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WTOP's American nightmare

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Previously, in episode three

0:32

of WTIOP's American nightmare

0:34

series, unknown subject. For

0:37

several days prior

0:39

to this incident happening,

0:41

she was getting the feeling that somebody was coming in

0:43

her house. So she's actually in

0:45

bed. And next thing

0:47

she knows, this guy comes bursting. She

0:49

has shot she heard something on the hallway.

0:52

and she sat up in bed and the next thing she

0:54

knows a guy who's bursting into the room,

0:57

he would meet violence with violence. So

0:59

after he realized that she wasn't

1:01

gonna fight him he, you

1:04

know, stopped trying to injure her. What's concerned

1:06

about him is he's

1:09

very brazen. And

1:11

as we learned to go as we

1:13

go through these cases, he's breaking into these

1:15

homes and committing these offenses

1:18

at probably the highest risk

1:21

time frame you can imagine.

1:23

And these are early most of these are

1:25

early evening hours.

1:27

This guy is he's not wrapped too

1:29

tight. This something pretty

1:31

scary about him, that he would

1:33

act like that. But the fact that he's

1:35

so competent at what he's doing and so

1:38

it makes it even scarier.

1:42

In

1:42

August of nineteen ninety eight, when Christian

1:44

Reisaiam was murdered in Washington, Newsy's

1:47

Georgetown neighborhood, Detective

1:49

Joe Medrano in neighboring Montgomery

1:52

County, Maryland was at a dead end.

1:55

Seven rape cases with no suspect,

1:57

no arrest, no leads.

2:00

Since May of nineteen ninety one, Tadano

2:02

and his team had seemingly used every

2:04

investigative tool In hopes

2:06

of catching a man, they knew to be

2:08

a huge risk taking predator.

2:12

They even tried surveillance deploying

2:14

undercover officers into neighborhoods similar

2:16

to the ones the rapist had been haunting.

2:20

But it

2:20

got to the point when you're spread out

2:22

from almost DC

2:24

to Damascus. Yes.

2:27

Surveillance becomes almost pointless,

2:29

you know, at that time. They're

2:31

so spread out. Just let you know, you're always

2:33

looking for, you

2:35

know, DNA

2:39

DTC, Department of Corrections released

2:41

as arrests after

2:43

these, you know, incidents happen, constantly

2:47

looking through other reports in

2:49

the same geographical area where

2:51

there might have been other attempts where maybe

2:53

he was, you know, scoping out other places

2:55

suspicious person reports. And

2:57

there's always stuff to look at, but

3:00

it spans such a long period of time and

3:02

such a large geographical area that,

3:05

you know, after a while, it

3:07

It's like you'd have to catch him in the act to

3:09

get a DNA hit because through

3:11

investigative techniques, I

3:14

just there was really nothing else to do.

3:15

But

3:16

it what was scary though is,

3:19

like I said, he seemed like he was nuts

3:22

crazy, but extremely

3:24

competent.

3:25

He was in total control. So

3:28

that's just not a good combination. And

3:30

willing to take extreme risks,

3:32

he got to the point, he just interviewed the

3:35

people so much. And it's like

3:37

he had to have crossed paths with him.

3:39

But and we did these surveys

3:41

where all

3:42

these victims, ask them who's your cable

3:44

provider? Did you have any furniture deliveries? Did

3:47

you have any appliances repaired?

3:50

Who's your insurance company? where

3:52

do you go grocery? So I'm just trying to find

3:54

any common denominator and

3:56

could not come up with anything.

4:02

That

4:05

For

4:06

an investigator, it must have just driven you

4:08

crazy. It was. It it it it

4:10

really it was it

4:13

it was ever a case I wanted to close. It

4:15

was that just because It's like,

4:18

you you wanna know how why

4:20

is he doing this? How is he getting

4:22

these victims? It's usually, I

4:24

think, with these serial cases, they're

4:26

in a tight area and usually

4:28

find something in common. But

4:31

these but they weren't even though these were spread

4:33

out all the places say, okay, well, they're random,

4:35

but they weren't random. Because

4:38

he did a lot of he

4:40

did his homework you know, he's not he went

4:42

into the house knowing that

4:44

he's not gonna be any resistance. He wasn't

4:46

afraid of dogs. You know,

4:49

one woman's husband is a way out of

4:51

business trip. Yeah. So

4:53

he he knows that. He's he's

4:55

he's watching these homes for a period of

4:57

time. And the fact that he the

5:00

other thing that really bugged us is the fact that

5:02

he's doing it in such high

5:05

risk time

5:06

period in the early evening. The only

5:09

thing that I

5:11

could think of was that

5:13

he was married or living

5:15

with somebody where his time is

5:18

accountable. He can't be out at two,

5:20

three o'clock in the morning because he he

5:22

was getting in trouble with a wife or a girlfriend.

5:24

So he had to be accountable to somebody,

5:27

or why why risks doing

5:29

it in at a time when

5:31

literally, you know, everyone's

5:33

home. Yeah. Early evening

5:35

is everyone's home. You you have the greatest

5:37

chance of being seen or caught.

5:45

You may recall in episode three, the

5:47

last known rape in Montgomery County, was

5:50

on November fourteenth nineteen ninety

5:52

seven. Just a little less

5:54

than two weeks before Thanksgiving, it

5:56

was the one with the vicious dogs in the

5:58

house. Ten

5:59

months later, Kristine Reziah

6:02

was murdered in Georgetown. It was August

6:04

of nineteen ninety eight. Joe

6:06

Mendano never really gave it a thought.

6:08

He'd heard about the case. He remembers

6:10

the early publicity. but

6:13

the circumstances were just so

6:15

different from the rate cases he'd been

6:17

investigating. For

6:19

one, Christine was attacked on the street

6:21

pulled into a wooded area and killed.

6:24

None of the victims in Joe's cases

6:26

were killed and every attack

6:28

took place inside. The

6:31

one common denominator was the

6:33

huge risk the killer took in

6:35

grabbing Christine off Busy Canal

6:37

Road and forcing her into the

6:39

woods. Joe's rapist

6:41

was a risk taker, but was he

6:43

also a vicious killer who had now

6:45

crossed a line? Meanwhile

6:47

in DC, in nineteen ninety

6:49

eight, DC police detective

6:52

Dean Kombi knew nothing of the

6:54

rapes in Montgomery County. He

6:56

was a homicide detective in a city that

6:58

gave him plenty of work And

7:00

as the calendar turned from ninety eight

7:02

to ninety nine and then into two

7:04

thousand and beyond, the

7:06

investigation into the murder of Christine

7:08

Raziom was basically sitting on

7:10

a shelf.

7:11

It's very frustrating. Very

7:17

frustrating.

7:17

Again, there are landscapers in

7:19

the background of this clip because the interview

7:22

was outside. Because a

7:24

lot of a lot of times, I

7:26

had cases that you know, didn't really

7:28

have much to start with, but you'd

7:30

get something, you know, that you could that you

7:32

could, you know, pull on to

7:34

to make it unwrap bolt to

7:36

solve the case. But not always,

7:39

you know, most of the time when you have,

7:41

you

7:42

know, a a murder in a drug

7:44

area.

7:44

I

7:46

guarantee there's probably at least ten people who saw

7:48

it, you know, but don't wanna, you know,

7:50

they don't wanna be involved, stuff like that. But so

7:52

but eventually, as you keep going back and

7:54

basically nagging him enough. Somebody will tell you

7:56

what you wanna know and so that

7:58

you you can, you know, get it. But in this

8:00

particular case,

8:01

Now

8:02

what you know, there was no witnesses. You

8:04

know? There there was no witnesses

8:07

that

8:08

actually saw anything, you know. And

8:10

he's anything probative. I guess I just had

8:12

sex. Yeah. So and

8:14

the only basically, the only evidence we had, of

8:16

course, was stuff we gotta come from her with her

8:18

body. It didn't appear that

8:21

anything had been taken. I couldn't couldn't

8:23

establish anything that he'd actually

8:25

taken anything from her. because,

8:27

I mean, I can't tell a number of mergers I worked

8:29

where somebody would, you know, they would rob them

8:31

and shoot them and take their credit cards and go think they'll use

8:33

the credit cards and buy themselves some shoes or something,

8:35

you know, whatever. or

8:38

steal their car and be riding around in a

8:40

car, you know, that sort of

8:42

thing. But

8:45

when you get a murder that's like this, this

8:47

is and

8:49

you have not much of anything to

8:51

go on,

8:52

you know, you

8:53

do a lot of wheel spinning, you know.

8:55

You try think of any any possible

8:58

thing that you could, you

9:00

know, to look at, to see if there might

9:02

be something that could help you. Yeah.

9:04

Well, I looked at every place I could think

9:06

of

9:06

it, you know,

9:09

got

9:09

nothing basically.

9:11

My

9:11

impression was the guy was savage.

9:14

That's Mike Farish, the former

9:16

commander of the DC Police Department's

9:18

homicide unit. He's retired

9:20

now and living in Kentucky. Mike

9:23

is well known as a ball

9:25

buster. A cop who likes to rag on

9:27

people, but never in a mean

9:29

way. He's a guy with a

9:31

wicked sense of humor. I got

9:33

to know Mike quite well while working

9:35

for Fox five at a time when he was trying to

9:37

solve some coal cases, and I

9:39

would interview him for features we

9:41

would run on Saturday nights. IN

9:43

A RECENT INTERVIEW, I ASKED HIM WHAT

9:45

HE REMEMBERS ABOUT THE RESION CASE

9:48

AND THE EXTENT TO WHICH HIS

9:50

INVESTIGATORS TRIED TO CLOSE IT Well,

9:52

I I there's no doubt about it. The

9:54

case was worked and, you

9:57

know,

9:59

as a kind of a a

10:02

grim humor, if you will. Anytime there

10:04

was a murder in that neck of

10:06

the woods, it's open up up in over

10:09

northwest in two

10:11

d. We used to joke

10:13

at the homicide branch that, you know, probably

10:15

end up being a task force. just

10:17

because the

10:19

the community there is a little I'm not

10:21

you know, I'm retired. I can say pretty much what I want

10:24

now. So Okay. Yeah.

10:27

Like I didn't before. Right, Paul? Right.

10:29

Right. Is that what the the the

10:31

community is a little more affluent.

10:34

Has more political connections

10:36

and, you know, they definitely

10:38

believe in the old Acxiom, the

10:40

squeaky wheel gets the grease. So

10:42

management on the department would

10:44

definitely been in a

10:46

tither right after this occurred.

10:48

Aside from just the brutality, I mean, that kind

10:50

of brutality patrol, the attention

10:53

if it occurred anywhere in the city.

10:56

But add on to that that it was right near

10:58

Georgetown University, is

11:00

just gonna increase the amount of pressure

11:02

from the community on

11:04

the police department. I

11:07

mean, I I know in the branch We

11:10

really didn't care if it was on, you

11:12

know, good Hope

11:14

Road, Minnesota Avenue, or Canal Road

11:16

Northwest. We we looked at them

11:18

all where they were all serious

11:20

because they were someone's loved one.

11:23

And so we tried to work them

11:25

that way. So sometimes it's a

11:27

little more difficult to work your

11:29

cases when you have this kind of

11:31

political hoorang and

11:33

occurring because management you

11:35

know, puts the pressure down onto

11:38

the the branch itself.

11:40

You know, that was one of the things when I was the

11:42

commander of the branch, and some

11:44

of my predecessors were very good

11:46

at it. We tried to eliminate that

11:48

from getting down to the detectives as best

11:51

we because they had a job to do

11:53

when it was a serious job to do.

11:55

But the affluent Georgetown

11:57

community and the pressure it may have put

11:59

on detective combi lieutenant

12:01

Ferris in the DC Police Department

12:03

had absolutely no

12:05

bearing on the case at all. Ferris

12:07

said you can put all the pressure in the world on an investigator

12:09

and his team. But if there

12:12

is nowhere to turn, nowhere to go,

12:14

and no one to investigate, then

12:16

the case eventually goes cold, and

12:18

that's exactly what

12:21

happened.

12:25

Hi. It's

12:30

Paul Wagner. Here are WTIOP's

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14:47

According to court documents I've seen, police

14:49

received some one hundred tips and

14:51

leads in the case over the years. and

14:53

investigated a good number of them. Three

14:56

years after Christine was killed,

14:58

another DC intern went

15:00

missing. a case that drew

15:02

international attention and

15:04

saturation coverage on cable

15:06

news. I'm sure you've

15:08

all heard the name Chandra Levy. the

15:10

intern for the Bureau of Prisons who

15:12

vanished one spring day after

15:14

leaving her Dupont Circle apartment.

15:16

The case drew incredible

15:19

scrutiny when she was romantically

15:21

linked to congressman Gary

15:23

Condett.

15:23

The searches on in the district for a missing

15:26

woman. Her name is Chandra Anne

15:28

Levy. She is twenty four years old and

15:30

hasn't been seen since April thirtieth.

15:32

Levy lived in an apartment on

15:34

21st Street

15:34

in Northwest Washington. She has no history

15:36

of this. And based on the fact that

15:39

we went to her apartment check on her. I

15:41

worked that story hard this summer and

15:43

broke a number of angles in the

15:45

pictures. The appetite for news

15:47

and Chandra's disappearance was

15:49

off the charts. I've never

15:51

seen anything like it.

15:53

Eventually, her body was found and congressman

15:56

Condet was ruled out. For

15:58

a while, there was some speculation Christine's

16:01

murder could be connected to, not

16:03

only the disappearance of Chandra Levy,

16:05

but another young woman who vanished

16:07

from DuPont Circle under

16:10

mysterious circumstances. Anything

16:12

is possible. We're still going on

16:14

all scenarios REOs, BUT

16:17

IT JUST LEADES ME PERSONALLY TO

16:19

THINK THAT MY PLAY WAS INVOLVED. Reporter:

16:21

CHOICE CHANG WAS A YOUNG GOVERNMENT

16:24

ATTORNEY whose body turned up in the

16:26

Potomac River months later.

16:28

Even David Hackos, Christine's

16:30

widower wondered if there

16:32

might be a connection between Christine's

16:34

killing and the disappearance of Levy

16:36

and Chung. But there

16:38

was never any hard evidence linking

16:40

them. Eventually, police made

16:42

an arrest in the Levy case,

16:44

charging an undocumented man from

16:46

El Salvador who had previously

16:48

been convicted. of attacking women

16:50

in Rock Creek Park where Levy's

16:52

body was found. After his

16:54

conviction, the case against Inmarguan

16:56

DK fell apart. over

16:58

questions about information that hadn't

17:00

been shared with his defense attorney.

17:02

He was never retried for the crime, but

17:04

he was deported back to

17:07

El Salvador. In the Chung

17:09

case, police closed the investigation telling

17:11

reporters they had finally identified

17:13

the suspects, but No charges were

17:16

filed because the two were

17:18

already locked up doing long prison

17:20

sentences for other crimes.

17:22

but Christine's case remained wide open.

17:24

For detective Dean Kombi and

17:26

Christine's family, it seemed the only hope

17:28

now was that DNA.

17:31

hoping and waiting for what's known

17:33

as a cold hit. A direct

17:35

match in the FBI's Codis

17:38

database Kotis is an

17:40

acronym for combined DNA

17:42

Index System, which holds

17:44

DNA profiles every DNA data

17:47

bank in all fifty states,

17:49

the District of Columbia and Puerto

17:52

Rico. Here's how it works. Let's

17:54

say police are investigating a crime.

17:56

Often, there's a lot of forensic evidence

17:58

that can provide clues to

18:01

police. blood, saliva, and hair. And

18:03

investigators can get a DNA profile

18:05

from all of it. If

18:07

the DNA belongs to someone, police

18:09

believe is a suspect in a case, they can upload it

18:11

to codis. Now, there

18:14

are two parts of codis. One

18:16

takes the DNA profile uploaded

18:19

by investigators and compares it to

18:21

the profiles of other known

18:23

offenders. This includes the

18:25

DNA profiles of people convicted

18:27

of and arrested for most

18:29

violent crimes. If a

18:31

detective uploads a DNA

18:33

profile into codeys and they get what's called

18:35

a cold hit, that's a

18:37

big leap forward for the investigation.

18:40

Now, that cold hit could link to

18:42

a known offender or an

18:44

unsubbed. That's the other

18:46

part of Cotis, the forensic

18:48

index. This database contains

18:50

DNA profiles collected from crime

18:52

scenes in the US and Puerto Rico

18:54

where investigators have

18:56

no idea who the perpetrator

18:59

is. A cold hit here doesn't

19:01

point detectors directly to the

19:03

suspect, but may match

19:05

other crimes carried

19:07

out by the same person. Kotas

19:10

began with a handful of states in nineteen

19:12

ninety four and then went

19:14

nationwide in October of nineteen

19:16

ninety eight. just two months

19:18

after Christine's murder. It's

19:20

been a remarkable tool for law

19:22

enforcement connecting suspects to

19:24

crimes that otherwise may never have

19:26

been solved. According to the

19:28

FBI, KOTUS now contains more than

19:30

twenty million offender profiles.

19:32

As of April twenty twenty one,

19:34

The FBI says KOTUS has aided

19:37

over five hundred and forty five

19:39

thousand investigations since

19:42

its inception. But in nineteen ninety

19:44

eight, the database was still brand

19:46

new. There were not that

19:48

many DNA profiles in

19:50

the system. and the District of

19:52

Columbia was slower than neighboring states

19:54

of Virginia and Maryland in

19:56

uploading DNA profiles to

19:58

the system. For one thing, the district did not have

19:59

its own crime lab at the time and

20:02

was relying on the FBI for

20:04

virtually all of its forensics

20:06

work, a partnership that had

20:08

existed for decades. Here

20:11

again is Mike Farish.

20:13

back in the early days of DNA,

20:15

it took so long,

20:17

I mean, to get your results. You

20:19

could be talking too And

20:21

see, in DC, we didn't have labs, so

20:23

we had to send our stuff to the

20:26

FBI. Well, the FBI is

20:28

the FBI, and they have their own pecking order. Their

20:31

pecking order was FBI cases,

20:34

then and then and then and then and

20:36

then DC. And, you

20:38

know, it was understandable. It was their

20:40

lab, and their work's more important to

20:42

them than my work was to

20:44

them. I get that. Now, I'm not

20:46

mad or anything like that, you know, the damn shame that

20:48

time, we couldn't have our own DNA lab.

20:50

But, you know, it was the beginning in

20:52

who knew where this was gonna really

20:54

lead, who knew how

20:58

quickly so much less

21:00

DNA would be needed to

21:02

do what they

21:03

did. we

21:05

can do everything package it up, send it off

21:07

to the FBI, and it

21:09

could still take us three to

21:12

six months to hear or anything.

21:14

For the FBI, their

21:15

focus changed a lot on nine

21:18

eleven. Right? Even their criminal

21:20

cases took a back seat to

21:22

their terrorism and anti terrorism

21:24

work. In fact, it

21:26

took the FBI until two

21:28

thousand one to examine the

21:30

DNA in Christine's case and

21:32

upload it into Codis. Mike

21:34

Ferris says in the early two thousands,

21:37

the DC Police Department could no longer rely

21:39

on the FBI, and so

21:42

investigators had to look elsewhere. We

21:45

ended up instead of going through the FBI,

21:47

we would reach out to Bodie Labs

21:49

out there in Norton, Virginia. What we knew

21:51

the bill was coming due. And, I mean, I've seen some

21:53

of those bills and it was, like, wholly

21:56

moly. I mean, we were talking about, you know,

21:58

five ten grand. You gotta remember

21:59

we're also talking about when DC was

22:02

so broke. There were

22:04

members like myself that were paying

22:06

to put gas in police

22:08

cars. In the

22:08

late nineties, DC was on the

22:10

brink of financial ruin. and

22:12

the federal government had installed a

22:15

financial control board, which

22:17

watched every penny being

22:19

spent for years. it

22:21

was ridiculous is what it was. Mhmm. And

22:23

to get them to approve us

22:25

sending DNA to somewhere like

22:27

a bodhi lab you know,

22:30

and not actually have to climb the mountain and

22:32

talk to the Dolly Lam to get

22:34

it was, you know, unheard of. While

22:36

there were clearly some kinks to work

22:38

out, Kodas was leading to some

22:40

amazing breakthroughs in solving

22:42

coal cases around the

22:44

country. Remember

22:54

the other

22:57

cereal rapist I told you about in

22:59

the last episode, the Silver

23:01

Spring rapist. In two thousand

23:03

five, they finally found him, and

23:06

Kotis played a big part. This

23:08

is kind of a complicated story,

23:11

so stick with me. It

23:13

turns out the man who was preying on

23:15

women and silver spring in the late eighties and early

23:18

nineties had moved out of the area

23:20

in nineteen ninety two, first

23:22

to New Jersey, and then

23:25

points elsewhere. By two

23:27

thousand and five, the man Fletcher

23:29

Anderson Morel was

23:31

in Georgia and attempted to

23:33

buy a shotgun into Cobb

23:35

County. The background check turned

23:37

up two arrest warrants for New York

23:39

where he'd been charged for a nineteen

23:41

seventy three rate but skipped

23:44

town. After his arrest,

23:47

prosecutors reopened the nineteen

23:49

seventy three New York rape case

23:51

and buried in an evidence

23:53

locker They found a pair of women's underwear,

23:55

the victims, and they tested them

23:57

for DNA, something that

24:00

didn't exist in nineteen seventy

24:02

three. It turned out,

24:04

Worrell's DNA was on that underwear.

24:06

And when investigators uploaded

24:08

the sample to Kotis, the

24:11

system lit up.

24:13

World's DNA was

24:15

also linked to two sex

24:17

assaults in New Jersey and nine

24:19

attacks in Montgomery County, Maryland. He

24:23

was first convicted in New York and given

24:25

a thirty year sentence in

24:27

Attica State Prison. convictions

24:29

in New Jersey and Maryland

24:32

followed. The Silver Spring

24:34

rapist locked up after nearly

24:36

three decades. When

24:38

he was arrested, the New York Post called the

24:40

evidence that helped NAB HIM, a

24:42

DNA Time bomb. Investigators

24:45

in DC were surely

24:47

hoping for something big to

24:49

go off in Christine's

24:52

case too.

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nightmare.

26:17

It's another

26:22

summer in DC. It's now

26:24

two thousand eleven. thirteen

26:27

years after Christine's still

26:29

unsolved murder. I was working

26:31

for Fox five TV in Washington DC

26:34

where I had the police speed.

26:36

You may not know it, but reporters often get

26:38

their stories by just hanging around.

26:41

The courthouse, police headquarters,

26:44

anywhere you might be able to run into a

26:46

source someone who may be willing

26:48

to, as we called it, throw

26:50

you a bone. The

26:52

best I can recall that was a June day, and I

26:54

was walking by the main entrance to

26:56

DC police headquarters, when I

26:58

saw a detective I knew, and we

27:00

got talking about coal cases. We

27:03

had developed what we call in TV

27:05

news a franchise, a feature

27:08

series that ran in the ten o'clock news

27:10

on Saturday nights in which I would detectives

27:12

and family members about unsolved

27:15

murders. I'd already featured the

27:17

Christopher Zion case once

27:19

before, but As I learned by covering

27:21

this beat, you had to consistently

27:23

ask comps about their cases. They rarely

27:26

volunteered any new

27:28

developments. On this day, I mentioned

27:30

Christine's murder, then I was stunned by

27:32

what this detective told me. He

27:35

said, you know, there is a DNA

27:38

link between that murder a series of

27:40

rapes in Montgomery County. He

27:42

said it matter of faculty, but the say

27:44

I was surprised would be an understatement.

27:48

At the time, I didn't know about all those attacks Joe

27:50

Madano had been investigating. The ones

27:52

I told you about in episodes two

27:55

and three, they did not

27:57

get a lot of publicity. And

27:59

since

27:59

I had been following

27:59

Christine's case, I knew the

28:02

police had DNA. but I had no

28:04

idea it was connected to

28:06

other crimes. I made some

28:08

calls and worked the story and went

28:10

to see the Montgomery County Police.

28:13

remember the police official in charge of the major crime section

28:15

was reluctant to speak with me

28:17

that day, and would only say there was,

28:20

quote, commonality. between

28:22

the rapes and the murder. The official

28:24

I interviewed refused to say it

28:26

was DNA. I broke the

28:29

story later that night.

28:31

Christine's murder remained unsolved,

28:33

but now I knew police had

28:35

evidence linking Christine's killing with

28:37

a series of unsolved rapes

28:40

INVESTIGATORS KNEW THE SAME

28:42

MAN COMMITTED ALL THOSE CRIMES BUT

28:44

THEY HAD NO IDEA WHO HE

28:47

WAS. A great get as we call it

28:49

in the news business, but to my

28:51

surprise, no other TV station,

28:53

radio station, or newspaper

28:55

picked up the story. To

28:57

say I was perplexed would be an

28:59

understatement. The police have

29:01

connected a high profile murder

29:03

with a series of rapes in a

29:05

neighboring county and the rest of

29:07

the news media just shrugs.

29:09

Mitt made no sense to me.

29:12

And there was another very puzzling

29:14

thing about a connection between Christine's

29:16

murder and the Montgomery County

29:18

attacks. The match was

29:20

actually made years before,

29:23

but never made public. For as long as

29:25

I've been following this case, I've

29:27

never known exactly when that link

29:29

was made, but now

29:31

I've learned codis made connection

29:33

in two thousand four,

29:35

seven years before I broke the

29:37

story, which raises the question if

29:39

the FBI had uploaded the

29:41

DNA profile from Christine's murder into

29:44

Cotis in two thousand

29:46

one. Why wasn't there

29:48

an immediate match to the

29:50

raping Montgomery County. That

29:52

also had puzzled me for

29:55

years. We now know from

29:57

police documents that the Montgomery County

29:59

Police Lab in two thousand and

30:01

four retested evidence from

30:03

two of the rape cases under

30:05

a new protocol. And

30:07

then, those DNA profiles

30:09

back into code s, and that's

30:11

when they got a cold

30:13

hit. Detective Dean Kombi says he got

30:15

word from his supervising sergeant

30:17

JC Young. JC

30:19

Young called me up on the phone and said, hey,

30:22

you know, you just you gotta, you know,

30:24

you gotta coach it on on

30:26

rebellion. And I was like, wait. You know? because I'm

30:28

you know, he says, but it's an unserved though. I was

30:30

like, you know,

30:31

what does unserved mean? unknown

30:34

subject. Yeah. So he's not That's a police talk

30:36

form -- Yeah. -- unknown subject. Yeah. Just

30:38

just unknown. And at that point

30:40

though, you must have had, like, a

30:43

eureka moment thinking, oh, yeah,

30:45

connected this guy to something that you're gonna be able

30:47

to solve this case. Right. For

30:49

a brief moment, Dean

30:51

Kombi thought he had a major break in

30:53

the case. a DNA profile

30:55

with a name attached. It's every

30:57

detective's dream, but

30:59

that's not what he had. He

31:01

had a link to more crimes by

31:03

the same unknown subject. And

31:06

in some ways, that code

31:09

is hit. linking Christine's murder to the Montgomery County

31:11

rapes only deepen the

31:13

mystery. Who was

31:15

this guy? Detective

31:17

combi suddenly had a number of new leads

31:19

to follow, and Joe Madano was

31:22

about to become his

31:24

new best friend. the

31:26

FBI

31:26

never called us. What code

31:28

has notified Montgomery County that

31:30

there was a match

31:32

to, like like, eight rates that they had

31:34

up there. So, you know, I

31:37

contacted Joe Madano,

31:40

and we got together and

31:42

we you know, kind of information, stuff like that,

31:44

you know, I went up there several times and

31:46

we, you know, looked at each other's cases and so on and

31:48

so forth and I got a lot of the materials from

31:51

them and and

31:53

I can tell you right now

31:55

if it we just relied

31:57

on, like, MO alone, never would

31:59

have

31:59

associated them at all. Never

32:02

Detective combi says when he learned the

32:04

facts in the modus operandi of the

32:07

Montgomery County Rapes, he was

32:09

stunned at how different they were. from

32:11

Christine's murder on Canal

32:13

Road. because those cases up

32:15

there were completely different. I mean,

32:17

completely different than

32:18

a than a, you know, than a grab on

32:20

this street. I

32:22

mean, in those cases up there, he was he'd

32:25

evidently been watching them for some time.

32:28

He'd

32:28

broke into houses. and laying

32:30

wait for them. He was masked.

32:32

He took a made a, you know, a lot of

32:34

efforts not to be identified so they

32:36

couldn't see him. I mean, I I know there

32:38

was one where that the people

32:41

had three dogs, three

32:43

good sized dogs, and

32:45

he just got them right on into a

32:47

into a bedroom and and they never rebid

32:49

him or not anything. It's just like being with him.

32:51

You know? The code is hit

32:53

also surprised Joe Medano.

32:56

and it actually sent investigators digging

32:58

for more possible links. Do

33:00

you recall getting

33:03

the notification that the Mirzayan

33:05

murder was connected to your rape cases. Yeah.

33:07

Yeah. I do. And I was, like, shocked

33:09

as soon as

33:11

You said because I I knew that

33:13

case. I knew that design a case, but I would

33:15

have never guessed that,

33:18

you know, that that would be

33:20

connected. So But then again, it offered

33:22

new avenues of

33:24

investigation. She was staying

33:26

in

33:26

the dorms at Georgetown University. when

33:29

when this happened. So did this guy was

33:31

he maybe working in Georgetown, then

33:33

the other avenue we looked at

33:35

was she had just gotten

33:37

her PhD and cell

33:40

biology. Remember,

33:42

for a while, investigators in Montgomery County

33:44

wondered that there might be an NIH

33:46

connection in their attacks. One of the victims in

33:48

Montgomery County, the woman who lived in the house

33:50

in Silver Spring with those dogs, well,

33:53

she worked at the agency.

33:55

and one of the earlier victims' mothers

33:58

had some connection to

33:59

NIH as well. Christine's

34:03

husband, David Hackos, was due to begin

34:05

a job there in the fall after

34:07

Christine was murdered and Christine was

34:09

a cell biologist just like

34:11

the Silver Spring victim. they

34:14

both got their PhD right around the same time and the exact same field of

34:16

study. So, you know, we did a lot

34:18

of work at NIH also. I'm

34:20

looking for possible suspects, but but

34:24

everything was

34:24

at dead end. Again,

34:26

here's detective Dean Kabi.

34:28

It was kinda

34:29

unusual because most of

34:31

the victims were well educated women like Christine. We

34:34

started getting next step. I mean, I started looking

34:36

at people from That

34:38

could be in science. Mhmm. I was

34:42

looking at because they had, you know, people, you know,

34:44

security guards from where she, you know, where

34:46

some of these women were working

34:48

because some,

34:50

you know,

34:51

apparently well, at least one

34:54

of the instances, the

34:56

woman had a roommate who was out of ten who'd

34:58

gone out of town the

35:00

day before. before she was attacked.

35:04

And, you know, who knew she was gonna

35:06

be alone? I mean, so, you know, it had me watching her

35:08

continually or

35:10

had to have some knowledge that she was gonna be alone in the house.

35:12

So, I mean, we were looking

35:14

at the, you know, security folks. I mean,

35:16

if anybody that might have known that

35:19

she was gonna be alone at the house, you know.

35:21

That was driving Joe nuts that he

35:23

couldn't figure out how he was picking

35:25

his victims. Right. and I still don't

35:27

know if he if if they ever figured

35:30

out how he's picking those women.

35:32

That possible national institutes

35:34

of health connection like so many other possible

35:37

leads. Well, it went

35:39

nowhere. The biggest difference in

35:41

these two cases, Christine's murder,

35:43

the Montgomery County rapes, was

35:45

how Christine's ended. But

35:48

the Montgomery County rapist had turned

35:50

violent before, especially

35:52

when his victims like the

35:55

housekeeper in the basement who was beaten with a

35:58

boom box.

36:04

Remember what

36:08

Christine's husband David Hackett told me?

36:12

a fighter. She was

36:14

fearless. She would have fought back.

36:16

I I think that that's why she was

36:18

killed because she would

36:20

not have She would have fought

36:22

very hard back. Yeah. She would

36:24

not have allowed herself to be

36:26

raped. Only the killer knows

36:28

why he did what he did,

36:30

but it's hard given everything I've learned from police, from

36:32

David, not to speculate.

36:34

We know what the attacker

36:37

wanted from Christine We also know that detective Dean

36:39

Combi said there was something distinctive about

36:42

the way Christine's clothes have been taken

36:44

off. Inside

36:46

out, as if she'd

36:48

been knocked unconscious, put in a

36:50

choke hold perhaps before her clothes were

36:54

pulled off. But did Christine start to come to to regain

36:56

consciousness at some point as she

36:58

was being assaulted? Remember,

37:00

the witness walking his dog that

37:02

night heard a scream.

37:04

And David's clear, if she had

37:06

a chance, Christine would have fought

37:08

like hell. The scream,

37:11

a possible struggle, Christine is

37:14

messing up the attacker's plan. And

37:16

this time, he's not inside a secluded

37:18

house out in the suburbs. It's all

37:20

happening right there off Busy

37:22

Canal Road. the unknown subject suddenly not

37:24

in control anymore. His

37:26

brutal act picking up that boulder

37:29

seems like the act of a desperate

37:32

man. After years of praying on

37:34

women, is he scared he's

37:36

going to

37:38

get caught? smashing that seventy three pound rock into her

37:40

head committing a monstrous act

37:42

of murder. And the

37:44

ultimate the ultimate active

37:46

cowardice

38:12

As I've

38:18

already said, the

38:18

DNA link between the

38:21

rate in the murder of Christopher Zion was kept

38:24

secret for years. For

38:26

reasons still unclear, police

38:28

officials in Montgomery

38:30

County, Maryland and Washington DC decided to keep it

38:32

out of the public eye.

38:34

Why? I

38:35

why still don't

38:36

know. NEIGHBOUR THEY

38:38

WERE BANKING ON THE FACT THAT IT WOULDN'T TAKE

38:40

LONG TO CLOSE THE CASE.

38:42

THANKS TO LAW ENFORCEMENT'S NEW

38:46

SUPERtool, KOTUS, all they had to do was wait for a cold

38:48

hit. Virtually every day,

38:50

labs in all fifty states

38:52

were uploading new DNA profiles.

38:55

Some of them known, some of them unknown.

38:57

If the man detective's combia medrano

39:00

were after the same

39:02

unknown subject to

39:04

kill Christine, and attacked all those women in Montgomery County,

39:06

committed another serious crime.

39:08

His DNA would almost

39:10

certainly show up in codas. Eventually,

39:14

but years went by after

39:17

Christine's horribly violent murder

39:19

and nothing happened.

39:22

was the unknown subject dead already in prison

39:25

for a crime they didn't take

39:27

his DNA for, or out

39:30

of the country, the big break seemed

39:32

to be another dead

39:36

end. It's now a few

39:38

days before Christmas two thousand

39:40

eleven. Several months after

39:42

I stumbled onto the stunning news

39:44

that the same man who killed Christopher's

39:46

eye on in August of nineteen ninety eight, had

39:48

also carried out a string of rapes years

39:50

before Montgomery

39:52

County. The FBI called

39:54

a news conference with police from

39:56

Montgomery County in DC. They

39:58

were finally going to give their

40:01

unknown subject a name. sort

40:03

of. They still

40:05

didn't know his identity,

40:07

but they gave him a

40:09

nickname, perhaps in hopes of

40:11

drumming up publicity. something that would catch the

40:13

public's interest, the Potomac

40:16

River

40:17

river rapist.

40:18

This is something the FBI is known

40:20

the f b i known for for. The two

40:22

thousand one anthrax attacks came to be

40:25

known as Amerithrax. And when they were looking

40:27

for a man known for sending letter bombs

40:29

to college campuses, they

40:32

called him the Unibomber. Ron Matchin, the

40:34

US attorney for the District of Columbia, was

40:36

there, and he told reporters,

40:39

It's never

40:39

too late to bring justice to to the

40:42

victims and their families. We

40:44

believe an individual that was responsible for

40:46

these attacks is still on the loose and we need public's

40:48

help in trying to find that individual and hold

40:50

them accountable. The FBI

40:52

launched

40:52

a website with a map

40:55

and a timeline of all

40:57

the attacks There was a composite sketch

40:59

of the attacker, though one made by

41:01

that Virginia police officer and his wife,

41:03

who had seen that man following Christine

41:05

on canal rode the night she

41:07

was murdered. It had been more than twelve

41:10

years, so they age

41:12

progressed it, giving the

41:14

picture of the

41:16

suspected attacker lines on his face.

41:18

There were also photos of the crime

41:20

scene. In the dirt and

41:22

brush off canal road, there's a photo

41:24

of a

41:26

pair sunglasses and Christine's intern key

41:28

card. Sadly, it has

41:30

an expiration date of August eighth,

41:33

exactly one week after she

41:35

was murdered. And the

41:38

large bloody rock police said the

41:40

attacker used to kill her.

41:42

The FBI had put up billboards and

41:44

posters and bus shelters. A

41:46

composite picture of the suspect with the

41:48

words wanted sought for

41:51

questioning. The bureau was also

41:53

offering twenty five thousand dollars

41:55

to ANYONE WHO COULD HELP INVESTIGATORS

41:57

FIND THE MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR

41:59

THE

41:59

CRIMES. THERE'S NO

42:01

PIECE OF INFORMATION THAT'S

42:03

TOO SMALL OR and any information that we wouldn't be

42:05

interested in looking into

42:06

because those

42:08

are the things that sometimes feel

42:11

the puzzle of bringing this case together. So we if

42:14

anybody has any information

42:16

or any thoughts about who this

42:18

might be and urged them

42:19

to contact THEIR

42:21

LOCAL POLICE WITH FBI

42:24

THAT'S DAVID GOLASPI. HE

42:26

WAS ALSO AT THE NEWS CONFERENCE IN

42:28

HIS CAPACITY as the Montgomery County Police

42:30

Department's director of major crimes.

42:33

He's now chief of police

42:35

in Melbourne, Florida where We spoke via Zoom

42:37

one day in the fall of twenty twenty one.

42:39

I asked him, what do you remember

42:41

from that time in two

42:44

thousand eleven? knowing the crimes

42:46

were linked by DNA.

42:49

So it gives us hope

42:51

that we're

42:52

gonna identify who this person is

42:54

at all these years. And that, you know, we have now

42:56

tied these cases together.

43:00

Some some some pretty

43:02

violent cases. And and now we're

43:04

able to make that

43:06

connection. Now it's trying to find out who is

43:08

this person and how are we gonna be able to

43:10

do it. So,

43:12

you know, as you know, the way code is works

43:14

is if, you know, it suspects

43:16

DNA goes into the the system, and

43:18

then if there are any matches, we get

43:20

a hit Here, we had a number

43:22

of different matches, but we

43:24

couldn't tie it to an individual.

43:26

And

43:26

that's what made you know, it gave us

43:28

hope that, hey, we knew we had this person

43:30

But now what happened to them? You know, why did they

43:32

just drop off? Because did they stop doing

43:35

their crimes? And you have to look at

43:37

how much time is passed how

43:39

old they might be? Have they been deceased? Are they

43:41

in prison for other offenses?

43:44

And then how is it now? I mean, we

43:46

have good evidence how are we

43:48

going to tie that to the person that's

43:50

responsible for that DNA?

43:52

Yeah,

43:52

because at that point, you

43:55

had a period of at least twelve

43:58

years where there was no

43:59

seemingly criminal activity that

44:02

could be tied to this

44:04

guy's DNA. after Chrissy Mirzayan's murder. So

44:06

you that point at that

44:08

point, you and

44:08

your detectives are wondering Right?

44:12

Where is this guy? Is he locked up? Is he dead? Is

44:14

he left the area? That that's

44:16

that's the kind of thing that you're you're

44:18

dealing with at that point. That's

44:21

correct. You know,

44:21

you always you always wonder why did they

44:23

just did they just stop? because

44:26

usually, you know, just stop with that kind of

44:28

criminal behavior.

44:30

you just don't stop until you're either

44:33

you're incarcerated. And if they were

44:35

incarcerated for something similar, their

44:38

DNA would have already been entered into codas. So we knew that didn't happen.

44:40

So they were either incarcerated

44:42

for a different offense or

44:45

they had had died something

44:48

changed in the way

44:50

they operated from

44:51

that time frame because of the

44:53

connection in the time frame

44:55

and the location of where they

44:58

were. At this

44:58

point, twelve years have passed

45:01

since Christine was murdered. AND

45:03

DAVID HACOS WAS BACK IN CALIFORNIA WHERE HE PICKED UP

45:05

THE PIECES TO THE LIFE HE HAD PLANNED

45:07

AND TRYING TO MOVE

45:10

ON.

45:11

David told me

45:14

he had no

45:19

idea investigators had link the cases until

45:21

he heard it on the

45:24

news. I don't know what what I thought about it. I mean,

45:26

to me, it was just a piece of information

45:28

that would hopefully

45:30

help them find the

45:32

the

45:33

person, the perpetrator. because,

45:35

you know, with with with

45:37

all of those rape

45:40

cases, you

45:42

know, there and the fact that most that that I think all of

45:44

the the the victims

45:47

had survived. Right? and

45:50

they were able to

45:52

provide a lot of identifying information

45:54

about the individual at

45:57

that time. So But

45:58

it still took I mean, it still was not I

45:59

mean, even with all that extra information,

46:02

they were still not able to find

46:04

the person. That

46:06

big

46:06

effort with the website and billboards

46:08

was inspired by a similar

46:10

public information pledge that led

46:12

to the capture of the east coast

46:15

rapist in March of two

46:17

thousand eleven. In that case,

46:20

police arrested the

46:22

suspected attacker wanted in fourteen sexual assaults

46:24

in Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut,

46:26

and Rhode Island within

46:28

days of

46:30

launching it. Investigators got a tip and put a

46:32

man under surveillance. And when

46:34

he threw away a cigarette,

46:36

they collected

46:38

it and tested it for DNA.

46:40

It was a

46:41

match. There was still a long road

46:44

ahead

46:44

for Christine's case,

46:46

but There is a reason

46:48

police hold those news conferences in hopes

46:50

of generating new leads in

46:54

troubling cases. After that December two thousand eleven news

46:56

conference with the FBI, a

46:58

tip came in that led

47:00

police to evidence that would shed

47:02

new light on all of the

47:04

attacks, evidence that

47:06

had been sitting on a shelf

47:09

for fifteen years. for

47:11

whatever reason, I don't know,

47:14

but her rape kit basically hadn't been

47:16

processed or at least

47:18

uploaded

47:20

into codis. That's

47:22

next

47:26

time on unknown subject,

47:30

Season three of WTIOP's

47:32

American nightmare series, written

47:34

by me Paul Wagner with editorial

47:37

assistance from Jack Moore, Julia

47:39

Ziegler and Craig Schwab. This episode would not be

47:41

possible without the help of retired Montgomery County

47:43

police detective Joe

47:46

Medrano. retired Montgomery County

47:48

Police Commander David Gillespie, David

47:50

Hackos, and retired DC Police

47:52

detectives Mike Farish and Dean

47:55

combi. Reporting and production of

47:57

this podcast was supported by a

47:59

grant from spotlight DC, Capital

48:02

City Fund for

48:04

investigative journalism. For grants, please apply to spotlight dot

48:06

org. Our show relies on

48:08

people like you leaving ratings and

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reviews on

48:12

Apple. to help us climb the podcast charts attract

48:14

new listeners. We hope if you

48:16

like what you hear, you will take a

48:19

minute to do so. If

48:21

you have questions or comments about

48:23

the show, send us an email through

48:25

our website american nightmare

48:28

podcast dot com. We are also

48:30

on Twitter and Facebook at AM

48:32

nightmare pod. The music

48:34

in the show is ethelred thoughts by

48:36

out of music and steadfast

48:38

by moments. And as

48:40

always, thanks

48:42

for listening.

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