June 23, 2025 • 33 mins
The murder of Northwest Airlines flight attendant Nancy Ludwig at Detroit's Airport Hilton sparked one of Michigan's most exhaustive investigations of the early 1990s. Detective Lieutenant Ken Krause masterfully organized the Romulus Police Department's response, creating sophisticated tracking systems for the 2,300 tips that would eventually flood their office.
What makes this case particularly fascinating is the stark contrast between meticulous police work and the unreliability of human perception. When a hotel desk clerk confidently claimed Ludwig had stayed at the hotel previously and received a mysterious phone call the night of her murder, investigators quickly disproved both statements. This perfectly illustrates why seasoned detectives approach eyewitness testimony with healthy skepticism, despite its powerful sway over juries.
The investigation's scope was breathtaking. Detectives compiled databases containing 8,000 hotel guests, 2,600 gold Monte Carlo owners, and countless flight crews, all while working double shifts and sometimes sleeping on the detective bureau floor. They pursued forensic evidence with equal vigor, identifying that the killer had blood type A and secreted a rare enzyme called PGM2-1+ found in less than 2% of males. This scientific clue led them to test 200 potential suspects, though all were ultimately cleared.
Even the smallest pieces of evidence received scrutiny that bordered on obsessive. A piece of two-ply nature jute twine used to bind Ludwig's wrists was traced through distributors to companies that might employ the killer. Composite sketches from multiple witnesses were distributed widely, with flight attendant Lin Nelms even placed under hypnosis to enhance her recall of the suspect.
As theories ranging from jilted lovers to elaborate terrorist plots were methodically investigated and dismissed, the case demonstrates how homicide detectives must balance scientific analysis with human intuition. When Detective Link Helton admitted to meeting a mysterious woman in a parking lot to receive potential evidence, noting "there was no length I wouldn't go to solve this case," he captured the relentless dedication that drives investigators even when confronted with seemingly endless dead ends.
Have you ever wondered what happens when thousands of leads all seem to lead nowhere? Follow this riveting account of detective work at its most persistent and discover how even the most challenging cases never truly go cold in the minds of the detectives who pursue them.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
For the book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part six of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
Ken Krause had been a MichiganState Police officer since the
50s Now it's 19,.
(00:22):
In 1981, he retired from theStates.
Now it's 1981, he retired fromthe state police and he started
and hit up the detective bureauat the new Romulus Police
Department.
And he was enjoying his holiday.
And 10 years later, 19 February18, 1991, when he receives a
(00:47):
call saying that there was amurder at the airport Hilton.
He wasn't a micromanager.
He knew Snyder and Melianakcould handle things so he didn't
rush to the scene.
The next day Krause went in andtook control.
He told them that they wouldlikely be swamped with tips and
he would set up the tip file,get it organized and
(01:09):
cross-referenced.
The PD was computerized by thenand they would keep a paper tip
file and a computerized file.
The computer file would make iteasy to cross-reference tips
and bits of information.
Krauss, who always pridedhimself as a hands-on lieutenant
(01:30):
who didn't mind getting outfrom behind his desk, told
Snyder, malignac and the rest ofthe DB to work the Lewitt case.
He would take care of otherstuff that came up that they
normally would attend to.
He would also, if they neededhim, interview witnesses, make
phone calls, whatever, whateverthey needed, and, according to
(01:55):
Meliana, kim Krause pretty muchheld down the fort.
Eventually, the line they setup would generate 2,300 tips.
Each one would be addressed,some in a matter of seconds,
some with a great deal ofdeliberation.
While Krauss held down the fort,melianak and Snyder and a
(02:17):
handful of others put in theirlong days of double shifts.
Days of double shifts.
Malinak and Snyder spent somenights on the floor in the
detective bureau, too tired orpressed for time to bother
driving home.
The investigation spread outquickly from ground zero.
They began with hotel employeesand guests.
(02:39):
Right away they hit upon one ofthe best leads they would get
and, according to Snyder, theythought that they would crack it
the first day.
A Hilton shuttle bus driver hadbeen fired a few days earlier
for screaming at a Northwestflight attendant and he had
(03:00):
vowed revenge when he was fired.
Had vowed revenge when he wasfired, but he had an alibi and
he was clear quickly.
So it was not him.
(03:21):
The desk clerk who said she hadchecked Lewick in gave them a
couple of hot leads.
She said Lewick had been at thehotel several times previously,
as recently as the week before.
This might mean that she hadhad the opportunity to meet
someone on previous trips,someone she had invited into her
room.
This time that seemedparticularly credible because
the clerk said that about 9.45pm the night of the murder, a
(03:43):
male had called the front deskand asked for Nancy Ludwig's
room.
The clerk had patched him intoroom 354.
A friend from past trips aboutto pay a lethal visit, you
wonder?
Well, there was only oneproblem.
Millionaire quickly found outthat it was Louis' first trip to
(04:06):
Detroit.
She had not even known how tocatch the shuttle to the hotel.
The clerk had not seen herbefore.
In fact, while the woman hadbeen working the desk that night
, it was a male clerk, davidBennett, who had checked in
Ludwig and Nelms.
And as for the call, malenek andSnyder quickly discounted that
(04:29):
too.
Art Ludwig had not called her.
Michigan Bell had no record ofa call coming into the hotel at
that time.
Hotel equipment couldn'tconfirm a call had been
transferred and the timing madeno sense.
Confirm a call had beentransferred and the timing made
no sense, given that Arcia hadseen the killer at 10.30,
already done raping, torturingand murdering Ludwig, already
(04:54):
done with his lengthy cleanupand already dressed and packing
up the Monte Carlo.
So this woman was wrong onevery statement.
And even Detective Snyder said,and quote if you believe a call
was made to the room, it had tocome from the killer.
Given the evidence that Nancywas immediately attacked upon
(05:16):
entering the room, there was notime or need for the killer to
call.
She made the whole thing up.
Why, I have no idea.
End quote.
So so much for eyewitnesses.
It's a law of police work.
Eyewitnesses are notoriouslyunreliable.
(05:38):
You might be an eyewitness butthat doesn't mean you saw what
you think you saw.
Juries love eyewitnesses.
Prosecutors rely on them.
Defense attorneys and copsshare one thing in common they
hate them.
Now things got weirder.
(05:59):
The clerk who had claimed tohave checked Nancy in Her
boyfriend drove up Gold MonteCarlo and he had driven her to
work the night.
Lowe would die, the boyfriendbriefly.
A suspect was later cleared.
(06:20):
One Romulus crew went out to thelandfill nearby to see if they
could find any clues in thegarbage that had been carted off
from the hotel before the bodyhad been found.
Literally wading through refuse, one of the cops found a piece
of paper that had Nancy Ludwigwritten on it.
It gave a momentary thrill, butit wasn't the murderer who had
written it.
(06:40):
It turned out to be somethingjotted down by a hotel employee.
They got copies of room chargesrun up by all the guests at the
Hilton the night of the murder,seeing who was accounted for in
a restaurant or bar or gettingroom service during the time in
question.
They gathered the names of all8,000 guests who had stayed at
(07:04):
the 21 airport hotels and motelsthat weekend, from high-end
places like the Hilton to$20-a-night motels with peeling
paint and bedspreads stainedwith who-knew-what, and began
entering them into a databaselooking for people convicted of
crimes or wanted by police.
(07:26):
They learned of a big partythrown over the weekend by a
group known as the Tri-CountySingles.
Maybe some lonely single tookout frustrations on a pretty
flight attendant.
They got a list of members andstarted tracking them down.
They started calling all thepilots and flight attendants who
had been at the Hilton.
One flight attendant had stayedon the other side of the wall
(07:50):
from Ludwig.
Melianak was sure she must haveheard something.
The way Ludwig had fought back.
It must have sounded like allhell breaking loose.
Melianak reached her by phone.
She sounded like she didn'twant to be bothered.
She said she hadn't heardanything.
Melianak didn't believe her butwas polite.
(08:12):
A little while later theattendant's husband called him
back hot as hell, screaming thatMelianak had upset his wife,
what was he calling her for, andso forth.
And Melianak got hot himselfand said hey, it could have been
your wife.
(08:32):
Phil Arcia made a return flightto Detroit from Boston on
Wednesday.
He got to the Hilton about 8 pmand asked the desk clerk if
they had arrested anyone.
The answer was no.
Arcia went to his room and thensuddenly it hit him the guy in
the parking lot, the guy withthe Monte Carlo.
The next day he was checkingout and asked again if anyone
(08:56):
had been caught.
Still no.
And he told the desk clerk Ithink I saw something.
I don't know if it would help.
Is there anyone I can talk to?
The hotel manager called Snyder.
Snyder rushed to the hotel,northwest officials pulled Arcia
off his flight out and then hetold the story of the guy with
(09:18):
the bad haircut and bad fashionsense stuffing Northwest luggage
into the back of a gold MonteCarlo.
He seemed remarkably sure ofwhat he had seen, was very
precise in his details.
Snyder was sent for a statepolice sketch artist who came to
the hotel.
They put two compositestogether, both profiles, one
(09:41):
with glasses, one without.
If we need anything else we'lllet you know.
N handed Arcia his card andthat was the last he heard from
Snyder for 11 years.
Two other composites would comeout.
The first week in March Lim Nelswas put under hypnosis at the
(10:04):
St Paul Minnesota PoliceDepartment and a drawing was
made by police artist PaulJohnson while she was under.
That shows someone about 40with some wrinkles and while
under.
Nelms told the artist thesuspect had what seemed to be
acne scars, but they were leftoff the composite.
They would have looked toopronounced in a drawing and
(10:28):
might have caused people to lookfor someone more scarred than
he really was.
Johnson then met with AnnJohnson the composite made from
her recollection, and she hadseen the suspect face to face
and brought that light, whileNelms had seen him in a dark van
show a man with similarfeatures but much younger, 28,
(10:50):
30 or so.
Two versions of this compositewere ultimately released, one
with glasses, one without.
Both Nelms and Johnson'sversions showed the same hair as
Arcia's, but the nose wasshortened a bit.
As Arcia's, but the nose wasshortened a bit.
(11:10):
Many years would pass beforepolice, including Dan Snyder,
who himself was trained to makecomposite drawings, would
pronounce Ann Johnson'scomposite the most accurate
stunningly accurate they haveever seen.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
The Romulus Police Departmenthad a limited budget for travel
(11:32):
With so many prospectivewitnesses spread around the
country.
The department turned to theFBI for help.
Fbi agents agreed to help out,interviewing out-of-state
residents who might not becoming back to Michigan soon.
(11:52):
Friday, february 22, the policereleased the first composite
drawing.
Mystery man with luggage soughtin attendance lane.
That was the headline inSaturday's free press.
The Saturday paper wastraditionally very thin, without
much of a news hole.
The five-day-old story madepage two.
Deputy Chief Dave Early wasquoted as saying the following
(12:25):
we're not saying this is thekiller or the main suspect.
If he wants to come in and sayhey, that was my luggage and I
have a legitimate reason to bethere, we'd sure love to hear
from him.
Unquote.
He saw a guy putting luggageinto a car at an airport hotel.
(12:46):
How common was that?
Still, it was the best thingthey had come up with so far.
The composite was generatingtons of tips which would keep
them busy and they had men atthe airport, passing the
composite out to employees andeyeballing passengers as they
(13:07):
came out and or I should say, asthey came and went.
Now they turned to the Secretaryof State in their search for
late model Monte Carlos.
They thought they might get inanother 80 or 100 leads that way
(13:29):
.
Wrong.
They got a list of more than2,600 in this state of similar
colors in the right range ofmodel years.
They started running the namesthrough the Law Enforcement
Intelligence Network, which is acomputerized system, to see if
anything turned up.
The Monte Carlo was built onthe same platform as other very
(13:54):
similar-looking GM cars.
What if it wasn't a Monte Carlobut one of its first cousins,
another Chevy, pontiac or Buick?
You could never run them alldown.
Arcee had said the car hadwhite plates.
Many of the leads in this caseeither went nowhere or too many
places.
That year 38 states and theprovince of Ontario had white or
(14:18):
mostly white plates Before theywere done.
They have more than 20,000names in their database Names of
pilots, names of Romulus Hotelguests, names of flight
attendants, names of Monte Carloowners, names of singles, names
of optive sheets.
(14:39):
Eventually 200 of the nameswere deemed important enough to
run lab tests on In 1991,running DNA profiles was very
expensive and slow.
The results would take up to sixmonths or more.
Snyder had a lab report fromHelton that the perp was blood
(14:59):
type A, which was very common,but secreted in his semen a rare
enzyme called PGM2-1+, the PGMstanding for phosphoglucomutase.
It's basically a water-solublemolecule that is found in
perspiration and in vaginal andseminal secretions.
(15:22):
Less than 2% of the malepopulation has that PGM grouping
, which drastically narroweddown the field.
They will start with a bloodsample and a saliva sample.
If the blood came back as typeA and the saliva sample showed
that he was a secretor, meaningblood type molecules were
(15:45):
present in water-soluble fluidsother than blood 80% of the
population are secretors Then afollow-up blood test would
determine if he was a PGM typeof 2-1+ and if he was, then they
would run a DNA profile.
Of the 200 suspects they tested, only one was at PGM 2-1+ and
(16:13):
his DNA cleared him.
Snyder asked the Minneapolispolice to videotape Nancy's
funeral.
Maybe the killer would get hiskicks by showing up.
One person caught their eyes.
Someone hanging out at thefringe is snapping pictures, but
he was just a freelancephotographer.
Hopes of an early capture fadedas the long hours came and went
(16:37):
, it was dead end, dead end,dead end.
As the first week ended, hopefaded for a solution.
As the first week ended, hopefaded for a solution.
There was nothing surfacing.
They kept plugging away.
They compiled a list of allFire Hilton employees and
started looking them up.
On March 8, they interviewed acook who had been fired the
(17:00):
previous March for smokingmarijuana in a room with a maid.
He had a record of arrest forindecent exposure.
Saliva samples cleared him.
Snyder was determined to trackdown every lead possible, the
piece of twine at the scene thathad been used to bind Ludwig's
wrist.
Where did that come from?
(17:21):
Who saw such twine?
Who made it?
In April he and Milaniakvisited a local distributor of
rope and twine and showed themthe piece of twine used to bind
Ludwig's hands.
It was something called in thetwine trade a two-ply nature
jute and it had only onedistributor in Michigan and Ohio
(17:45):
.
The distributor sold largereels of it to four companies,
large balls of it to fourcompanies and small balls of it
to seven companies.
A solid lead came out of it,something to cross-reference.
The particular twine the killerused was often used by
landscapers.
So they went back and checkedto see if anyone they have
(18:09):
talked to so far was alandscaper.
Another dead end.
Mostly they seemed to becompiling lists and files.
They had 47 pages on thetri-county singles, 120 pages of
Monte Carlos, 167 pages ofairline passengers, 88 names of
(18:30):
sex offenders, 5 pages of pilotswho have been attending a
Northwest seminar in Detroit theweekend of the murder, 10 pages
of Hilton employees.
All of the names and lists andpages had to be checked out.
None of the information wentanywhere.
For weeks that became months.
(18:50):
Millionaire seemed to see gold,monte Carlos everywhere At work
out with his wife.
In his sleep he just shut downthe license number and hurried
back to the station to run itthrough the computer Nothing.
As Mike St Andre wandered theconcourses of Metro Airport four
(19:15):
days after Nancy Ludwig'smurder, keeping an eye out for
someone of the killer'sdescription and interviewing
airport employees, brenda Gortonwas walking the concourses too,
trying to contain herself.
(19:35):
One of the suppliers for thefamily business Century Rain Aid
organized yearly trips forpeople in the sprinkler trade.
This year it was to Vegas.
There were 146 making the tripat all and it included Jeff,
brenda, his brother Greg andGreg's wife Sarah, because
Buckler had done so muchbusiness with Century.
(19:55):
The company was picking up thetab for a trip for two At
Christmas.
Jeff's dad, lawrence, had puteach brother's name in a hat and
pulled out to see who would getthe trip.
So Jeff won, and what could bebetter in midwinter and gloomy
Michigan than a four-day trip tosunny Las Vegas at the Flamingo
(20:17):
?
If Brenda saw San Andre, itdidn't register.
She knew nothing about hismission or the death of the
Northwest flight attendant.
It had made the papers in Flint, though it wasn't big news or
anything, nothing like it hadbeen and still was in Detroit.
But even if it had been bignews she probably wouldn't have
(20:39):
paid attention.
Anyway.
She didn't read the papers andshe didn't watch much TV news
Because she had this comingweekend off.
She had had to work theprevious weekend, pulling the
second shift at FlintOsteopathic Hospital and working
late both Saturday the 16th andthe Sunday, the 17th.
(21:01):
It was the second of four tripsthe Gortons would take out of
Metropolitan Airport.
They had gone to Cancun in 1989before they were married.
Later they'd taken a trip toDisney World with their two
young kids and in January of2001, they would have a
particularly odd start to theirtrip to Costa Rica.
(21:21):
On the airport grounds justshort of the terminal a merging
truck from Alvin Motor Friedsandwiched into Gordon's.
1993 Pontiac Police arrived andtook a report.
Gordon's car had to be towedaway but miraculously Brenda,
(21:43):
his brother Greg and Greg's wifestill made barely the flight.
They got the car out of theimpound lot when they got back
bent a fender enough, so the carwas operable and were able to
drive it back to Flint.
Hard to imagine a morememorable airport experience, or
maybe not the flight for Vegasin 1991 at 9 20 am on
(22:08):
Continental Airlines.
As Brenda anxiously awaitedtakeoff, she went over the
itinerary.
It was going to be a crazyjam-packed four days.
There were a lot of decisionsto be made too.
They were due to arrive inVegas at 10.20 am and due to
depart on February 24th at 6.30pm, a flight that would get them
(22:33):
into Metro at 1.25 am on the25th and back at their house in
Flint by about 4 or so.
The Atina Robbie had beenarranged by Nevada Host Inc.
Thursday and Friday were youron-your-own days.
She and Jeff neither of themwere much for gambling days.
(22:54):
She and Jeff neither of themwere much for gambling could
take their choice of a tour tothe Hoover Dam, an in-city tour
of museums, stars, homes, thechocolate factory in Glitter
Gulch or a tour to Red RockCanyon and Old Nevada.
The literature said they couldtake their choice of big acts
like Tom Jones, who was atBailey's, julio Iglesias was at
(23:16):
Caesar's Palace, frank SinatraJr was at the Four Queens Hotel,
siegfried and Roy were at theMirage, polanca was at the
Riviera and Wayne Newton was atthe Hilton.
One thing good and bad aboutJeff was that he was so laid
back he would be happy to doanything, but she would have to
(23:38):
decide.
Saturday morning they had abreakfast with other Century
Rain aid trip winners andSaturday afternoon there was a
bowl-a-thon at Arizona'sCharlie's.
Sunday they would have to checkout by 11.15, but they would
have the afternoon free.
Since Brenda wasn't much forgambling, something else she
could read on the flight mightcome in handy.
(23:59):
Century Rain 8 had providedsome basic tips on gambling.
They told her to always split apair of aces or eights and if
she was playing blackjack, andto never split a pair of fives
or ten count cards.
That was easy enough.
(24:19):
The other stuff, forget it.
Who could remember all that?
With ace-seven, double down ifthe dealer shows three through
six, draw it.
If it's up card is nine or tens, then if it shows two, seven,
eight or eight, malarkey.
They were there to have fun,not study.
(24:41):
The day after Jeff and Brenda'sflight left for Vegas, sanandria
was back at the airport.
This time he was armed with twocomposite drawings to pass out,
done by the state police sketchartist and based on RCS
description.
They show a profile of astudious-looking young man with
tussle-shortish hair.
(25:03):
One version had been wearingbig round glasses, the other had
been without.
Just after the Gortons returnedfrom Vegas, brenda got good
news she was pregnant with hersecond child and had been since
January.
After the first week's flurry of16 and 18-hour days of tracking
(25:26):
down witnesses near and far ofwork in the area hotels,
melianek and others startedputting in more time on the tips
that were pouring in.
One early tip seemed tocorroborate fears by the FBI
that the killing might somehowbe related to Desert Storm, a
plot by terrorists to steal aflight attendant's uniform,
(25:47):
passport and Northwest ID, usingrape and murder as a cover-up.
With as many as a quarter of amillion Arab Americans in
southeastern Michigan, certainlysome of them had ties to
Saddam's regime and were angryenough about the war to take
desperate measures.
The tipster said that themurder had in fact been part of
(26:07):
a terrorist plot and a passportfrom a slight, dark-haired woman
was needed to carry out theassassination of a top US
government official.
Snyder discounted the tip butpassed it on to the FBI.
The tipster somehow gotLudwig's home number and called
him.
Ludwig, against Snyder's wishes, agreed to fly to Detroit and
(26:30):
meet the tipster at the Big Boyrestaurant across I-94 from
Metro Airport.
The men show up as scheduledcarrying 28 pages of papers
crawled with anti-Arab rhetoric.
Two of Snyder's undercover copswatch from a nearby table as
the men rant and rave at Ludwigabout the Arabs.
(26:51):
Ludwig got the man's name andthe police later ran it without
result.
He was ultimately dismissed asa bigot and a nut and his
so-called terrorist scheme asmerely a fantasy.
Ludwig's meeting with him wasreminiscent of a weird
rendezvous Link Helton had lateron in the case.
(27:15):
Only on TV shows do crime sceneinvestigators take an active
part in investigations.
The work is done, collectingsamples at the scene and
analyzing them back at the lab.
But Helton, who had been quotedat length on the case in
various media outlets, got acall from a woman who has feared
, fearful a close relative ofhers might have been involved at
(27:37):
the Ludwig's killing he hadrecently died and she wanted to
for her her own peace of mind,to find out one way or another
if he had done it.
Helton agreed to meet with thewoman in the parking lot of the
state police headquarters inEast Lansing.
Helton talked to her outsideher car in view of the guard
(27:59):
booth, took an article ofclothing from her that for some
reason or another had beensubstantially bloodied by the
man in question.
As the woman pulled out, hiltonscribbled down the license
plate number.
Snyder ran it, but nothingsuspicious turned in or turned
(28:23):
up, I should say.
Hilton tested the clothing andit came up clean.
And Hilton said, quote we werelike spies exchanging
clandestine information.
I couldn't believe what I wasdoing and I wasn't sure I was
safe.
It almost smacks of theridiculous, but it shows there
(28:45):
was no length.
I wouldn't go to solve thiscase.
End.
Quote.
State Police Detective DanBonnet called in a hot tip.
He had been working a case of awife who suspected her husband
of trying to murder her.
He was a lawyer in a poshDetroit suburb Twice.
His wife had been hospitalizedviolently ill.
(29:07):
Both times before she got sickher husband had brought dinner
home from McDonald's.
His wife brought the statepolice book she had found at
home on how to make poison.
They got a warrant and paid hima visit at his office.
Growing on his windowsill atwork they found castor beans
(29:29):
which can be very deadly ifprepared properly.
Police took tissue samples fromthe attorney and vanned them
through US military labs, butthe enzymes they were looking
for broke down quickly and thesamples tested negative.
While Bonner was convinced theattorney was guilty, there
wasn't enough to charge him.
Of interest, though, wassomething the attorney's
(29:53):
secretary told him, that one dayin February she recalled about
the time of the Ludwig murder.
The attorney had come to workall scratched up and bruised.
When she asked him whathappened, he said he fell on his
bike.
February in Michigan being anunlikely time to ride a bike in
Michigan being an unlikely timeto ride a bike, bonnet called it
(30:15):
in.
The attorney was clear ofLudwig's murder.
We'll be right back.
For the book.
I'm your host, kiara, and thisis part six of Jeffrey Gordon's
Deadly Secret.
Let's begin.
Ken Krause had been a MichiganState Police officer since the
50s Now it's 19,.
(00:22):
In 1981, he retired from theStates.
Now it's 1981, he retired fromthe state police and he started
and hit up the detective bureauat the new Romulus Police
Department.
And he was enjoying his holiday.
And 10 years later, 19 February18, 1991, when he receives a
(00:47):
call saying that there was amurder at the airport Hilton.
He wasn't a micromanager.
He knew Snyder and Melianakcould handle things so he didn't
rush to the scene.
The next day Krause went in andtook control.
He told them that they wouldlikely be swamped with tips and
he would set up the tip file,get it organized and
(01:09):
cross-referenced.
The PD was computerized by thenand they would keep a paper tip
file and a computerized file.
The computer file would make iteasy to cross-reference tips
and bits of information.
Krauss, who always pridedhimself as a hands-on lieutenant
(01:30):
who didn't mind getting outfrom behind his desk, told
Snyder, malignac and the rest ofthe DB to work the Lewitt case.
He would take care of otherstuff that came up that they
normally would attend to.
He would also, if they neededhim, interview witnesses, make
phone calls, whatever, whateverthey needed, and, according to
(01:55):
Meliana, kim Krause pretty muchheld down the fort.
Eventually, the line they setup would generate 2,300 tips.
Each one would be addressed,some in a matter of seconds,
some with a great deal ofdeliberation.
While Krauss held down the fort,melianak and Snyder and a
(02:17):
handful of others put in theirlong days of double shifts.
Days of double shifts.
Malinak and Snyder spent somenights on the floor in the
detective bureau, too tired orpressed for time to bother
driving home.
The investigation spread outquickly from ground zero.
They began with hotel employeesand guests.
(02:39):
Right away they hit upon one ofthe best leads they would get
and, according to Snyder, theythought that they would crack it
the first day.
A Hilton shuttle bus driver hadbeen fired a few days earlier
for screaming at a Northwestflight attendant and he had
(03:00):
vowed revenge when he was fired.
Had vowed revenge when he wasfired, but he had an alibi and
he was clear quickly.
So it was not him.
(03:21):
The desk clerk who said she hadchecked Lewick in gave them a
couple of hot leads.
She said Lewick had been at thehotel several times previously,
as recently as the week before.
This might mean that she hadhad the opportunity to meet
someone on previous trips,someone she had invited into her
room.
This time that seemedparticularly credible because
the clerk said that about 9.45pm the night of the murder, a
(03:43):
male had called the front deskand asked for Nancy Ludwig's
room.
The clerk had patched him intoroom 354.
A friend from past trips aboutto pay a lethal visit, you
wonder?
Well, there was only oneproblem.
Millionaire quickly found outthat it was Louis' first trip to
(04:06):
Detroit.
She had not even known how tocatch the shuttle to the hotel.
The clerk had not seen herbefore.
In fact, while the woman hadbeen working the desk that night
, it was a male clerk, davidBennett, who had checked in
Ludwig and Nelms.
And as for the call, malenek andSnyder quickly discounted that
(04:29):
too.
Art Ludwig had not called her.
Michigan Bell had no record ofa call coming into the hotel at
that time.
Hotel equipment couldn'tconfirm a call had been
transferred and the timing madeno sense.
Confirm a call had beentransferred and the timing made
no sense, given that Arcia hadseen the killer at 10.30,
already done raping, torturingand murdering Ludwig, already
(04:54):
done with his lengthy cleanupand already dressed and packing
up the Monte Carlo.
So this woman was wrong onevery statement.
And even Detective Snyder said,and quote if you believe a call
was made to the room, it had tocome from the killer.
Given the evidence that Nancywas immediately attacked upon
(05:16):
entering the room, there was notime or need for the killer to
call.
She made the whole thing up.
Why, I have no idea.
End quote.
So so much for eyewitnesses.
It's a law of police work.
Eyewitnesses are notoriouslyunreliable.
(05:38):
You might be an eyewitness butthat doesn't mean you saw what
you think you saw.
Juries love eyewitnesses.
Prosecutors rely on them.
Defense attorneys and copsshare one thing in common they
hate them.
Now things got weirder.
(05:59):
The clerk who had claimed tohave checked Nancy in Her
boyfriend drove up Gold MonteCarlo and he had driven her to
work the night.
Lowe would die, the boyfriendbriefly.
A suspect was later cleared.
(06:20):
One Romulus crew went out to thelandfill nearby to see if they
could find any clues in thegarbage that had been carted off
from the hotel before the bodyhad been found.
Literally wading through refuse, one of the cops found a piece
of paper that had Nancy Ludwigwritten on it.
It gave a momentary thrill, butit wasn't the murderer who had
written it.
(06:40):
It turned out to be somethingjotted down by a hotel employee.
They got copies of room chargesrun up by all the guests at the
Hilton the night of the murder,seeing who was accounted for in
a restaurant or bar or gettingroom service during the time in
question.
They gathered the names of all8,000 guests who had stayed at
(07:04):
the 21 airport hotels and motelsthat weekend, from high-end
places like the Hilton to$20-a-night motels with peeling
paint and bedspreads stainedwith who-knew-what, and began
entering them into a databaselooking for people convicted of
crimes or wanted by police.
(07:26):
They learned of a big partythrown over the weekend by a
group known as the Tri-CountySingles.
Maybe some lonely single tookout frustrations on a pretty
flight attendant.
They got a list of members andstarted tracking them down.
They started calling all thepilots and flight attendants who
had been at the Hilton.
One flight attendant had stayedon the other side of the wall
(07:50):
from Ludwig.
Melianak was sure she must haveheard something.
The way Ludwig had fought back.
It must have sounded like allhell breaking loose.
Melianak reached her by phone.
She sounded like she didn'twant to be bothered.
She said she hadn't heardanything.
Melianak didn't believe her butwas polite.
(08:12):
A little while later theattendant's husband called him
back hot as hell, screaming thatMelianak had upset his wife,
what was he calling her for, andso forth.
And Melianak got hot himselfand said hey, it could have been
your wife.
(08:32):
Phil Arcia made a return flightto Detroit from Boston on
Wednesday.
He got to the Hilton about 8 pmand asked the desk clerk if
they had arrested anyone.
The answer was no.
Arcia went to his room and thensuddenly it hit him the guy in
the parking lot, the guy withthe Monte Carlo.
The next day he was checkingout and asked again if anyone
(08:56):
had been caught.
Still no.
And he told the desk clerk Ithink I saw something.
I don't know if it would help.
Is there anyone I can talk to?
The hotel manager called Snyder.
Snyder rushed to the hotel,northwest officials pulled Arcia
off his flight out and then hetold the story of the guy with
(09:18):
the bad haircut and bad fashionsense stuffing Northwest luggage
into the back of a gold MonteCarlo.
He seemed remarkably sure ofwhat he had seen, was very
precise in his details.
Snyder was sent for a statepolice sketch artist who came to
the hotel.
They put two compositestogether, both profiles, one
(09:41):
with glasses, one without.
If we need anything else we'lllet you know.
N handed Arcia his card andthat was the last he heard from
Snyder for 11 years.
Two other composites would comeout.
The first week in March Lim Nelswas put under hypnosis at the
(10:04):
St Paul Minnesota PoliceDepartment and a drawing was
made by police artist PaulJohnson while she was under.
That shows someone about 40with some wrinkles and while
under.
Nelms told the artist thesuspect had what seemed to be
acne scars, but they were leftoff the composite.
They would have looked toopronounced in a drawing and
(10:28):
might have caused people to lookfor someone more scarred than
he really was.
Johnson then met with AnnJohnson the composite made from
her recollection, and she hadseen the suspect face to face
and brought that light, whileNelms had seen him in a dark van
show a man with similarfeatures but much younger, 28,
(10:50):
30 or so.
Two versions of this compositewere ultimately released, one
with glasses, one without.
Both Nelms and Johnson'sversions showed the same hair as
Arcia's, but the nose wasshortened a bit.
As Arcia's, but the nose wasshortened a bit.
(11:10):
Many years would pass beforepolice, including Dan Snyder,
who himself was trained to makecomposite drawings, would
pronounce Ann Johnson'scomposite the most accurate
stunningly accurate they haveever seen.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
The Romulus Police Departmenthad a limited budget for travel
(11:32):
With so many prospectivewitnesses spread around the
country.
The department turned to theFBI for help.
Fbi agents agreed to help out,interviewing out-of-state
residents who might not becoming back to Michigan soon.
(11:52):
Friday, february 22, the policereleased the first composite
drawing.
Mystery man with luggage soughtin attendance lane.
That was the headline inSaturday's free press.
The Saturday paper wastraditionally very thin, without
much of a news hole.
The five-day-old story madepage two.
Deputy Chief Dave Early wasquoted as saying the following
(12:25):
we're not saying this is thekiller or the main suspect.
If he wants to come in and sayhey, that was my luggage and I
have a legitimate reason to bethere, we'd sure love to hear
from him.
Unquote.
He saw a guy putting luggageinto a car at an airport hotel.
(12:46):
How common was that?
Still, it was the best thingthey had come up with so far.
The composite was generatingtons of tips which would keep
them busy and they had men atthe airport, passing the
composite out to employees andeyeballing passengers as they
(13:07):
came out and or I should say, asthey came and went.
Now they turned to the Secretaryof State in their search for
late model Monte Carlos.
They thought they might get inanother 80 or 100 leads that way
(13:29):
.
Wrong.
They got a list of more than2,600 in this state of similar
colors in the right range ofmodel years.
They started running the namesthrough the Law Enforcement
Intelligence Network, which is acomputerized system, to see if
anything turned up.
The Monte Carlo was built onthe same platform as other very
(13:54):
similar-looking GM cars.
What if it wasn't a Monte Carlobut one of its first cousins,
another Chevy, pontiac or Buick?
You could never run them alldown.
Arcee had said the car hadwhite plates.
Many of the leads in this caseeither went nowhere or too many
places.
That year 38 states and theprovince of Ontario had white or
(14:18):
mostly white plates Before theywere done.
They have more than 20,000names in their database Names of
pilots, names of Romulus Hotelguests, names of flight
attendants, names of Monte Carloowners, names of singles, names
of optive sheets.
(14:39):
Eventually 200 of the nameswere deemed important enough to
run lab tests on In 1991,running DNA profiles was very
expensive and slow.
The results would take up to sixmonths or more.
Snyder had a lab report fromHelton that the perp was blood
(14:59):
type A, which was very common,but secreted in his semen a rare
enzyme called PGM2-1+, the PGMstanding for phosphoglucomutase.
It's basically a water-solublemolecule that is found in
perspiration and in vaginal andseminal secretions.
(15:22):
Less than 2% of the malepopulation has that PGM grouping
, which drastically narroweddown the field.
They will start with a bloodsample and a saliva sample.
If the blood came back as typeA and the saliva sample showed
that he was a secretor, meaningblood type molecules were
(15:45):
present in water-soluble fluidsother than blood 80% of the
population are secretors Then afollow-up blood test would
determine if he was a PGM typeof 2-1+ and if he was, then they
would run a DNA profile.
Of the 200 suspects they tested, only one was at PGM 2-1+ and
(16:13):
his DNA cleared him.
Snyder asked the Minneapolispolice to videotape Nancy's
funeral.
Maybe the killer would get hiskicks by showing up.
One person caught their eyes.
Someone hanging out at thefringe is snapping pictures, but
he was just a freelancephotographer.
Hopes of an early capture fadedas the long hours came and went
(16:37):
, it was dead end, dead end,dead end.
As the first week ended, hopefaded for a solution.
As the first week ended, hopefaded for a solution.
There was nothing surfacing.
They kept plugging away.
They compiled a list of allFire Hilton employees and
started looking them up.
On March 8, they interviewed acook who had been fired the
(17:00):
previous March for smokingmarijuana in a room with a maid.
He had a record of arrest forindecent exposure.
Saliva samples cleared him.
Snyder was determined to trackdown every lead possible, the
piece of twine at the scene thathad been used to bind Ludwig's
wrist.
Where did that come from?
(17:21):
Who saw such twine?
Who made it?
In April he and Milaniakvisited a local distributor of
rope and twine and showed themthe piece of twine used to bind
Ludwig's hands.
It was something called in thetwine trade a two-ply nature
jute and it had only onedistributor in Michigan and Ohio
(17:45):
.
The distributor sold largereels of it to four companies,
large balls of it to fourcompanies and small balls of it
to seven companies.
A solid lead came out of it,something to cross-reference.
The particular twine the killerused was often used by
landscapers.
So they went back and checkedto see if anyone they have
(18:09):
talked to so far was alandscaper.
Another dead end.
Mostly they seemed to becompiling lists and files.
They had 47 pages on thetri-county singles, 120 pages of
Monte Carlos, 167 pages ofairline passengers, 88 names of
(18:30):
sex offenders, 5 pages of pilotswho have been attending a
Northwest seminar in Detroit theweekend of the murder, 10 pages
of Hilton employees.
All of the names and lists andpages had to be checked out.
None of the information wentanywhere.
For weeks that became months.
(18:50):
Millionaire seemed to see gold,monte Carlos everywhere At work
out with his wife.
In his sleep he just shut downthe license number and hurried
back to the station to run itthrough the computer Nothing.
As Mike St Andre wandered theconcourses of Metro Airport four
(19:15):
days after Nancy Ludwig'smurder, keeping an eye out for
someone of the killer'sdescription and interviewing
airport employees, brenda Gortonwas walking the concourses too,
trying to contain herself.
(19:35):
One of the suppliers for thefamily business Century Rain Aid
organized yearly trips forpeople in the sprinkler trade.
This year it was to Vegas.
There were 146 making the tripat all and it included Jeff,
brenda, his brother Greg andGreg's wife Sarah, because
Buckler had done so muchbusiness with Century.
(19:55):
The company was picking up thetab for a trip for two At
Christmas.
Jeff's dad, lawrence, had puteach brother's name in a hat and
pulled out to see who would getthe trip.
So Jeff won, and what could bebetter in midwinter and gloomy
Michigan than a four-day trip tosunny Las Vegas at the Flamingo
(20:17):
?
If Brenda saw San Andre, itdidn't register.
She knew nothing about hismission or the death of the
Northwest flight attendant.
It had made the papers in Flint, though it wasn't big news or
anything, nothing like it hadbeen and still was in Detroit.
But even if it had been bignews she probably wouldn't have
(20:39):
paid attention.
Anyway.
She didn't read the papers andshe didn't watch much TV news
Because she had this comingweekend off.
She had had to work theprevious weekend, pulling the
second shift at FlintOsteopathic Hospital and working
late both Saturday the 16th andthe Sunday, the 17th.
(21:01):
It was the second of four tripsthe Gortons would take out of
Metropolitan Airport.
They had gone to Cancun in 1989before they were married.
Later they'd taken a trip toDisney World with their two
young kids and in January of2001, they would have a
particularly odd start to theirtrip to Costa Rica.
(21:21):
On the airport grounds justshort of the terminal a merging
truck from Alvin Motor Friedsandwiched into Gordon's.
1993 Pontiac Police arrived andtook a report.
Gordon's car had to be towedaway but miraculously Brenda,
(21:43):
his brother Greg and Greg's wifestill made barely the flight.
They got the car out of theimpound lot when they got back
bent a fender enough, so the carwas operable and were able to
drive it back to Flint.
Hard to imagine a morememorable airport experience, or
maybe not the flight for Vegasin 1991 at 9 20 am on
(22:08):
Continental Airlines.
As Brenda anxiously awaitedtakeoff, she went over the
itinerary.
It was going to be a crazyjam-packed four days.
There were a lot of decisionsto be made too.
They were due to arrive inVegas at 10.20 am and due to
depart on February 24th at 6.30pm, a flight that would get them
(22:33):
into Metro at 1.25 am on the25th and back at their house in
Flint by about 4 or so.
The Atina Robbie had beenarranged by Nevada Host Inc.
Thursday and Friday were youron-your-own days.
She and Jeff neither of themwere much for gambling days.
(22:54):
She and Jeff neither of themwere much for gambling could
take their choice of a tour tothe Hoover Dam, an in-city tour
of museums, stars, homes, thechocolate factory in Glitter
Gulch or a tour to Red RockCanyon and Old Nevada.
The literature said they couldtake their choice of big acts
like Tom Jones, who was atBailey's, julio Iglesias was at
(23:16):
Caesar's Palace, frank SinatraJr was at the Four Queens Hotel,
siegfried and Roy were at theMirage, polanca was at the
Riviera and Wayne Newton was atthe Hilton.
One thing good and bad aboutJeff was that he was so laid
back he would be happy to doanything, but she would have to
(23:38):
decide.
Saturday morning they had abreakfast with other Century
Rain aid trip winners andSaturday afternoon there was a
bowl-a-thon at Arizona'sCharlie's.
Sunday they would have to checkout by 11.15, but they would
have the afternoon free.
Since Brenda wasn't much forgambling, something else she
could read on the flight mightcome in handy.
(23:59):
Century Rain 8 had providedsome basic tips on gambling.
They told her to always split apair of aces or eights and if
she was playing blackjack, andto never split a pair of fives
or ten count cards.
That was easy enough.
(24:19):
The other stuff, forget it.
Who could remember all that?
With ace-seven, double down ifthe dealer shows three through
six, draw it.
If it's up card is nine or tens, then if it shows two, seven,
eight or eight, malarkey.
They were there to have fun,not study.
(24:41):
The day after Jeff and Brenda'sflight left for Vegas, sanandria
was back at the airport.
This time he was armed with twocomposite drawings to pass out,
done by the state police sketchartist and based on RCS
description.
They show a profile of astudious-looking young man with
tussle-shortish hair.
(25:03):
One version had been wearingbig round glasses, the other had
been without.
Just after the Gortons returnedfrom Vegas, brenda got good
news she was pregnant with hersecond child and had been since
January.
After the first week's flurry of16 and 18-hour days of tracking
(25:26):
down witnesses near and far ofwork in the area hotels,
melianek and others startedputting in more time on the tips
that were pouring in.
One early tip seemed tocorroborate fears by the FBI
that the killing might somehowbe related to Desert Storm, a
plot by terrorists to steal aflight attendant's uniform,
(25:47):
passport and Northwest ID, usingrape and murder as a cover-up.
With as many as a quarter of amillion Arab Americans in
southeastern Michigan, certainlysome of them had ties to
Saddam's regime and were angryenough about the war to take
desperate measures.
The tipster said that themurder had in fact been part of
(26:07):
a terrorist plot and a passportfrom a slight, dark-haired woman
was needed to carry out theassassination of a top US
government official.
Snyder discounted the tip butpassed it on to the FBI.
The tipster somehow gotLudwig's home number and called
him.
Ludwig, against Snyder's wishes, agreed to fly to Detroit and
(26:30):
meet the tipster at the Big Boyrestaurant across I-94 from
Metro Airport.
The men show up as scheduledcarrying 28 pages of papers
crawled with anti-Arab rhetoric.
Two of Snyder's undercover copswatch from a nearby table as
the men rant and rave at Ludwigabout the Arabs.
(26:51):
Ludwig got the man's name andthe police later ran it without
result.
He was ultimately dismissed asa bigot and a nut and his
so-called terrorist scheme asmerely a fantasy.
Ludwig's meeting with him wasreminiscent of a weird
rendezvous Link Helton had lateron in the case.
(27:15):
Only on TV shows do crime sceneinvestigators take an active
part in investigations.
The work is done, collectingsamples at the scene and
analyzing them back at the lab.
But Helton, who had been quotedat length on the case in
various media outlets, got acall from a woman who has feared
, fearful a close relative ofhers might have been involved at
(27:37):
the Ludwig's killing he hadrecently died and she wanted to
for her her own peace of mind,to find out one way or another
if he had done it.
Helton agreed to meet with thewoman in the parking lot of the
state police headquarters inEast Lansing.
Helton talked to her outsideher car in view of the guard
(27:59):
booth, took an article ofclothing from her that for some
reason or another had beensubstantially bloodied by the
man in question.
As the woman pulled out, hiltonscribbled down the license
plate number.
Snyder ran it, but nothingsuspicious turned in or turned
(28:23):
up, I should say.
Hilton tested the clothing andit came up clean.
And Hilton said, quote we werelike spies exchanging
clandestine information.
I couldn't believe what I wasdoing and I wasn't sure I was
safe.
It almost smacks of theridiculous, but it shows there
(28:45):
was no length.
I wouldn't go to solve thiscase.
End.
Quote.
State Police Detective DanBonnet called in a hot tip.
He had been working a case of awife who suspected her husband
of trying to murder her.
He was a lawyer in a poshDetroit suburb Twice.
His wife had been hospitalizedviolently ill.
(29:07):
Both times before she got sickher husband had brought dinner
home from McDonald's.
His wife brought the statepolice book she had found at
home on how to make poison.
They got a warrant and paid hima visit at his office.
Growing on his windowsill atwork they found castor beans
(29:29):
which can be very deadly ifprepared properly.
Police took tissue samples fromthe attorney and vanned them
through US military labs, butthe enzymes they were looking
for broke down quickly and thesamples tested negative.
While Bonner was convinced theattorney was guilty, there
wasn't enough to charge him.
Of interest, though, wassomething the attorney's
(29:53):
secretary told him, that one dayin February she recalled about
the time of the Ludwig murder.
The attorney had come to workall scratched up and bruised.
When she asked him whathappened, he said he fell on his
bike.
February in Michigan being anunlikely time to ride a bike in
Michigan being an unlikely timeto ride a bike, bonnet called it
(30:15):
in.
The attorney was clear ofLudwig's murder.
We'll be right back.
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