.
Screams, possibly, or kidssquealing, maybe a TV in a
(11:41):
nearby room.
In most hotels it's not unusualto hear odd noises at 9 pm, but
this wing of the Hilton wasreserved for airline employees
and Rohrball knew from pastexperience.
Usually very quiet People werethere to sleep and relax, not
party.
Alarmed he went to his door andlooked out the peahole.
(12:03):
He saw nothing in the hole.
He heard no further sounds.
He returned to his bed andcalled down to the front desk
for an early wake-up call.
He needed to be gone by 6 am.
Phil Arcia's flight from Bostonhad gone smoothly, but his
check-in at 10.15 hadn't.
(12:25):
Flight from Boston had gonesmoothly, but his check-in at
10.15 hadn't.
The heater didn't work in theroom and that he was assigned on
the second floor.
It was freezing in there andthe only room they had left was
on the first floor, room 129.
The Hilton wasn't supposed togive Northwest employees first
floor rooms, but Arcea didn'tfeel like making any show of it.
Ironically, the heat wasblasting in that room.
(12:48):
It hit him in the face when heopened the door and he set his
luggage down and went straightover to the controls to shut it
off.
The heater was under the windowand the curtains were open, and
outside, in the big parking lotbetween the hotel and the
freeway, he could see a mancarrying a burgundy suitcase, a
(13:10):
color required by Northwest.
The parking lot was well litand a new snowfall was thick on
the ground, turning night nearlyinto day.
The man went to the trunk of abrownish gold Monte Carlo.
Arcea was a car buff and hewould recently had a roommate
who owned a Monte Carlo, so hewas sure of the make.
(13:31):
Briefly, arcea assumed the manwas a flight attendant, but only
briefly.
Arcea would consider himself atypical male flight attendant
very well groomed, prideful indress and appearance, whether in
or out of uniform.
He said quote after flying forso many years, you can tell a
(13:55):
flight attendant when they areout of uniform.
We have a look.
The way we dress, the way wepresent ourselves.
We are always dresseddifferently and groomed
differently.
We didn't have the look.
He stood out like a sore thumbEnd quote.
The man's hair was messy.
He wore sneakers a definitefashion, no-no.
(14:17):
He had a hooded sweatshirt withthe hood down and his pants
were rolled up at the cuffs wayup, like maybe five inches worth
A look.
If there ever was one Dressedlike that, he couldn't even be a
pilot, according to Arcia,because pilots are the worst.
(14:43):
They have no sense of fashion,according to Arcia.
They're hicks when it comes todressing.
And he was one step below thatand a flight attendant would be
rolling his luggage, notcarrying it under his arm.
Then there was the way the manjust threw the luggage into the
trunk instead of setting it in.
(15:04):
The man left the Monte Carlo andheaded back across the parking
lot.
Oddly, he left the car trunkopen and Arcia thought that that
was stupid, because that's agood way to lose something.
He stood by the window being agood Samaritan, making sure that
(15:24):
no one came by to stealanything.
The men walked to Arcia's rightand around the corner of the
building.
Arcia was on the long hallwayof the L, around the corner of
the building, at the far end ofthe shorter part of the wing,
the emergency exit opened uponto another part of the parking
(15:45):
lot.
The door was locked at night,but no alarm sounded if someone
opened it from inside.
Guests routinely propped thedoor open if they planned on
returning right away, savingthemselves a long walk to the
rooms from the lobby entrance.
Arceo stood at the windowwatching the Monte Carlo until a
(16:05):
few minutes later the manreturned, this time carrying
what looked to be a bundle ofclothing and what was clearly
flight attendant stuff,including a beige overcoat with
a burgundy lining.
The way the man just threw theclothes into the trunk caught
Arceus' eye.
No concern for them whatsoever.
According to Arcia quote ouruniforms then were the most
(16:32):
hideous uniforms we ever had.
But you wouldn't crush it intoa bowl and throw it into a dirty
trunk, end quote.
A lot caught Arcia's eye the waythe man was dressed, his height
5'11", his weight 175 to 180pounds.
His hair light and cut short.
His race white.
(16:53):
His age no more than 30.
The man made three-bar trips tothe hotel and back to the Monte
Carlo, always with somethingbunched under the arm.
The man closed the trunk justthen.
Another car pulled into theparking lot.
The man seemed to freeze.
He stood there motionless.
(17:13):
After the car passed him he gotin the Monte Carlo and drove
off, despite all Arce had seen.
There were logical explanations.
Detroit is a major hub forNorthwest and many attendants
either live in the area or rentcheap rooms to use as a home
away from home.
Perhaps he was a spouse or afriend of an attendant and was
(17:34):
picking him or her up or helpingexchange dirty clothes for
clean.
You couldn't very well call thefront desk and complain about
the way someone threw clothinginto a car.
Arcea went to bed.
He had an early flight toBoston.
When he got there someone askedhim if he had heard the news.
(17:56):
It was a busy morning for JoanSweet, one of the Hilton's mates
.
The hotel had had a busy nightwhich meant a lot of rooms to
clean for the next round ofcheckings.
She had a list of checkouts anddid those rooms first.
While she was working, thoseothers checked out, opening up
(18:18):
more rooms for cleaning.
Finally, at maybe 12.40 pm, shewas down to the last few.
Room 354 was scheduled to beempty.
Its occupant had left at 7 amwake-up call and was supposed to
be gone by 8, but she hadn'tchecked out and the Do Not
Disturb sign hung from thedoor's exterior handle.
(18:40):
So she probably had been in arush this morning and just
caught the shuttle van withoutbothering to wait in line for
checkout.
As for the sign, it didn't meanmuch to Sweet because most
people who put them out neverbothered to bring them back in.
She knocked on the door noresponse.
Knocked again, nothing.
(19:00):
Hello, maid, she said.
She opened the door and crackedand said again, maid, but there
was silence.
The room was very dark, just aglow from the TV.
She flicked the light switch onby the wall near the door.
The room remained black.
She felt her way to the heavydrapes, pulled them partially
(19:23):
open and turned around.
At first she thought she hadscrewed up, that she had walked
in on the woman sleeping on thefar bed, that she had not been
loud enough at the door.
And then she realized she wassurrounded by blood Blood
everywhere On the walls, thefloor, the bed next to her, the
(19:47):
furniture, and that the womanmust be dead.
She fled from the room.
Paul Janiga, the Hilton's chiefengineer, was in the office on
the ground floor when he got acall from the third floor maid.
She was frantic.
There was a body on the bed inroom 354.
Janiga's first thought washeart attack, something natural
(20:12):
and peaceful.
A placid body on the bed.
She's been killed, said themaid.
Janiga hurried to the room.
The do not disturb sign wasstill on the handle.
He opened the door and flickedthe switch nearby, but the light
didn't come on.
The lamp that it worked hadbeen unplugged and the cord sat
(20:32):
on top of the wall counter.
The room was gloomy, despitethe light coming in from the
windows and the glow from the TV, which was turned to CNN.
Desert Storm was on Soon therewill be other non-war news for
the cable and network folks totalk about.
None were news for the cableand network folks to talk about.
He went to the windows, fullyopened the curtains and turned
(20:55):
around.
He saw a lot of blood.
On the bed.
Closest to him, on the far bed,he saw bedding bunched up into
a pile, a foot stuck out of thepile.
At the opposite end he saw ahead and a gaping wound on the
neck.
He went over to the body andtouched the heel.
Part of him said this is aprank, it's not a real body.
(21:17):
But the heel was real.
He touched the neck looking fora pulse.
There was none.
He left the room, closed thedoor, went down to tell his
manager.
The manager called the police.
Janiga went back up to the roomand waited outside the door so
he could open it for them assoon as they arrived.
It was President's Day, but theholiday would soon be over for
(21:42):
the Romulus PD.
We'll be right back.
Michael Giroux didn't have muchseniority with the Romulus
Police Department, which was whyhe was working.
February 18, president's Day,when the call came in from the
(22:04):
Hilton at 1.02 pm that there wasa body in room 354,.
He was sent to the scene.
Several hotel employees were inthe hallway and one of them let
him in.
The TV was on, giving an eerielight to the otherwise darkened
room.
He saw a woman lying face down,propped up at the waist by a
(22:27):
stack of pillows.
There was blood everywhere by astack of pillows.
There was blood everywhere.
He called for other officers tojoin him at the scene and began
taking 35 millimeter andPolaroid photos.
Dan Snyder quiet, spoken, calmand methodical had an unlikely
background for a homicidedetective.
He had worked 17 years in thecirculation department for the
(22:50):
Detroit News and was vested fora Teamster pension before he
decided to try his hand atpolice work.
He started as a paperboy at age12 in the Down River Detroit
suburb of Southgate and workedhis way up to district station
manager, direct station managerIn the 50s and 60s, when
(23:14):
newspapers made their profits onthe labors of young boys
peddling their bikes around theneighborhood with canvas bags of
paper strapped to thehandlebars or fenders, station
managers were some of thegruffest guys in capitalism, not
Snyder.
The kids actually liked him,including young Mike San André.
San André thought the world ofhis boss enough so, in fact,
(23:36):
that years later he would go towork for him as a rookie cop in
Romulus.
Among other jobs Snyder had hadwith the paper was as a jumper
on a truck throwing outboundaries of papers at stops.
A fellow jumper was KenCockrell, who would go on to
become something of a Detroitlegend, a black activist in the
(23:57):
turbulent 60s, who later becamea prominent Detroit attorney and
then a city council member.
Snyder worked his way up todriver, then to station manager,
making good wages with greatFrench benefits.
He had married his high schoolsweetheart, started a family and
bought a house in a newsubdivision in Southgate.
(24:18):
The future seemed set, exceptfor some reason or another he
had always wanted to be a cop In.
A neighbor down the street fromhis new house was a Wayne
County sheriff who told him theywere hiring.
Snyder, went down, took thetest, passed it, got on a list
and two years later, on March 15, 1976, at the age of 29,
(24:42):
started his new career at thecounty jail downtown.
In 1981, he was assigned to thesheriff's office at Metro
Airport, but he was laid offsoon after.
Romulus was a young city then,not a lot of residents, mostly
just a bunch of farmlandsurrounding the airport.
(25:03):
For 10 years Wayne Countysheriffs had patrolled the city,
but about the time Snyder waslaid off, the county
commissioners decided that itwas time for the city to hire
its own police force.
Snyder applied and startedworking in Romulus in November.
On February 18, 1991, he was adetective sergeant.
(25:25):
As Romulus had grown and hiscoin fear turned into
subdivisions, so too had itspolice force to 50 members.
But just two detectivesergeants handled all the
investigations, from back checkcases to felonious assaults, to
embezzlement, to robberies, tomurder.
Snyder was a good dresser,favoring tweed sport coats and
(25:49):
coordinated slacks.
Good dresser, favoring tweedsport coats and coordinated
slacks.
With his neatly groomed, sandyhair and trim mustache he looked
, wrote one reporter, more likea literature professor than a
detective.
Snyder and his wife Jean wereputting the day off to good use,
meeting with someone to put adown payment on five acres of
(26:10):
land in a nearby Huron township.
At 1.20 pm Snyder got a page.
He asked the people selling theland if he could use their
phone and call into the station,and the dispatcher informed him
that they got a body at theairport Hilton.
He and his wife raced to theRamla station where he picked up
(26:33):
a police car and drove to thehotel.
Arriving at 1.45 pm, giroux ledhim into room 354.
The first thing he saw was thebody covered by a bedspread, her
rear trussed up in the air, herfeet sticking out.
And then he saw the blood,everywhere Blood.
(26:56):
There was a partial bloodyfootprint just inside the door,
a bloody washcloth by the sinkin the bathroom and a pool of
bloody water in the bathtubwhere it looked as if the
perpetrator had taken a showerto clean up.
Snyder moved further into thehotel room.
There was no blood.
Between the entryway and thefirst bed, between the far bed
(27:18):
and the window and on the threewalls surrounding the bed and on
a chair, a table and a dresser.
There was a lot of blood.
It looked as if she had bled todeath on the bed by the window
than been picked up, bedding andall and carried to the other
bed.
The way she was propped up,snyder thought the killer might
(27:40):
have had sex with her after shehad died.
He went back to the body andlooked at it closely.
Her head was nearly severed.
Her face was severely beatenand bruised, with what looked to
be numerous knife wounds andpinprick-type holes in her skin.
Her hands were lacerated fromthe fight she put up against the
(28:02):
knife.
Some of her fingers nearlysevered too.
Snyder knew this was bigger thanRomulus PD.
He had his own crime sceneinvestigator.
He could have called in andthere might be noces out of
joint if he didn't.
But he made an immediatedecision to call the Michigan
State Police Crime Lab.
His people had plenty ofexperience dealing with low
(28:25):
lives mostly drunks and druggiesand prostitutes working at the
airport, hotels and city barsbut something this bad at the
Hilton at the airport where thekiller could have fled by now to
any place in the world no, forthis case they would need all
(28:46):
the help they could get.
The state police would have ateam of crime scene veterans to
work the scene.
He called their Northvillecrime lab and told them what he
had.
It was a decision that wouldpay off, but not for more than a
decade.
He also called to in hispartner Gordy Maleniak.
(29:08):
Maleniak's pager went off as heand his wife were coming out of
an afternoon movie.
His holiday was over too.
We'll be right back.
Snyder had told him it was a badscene, but nothing prepared
Malignac for what he saw.
When he arrived about 2 pm, danwas waiting for him in the hall
(29:32):
and when he got there they dida walkthrough before the state
police arrived.
Dan had said she had severewounds to the neck, but that was
an understatement.
Blood was splattered over thewalls, the bedding, the
furniture, the floor.
It was like nothing he had everseen or would see.
(29:53):
It was by far the worst.
From the blood on one bed itwas clear she had been killed
there and moved to the secondbed she was face down, buttocks
propped up in the air on a bunchof pillows and bedding.
You could see dry semen thathad run out of her vagina had
(30:13):
run out while she had been onher back on the other bed and
dried.
So now when you look at it, itlooked as if it had run up, not
down.
It struck Melaniac that thekiller had posed her to look
that way.
He was making a statement byleaving her in that position.
Milenia looked at the TV Desertstorm.
(30:35):
There was blood around the sinkand there was a pot of pink
water in the bottom of thebathtub a ghastly residue of the
room's last shower.
There was a bloody washcloth ontop of the vanity by the sink,
so the killer had been coolenough to clean up.
There wasn't any luggage, noclothes, no ID.
Snyder and Malenia backed outof the room.
(30:58):
Malenia went knocking on doorsto see who was still there and
who had heard anything by now.
Chances were that most peoplehad checked out and headed off
who knew where Anywhere in theworld.
They had a name from the hotelmanager, nancy Ludwig, but that
(31:19):
was about it no ID, noconfirmation of anything.
Malenia had little luck findingguests and move on to employees
.
He talked to the maid who foundher.
He talked to two persons at thefront desk.
About 2.45, the state crime labfolks arrived.
It was time to back to room 354.
(31:43):
Lynn Helton had reasons to smileas she put away her groceries
at her home in Wixom, a suburbnorthwest of Detroit whose rapid
change from farmland to cityhad been sparked by a sprawling
Ford Motor stamping plant thatwas no longer out in the middle
of nowhere.
(32:03):
It was a holiday for one,nowhere.
It was a holiday for one Foranother.
She was two months pregnantwith her second daughter and
thinking about breaking the newsat work now that those risky
first few weeks had passed.
Wixson was a convenient placeto live for those that they
ought to plant and a good placefor others to buy what the
(32:24):
realtors call starter home.
Hilton and her husband Tomcouldn't afford to live where he
worked as a cop in the nearbyvery affluent suburb of West
Bloomfield.
They couldn't afford Wixom andit was just up I-96 from
Northville where Hilton workedas a crime scene specialist and
(32:45):
serologist for Michigan StatePolice.
The phone rang.
It was her lab director, jimHoncher, ending her holiday.
In those pre-sale phone days hehad been having a tough time
reaching his crime scene crewwho were out enjoying their day
off, and was relieved to findLynn at home their day off.
(33:10):
And was relieved to find Lynnat home.
They had been in homicide atthe airport, hilton and he and
he filled her on what little heknew.
A flight attendant on layoverfrom Minnesota found by a
housekeeper Pretty nasty scene.
She drove the few miles over tothe state police crime lab on
Seven Mile Road, one mile southof the road that Eminem would
(33:33):
later make famous.
Haunter had been able to reachone other crime scene tech
fingerprint expert, detectiveSergeant John Terry, and the two
of them got in the state-issuedRattatrap silver van and headed
south on I-275 to I-94.
The two freeways intersectedjust west of the airport.
(33:55):
There were no seats in the backof the van, the space loaded
with gear.
Hilton had graduated fromDetroit's Mercy College in 1982
with a BS in chemistry, then gother master's in forensic
chemistry a year later from theUniversity of Pittsburgh.
Pitt has one of the bestforensic programs in the world
(34:19):
and its graduates are highlyrecruited.
Hilton was offered a job doingdrug screening and analysis in
Dade County in southern Floridathe very definition of job
security in one of the drugtrafficking centers of the world
.
But she was engaged to bemarried to Tom and wanted to
return home.
Her heart set on the statepolice.
(34:41):
While she waited for a job toopen up, she worked first as a
waitress a novel profession.
Everything you learn in lifeyou can learn from waitressing,
according to her.
Then the Federal Food and DrugAdministration in downtown
Detroit, inspecting everythingfrom potato chips to soy-based
infant formula to penicillin.
(35:02):
She also did drug screening forthe medical examiner's office
in suburban Oakland County.
After two and a half years, in1985, she was hired as a
civilian serologist with thestate police and assigned to the
Northville lab.
Her first murder scene had itsdark, decomical moments.
(35:27):
Scene had its dark, decomicalmoments.
She said, quote I rememberbeing scared, steph, not because
of what I would see, butbecause of how I would react.
I didn't want to be anythingless than professional.
I didn't want to get there andcry or throw up end quote.
This latest one would be fartoo gruesome for humor.
(35:48):
She didn't either.
She worked the scene.
Each crime scene investigatorhas a specialty, but they all
pitch in on other tasks tooShooting videos, taking
Polaroids, 35mm shots, makingsketches.
The evidence said the scenedidn't require much forensic
detective work.
Police found a baseball cap anda pair of glasses, both
(36:14):
belonging to the murderer.
They found something else.
He left behind his hearing aid.
Turns out it was thefather-in-law.
His daughter had long beenphysically abused by her husband
, something his wife anddaughter had kept secret from
him.
The daughter had beenhospitalized for a hysterectomy
(36:35):
and within hours of theoperation the husband had shown
up demanding sex at the hospitalbed.
The wife turned him down then,fearing a beating.
When she got home, told hermother.
This time, the mother told herhusband he had gone over to
(36:55):
confront his son-in-law.
An argument ensued and he wouldshut him dead.
Finding the hearing aid mightnot be slap your thighs a row a
row, but when you make yourliving at violent crime scenes.
You take your humor where youcan find it At the Hilton.
(37:19):
A uniformed Romulus cop led themto room 354.
The door was open.
Snyder gave them an overviewand then he and Melania went in
with them.
The hotel manager and twoNative Airlines officials
(37:41):
remained out in the hall as heldto look in through the open
doors.
She could see part of the bodyon the bed to the right.
The procedure was that she andTerry would work the scene,
gathering blood, semen,fingerprint, fiber evidence,
shoot a video, take rolls ofphotos but leave the body
(38:02):
undisturbed After the severalhours or so it would take them
to do that.
After the several hours or soit would take them to do that,
they would call the countymedical examiner's office in
downtown detroit, one of thebusiest emmy's offices in the
world.
The emmy's crew would arrivewithin an hour, at which point
they would roll nancy lowickonto her back, gather whatever
(38:24):
evidence presented herself, letthe em ME people make the
preliminary determination ofmanner and cause of death and
then have them take the bodyback to the morgue for the next
day's autopsy.
That was the procedure.
They had that part of it down.
(38:46):
What Helton didn't have down andwould never get over was the
violence that filled the room,literally and metaphorically.
Helton's first task wasshooting a video of the scene.
Seven minutes of silence.
That screams its violence.
It's violence and these aresome of the notes that they took
(39:14):
.
It says it starts benignly along shot from outside hallway
of the open door to room 354.
Then the camera slowly entersthe room and peers into the
bathroom On the immediate rightdoor have opened light on.
There are drops of red on thebright white tile floor.
The room is tackedly decoratedGreen floral wallpaper, bright
(39:39):
yellow counter, bright drops ofblood in the sink.
Looking down the short hallwaynow from the door to the room
proper.
On the left a long, narrow,wall-mounted desk lamp, hotel
stationery, small white plasticice bucket, tv.
(40:00):
On the corner to the right, aright foot sticking out, a right
foot sticking out, work in.
Zoom toward first bed, right armhanging of the right side, the
(40:23):
body on one bedspread covered bya secondary floral bedspread,
covered by a secondary floralbedspread, now half red, with
big blotches.
Pant to the other bed rustyorange blanket, bow up, white
sheet, stained red.
Behind it a window with gauzy,sheer drapes.
(40:47):
Pull shut, heavy drapes, pullopen, zoom in on window and wall
.
Two orange chairs to the rightsurround a round formica table.
Thick blood drops on the wallon the table on each chair, hurl
out and around the room duringthe mayhem.
Pan to wall behind the bed.
(41:09):
Zooming on painting behind thebed nearest the window.
Numerous blood drops on theglass.
Pan back to the bed with thebody and zoom in on
blood-saturated white bath matthat could cover her face that
(41:35):
there is a large gap in hermouth.
Hilton, never meticulous, turnsthe camera off, leaves the room.
Does another take to make sureshe hasn't missed anything.
Take to make sure he she hasn'tmissed anything.
Shut off door.
Zooming in on number 354.
(41:56):
Slowly enter room.
Turn to the right.
Zoom in on while white tile anddrops of blood.
Zoom in on drops of blood onthe yellow uh counter and in the
sink down the the shorthallways, right foot sticking
out, pant to head and zoom in onright hand fingers nearly
(42:18):
severe to her furious fight toavoid death.
Zoom in on bloody bath mat overthe face on bloody bath mat
over the face.
Zoom in on the smallwall-mounted table behind the
two beds.
Drops of blood were on it andthe wall behind it.
(42:45):
Zoom in on blood on the glass,on the painting over the other
bed, on the wall next to it, onthe two orange chairs, the table
, the wall next to the window,on the front of the well-mounted
heater.
To the left of the window,blood everywhere.
(43:06):
Some guy is driving a car onthe TV.
Big head is in profile Pan tothe long, well-mounted desk,
drops of blood next to the whitestationery along the front and
top of the desk and fade toblack off the desk and fade to
(43:29):
black.
So now Helton took numerousPolaroids and several rolls of
35mm film.
Then, as she took dozens ofsamples to be tested later back
at the lab, taking swabs fromLudwig's buttocks and vagina
with a sterile cotton swab andcutting fibers from various
surfaces, terry went to workpainstakingly, shining a laser
(43:57):
light about the room tohighlight otherwise invisible
fingerprints.
They had been dusted andphotographed.
If evidence was wet, theyneeded to get it dry.
The quicker it dried, the lessdegradation to any DNA it
contained.
They didn't put samples inplastic, which degrades
(44:20):
materials, but in permeablepaper envelopes paper envelopes.
Bedding was part in large paperbags as it was the bath mat and
had been wrapped about hernearly severed neck.
(44:43):
Back at the lab the beddingwould be laid out in the drying
rooms, or large, clean.
Let me see how do I put this.
(45:03):
So if the evidence was wet,they needed to get it dry.
So the quicker they dry, theless degradation to any DNA it
(45:27):
contained.
So what they did is they put itin permeable paper envelopes,
something big or large, such asthe bedding that was put in
large paper bags, as was thebath mat that had been wrapped
(45:48):
around her nearly severed neck.
Back at the lab, the beddingwould be lay out in the drying
room and they do that by layingon Lord, laid the bedding on top
of large, clean sheets ofbutcher paper, put off huge
rolls and the cotton swabs wouldbe broken off their sticks and
(46:11):
placed into cryovials, which areplastic tubes about one and a
half inches tall that werelabeled and frozen to be used as
evidence when and if themurderer was ever caught.
(46:31):
Hilton did her work calmly,methodically, no trace of how
disturbed she really was.
She had worked over other nastycrimes with Snyder one
involving the rape of an18-year-old month girl by the
mother's boyfriend, which rippedthe girl open so badly she had
(46:54):
to have a colostomy, and othermurders without him, for example
one of a woman beaten to deathso violently by her grandson
because she wouldn't give himdrug money that he had broke a
cast iron pan into pieces on herskull, but nothing would
(47:18):
approach the violence she feltnow and her reaction to it.
It wasn't until all the aspectsof the scene came together and
you really look at the body andrealize everything that had
happened to her that you couldfeel the violence in an
overpowering scene.
The violence hung in the airand it shouted at you.
(47:43):
It was the only crime scenethat ever made her feel that way
.
And the other thing that shesays is that you would have to
be a monster to do what this mandid to Nancy Ludwig and the
(48:07):
whole process he put her through.
A long, thick, heavy men'sathletic tube sack of
considerable volume had beenstuffed into her mouth, forcing
her lips to distend.
Her hands had been bound withtwine.
She clearly had put up aferocious fight and the
(48:31):
defensive wounds on her handswent to the bone.
The degree to which she foughtwas so striking, according to
Helton.
Just seeing the wounds on herhands, it was impossible to
avoid reliving what she wentthrough.
She inflicted some of her ownfacial wounds, scratches made
(48:57):
while trying to remove the gagthat was suffocating her while
she aspirated on her own blood.
There was bruising all over herface and her eyes had been
blackened from her beating.
There were pinpricks on herface where the killer had
(49:23):
lightly jabbed her with thepoint of a knife, playing with
her.
After having gotten her gag andbound, there was an elongated z
, almost like the mark of thetvl character sorrow above her
left knit um nipple.
(49:46):
Once the killer had gotten herunder control, he had played
with her.
She was tortured over a periodof time.
There were so many controllingwounds, the knife marks on her
face, all of the scrapes, andthen there was the wound that
killed her, a slashing of herthroat that would have
(50:08):
decapitated her but for herspine.
So cutting through wouldn'thave been a quick and easy
process because it's more sewingthan cutting.
So the killer used a serratedknife and you could see the soul
(50:30):
marks that it made on Nancy'sflesh.
There was blunt force trauma toher left, temporal and mid
forehead areas.
There was so much blood thateven though she had been killed
the night before, much of it wasstill wet.
Around the neck it was clear shehad been raped while on her
(50:52):
back on the far bed.
Semen had drained out of hervagina and after a period of
time long enough for the semento dry completely, the body had
been carried over to the otherbed, turned over, propped up by
four pillows, so that thebuttocks were in the air, her
(51:13):
arms dangling off the bed so shecould have been raped again
Afterwards.
The killer had smeared hissemen on her buttocks.
On her buttocks, though Heltonhad no doubt what she was
(51:33):
looking at.
A test at the scene confirmedthat it was semen.
They found bits of human fecalmatter on the floor between the
beds four racing-sized pieces.
What to make of that?
At some point, northwestofficials faxed over Nancy
Ludwig's fingerprints.
Debbie confirmed that the deadwoman was in fact Ludwig, though
(52:01):
they would wait for her husbandto make an official
identification of the body thenext day before releasing her
name.
More semen stains were found onthe pillows used to prop Ludwig
up.
Hilton cut these and backedthem too.
This second sex act and thesecond set of semen stains occur
well after Nancy Ludwig haddied.
The murderer was also anecrophiliac, helton could tell,
(52:22):
because Ludwig's vagina wasdistended.
Instead of regaining a shape asit normally would, it remained
wide open and, according toHelton, she had never seen that
before.
Because it was so unusual, thetwo-person crew from the county
(52:44):
medical examiners was finallycalled after hours of
painstaking work and arrivedabout 8 pm the body was rolled
over.
Not much examination was neededto reveal the manner of
homicide and cause the slashneck of death.
At 8.30, the body was placed ona gurney and wheeled out of the
(53:09):
room.
Tv crews outside filmed thebody and it came through the
fire exit.
It is particularly true inDetroit that if it bleeds it
leads, and the murder and rapeled the news that night and for
several thereafter night and forseveral thereafter.
(53:30):
Hilton and Terry wrapped uptheir work in the room through.
Their day was hardly overbecause they would have to start
processing the evidence andwrite reports once they got back
to Northville.
Adding to the bloody mysteryand the chills the murder gave
them was that the room wasnearly devoid of Ludwig's things
(53:51):
.
Her clothes were gone and sotoo were her flight attendant's
rolling suitcase.
Her purse, her ID, her Seikowatch was gone and her wedding
and engagement rings had beenpulled from her bloody fingers.
The only things that remainedfrom roll-up in the bedding and
overlooked by her killer were aburgundy button from her blazer,
(54:16):
a thin belt and a small goldcharm that had broken off her
bracelet.
A little goose, that was amemento from her days flying
with North Central.
The killer was a collector too.
Thank you for listening to theMurder Book.
(54:38):
Have a great week.
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